Yogurt Coconut Rounds

A simple, delicious and moist sweet coconut treat!

#Bottom:	#Topping:
300 g German #405 flour 10 g Baking powder 280 g 3. 5% Plain yoghurt 70 g Dulce de leche 70 ml Sunflower oil	100 g Kerrygold butter, melted 100 g Dried coconut shreds ©angiesrecipes 50 g Sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a 30x40cm baking tray with paper. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add in yogurt, dulce de leche, and oil. Mix all the ingredients with a hand mixer fitted with dough hooks for 1 minute on high speed. Don’t over stir the dough or it will become sticky.
   


2. Place the dough onto the prepared tray and roll it out. Brush with melted butter all over the surface of the dough. Combine the coconut shreds and sugar. Scatter the mixture evenly onto the dough. Bake on the upper rack of the hot oven for about 20 minutes until golden crispy. Remove and cool slightly. Use a cookie cutter to cut out the rounds.

A Saturday lunch for 9

Continuing on a theme, my other least favourite thing about myself is that I am the world's most stressed and neurotic hostess. I just can't take the pressure. I hate this. I want to be a bit more like my mother, who constantly filled our house with people, managing to divide one leg of lamb between 35, while cradling the phone between her cheek and shoulder, inviting more people round. Or like my sister who, when something goes wrong with dinner, just brings out more smoked salmon on tost, opens another bottle of champagne and acts like that eating at 10.15pm, so drunk you can't feel your face, is just the chic thing these days.

My dinner party crises leave me bruised and tearful for weeks. My first dinner at my flat, I made a mess of my mother's Idiot-Proof Chicken Stew (nothing is so idiot-proof I can't spazz it - recipe soon) and my guests were left eating raw onions and flabby chicken. I still actually writhe around in my chair with shame when I think about this. When a guest asked if there was any cheese I snapped "No" because I was so angry and upset and more or less threw them all out. Then, the other day, I set down a pan of potato dauphinoise on my new Corian surface in the kitchen, which you are strictly not supposed to do, and the Corian cracked from one end to another with a loud bang, like a gunshot. We waited weeks for that Corian, and it was magnificently expensive. I nearly comitted hara-kiri right there with Giles' Japanese sushi knife. I think at that point, he might have helped me.

Anyway, I won't have this. I want nice people to look forward coming to my house, not dread it for weeks. And neither do I want to dread it for weeks and be reduced to a freaked-out wreck if an extra person comes at the last minute. So I'm going to keep giving bloody dinners and lunches until I crack it.

Tomorrow, for example, there are 8 people (one pescetarian) coming to my house for lunch. At the moment, I feel quite relaxed about it all because my latest plan for stress-free entertaining (yeah, whatever) is to organise everything weeks in advance with military precision. There are lists all over the house of things to buy (logs, brussel sprouts, cream) lists of what to do when (night before: boil and chop sprouts, lay the table, cook cocktail sausages) and lists of my expanding and contracting guest list. At one point there were 11 people coming, as I was trying to get over my fear of too many people, but then three dropped out thank the Lord, so now I've just got the eight.

I am breaking a promise to myself that I made last time I had a dinner party, which was that I'd never again cook something for the first time for friends. But these two new things I'm doing tomorrow, I don't think can go wrong (can't believe I just said that - the house is going to blow up now). The first thing is a Christmassy cranberry sauce for the cocktail sausages and the second is a steamed pudding. Everything else (Nigel Slater's potato dauph, chilli and garlic brussel sprouts, roast chicken, fish in breadcrumbs for my pescetarian) I've done before.

My dad always says that as long as you can take a coat and get a drink in to a guest's hand within one minute of their arrival, you don't have to worry about anything else. And he's lived with my mother and her non-stop entertaining for 30 years, so knows a thing or two about having people round. Send me your top tips for having friends over without having a nervous breakdown and if I get enough I'll do a post. If I don't, I'll just assume no-one cares and, well, that sushi knife may start to look very tempting. No pressure.

Kitchen equipment - new cooks only

I remember the first time I scraped out a cake-mixing bowl with a spatula designed for that very activity. It was a revelation - truly, a marvel. If I had been a cartoon character, a small light would have pinged on over my head.

