Bill's Basics Cook Book Review

I would have written this entry earlier but I was having laptop woes. Luckily it seems to be fixed now without losing my precious photos, mp3s and saved recipes folder. Phew! So now I can write about the joys of the new Bill Granger cookbook Bill's Basics.

I'm always very happy to see a new Bill book, it's especially exciting this time around as he's living in England and looking for a cafe site in London! Woo! Looking forward to visiting when it's open.

As for the book, it's full of classic recipes, most 'with a twist'. There are no pretensions when it comes to his dishes and nothing looks too daunting. The chapters have changed from Bill's usual breakfast, lunch and dinners, now sorted into baking, soups, salads, desserts etc. The photography is great and there is an image for each recipe which I always appreciate.

The first recipe I tried out was the Lemon Chicken. It was simple to make and really healthy without feeling worthy! There was no cornflour in the sauce but it still compared nicely to a take-away lemon chicken but so much better to know exactly what went in. The addition of ginger really made the sauce zing and the five-spice cooked into the chicken skin really came through too. Delicious.

Next up was the My Spaghetti Carbonara.

Oh my, I never make carbonara which is stupid as it's my favourite pasta dish. Horribly unhealthy but too delicious to pass up. We've made it twice in 2 weeks! Pretty successful then! Spring onion and dried chili flakes are the Bill additions which add a bit of spice and a soft onion flavour without being imposing. I also added some exotic mushrooms though I can't for the life of me work out which variety they were from the description on the packet! I'm going with 'shiro shimeji' but not sure! I just know I'll make this again and again. It's also easy to rustle up when you're in a hurry or just ruddy hungry!

There were so many recipes I wanted to try and I had all the ingredients to make the Fish Cakes so I made a third dish! Shock horror! A blog first! The dish is served with a raita but I served mine with some watercress instead, I don't think it needed a sauce as the fish cakes themselves were so flavourful and moist.

I made 2 attempts as there was so much mixture. First time like an idiot I left out the egg so they weren't the easiest to flip over in the pan but they were nice and chunky and the lemon and ginger really lifted the flavour.

The second time I remember the egg, which was probably a little large for the amount of mixture left but it completely changed the texture. This time they were really light and almost like a souffle. Granted they don't look very different and the garnish didn't change but there honestly was a big change! The taste was still there though and I added a little bit more lemon which was nice. The spring onion seemed to cook out a little more as well so there was less crunch. The mixture kept very well overnight and the recipe was a great way to use up the tin of salmon we've had for an age - I much prefer tuna in a salad though it's hard to get a whole tin to ourselves when we have 4 greedy cats who seem to consider tuna their drug of choice!

If you want to try this recipe you can watch the man himself make the dish: http://thismorning.itv.com/thismorning/food/fish-cakes-tasty-raita

So it's a mahoosive thumbs up for this book, not just because I love Bill so much but because his recipes are so good and things always turn out so well. I want to make every dessert in the book (bar the tiramisu - bleurgh - coffee and soggy biscuits!) and every soup too as well as a whole other recipes.

Baking with Passion Cookbook Review

September means birthday season in our house, both La Mama's , and more importantly - mine!! Too old to be very excited now but it's a good excuse to eat lovely food no matter the cost.

Found this little beauty reduced in Waitrose - oh how I like their reduced section!! Nice selection of seafood - king prawns, mussels, shelled prawns and juicy crab claws along with a lemon mayonnaise. Mmmmm! I think seafood is always a go to for a special meal, simple but delicious. Plus I thought the bucket was cute! La Mama wanted scallops for her birthday so I knew that I'd do the combination of black pudding, scallops and apple from James Martin's My Kitchen, served in a chunkier manner! Managed to cook the scallops just right and I love black pudding, just have to think hard of other things while eating it, don't want to think about the ingredients too much!

For dessert La Mama loves frangipane and we'd seen a tart being made on Saturday Kitchen the week before so decided to use the recipe for the topping and just have a base of mixed berries, leaving out the pastry. I'm not very keen on almonds but actually it was really light and most enjoyable. Here is the recipe if you fancy trying it out yourself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fig_and_frangipane_tart_24400

And now for the main event - my cookbook review. This week I tried a couple of recipes from Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington's Baking with Passion. I like Dan's baking recipes from The Guardian so I thought I'd give his new book a go.

It's a very comprehensive guide to bread making which I liked, though some recipes I think I'd be too scared to try out - anything with a starter immediately frightens me but the breads do look incredibly light and very professional.

