Beef Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff is one of those things that is almost always referred to as a "classic" dish, because "classic" is what people call things that were eaten a lot in the Seventies. I get the feeling menu turnover was a lot slower in the Seventies than it is now (although if I never see another chicken liver parfait with toast on a menu it will be 8 million years too soon) and so I think most of England lived on beef stroganoff from 1970 to 1979.

And like most "classic" dishes, beef strog is entirely brown and made mostly from cream.

My husband made this for me last night. He is very "classic" - i.e. he was made in the Seventies. Actually, he was made in 1969, but that's beside the point. He does this very well and isn't stingy with the cream.

I've got no idea how close this is to a "classic" classic beef stroganoff, but I find that there is always some terrifying and mad ingredient in "classic" classic recipes for slightly bygone things, like a pint of mustard, or tripe or sambuca or 18 anchovies.

Anyway, this is a lovely thing. I'm always very into meat with a slightly sour accompaniment, like pot roast chicken and gherkins for example. The sour cream in this fulfills that purpose, but you do need to know that there is a sour element to this because that might not be your bag at all.

We ate this with red camargue rice.

Beef Stroganoff by Giles
For 2

2 steaks - rump, fillet, whatever, just make sure it's suitable for frying
2 big handfuls of mushrooms
1 large while onion, or a lot of shallots (nice) or 2 medium onions, chopped finely
1 long sloop of tomato ketchup
1 large glass shitty white wine, or vermouth, and about half a glass of brandy
salt and pepper
1 small tub sour cream - that's about 100 - 150 ml.
1 dried chilli (if you fancy it, it's not essential)

1 Sautee the onions and mushrooms gently over a low flame in some groundnut oil. If you wanted this extra-rich, you could put in a knob of butter, too. But don't use butter only because it will burn. I like Nigella's thing of sprinkling some salt over the onions to help them sautee rather than burn. It works - just a generous pinch sprinkled over will do the trick.

2 Slice up your steak into strips and then get another frying pan really nice and hot and fry that off. It's important to do this in a separate pan because the onions and mushrooms will leak a lot of water and if you try to cook the steak in it, it will just sort of steam and be gross. Frying it in a separate pan fast and hard will give the surface of the steak a chance to char, which will make it damn tasty.

The cooked-ness is up to you. My husband has totally gone off very rare meat and now thinks that the trick to keeping steak tender is to cook it fast and hot until done sort of medium and then rest it.

3 Turn back to your onions and mushrooms. Turn up the heat and pour in the brandy. My husband got this to set light, which I wasn't expecting and scared the shit out of me, I don't mind telling you. I don't think you have to set light to it if that kind of thing freaks you out (and what normal person isn't freaked out by flames leaping to one's kitchen ceiling?) just cook off the alcohol. Then throw in your glass of shitty white wine and cook that down too.

4 Scrape the onions and mushrooms in with the steak and set that on a medium heat. Add the ketchup - just a long squirt - and mix that in - then add in the sour cream and stir in. If you don't have any sour cream, you can use normal cream with some lemon juice in it. My husband added the juice of a whole lemon and said that was too much, so you could try with the juice of half a lemon instead.

Eat, feeling nostalgic.


And there you were thinking that I was going to be writing all about the baby.
Ha ha. Joke's on you.

Zwiebelkuchen German Onion Tart

Zwiebelkuchen, which literally means "onion cake" in the German language, is actually a savoury tart (a quiche?) prepared with onions and sour cream on a leavened or yeast dough, that is very popular in the German wine-growing regions. Serve them warm with a glass of chilled half dry German Risling or fruity Corbières if you prefer red.

Quark Dough adapted from Grundrezept Quark-Öl-Teig

Topping Recipe adapted from Tobiaskocht

Topping	Quark Dough
4 Yellow onions 3 stalk Spring onions 2 tbsp Olive oil 200 g Herb crème fraîche Salt and pepper to taste 1 tsp Cumin seeds	350 g All purpose flour 15 g Baking powder 1/3 tsp Salt 50 g Sugar 1 Egg, small 220 g Quark, lean (Magerquark) ©angiesrecipes 80 g Olive oil 80 g Milk

1. Cut the ends off the onions and slice them into thick rings. Slice the spring onions into rings too. Heat a skillet with olive oil over medium flame. Add in onions and stir-fry until lightly golden. Stir in chopped spring onions. Season the mixture with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and set aside.
   