Up until then I had gone at a smeary cake bowl with wooden spoons, teaspoons, my own fingers and there had always been stuff left on the sides, which had to be swilled down the sink in gluey clumps. But with a slim, springy spatula, there's none of this waste and sadness, just clean bowls.

It was then I realised the importance of having the right kit in your kitchen. And when I say right, I don't mean expensive. So this is a guide to the most useful things that I have in my kitchen. I've called this post kit for new cooks only because it's really only for people just starting out. If you've been a cooking enthusiast for a while, you'll have our own treasured stuff - (Nigella Lawson swears by her microplane and Delia Smith declares that she couldn't cook without a skewer) - and just be annoyed by my recommendations.

So, the above photo, starting at the top, going clockwise shows:

1 A timer. My first teenaged attempts at cooking were cursed with my thinking that cooking was too easy for words. I never timed anything and it was always either charred and alight or scarily pink. I now time everything - and I mean everthing. If a recipe recommends letting something stand for 2-3 minutes, on goes the timer. And it has made cooking at least 50% less stressful for me. It's in use even now, in the photo - I am timing the dough which is resting in the bowl (3).

2 A knife. I think most people think that a kitchen knife has to be some giant, terrifying thing, with which you chop things up very finely, very fast. I do have one of those. In fact, it belongs to Giles and it is a huge, very sharp Japanese sushi knife purchased, I think, in Tokyo itself. Anyway, this is not a knife I reach for very often; the knife I reach for is my paring knife made by Victorinox (the same company that makes Swiss Army Knives). I'm sure it's not the right knife to use for all sorts of things I use it for, but I'd be lost without it and its dainty serrations and pointy end. They are available from John Lewis and cost about £9.

3 Stainless steel mixing bowls. I am very clumsy, but you don't have to be especially malco-ordinated to drop things in the kitchen, especially if you are doing something under time pressure or having mixed yourself, and then drunk, a too-large 'calming' drink. What I like most about these bowls, which cost about £4 each (again, these are John Lewis, but I think you can get them in most kitchenware departments), is that they are indestructible, light and very easy to clean. The downside is that they don't exactly scream 'Kitchen chic', but then neither do I, so we get along very well.

4 A plastic chopping board. (Only just seen in the picture - it's a rather similar colour to my worksurface.) I resisted getting one of these for a while, because I don't like the way they look. Yes, that really is how shallow I am. But it had got to the stage where if I had to wash up another wooden chopping board that smelled strongly of onions and garlic when I applied the hot water tap to it, I thought I might be sick. So I bought two of these anti-bacterial plastic chopping boards and have never looked back. They are just great and you can sling them in the dishwasher and boil the shit out of them and there'll be no more scrubbing stinking wooden boards.

5 A pair of tongs. I feel like Doc Ock from Spiderman 2 with a pair of these in my hands. They are basically an extendable pair of flame-proof, heat-proof fingers for turning things, poking things, picking things that have fallen into other things, out. When it comes to tongs, I find that the cheaper they are the better. I've got a pair of very snazzy ones with rubber grips on them and stuff, but they're just not as nimble as these, which come in a packet of 2 and were £3.99, made by a company called "Kitchenware" and purchased from a hardware shop very near Tufnell Park tube station.

These are my top five most useful things but when it comes to kitchen stuff I always think the more the merrier. There's nothing better than coming to the point in your life where you don't actually need to go out and buy a massive roasting tin because you've got one already, and you don't have to skip over recipes which call for measuring out anything, because you haven't got a set of scales, or stewing anything, because you haven't got a casserole.



Coming soon: chilli hot chocolate.

A word about gelatine

Whenever I fall into a conversation about pork pies (obsessed, me?) someone will eventually say "The jelly sounds scary" or "I don't understand gelatine". At which point I want to clutch them to my bosom in sympathy. My first few pork pie attempts, I just couldn't do the jelly. Sad things, they were - just a ball of seasoned pork roughly encased in pastry, the one coming apart from each other, underlining the basic uselessness of actually making a pork pie rather than buying one.