There is a large section at the beginning of the book all about essential ingredients, step-by-step guides with photos of how to handle and shape different doughs. They actually make it look possible!

The first section is how to create your own wild yeasts which is a really interesting side of bread making and something I would like to try. There is a chapter for fast-action yeast which is comforting, I've seen a few bread books that just use fresh yeast and it just isn't realistic.

The ingredients seem quite accessible - though bottled spring water is always used instead of tap water which seems a little bit poncy, though it is explained that it's more stable for use with yeast. I'm still going to use tap water though!

The photos look very inviting and the recipes are very clear, important for such an exact science. But it's not just breads on offer, there are also chapters on cakes, meringues, biscuits and pastries as well as a few other items.

Going through the book I quickly realised which dessert I wanted for my birthday - caramel tart. Oh yes! It should have also had chocolate on top but by the time the tarts were made I couldn't be bothered doing anything else! Yup, I made my own birthday dessert :-( I did have help to roll out the pastry and to watch the caramel that didn't turn golden for an age. Ah well, I also cooked my own rib-eye steak and Ottolenghi chilli broccoli as I know someone who overcooks steak at every opportunity!!

But all the effort was oh so worth it. It tasted just like my favourite caramel tarts from the Marks and Spencer cafes, it's just a little scary to see how much butter goes into these babies!! In the recipe for the sweet pastry it called for rum or brandy so I put some Sailor Jerry's rum which added an amazing vanilla flavour to the pastry, you could really taste it after it had baked. Very much a success. Oh, and do you like my musical note nails?! I'm not just an amateur cook!

I'd bought buttermilk to make cornbread, what with my obsession with all things Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (my brother surprised me with the cookbook to accompany the show for my birthday! That's so money!). But I completely missed the right time to make it - when we made slow-cooked brisket. And I mean slow cooked - in beef stock and a few spices for about 9 hours! Amazing, eaten as it was as a roast and then the next day in a bap with barbeque sauce. Scrum!!

But it was not to be, so I made white soda bread instead. Wow, why did I never realise how easy this was to make? No waiting for the dough to rise, no messing about with yeast - brilliant! My breads usually end up well cooked on the outside and still raw in the middle, not good. This was perfect all the way to the middle. Crusty on the outside, perhaps a little too crusty on the top but the recipe called for a really hot oven to start with. Didn't taste burnt though so it's all good! I just wish buttermilk was more readily available, I couldn't see any in a couple of supermarkets, think I got this tub in Sainsburys.

Whenever I am somewhere that sells buttermilk from now on however, I will be buying it and making some more soda bread. I'm going to buy some wholemeal plain flour too so I can make some brown soda bread, or maybe I'll make some cornbread .... one day!

So yet again, I've found a cookbook I'm probably going to have to buy! Next I want to make lemon butter cookies, orange cheesecake brownies and if I'm feeling brave - baguette!

Rachel Allen - Bake Cookbook Review

Back to my afternoon tea making - for the choux buns with creme patissiere and crunchy sugar on top I followed the choux pastry recipe from Rachel Allen's Bake book. The instructions were very easy to follow and I liked the accompanying photos so you had a clear idea of what the different stages should look like. I'm always surprised at how quick choux pastry is to make, and impressed in equal measure! I'm afraid I cheated at the filling, found one in the finest section of Tesco - oops! The caramel on top was quite entertaining. I cut the tops off the choux buns and then La Mama poured the caramel on top - then we had to scrape the tops off the plate when the caramel set!! It wasn't the easiest thing but we managed eventually! The main thing was that they tasted very nice. I would have dried the pastry out a little more but time was running out.

My second trial from the book was her pizza dough. The quantities were spot on, often I struggle with bread dough. It was very easy to work with, rolled out nicely and kept beautifully in the fridge and freezer. I don't think I'll ever be without a batch in the freezer now. Each quantity of dough made 3 full-size pizzas which is great for a family or a few friends.

There have been many variations in our household now I've discovered this dough recipe, always having to make different sections as my brother is a very picky eater and will only have plain or pepperoni pizza! The more exciting side of this pizza has goats cheese, blue cheese, mozzarella and emmental. Mmmm, cheese-fest! The dough was a little thick on my first attempt and a bit soft underneath, even using a pizza dish.

Attempt 2 was a little posher! Black olives, artichokes and prosciutto. This time I pre-baked the base a little so it wasn't so soft in the centre. I also rolled out the dough much thinner. Much better this time and the toppings were great.

