The Lake District: Currying flavour

Curry night: Lauren and Theo

Whooo! A most excellent hearty curry banquet complete with specialist beers (Cobra). A rare treat to be able to indulge in Indian cuisine without feeling like I've eaten my body weight in ghee and MSG.

Pumpkin & Apple Curry (serves 4)
What you need
Vegetable Oil
large onion
500g of pumpkin/squash, cubed
800g of baking potatoes, cubed
1 large cooking apple, cubed
2 tsp curry paste
1 tsp turmeric
root ginger (2.5cm)
bay leaves
500 ml vegetable stock

The do
Heat oil in pan. Add onion and brown.
Add chilli, curry paste, turmeric, ginger, bay leaves, apple, pumpkin, potato to pan.
Immediately after add vegetable stock.
Bring to boil and then simmer for 20 minutes until cooked.
Serve with fromage frais or yoghurt.



Easy Tofu Curry (serves 4)
What you need
good swig of vegetable oil
Tofu, diced
Seasonal veg - I like to use broccoli & green beans
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp mild curry powder
2 medium fresh green chillies, thinly sliced
5 cm chunk of ginger, grated
2 onions
1 can tomatoes
1 can coconut milk (use light coconut milk if you want a healthier option)

The do
Start by browning the tofu pieces in a pan until brown.
In another pan, heat the oil and add your spices and ginger.
Fry for a few minutes, then add the onions and fresh chilli.
Cook for another 5 minutes then add the tofu and tomatoes.
Simmer for 10-15 minutes then add your favourite veg (broccoli and beans are yum!)
Finally, add the coconut milk and simmer for a final 5 minutes.
Season and serve with basmati rice, raita, mango chutney and fresh tomato salad.

Fresh Tomato Salad (serves 4)
What you need
6 medium tomatoes, diced
Small onion, thinly sliced
Fresh Coriander
Juice of fresh lemon

The do
Combine the ingredients and season with lemon juice to taste

Tune
Sung Tongs Animal Collective

Merry Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone!
Our day was spent in the company of lovely friends, Carter's homemade Christmas crackers, brand new Mighty Boosh DVDS and Pictionary.
I made my usual sweet potato and leek Christmas roulade (except this year I made one with prune stuffing and the other with feta), chestnut and cranberry stuffing balls with red onion and Guinness gravy.
Kelly worked her magic on the vegetables - carrots and parsnips with wholegrain mustard and maple syrup, and the best roast potatoes I have ever had.
Oh, and we also had the most amazing cheeseboard known to man. Manchego, Chaumes (I hadn't had this cheese before - it is pasteurised, has a sticky soft orange rind and is an excellent start for those beginning a lifelong quest for the gooiest, stinkiest French cheese), Brie, Wensleydale, Cheddar, Gruyere, Cornish Yarg, Raclette accompanied by Italian baked figs, apple chutney, quince paste and fancy crackers. Mr Stilton was sorely missed, but he isn't so good for unborn babies, so next year I'll have to have twice as much.



KELLY'S BEST EVER ROAST POTATOES

What you need
Around 16 potatoes - Maris piper, King Edward or Desiree, peeled and cut to size
2 tablespoons plain flour
sunflower of veg oil

The do
Preheat the oven to 190. Throw potatoes into a big saucepan and cover with cold water, bring to boil and boil for 2 minutes. Drain, keeping the potatoes in the pan. Sprinkle over the flour, put the lid back on and shake violently so the potatoes get all roughed up.
Place a large metal heavy duty roasting tray on the hob over high heat. Add a few big lugs of oil. When the oil starts to spit, add the potatoes and fry for about 5 minutes turning the potatoes with tongs to lightly brown on all sides.
Place in the preheated oven. After 20 minutes, take the potatoes out and put back onto hob, frying and turning the potatoes for 5 minutes. Return to the oven for another 20 minutes then return to the hob for another 5 minutes turning the potatoes carefully.

When done, sprinkle over some sea salt and serve.



ONION AND GUINNESS GRAVY

What you need
50 g butter
2 big red onions halved and sliced 1 cm thick
8 sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped from stalk
2 sprigs of Rosemary, leaves stripped from stalk and roughly chopped
200ml Guinness
2 tsp marigold bouillon dissolved in 600ml boiling water
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard

The do
Heat butter in a saucepan. When melted, add the flour and onions. Fry for a few minutes on a medium heat until they just begin to brown. Add the Guinness and mustard and reduce to half.
Add the thyme, rosemary and stock and simmer on lowest heat for 45 minutes without the lid. If you like it a bit thicker, dissolve a teaspoon of cornflour in a little cold water and add to gravy. Bring to boil. Repeat until desired consistency is reached but don't go crazy, it will reduce more when it cools down and gets reheated again.

