If you live in London, or you are heading up to London to do a bit of Christmas shopping, stop by, if you can, La Fromagerie in Marylebone High Street.
Their cheese room alone is worth a visit, just to gawp. When I was there last week, tourists were taking photos of it. But at the moment, it's a doubly exciting place because they are making on site a really extraordinary cheese, which is a Brie with a layer of truffle inside.
http://www.lafromagerie.co.uk/brie-aux-truffe/
Normally I think that that kind of thing - foie gras wrapped in veal, truffles in gold soup, caviar on a bed of crushed diamonds - is sick-making and gross, but this cheese gets away with it by being the most delicious and also unusual thing I've had since I ate that banana and peanut butter sandwich.
Monstrously expensive and you have to ring ahead to make sure they've got some in stock, but well worth it if you're looking for something a bit different for Christmas lunch.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Easy brownies
There is something so festive about brownies. Perhaps it's because they are, fundamentally, American, and American food is all about that first, frontal-lobe taste-hit, (I'm also thinking, here, about pancakes the USA way, fluffly and dribbled with maple syrup, eaten with crispy bacon), and to hell with the calories.
I guess that's why Americans taking eating to the other extreme as a reaction to all this out and out yumminess: Giles has just come back from New York, where he's been writing about the Calorie Restriction Society - a movement whose followers eat hardly anything and never cook anything to more than a lukewarm temperature.
Anyway, before all that, there were brownies. I've searched high and low for a good brownie recipe - I find that a lot of them are comically over-indulgent: sticky, gacky, grossly super-sweet, like a hilarious mis-translation of American over-consumption. A real American brownie, to my mind, ought to be more light and cake-light and should be eaten not in a massive daunting slab, but in a small-ish square, popped in the mouth to accompany a cup of weak diner-style filter coffee. Mmm.
This recipe, below, from the New Penguin Cookery Book, is perfect. The nuts used here are walnuts, but you could use hazlenuts instead if you prefer.
Makes about 16 bits
125g butter
250g caster sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
60g plain flour
30g unsweetened coco powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
125g walnuts bashed or chopped
1 tbs milk
Preheat oven to 180 (gas 4) and grease a baking tin. I use an 8in loose bottomed square tin from John Lewis but you can use any tin, really - the size only affects how deep your brownies will be.
Cream the butter and sugar until they go pale, then beat the eggs in one at a time.
Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together and then fold them into the butter and egg mixture.
Then add the nuts, milk and vanilla extract.
Pour into your tin and smooth the top.
Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
Edible glitter fans can shake a little into some icing sugar and dust the brownies for a sparkly finish.
I guess that's why Americans taking eating to the other extreme as a reaction to all this out and out yumminess: Giles has just come back from New York, where he's been writing about the Calorie Restriction Society - a movement whose followers eat hardly anything and never cook anything to more than a lukewarm temperature.
Anyway, before all that, there were brownies. I've searched high and low for a good brownie recipe - I find that a lot of them are comically over-indulgent: sticky, gacky, grossly super-sweet, like a hilarious mis-translation of American over-consumption. A real American brownie, to my mind, ought to be more light and cake-light and should be eaten not in a massive daunting slab, but in a small-ish square, popped in the mouth to accompany a cup of weak diner-style filter coffee. Mmm.
This recipe, below, from the New Penguin Cookery Book, is perfect. The nuts used here are walnuts, but you could use hazlenuts instead if you prefer.
Makes about 16 bits
125g butter
250g caster sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
60g plain flour
30g unsweetened coco powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
125g walnuts bashed or chopped
1 tbs milk
Preheat oven to 180 (gas 4) and grease a baking tin. I use an 8in loose bottomed square tin from John Lewis but you can use any tin, really - the size only affects how deep your brownies will be.
Cream the butter and sugar until they go pale, then beat the eggs in one at a time.
Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together and then fold them into the butter and egg mixture.
Then add the nuts, milk and vanilla extract.
Pour into your tin and smooth the top.
Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
Edible glitter fans can shake a little into some icing sugar and dust the brownies for a sparkly finish.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Breakfast for a sore throat
I was woken up this morning by my tonsils. Furious, they were - furious and red and angry. But I can't be that ill because I'm hungry for my breakfast. Alas, my usual breakfasts - either museli or toast - are not exactly fun on a raw tonsil.
So I reached for my tin of oatmeal, just the thing for an empty tummy and a hurty throat.
I'm quite evangelical about oatmeals and porridges. I spent 3 months eating porridge at least once a day when I was 19, working for Raleigh International in Namibia. At first I couldn't believe how digusting it was, hated the sight of it, dreaded having to eat it every day. But then I developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome about it - I started to think that porridge was the best thing ever.
Then, after another 9 weeks, I hated it again.
I didn't eat it for years, couldn't stand the sight of it. But in the last few years, whenever the chips are down, I have started to yearn for porridge. These days, only John McCann's Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal will do. The most flavoursome, with none of the dusty yak of rolled oats. But, it's one for sick days and weekends only, as it takes half an hour to make. The other problem is that what all porridge and oatmeal really loves to do is stick to the bottom of the pan and, if possible, burn, so a good stir every few minutes is also required. You could always make it in a non-stick pan but for some reason, I feel like that's cheating.
Off-sick Oatmeal
Into four parts boiling water, pour one part oatmeal (I use an espresso cup as a measurement - it swells in the water so that's all you need for one person, I find.)
Cook briskly until it starts to thicken up and then turn down the heat and simmer for 30 mins. I always find that I need to add more water along the way.
I've never really thought of oatmeal or porridge as any kind of health-giving, angelic food, to be eaten in a bracing wind, seasoned only with salt - I have always seen it as simply a warm vehicle for butter, sugar, honey, jam, cream, maple syrup or anything else fatty or sugary I've got to hand. And today is no different, topped with a splodge of Damson jam to lift my spirits. My throat feels better already.
So I reached for my tin of oatmeal, just the thing for an empty tummy and a hurty throat.
I'm quite evangelical about oatmeals and porridges. I spent 3 months eating porridge at least once a day when I was 19, working for Raleigh International in Namibia. At first I couldn't believe how digusting it was, hated the sight of it, dreaded having to eat it every day. But then I developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome about it - I started to think that porridge was the best thing ever.
Then, after another 9 weeks, I hated it again.
I didn't eat it for years, couldn't stand the sight of it. But in the last few years, whenever the chips are down, I have started to yearn for porridge. These days, only John McCann's Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal will do. The most flavoursome, with none of the dusty yak of rolled oats. But, it's one for sick days and weekends only, as it takes half an hour to make. The other problem is that what all porridge and oatmeal really loves to do is stick to the bottom of the pan and, if possible, burn, so a good stir every few minutes is also required. You could always make it in a non-stick pan but for some reason, I feel like that's cheating.
Off-sick Oatmeal
Into four parts boiling water, pour one part oatmeal (I use an espresso cup as a measurement - it swells in the water so that's all you need for one person, I find.)
Cook briskly until it starts to thicken up and then turn down the heat and simmer for 30 mins. I always find that I need to add more water along the way.
I've never really thought of oatmeal or porridge as any kind of health-giving, angelic food, to be eaten in a bracing wind, seasoned only with salt - I have always seen it as simply a warm vehicle for butter, sugar, honey, jam, cream, maple syrup or anything else fatty or sugary I've got to hand. And today is no different, topped with a splodge of Damson jam to lift my spirits. My throat feels better already.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Chinese Sweet Roasted Chestnuts
Chestnuts offer high fiber, mineral and cholesterol-free benefits of tree nuts, without the calories and fat content. And they are gluten free! They also are the only nut that contains a significant amount of vitamin C. Like all plant foods, chestnuts contain no cholesterol. So why not "go nuts"?