Attempt 3 was pepperoni for my brother and I, blue cheese for La Mama - trying to keep everyone happy is hard! I think this base was even thinner than attempt 2 and again I pre-baked it, something I'll always do now. It doesn't take long but it really does improve the texture of the dough. And now I want to eat more pizza! I made another one at the weekend with a trusty ball of dough from the freezer. Lovely.

With a 1/3 of a dough batch I thought I'd attempt these pizza crescents from a fantastic blog:
http://annies-eats.com/2008/10/21/pizza-crescents/
I've fancied making them for ages. They were pretty easy to do, just very messy when rolling all the ingredients up in the dough! But like a complete dunderhead I totally forgot to add the cheese, the best bit of a pizza! So I added a little bit on top instead. They were great as a little snack but so much better eaten warm. I'd probably make them again as they were fun, this time I'll add the cheese!

And back to Rachel Allen's book, this is a really great and pretty comprehensive baking book. I've just borrowed The Great British Book of Baking, as seen on the BBC on a tuesday, and I think that Rachel's book wins out. Not that I've tried anything from the BBC book yet!

The book covers the whole range of baking, both sweet and savoury. Great looking recipes for biscuits, cakes, tarts, pies and breads. I want to make pretzels next, but will make them with cinnamon sugar rather than salt. The rustic bacon and cheddar bread also looks completely gorgeous. This is a book you can keep coming back to and finding something new to cook, or returning to a favourite recipe. Thumbs up.

James Martin - My Kitchen Cookbook Review + afternoon tea take two

My grandparents were over from France during the summer so I decided that an afternoon tea would be a nice British thing to do and oh so fashionable! As with my previous attempt at a full afternoon tea I tried to make as many things as possible in advance so I didn't cry on the day! I think all were impressed with how it turned out. Ooooo .... pretty!

The scones were not made by me, made by my fair Mama from her Good Housekeeping 'Cooking is Fun' cookbook which can safely be called vintage! It may be older than me but it does make very nice scones, back when food was 'proper'.

For the other offerings I used a combination of Rachel Allen's Bake cookbook and James Martin's My Kitchen. I'll be focussing on James Martin's book today - the brownies and the ham terrine.

Look at how much effort I go to - flower shaped toast with smoked salmon!!

On the strength of the success of the ham terrine from my last afternoon tea I decided to buy the book - it deserved a place in my collection (plus it was a bargainous £6.99 - huzzah!). There are honestly only a handful of recipes I wouldn't try, and that's only because I don't eat things such as rabbit or lamb. Recipes are sorted by seasons and all look very unfussy and simple to make which makes me believe that Mr Martin really does make this food at home.

There is a nice short introduction to each chapter with a few examples of what is in season at that time of year. It makes it look easy to shop locally and seasonally when food looks this tasty.

Recipes include Sliced duck breast with winter stir-fry and Scallops with black pudding and apple puree, both of which I made from the taster booklet from Good Food magazine. The winter stir-fry made a very nice accompaniment to the juicy duck and manages to make sprouts tasty! The scallops and black pudding made a gorgeous dish with apple and has quickly become part of my repertoire. It is in fact making an appearance for La Mama's birthday meal next week if nice scallops can be found.

The pressed ham terrine was ultra successful once again, in fact I think it was even better this time. Still no ham hock found so used a gammon joint and boiled it till it fell apart beautifully. I tore the ham into smaller pieces this time so it looked a little bit prettier, but only vaguely! But who cares when it tastes this good?! I was glad that there was plenty left to eat more later on toast.

The other recipe I used was the Black cherry brownie recipe from the summer chapter. He admits that there is nothing particularly special about this recipe but it's the best one he's found in 20 years. Would I agree? Well, again they just didn't set very well. I'm not very lucky with brownies. They did taste absolutely yummy though and the fresh cherries cut through the chocolate nicely. It was quite a job trying to get nice petite squares onto my cake stand though! The rest of the pan of brownies were eaten with a spoon with cream on top. Double indulgence. Oh, and obligatory glitter.

So pretty darn successful, bar a soggy brownie- definitely one that everyone should add to their cookbook collection. Next I want to try Slow-roasted tomatoes with Worcestershire sauce, Potted salt beef with gherkins and Grilled halibut with champ and lemon caper butter. Tempted yet?

Next time, afternoon tea part two with Rachel Allen.