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add in egg, Quark, olive oil and milk. Stir until the dough forms a ball. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a baking tray, about 30x40 cm, with parchment paper. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle and fit into prepared baking tray.
   
3. Top the dough with the herb cream evenly. Spread the caramelized onion all over the cream. Sprinkle the top with salt, pepper and cumin. Bake for 25-30 minutes until beautifully browned.

Zürcher Geschnetzeltes / Chicken Zurich Style

"Zürcher Geschnetzeltes" or "sliced meat Zurich style" is a popular Swiss dish from Zurich region. Its main ingredients are schnitzel, mushrooms and cream. While it is possible to use any type of meat to make this dish, the real "Zürcher Geschnetzeltes" is made with cut veal. It was originally prepared using meat only, a popular variation today is adding about a fourth of sliced veal kidney to the meat. It usually comes with Rösti, similar to hash browns, but it could also be served with rice, or pasta.

Recipe adapted from Geschnetzeltes Zürcher Art

• 2 Shallots, small
  
• 400 g Chicken fillet, cut into strips
  
• 1/4 tsp White pepper powder
  
• 1/2 tsp Sweet paprika powder
  
• 3 tbsp Oil
  
• 50 ml White wine
  
• 200 ml Cream
  
• 50 ml Chicken stock
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1 tbsp Parsley, chopped
  
• 1/2 tsp Finely grated lemon zest
  

1. Finly dice the shallots. Cut the chicken filet into strips. Season the chicken strips with pepper and paparka powder.
   
2. Heat two tablespoons oil in a skillet until hot. Add in marinated sliced chicken and stir over a mediuim-high heat till lightly browned and cooked through, then remove from the pan and set aside.
   
3. Add the remaining oil in the skillet. Stir the finely chopped shallots till softened and lightly browned. Pour in the white wine and bring it to a boil over a high heat before adding cream and chicken stock. Cook over a medium heat for about 2 minutes then return the chicken strips and any accumulated juices to the pan.
   
4. Heat through, tossing often, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle chopped parsley and lemon zest. Serve with harsh browns.

If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake....

... but I didn't, so I got you a baby instead.



Kitty Coren



It's funny. I've been secretly worried out of my mind for the last 30 years that I'll be a terrible mother. Just like I didn't learn how to drive until I was 28 because I was so worried about being a shit driver, about driving absent-mindedly into lamp posts, or when drunk.

But then I finally learnt how to drive and it turns out that I'm a fucking brilliant driver. Like, seriously great. I can even park.

I mean, it's a bit early to tell whether babies are easier or harder than cars, but at the very least I'm not scared anymore. And you've got to start somewhere.

So, welcome to Recipe Rifle, Kitty cat. It's kind of like quite a shit food blog - but it's all yours.

(Back soon,

E xxx)

Almond Hearts

To welcome the Chinese Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, or the year of Rabbit, which falls on Thursday, February 03, 2011, and to make me feel like I am in the holiday spirit, I have baked some cookies. So here I wish you, my dear friends, Gung Hei Fat Choy! 岁岁平安! 年年有余！兔年行大运！

• 250 g Butter, at room temperature
  
• 100 g Confectioners sugar, sifted
  
• 2 Egg yolk
  
• 300 g Pastry flour
  
• 150 g Whole almonds, roasted and ground
  
• 1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon
  
• 50 g Blanched almonds
  

1. Cut the softened butter into smaller pieces and place them in a mixing bowl. Sift in icing sugar. Beat on the low speed to blend the butter into the sugar. Increase the speed and mix for about 1 minute until creamy and smooth. Beat in one egg yolk until blended.
   
2. Whisk together the pastry flour, ground almond and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture into the creamed butter. Mix until it comes together. Wrap the dough with a plastic film and chill for 1 hour.
   
3. Prepare two baking trays with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Remove the dough from the fridge. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 5mm. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter about 5 cm in diameter, cut out about 50 cookies.
   