And I also want to thank PEARLYN @ A Full-Timed Housefly sharing a wonderful Friendship Award with me!
500 g Chestnuts
500 g Salt (or coarse sand)
1 tbsp Sugar syrup
- Using a small sharp knife, carefully score chestnuts by making a single, 1/8-inch deep slit across the center on the rounded side of the nut, to keep them from exploding during cooking. Rinse and soak in the water for 10 minutes. Drain.
- Place the pan filled with salt and drained chestnuts on medium heat. Stir fry the chestnuts until the salt has turn lightly browned, drizzle the sugar syrup over while keep stirring. Continue stirring until the shells open up and look dark brown.
Chilli brussel sprouts
I think people don't like brussel sprouts because they had bad sprout experiences when they were little.
My mum is a fantastic cook and never made us eat anything we didn't want to and I was still freaked out my sprouts when I was small. They were always just boiled, very plain, perhaps with butter on and were quite big for little mouths. If they were a bit hot, you'd ram one in your mouth and it would explode, boiling and bitter. Not really that nice.
But, like most people, I have a huge amount of residual affection for sprouts, nevertheless. The trick is clearly to find a way to make them a bit more interesting.
Chucking all sorts of stuff over it - bacon, chestnuts, herbs - is the answer and my favourite topping is garlic and chilli. Singapore Garden, every north londoner's top singaporean rezzy http://www.singaporegarden.co.uk/ does Chiew Yim brussel sprouts, where the sprouts are dipped in, I think, batter, then deep fried with chilli and garlic. And they are outstanding, one of the best things on SG's menu.
I don't deep fry my sprouts, because I want to see my 30th birthday, but sauteeing them with the chilli and garlic works just as well to give the general cabbagey atmosphere a bit of a kick. And the marvellous thing about sauteeing a sprout is that you can cook them the night before if you're doing a big lunch/dinner.
It's essential, to make the sprouts a more manageable mouthful for adults and children alike, that you cut the little buggers in half before you fry them.
Chilli brussel sprouts
Boil your sprouts in salted water for 3 mins. When cool, chop in half.
Heat some butter, dripping or veg oil (or whatever you like most to fry with) in a pan and add the sprouts.
Then add your chopped garlic and chilli and swoosh round the pan for about 5-8 minutes. Keep the pan on a medium heat so that neither the garlic nor the sprouts burn and taste even more bitter than God intended.
My mum is a fantastic cook and never made us eat anything we didn't want to and I was still freaked out my sprouts when I was small. They were always just boiled, very plain, perhaps with butter on and were quite big for little mouths. If they were a bit hot, you'd ram one in your mouth and it would explode, boiling and bitter. Not really that nice.
But, like most people, I have a huge amount of residual affection for sprouts, nevertheless. The trick is clearly to find a way to make them a bit more interesting.
Chucking all sorts of stuff over it - bacon, chestnuts, herbs - is the answer and my favourite topping is garlic and chilli. Singapore Garden, every north londoner's top singaporean rezzy http://www.singaporegarden.co.uk/ does Chiew Yim brussel sprouts, where the sprouts are dipped in, I think, batter, then deep fried with chilli and garlic. And they are outstanding, one of the best things on SG's menu.
I don't deep fry my sprouts, because I want to see my 30th birthday, but sauteeing them with the chilli and garlic works just as well to give the general cabbagey atmosphere a bit of a kick. And the marvellous thing about sauteeing a sprout is that you can cook them the night before if you're doing a big lunch/dinner.
It's essential, to make the sprouts a more manageable mouthful for adults and children alike, that you cut the little buggers in half before you fry them.
Chilli brussel sprouts
Boil your sprouts in salted water for 3 mins. When cool, chop in half.
Heat some butter, dripping or veg oil (or whatever you like most to fry with) in a pan and add the sprouts.
Then add your chopped garlic and chilli and swoosh round the pan for about 5-8 minutes. Keep the pan on a medium heat so that neither the garlic nor the sprouts burn and taste even more bitter than God intended.
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