London Town

More holidays! This time 6 days in London. Had breakfast at the hotel (mmmm, more pancakes, maple syrup and bacon, while being intently watched by a couple of Italian women, in both disgust and fascination!) so tended to eat lunch quite late and then had a quick tea as we had a play to attend every night! Phew, needed a holiday to recover from the holiday!! But we saw Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act!!! Woo! Not to mention Jeff Goldblum and Meera Syal in 2 other plays. I'll start with our visit to the Southbank. We weren't hungry till we reached the Tate Modern so we decided to have a go in their restaurant. What a good choice. A bit expensive but completely delicious. My mum had the Cornish crab with mimosa dressing and sourdough toast, as seen below. We didn't realise it would be a whole crab so it was a lovely surprise when it arrived at our table. The drink was an apple and honey iced tea which was equally lovely.

I chose the cured Iberico meat plate with pork rilette, Catalan tomato bread, caper berries and sweet guindilla, with an apple, mint and ginger cooler which was incredibly fiery!! The meats, as I knew they would be, were yummy and there was plenty of it. I felt a little short-changed by the little mound of rilettes but actually there was plenty as it was so rich. The Catalan bread was gorgeous but wow did that garlic stay with me for the rest of the afternoon!! And as for caper berries, I've wanted to try some for a while as I love capers but I'm not so sure about all the crunchy seeds inside. Think I'll stick with pretty little capers! Each dish was £9.95, I think the crab was probably better value but then I know how expensive Iberico meat can be. It was a good treat meal and the staff were really nice.

One tea consisted of a slice of tarte fromage blanc and a puff pastry tart with salmon and spinach from Paul's. A taste of Paul's in Paris just wasn't enough for me. I wish we had a Paul's in Manchester, their food is quick and delicious and the choice of bread from there is great. Had to have a bacon fougasse as I'm quite sure it's the law when passing one of their bakeries! They do bread making classes which I'm sure would be really good to attend.

Salmon and spinach puff pastry tart:

Another favourite in London is Wasabi. I think there are quite a few branches there but they haven't filtered through the rest of the country. They have a really nice selection of individual sushi so you can make your own choice according to what you fancy at the time. Makes it a good time to try out different flavours without the commitment of a whole dish. Wasabi also make gorgeous broth soups with different meats and seafoods.

Can't quite remember the kinds I picked but I know there was a katsu chicken one and a salmon and mango one. All very nice anyway!

I'd been on the lookout for some diner food for the whole trip and had written a few addresses down (blame my obsession with Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) but we were never in the right place at the right meal time. I finally got some on the way home outside Euston station at Ed's Diner.

I loved the look of the place and everyone seemed very happy with their order, just a shame it took an age for them to acknowledge me as I wanted to order something to take-away. Grrrr. That put me right off, I was obviously standing right there but oh well. Eventually my order was taken, a classic burger and some fries.

The burger was very nice. I have to admit I prefer the flavour of the meat from my Paris McDonalds trip (shock horror) but you could tell it was good quality, and there was the very welcome addition of pickle, my favourite bit of a burger. Not sure I'd go out of my way to eat here again next time I'm around but it was ok. Didn't like the fries very much as they were really thick and I strangely don't like the taste of potato that much so I like them nice and thin!!

But on to the most important part of this entry - the thorough cupcake testing!

Tried out 4 different cupcake eateries to try and find the best place. First up was Lola's, purchased in Topshop on Oxford Street where they have a little stand for the summer. Got a peanut butter one for my mum and a red velvet for me.

Cute box. The peanut butter one got the big thumbs up and the red velvet was light and had a really nice flavour. A good example of a tasty cupcake. £2.25 which is a bit much but worth it.

Next was Ella's Bakehouse in Covent Garden. A tiny little shop which used to be another brand of cupcake last year. I'd been looking forward to trying out this shop as I'd read great things about them.

Boo, major disappointment. Another peanut butter one and I chose a 'designer cupcake' flavour - maltesers. Should have been wonderful but it was so heavy and I could only really taste maltesers when I ate the one of the top. And at £2.75? Not again. Lola's winning so far. Peanut butter the same heavy texture, at least it was cheaper.

Third was the one I had the highest hope for - the Hummingbird Bakery. Not the friendliest and most helpful of staff but hey, you get your cupcakes and you leave.

Got another red velvet as I wanted to compare with Lola's, and my mum chose the violet special of the day - so pretty and a much more exciting option compared to the two previous bakeries.

The violet had most of its flavour in the little violet pieces of top but the cake was really light and the frosting wasn't too sweet. My red velvet was absolutely gorgeous. Just enough chocolate to make it taste rich, the colour was beautiful, light as anything in texture and I really like cream cheese frosting. The winner thus far but Lola's isn't too far behind at all. The packaging is the prettiest too! £2 I think but can't quite remember.