This tastes even better when it has been living in the fridge for a few days. Plus it'll be one thing less you have to bother with when you are enjoying your Christmas champagne.

eatin's cheatin at atp

10 of us took a minivan to ATP on the weekend. We stopped at Tesco on the way and bought a fair whack of groceries; salad, eggs, pasta, veg, fancy cheese etc etc. Our plan was to cook at least four meals over the course of three days. I don't know what the fuck we were thinking. Our shop would have been far more productive if we split the cash on beer, pear cider, Pimms, vodka, rum, mixers, tobacco, papers, filters and Anadin Extra.

Today, still shagged but absolutely blasted full of good time vibes, I came home from work to a lot of eggs and a hankering for the tortilla. I am no tortilla expert by any stretch and I really am too buggered to spell out the shizzle but all I can say is go for the long, slow cook and I think the experts favour a small deep pan rather than the wide shallow one I have at my disposal.

All you need to do is skin and parboil some taters then cool and grate them. Soften some sliced Spanish onions and garlic with chilli flakes, stock and wine. Mix them with the grated tates, some chopped parsley and salt'n'peppa. Then beat the lot with four eggs (for 2) until it's all frothy. Pour into a med-heat pan. Let it cook slowly till the arse is tanned then pop it under a fan forced grill to brown the top. Serve with fresh coriander. Done darlin.

Frolicking in Füssen: Part two - The Kässpätzle

There's definitely something about clean cold air that makes you hungry all the time. Especially when you've been busy hiking about in the woods and taking in amazing views, then rewarding yourself with refreshing German ale. Oh, life can be so rough.



What better way to finish off the day than with some hardcore German stodge. With discussions of Lily and I going vegan for a month, my heart fluttered as Nicky listed the ingredients of Kässpätzle to me.

"Lots of butter, eggs, onions, flour and three types of cheese. You don't skimp on the fat stuff"

Kässpätzle translates to 'cheesy sparrows' in English. Although I reckon a more appropriate name would be 'big coronary'. Cholesterol aside, one of the most interesting things about this dish is how it is made. You need a contraption called a Spätzle Hobel, which looks like a holey mandolin without the razor sharp finger-slicing capability. Another thing I really liked was the teamwork involved in getting it all together. It took four of us to make it happen, one slicing and frying the onions, another grating cheese, and two on Spätzle duty. It just makes it so much more satisfying when you're all chowing down on it together. Go Team Kässpätzle!





What you need
A Spätzle Hobel
Eggs (1 egg for every 100 grams of flour)
sifted flour (we used about 1 kg)
Milk
A few big pinches of salt
white pepper
10 onions, mixture of red and white - sliced roughly
a big pat of butter
3 wedges of your favourite melting cheese, grated (Emmental, Romadur, Bavarian Bergkase or a little bit of Gorganzola wouldn't go astray too)

The do
Heat the oven to about 150 degrees C and preheat the biggest and deepest baking dish you have (you will need depth of at least 12cm).
Sift flour into the biggest bowl you have. Break eggs into the flour, add a few pinches of salt and mix hard with a wooden spoon, slowly adding milk until you achieve a runny cement-like consistency with doughy bubbles bursting on the surface. Let it drop from the spoon - if it clings to itself as it falls, it's just right.
Set aside.

Put a big pot of salted water to the boil, then reduce to a simmer.

Grab a big fry pan, throw in a big chunk of butter (about 3 tablespoons worth) and when melted, add the onions. Fry until dark and soft. Remove from heat.

Take out the baking tray and melt half a tennis ball's worth of butter. Do not skimp on the butter. Return to oven.

Position your Spätzle Hobel over the barely simmering water, pour some mixture into it and glide it back and forth.
The little balls will drop out the bottom into the water. Stir them up with a slotted spoon to keep them from sticking to the bottom.
When the pot starts to look crowded, transfer them with a slotted spoon to the baking dish in the oven, taking care to drain off all excess water. Sprinkle a generous layer of cheese and some of the fried onion over the top, season with white pepper and return to the oven.



Keep repeating this process until you are out of onion and dough, but make sure you reserve some cheese and onion for the very last layer.
When it's all done. Put it all back in the oven and bake at about 200 degrees C for about 40 minutes, don't forget to check it occasionally.

Serve with a crunchy salad with some bitter leaves like endive or rocket and a good German beer. There should be enough for five hungry people with a little bit extra.

WARNING: This dish may cause drowsiness. Avoid driving and operating heavy machinery.

* Big thanks to the lovely Leanne, Nicky and Kim for sharing their home with us for four days and showing us such a fantastic time!