4. Place them on the prepared baking trays. Beat the remaining egg yolk and brush the top of cookies. Top each cookie with one blanched almond. Bake for about 12 minutes. Remove and cool on racks.

You, my crazy readers

Last night I made a St Clements pudding, which is a steamed sponge thing involving clementines and it didn't really work out - although don't think for one second that I am not eating some right now at my desk at 0925.

Anyway, I found myself this morning with nothing to write about. I didn't help that I had the major hormonal preggy sweats all night and had bad dreams about being chased by Jamie Redknapp (why didn't I just stop and ask him what he wanted? And then ask him out ON A DATE? Although I wouldn't do that because I think Louise Redknapp looks like a really nice person.)

But then I looked at the comments that had come in overnight - a record-breaking NINE - and was tickled by all of them, which were unusually bonkers, as well as being unusually plentiful but was extra-specially amused and charmed by this mad-but-endearing comment below.

Dear Esther, for no reason at all I've decided to take a closer look at your home page photo- the one of you holding saucepan (rather menacingly). Questions: is that a mirror splashback above stove? Isn't it crazy to keep clean? Why would one have mirror at that height and there? Is it a Cath Kidston reflected, near the Roberts radio? In addition to being expensively teethed and large bosomed, are you also very tall? Your island work-height appears low in relation to your hips, so presumably, you are either 1. very tall, 2. average in height but long-torsoed, 4.island is very low, or 3.you cook in Louboutins ala Nigella? I have a tiny kitchen and am envious of your light & spacious kitchen, that you did not have to stick units above worktop; I'm long in body so find most workheights too low for me (like to stack chopping boards) and also envious of big boobs :) I would like sone Invisalignbay some point in the future. I am feeling very nosy today I don't know why! Love LS xx


And so because I've not got much else to do or say, I thought I'd answer this in full, in a post.

1 Yes, that is a mirror splashback. It's actually not crazy to keep clean - it rarely gets dirty unless you cook something very greasy and spitty and then it's just a question of deploying the Windolene. It also helps that I have a cleaner

2 The mirror is that height and there so that you have a nice view of the garden while you are bent, barefoot and pregnant over the stove cooking your husband's dinner. Also, when you live with someone as naughty and sneaky as my husband, it's handy to have eyes in the back of your head. This mirror is a way of achieving this without a complicated operation.

3 That is indeed an item of Cath Kidston reflected near the radio, but it's not mine, it belongs to my sister, who is behind the camera.

4 I am not tall and I do not cook in Louboutins. I don't think Nigella does either, judging by how often she's seen in her FitFlops.  I am exactly five feet six and one half inches. It's my sister who is tall and the angle from which she took the photo makes the island look lower than it is. The island is exactly 90cm, or 35 and one half inches off the ground. It comes up to about 2 inches below my belly button. It is not unusually low. But, as it happens, I do have quite a long torso.

Yes my kitchen is pretty nice. There are no cupboards because I insisted on building a larder on the side of the kitchen, which stores all foodstuff and lots of odds and ends. I actually redesigned and built the kitchen as a kind of devotional act to my husband; when we started going out he was the cook and I was a mere bystander.  But then when it was finished I thought it was too nice and too lifestyle for him to do any cooking in it and quickly appropriated it for myself.

Cauliflower gratin

I always look a fright. No matter how carefully I get dressed, I always end up looking crumpled and baggy and I don't know how I manage it.

I've turned my mind to this because I've been thinking recently about the future and daring to consider all the clothes I packed away last June. And I can't help but remember with a slow, blinking awareness that despite my blurry remembrance of my thin self being terribly glamorous - that I always looked a fright.

I generally blame it on my mouth. My mouth is enormous and my teeth are big and square, like a set you might find champing on a bit just before the 3.40 at Newmarket, and there's one sticking-out snaggle one that I'm spending months and a small fortune trying to correct.

And I always forget about my ginormous mouth and when I laugh I don't got "titter titter" like I think girls are suppose to laugh - I go "Waha ha ha hack hack hack hack" and look like I'm about to swallow the room like the bit in The Little Mermaid when Ursula creates a swirly vortext in the water that sucks in all the ships. Then I have a coughing fit.