Lastly - Primrose Bakery in Covent Garden. There wasn't a massive choice and there were no labels on the cakes so you had to ask what each flavour was, not great. I wanted an unusual flavour to end my trip with but there was nothing that took my fancy, a rose one would have been nice. So I ended up with nothing but my mum thought it would be wise to try out another peanut butter concoction!

Another heavy texture. The frosting I'm told was nice and a nice amount of peanut butter in the cake itself but it didn't compare to Lola's or Hummingbird Bakery. Disappointing.

So final placements are:

1. Hummingbird Bakery

2.Lola's

3.Primrose Bakery

4. Ella's Bakehouse

Paris in food

Ah, lovely Paris. I hadn't been since I was very young (and quite frankly I was far more excited about going to Euro Disney at the time!) so it was nice to see everything with fresh eyes. Don't expect any restaurant reviews or anything high-brow! I eat supermarket food in hotel rooms and eat in places I'll be left alone! But I eat well.

Found a really great food court underneath the Louvre - Le Carrousel Du Louvre. It's apparently the biggest food court on the continent, not sure about the size but it's certainly the best choice of food I've ever seen in a fast food setting. Different outlets with similar meal deal, ie. a drink, main dish and a dessert for about 14 euros. There is Moroccan, Labanese, Japanese, French, Spanish and Italian then a sandwich place, an ice cream outlet and the obligatory McDonalds (more on that later).

We decided to go for French as the ham looked completely edible. Got massive wedges as the girl behind the counter admitted she wasn't very good at carving! The french beans were gorgeous, cooked with garlic and mushrooms and the ratatouille reminded me that I should eat it way more often.

http://www.carrouseldulouvre.com/

For later on I visited the Italian counter and bought myself a cannoli. I've always wanted to try one of these having seen them in loads of New York Italian delis, except last year when I was ready to buy one and couldn't see one anywhere! I was very glad to finally try one. The pastry was really crispy and the filling was really creamy, almost mousse-like in texture and the candied orange peel cut through everything. Lovely, and one to seek out again though not sure if I'd bother to make some myself. Will check out a recipe to see how much of a faff it is!

As it was August rather a lot of bakeries were unfortunately closed for the month so I didn't come across as many cakes as I'd have liked. We glanced longingly at fine creations in Laduree and Fauchon but the prices were just stupid and I'd have felt guilty about every mouthful! I think I'd rather have clothes anyway. Things did look beautiful though and I'll go back when I win the lottery!! (I can dream)

I did however take a photo of the Fauchon window - oooo, pretty but about 20 euros for just one of those cakes - eek!

We did buy a bit of bread from there though, seemed reasonable! Nice parmesan, tomato and black olive mini bread. I've had things just as nice from other places though.

Looking in the side streets near our hotel we found a gorgeous bakery which was closing for the summer a couple of days later. They were selling equally pretty eclairs as Fauchon and for a third of the price. I couldn't resist the rose eclair and my mum chose the pistachio. Oh yum, the rose eclair tasted like turkish delight. I would have gone back for one everyday if they weren't closing. Oh well, it saved me a few calories!

Pretty and delicious.

Had some lovely steak hache from Galeries Lafayette in their 6th floor casual restaurant and some lovely steak hache from Casino Cafeteria - notice a trend?! I love steak hache and always had it growing up, either with chips or with half rice and half buttery rice. It always had to be cooked through thoroughly but now I'm a grown up I'm having it 'au point', still maybe a little bit raw in the middle but at least you get served quicker! No pics but I'm sure you can imagine a plate of beef and chips!

One major suprise was McDonalds in Paris - have you ever seen a McDonalds in Britain that looks like this?!:

They have created McCafes, don't know if they exist everywhere in France but there were loads in Paris. They looked gorgeous! And they sell macarons! There was apparently a lot of controversy about this as it was seen as cheapening the art of pastry making. But it was a useful place for breakfast, the coffee was made properly and the croissants were completely fresh and crisp - and most importantly they were open in August! I wish we had them over here.

And I have to admit that we did eat a couple of times in McDonalds but with very good reason, you got these little ceramic cups free with a meal and a coffee:

So cute! They did exist in some gorgeous colours but we didn't find ourselves there on the right day. Boo, I really wanted a blue or purple one. They are made by Revol, a famous brand in France and I found these cups in a department store for 8 euros so a great bargain in McDo. And actually, hamburgers are rather delicious aren't they?!

And holidays don't stop - off to London this week for more restaurant avoidance, cupcake eating and plenty of theatre going. So excited to be seeing Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act! Woo!