If it's good enough for a drunk woman

Some of my best cooking has happened while drunk. It's a crying shame when I wake up with a sweet memory of the tastiest early morning supper ever but no recollection of how it happened or what it was. So after returning from Ben and Kara's going-away bash a couple of Sundays ago I made a determined effort to record the meal that followed. I even left clues for myself, like a smashed plate, crumbs in my hair, a fridge ajar and half a blog post that I have only just found again. This really was bloody delicious (I think.)

What you need for a Smashed Bread and Caper Bake sort of thing
Whatever's in the kitchen (in my case baby potatoes, avocado and tomato)
Onion
Capers
Bread
Cheese
A couple of eggs

How you make it
Pour yourself yet another glass of white wine. Finely chop the onion and soften it in a pan with the capers (if you accidentally tip your wine into the pan at this point it can only be a good thing for you and your dinner). Preheat your oven to 200. Oil a porcelain baking dish well and line it with bread. Top the bread with your stuff -- in this case, sliced avocado, halved par-boiled potatoes and slices of tomato mixed with the cooked onion. Break the egg over it all then top with crumbled or grated cheese. Bake for around 20 minutes (so the egg white isn't gelatinous anymore) then grill to brown the cheese. Serve drunk.

Bad smells be gone!

I have a confession to make.
For the last decade, I have been cutting onions and garlic with a knife and fork in order to avoid stinky hands. My skin just sucks up those acids and my hands wind up reeking for weeks after and... I don't like it, m'kay?
This was the topic of some lively conversation at the pub a few weeks ago, and some very good friends infomed me that if I rubbed my hands on some stainless steel after cutting up any members of the onion family, no smells would remain.
I just tried it tonight and IT WORKS.
This has changed my life. I can now slice garlic and dice onion with reckless abandon.

Does anyone out there know why this works? I NEED TO KNOW.

Oozing and gooey, just like the other VD

Some people might think it no coincidence that Valentine’s Day and Venereal Disease share the same initials. Apart from the fact that they are equally horrible, both can mock us, drive us to despair or make us feel silly and hate people. It's easy to opt out of a commercial scam but I can't dismiss its sentiment altogether, this idea of expressing hope for love on a rainy day in February. There is but one heart-plumping answer: food.



Just read this lusty missive written by my friend Joan (who you can visit here):

Conjure luscious creaminess in your mouth along with Italian provenance and you may think of (no, not that) you may think of gelato. But forget that. For a truly scrumptious creamily mouth-coating oral experience, it has to be risotto.

Risotto: plump, warming, tongue pleasing and piquant. Good risotto is the reward of patience; the outcome of a relationship between the rice and the chef. The stirring of each granular pearl so that it becomes infused with butter, wine, stock and a medley of ingredients. Slowly cooked, it is a dish best eaten slowly, and in good company.

Risotto often presents as modest in appearance but, as mother said: don’t be fooled by appearances. The first forkful will seduce you and how sublime to know that satisfaction will assuredly follow.



What you need:
Arborio rice
An onion (or leek or shallots) and garlic
Ingredients of choice: just about anything goes in a risotto. For this one: mushrooms, green beans (or spinach), fresh sprigs of thyme, almonds (slivered) and lemon (one)
6 to 8 cups of veggie stock and white wine (one cup for the stock, one for you)
A very generous block of parmigiano reggiano
Patience: At least half an hour to cook alone, stirring always. It’s best to have music and a glass of wine by your side at all times.



How it goes:
Heat the stock and wine together to just simmering and leave it that way
Finely chop your onion (or leek or shallots) and garlic and soften them in olive oil over medium heat (add a little butter if you like)
After a few minutes add your thyme and arborio rice (1/2 to 3/4 of a cup for two) and stir it so that it is coated in oil and starting to go transluscent. Do not let it brown or burn – death to risotto if you do.
Add grated lemon rind, slivered almonds and a squeeze of lemon juice. (If you had long cooking veggies, e.g. pumpkin, now would be the time to add them.)
Ladle in a cup of liquid – or enough to cover the rice.
When there is more mush than liquid, add more stock. Repeat for 10-15 minutes.
Add your softer chopped veggies (mushrooms, tomato, beans or asparagus) and keep doing the stock thing.
After another 5 or 10 minutes the rice isn’t really absorbing much liquid anymore. Try a granule to make sure it is firm but not chewy.
When it’s good, add a handful of grated parmesan, some pepper and a couple of tablespons of butter.
Stir rapidly to mix everything together and get it extra creamy.
Turn off the heat and let the risotto sit for a few minutes before serving. Sprinkle with shaved parmesan and cracked pepper.
Eat naked by candlelight and lick away any spills.
That’s amore.

And who better to opine about having love on your side than Dusty Springfield...

Dusty Springfield - Just A Little Lovin' mp3 download
Dusty Springfield - Breakfast In Bed mp3 download