I think it's also because I've got quite big boobs. I mean, we're not talking Lola Ferrari, but neither are we talking a discreet handful. And when you've got big boobs, no matter how thin the rest of you is, you're always going to look a bit fat and sloppy if you're not careful. I often wish I was a different shape so that I could wear things for flat-chested people - chic little dresses and t-shirts with high necks or floaty baggy things. But I end up looking like an overstuffed sofa. With wonky teeth.

Angelina Jolie has the same problem as me - one of the few things we have in common, I'll wager -: but we both certainly have giant gobs and indiscreet bosoms. It's why she's lost all that weight, to get some ballast off her front and off her mouth. But it won't work!!! They'll still be there getting in the way no matter how much weight you lose, dear. Not that I think Angelina Jolie looks a fright, or anything.

Anyway, it's why I always wear the same thing - jeans and a top with some kind of v-neck thing to it. And I really ought to just get over it and realise that's what I look best in and stop buying flapper dresses and high-neck t-shirts. The truth is that jeans and a v-necky top are my secret weapons in my war not to look a fright.

A secret weapon in the war against actual fatness rather than perceived boob-created fatness is the gratin.

You can turn almost any scary vegetable that you'd really rather not eat (but you have to replace carbs with something, damnit) into something totally palatable by covering it in cream and giving it a crispy top.

The wetter the vegetable, the less likely it is to want to be gratinated. So, aubergine, tomato, courgette, spinach etc, aren't that wild about it, although it does work. But broccoli, fennel, leek, cauliflower, squash love it. Although - having said spinach, you can of course steam it and then add it to another veg and gratinate the whole lot together.

Generally, I would do a gratin with a white sauce. But no matter how good you are at making a white sauce (and I am probably one of the best in the country. No, seriously) it's a bit of a faff. So instead of making the white sauce, you can just cover the whole thing in a lot of cream, butter, salt and cheese and scatter breadcrumbs over the top. It's totally low-carb - let's not split hairs about the breadcrumbs shall we? - and totally cheerful.

Cauliflower gratin, for 4

1 cauliflower
about 170ml cream (double or single, up to you) and you could use more if you felt like it
3 large handfuls of cheese
- mix and match the cheese as it is available to you. You can absolutely use cheddar for the whole thing, it's just that it will taste a lot of cheddar. You could also use blue cheese and cheddar, or gruyere and parmesan or anything you like, as long as there's plenty of it.
2 slices of bread
1 clove garlic or some garlic oil
some parsley if you have it
about 50g butter
salt
pepper
some olive oil

Preheat your oven to 180C and butter whatever dish you want to have your gratin in. You might have some butter left over from doing this - that's fine.

1 Break up the cauliflower and steam or boil until it is soft. Steaming takes about 12 minutes, boiling less long. If you were doing the cauli in a white sauce, you don't have to cook it for as long, because when you finish it off in the oven, it will continue to cook. But without a white sauce, the cauli won't do any more cooking, so you need to get it as soft as you want it in the first instance.

2 In a food processor, whizz up the bread, parsley, a big pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper, and your garlic clove or slug of garlic oil. If you wanted to add some chilli, you could.

3 Once the cauli is cooked and soft put it in a large pan and bash it about a bit so that there aren't any massive great tree trunks. Then pour over your cream and chuck in any leftover butter from buttering the gratin dish. Now add about 2/3 of whatever cheese you're using and give it all a stir until it's melty. It strikes me now that a tiny splash of truffle oil might be nice here. What do you think? Throw it in if it seems a good idea. Season all this with salt and pepper. This is an occasion to use white pepper, if you have bought some for something else and are now wondering how the hell to use it up.

4 Turn all this out into your gratin dish and sprinkle over your breadcrumbs and press down. Then cover this with the remaining cheese. Add more cheese if you feel like it. Dot with butter and stick in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the top looks yummy.

Eat with a clear conscience and plan your spring wardrobe.

I have already purchased a beige trench coat in a size S from Uniqlo and I'm very pleased with it.