I couldn't do the jelly because I didn't understand what was going on. What do you mean boil up a pig's trotter? Calves' foot what? The alternative, to set some run-of-the-mill stock with gelatine seemed similarly alientating. How much? Which gelatine? Powdered, leaf? Argh! Can I pour the leftovers down the sink or will it clog up the plumbing for all of north London? The whole thing sent me screaming to re-read The Pedant in the Kitchen for absolution.

But, I've sorted a few things out for myself in my head about jellies and gelatine. So, for anyone who remains confused about the matter, here's my beginner's guide to gelatine use. This will be, to a lot of people, bleeding obvious and I don't, would never, claim to be an expert - this is just something I wish I'd read a few months ago.

Boiling bones to get jelly.
The reason that you boil up pig's trotters or veal bones is that they naturally contain gelatine. Pig trotter or veal stock, when cold, is jelly-like; when it is hot, it is liquid. It's amazing - you have to see it to believe it, but that's what happens. So when you're making a pork pie, the gold standard is to make a stock out of either a trotter or veal bones (but not chicken, because it doesn't contain enough gelatine), with vegetables and all sorts of delicious stuff in it. Once it's made you warm it up so that it's runny enough to get through the hole in the top of your pie and then when it's cool, it sets round the pork. Bingo.

Using gelatine to set stock
The trouble with gelatine is that the packets are so not user-friendly. They say things like "This packet will set 1.5 litres of liquid" - but I don't want 1.5 litres! - or "To set hot liquid, stir slowly into the mixture when it is cold, then heat gently, let cool, leave to stand and remove" or "One leaf of gelatine is equivalent to two teaspoons of powdered gelatine" - which will set HOW MUCH LIQUID? For someone who is useless at those "If it takes one man six hours to dig a hole" blah blah questions, this all drove me quite potty. But then I found a powdered gelatine by Dr Oetker, the instructions for which were, thank God, written for dimwits like me. One 30g sachet of powdered gelatine sets one pint of liquid. Finally. Thank god. I make pretty small pies, so I use only half a pint of stock, which is half a 30g sachet, which is 15g.

Like all things good and holy, Dr Oetker's beef gelatine is available at Waitrose.

Chinese Cold Sesame Noodles

This is a　cold noodle dish consisting of vegetables (usually bean sprouts or cucumber) and pasta (I love to use spaghetti) topped with sesame sauce. It is unbelievably easy to prepare and tastes very good.

#Dressing:

#Ingredients:

20 g Sesame paste angiesrecipes 30 g Smooth peanut paste angiesrecipes 20 g Sesame seeds, roasted 30 g Maggi sauce angiesrecipes 15 g Caster sugar 10 g Rice vinegar 5 g Salt 5 g Szechuan pepper, ground 50 g Chilli flakes in oil angiesrecipes 20 g Sesame oil 2 g Chicken bouillon angiesrecipes 10 g Minced ginger 10 g Garlic paste 25 g Hot bean paste 1 tbsp Spring onion, chopped 2-3 tbsp Portable water, cool

150 g Spaghetti or egg noodles 1 tsp Salt Water 1 tbsp Cooked oil 80 g Cucumber 80 g Carrot 50 g Arugula 1/2 Crisp apple 1 stalk Spring onion 1 handful Peanuts

1. Add enough water to fill 3/4 of a pot and bring to a rapid boil. Add in salt. Put in the noddles and cook until al dente, about 7 minutes. Rinse under the running cold water quickly and drain. Put the noodles and cooked oil in a large mixing bowl and toss until the noodles are well coated. Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl.
   
   
   
   
2. Thinly shred the cucumber, carrot, apple and spring onion. Rinse the arugula, drain and pat them dry. Crush the peanuts lightly. Spoon the dressing over and toss to mix. To serve, arrange the shredded vegetables over the noodles and garnish with crushed peanuts.

Glorious Jin Kichi - Japanese food for the soul

I am quite dim and also pretty shallow, so I was very surprised when I found out that the Japanese grill things, as well as plucking them out of the sea, strangling them and eating them raw with green horseradish.

I like sushi, (I mean I genuinely think 'mmm' when I think about it), ever since I found out that the way to eat it is by paying about twice as much for it as you think is reasonable. Sushi, I was interested to find out, is not really that stuff you get at Pret.

But however much I can thrill, in the right mood, to a really fresh bit of fatty hamachi, when I catch a whiff of something grilled, fried, hot, fatty, salty, I can't really concentrate on the sushi stuff. I want dripping porky flavours, charred salty meat.

And really, there is no better place for this kind of thing than Jin Kichi in Hampstead. A tiny place, with a bar facing an open grill upstairs and more seating downstairs (but really you want to be at the bar), it's not the kind of place where you can just walk in off the street and hope for the best. Regulars know that you have to book in advance for any hope of a table, or if you want to sit at the bar (yes, you want to sit at the bar) you can usually get a spot for two or three people on the day, ringing when they open at 3pm.

I'm going tonight and I can't wait. The open grill, the delicious skewered niblets of meat, the fun of watching idiots who haven't booked being turfed back out in to the cold night and the soothing warm sake slowly denting my mental faculties... I mean... denting them even further.

Giles' Tartafin

My most unappealing trait, to my mind, is my hypochondria. At the moment, with a couple of aches and pains and with my tonsils playing up, I am entirely convinced that I am going to die. Of what, I'm not sure; I have to leave it for a bit before I go to the doctor again (I was in there about a fortnight ago convinced I had haemorrhagic fever) or she'll put me on her 'heartsink' list and I do, genuinely, want her to like me.

Coming a close second is my terror of getting fat. Some people carry a bit of extra weight and just look glossy and healthy. I look like a pudding. But still, I am unnaturally obsessed with not putting on weight. So for the last four years I have been a massive carb-dodger and hardly ever eat pasta, potatoes, rice or bread. And when I say never, I mean I eat them from time to time and feel horribly guilty.

Anyway, what with me certain to die any moment from my mystery terminal thingy, when Giles suggested last night that he make a Tartafin, a sort of layered potato pie, covered in cheese, I said okay, sure, why the hell not. For such a mega carb-dodger himself and general health freak, Giles certainly has a suspicious number of potato dishes up his sleeve (his other former signature dish being egg and potato pie).

I'm dying anyway, I yelled weakly from the living room to the kitchen, so I might as well go out with happy potato-and-cheese memories. And so off dear Giles went and made me a Tartafin. I'm still alive this morning (JUST) and, frankly, feel a bit more robust for a bit of potato loving. It'll be a carb neutral day for me today though.

Tartafin - for 2 as a main (if you're going to eat potatoes, you might as well make them the focus of your meal, accompanied by a few cold cuts and some kind of pickle, rather than eating it as a side to an enormous roast).

2 cloves garlic, finely slice or microplaned

3 waxy potatoes, like a Maris Piper, sliced as thinly as you can. If you are Angela Hartnett, they will be very thin, if you are me, some will be really thin, others less so. This is ok, just do your best.

Some olive oil

Some butter

Salt and pepper

Some cheese - ideally a kind of hard-ish Swiss cheese. Nothing blue and, if you can help it, not too much cheddar, which will just make everything taste like cheddar and it's SO greasy...

1 Cook the garlic in the olive oil over a low heat until the garlic is softened but not brown. Ideally, you'd use some kind of cast iron, Le Creuset-type pot, but we used a crappo stainless steel sauepan of a medium size and it worked fine.

2 Add the potatoes, a generous scrunch of salt and pepper and some butter and swirl around for a bit, maybe 2 minutes, until everything has been coated in seasoning and fat (but be gentle so that the potato slices don't snap in half.

3 Then with whatever kitchen implement you fancy, lay the potato slices horizontally in layers and put the lid on.

4 Cook on a very low heat for about 30 minutes: you know they are ready when you can sink a sharp knife through all the layers and pull it out with ease.

5 Layer your cheese on the top of the potato - we used the hard ends of the cheeses we had lying around - a comte, parmesan, some truffle brie and a bit of old cheddar. Cook for another five or six minutes until the cheese is all melty.

After cooking, the bottom of the pan will be very brown and hard-baked. This is the best bit, if you can hack it off the bottom. To clean, leave overnight soaking in some cold water with a couple of drops of washing up liquid. Trust me - it will defy any dish washer. A long soak is the only answer