Category Archives: Recipes, cook books and how to…

Aug17

Guest recipe: Grand Esprit – Grand Marnier celebrates 130th birthday

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Guest recipe: Grand Esprit – Grand Marnier celebrates 130th birthday

Who would have thought Grand Marnier could be a competitor to Pimms?  Usually stuck at the back of drinks cabinets gathering dust, Grand Marnier is having a revival so I put previous conceptions aside to try it in something more than Christmas tree chocolates.

Celebrating its 130th birthday, the brand is promoting The Grand Esprit, a tasty little summery cocktail to entice a younger consumer.

Coupling the cognac and orangey flavours of Grand Marnier with a splash of elderflower and a dash of soda water is all it takes to turn the drink into a natty cocktail.  Add fresh strawberries, a slice of orange, pour it over ice and you have the perfect thirst quencher for a BBQ, picnic or summer drinks party.

How to make a Grand Esprit:

Fill a tall glass with cubed ice
25ml Grand Marnier®
25ml elderflower cordial
175ml soda water
Stir well and add slices of orange and strawberry
1 unit per serve
For a pitcher, just multiply the ingredients by four.

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Aug7

Leiths launches definitive meat cookbook

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Leiths launches definitive meat cookbook

Leiths has just launched a fantastic new cookery book entirely for meat recipes.

Compiled by Max Clark and Susan Spaull, ‘Meat Bible’, which can only be described as “the ultimate meat cookbook”, is filled with more than 400 meat recipes, and really is a haven for carnivores. It covers simple suppers and leftovers as well as extravagant dishes for special occasions.

As with every book from Leiths, all recipes are easy to follow and have a focus on proper technique. With an emphasis on sustainable and lean meat, Meat Bible includes user-friendly recipes on traditional dishes like Shepherds pie, more exciting recipes like Yakitori chicken and even exotic dishes using antelope, zebra, kangaroo and alligator.

Yakitori chicken with ginger and lime dipping sauce

With a detailed section on ‘understanding meat’, followed by comprehensive notes on different cooking methods, troubleshooting guides, a glossary of cookery terms, and even a list of meat suppliers, the book really does contain everything a carnivore will ever need to know. Additional tips and wine recommendations also accompany each recipe.

Max Clark, co-author of Meat Bible comments; “Cooking can be an intense experience for some people and having a book that is broken down into clear, specific categories with component parts (i.e. a sauce/salad that is specific to a recipe) is an undoubted help to most cooks.”

What I have seen that is particularly useful is a section on ‘what has gone wrong’ for certain recipes which helps you work out what mistakes you made and how to avoid making them in the future.

When asked about the inspiration for the book, Max commented: “Greed! A lifetime love of food, food combinations, and seasonings, coupled with the satisfaction of teaching others and being able to explain skills and techniques in a straightforward and comprehensive way.”

Clearly if you are vegetarian this book is not for you, for everyone else it is an absolute must! As previously mentioned I tend not to use too many cookery books, but Meat Bible will be taking pole position on my bookshelf alongside my Cookery Bible and copy of Phaidon’s Coco.

Leiths Meat Bible has an RRP of £40, but is currently available from Amazon at £22.49.

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Jun9

Is the World Cup bad for our health?

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Is the World Cup bad for our health?

According to the latest research from Ocado, 83% of Brits will be choosing to watch World Cup matches at home instead of their usual pub outings, citing cost on pints and bar snacks as the principle reason.

Preferring to watch at home because they can eat and drink whatever they please, the average Brit will be eating an extra 340 calories per match watched and will worry about putting on an extra 4lbs.  So, if the average person is planning on watching 11 matches at home and 5 in the pub (as detailed in the findings), according to my calculation, we will each be consuming an additional 5,440 calories and worrying about putting on a huge 64lbs – eeek!!!

As well as adding to our waistlines, the research revealed that watching World Cup matches down the pub will cost each person a whopping £63.74 more than if they were to stay at home (£94.75 compared with £31.01).  Quite disturbingly, 85 million packets of crisps and 85 million pints of lager are expected to be consumed during the tournament…with pizzas, chocolate and crisps labelled as our favourite World Cup snacks – what about burgers?

The sofa vs. pub spend breakdown shows quite a significant difference!

Pub: Alcohol: £61.20  Food: £33.55

Sofa: Alcohol: £17.12 Food: £13.12

In a bid to encourage more people to watch from home, Ocado has partnered with The England woman’s captain, Faye White, to launch an innovative campaign called the ‘world recipe challenge’.  For the campaign, Ocado asked customers to submit recipes to its online library, and 32 of these (one for each qualifying nation) are battling it out to receive the most amount of page views and recipe downloads. Jason Gissing, co-founder of Ocado comments, “We’re hoping that our unique World Recipe Challenge prompts shoppers to try something different. We’ve got some great World Cup dishes on our website, everything from Japanese salmon to peppy Ghanaian stew.   It’s a feast of football in more ways than one.”

The recipes will go live on Ocado’s website on Friday, they sound pretty tasty so do let me know if you try any.

What really made me laugh about the research is that Ocado found that lager and champagne sales increased significantly during the previous World Cup (53% and 23%), but smoking cessation products declined by 17% – so what it really boils down to is that The World Cup is just bad for us in so many ways – we spend more money, put on weight, eat unhealthy food, drink more alcohol, smoke more and take no exercise! AWESOME, crack open the champers!!!


May4

Guest recipe: Canteen’s Fish and Chips – celebrating 150 years

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Guest recipe: Canteen’s Fish and Chips – celebrating 150 years

150 years ago, the first fish and chip shop was set up in Cleveland Street, London.  Since then, the recipe has changed very little, only what was considered “an offensive trade” in the 19th century, is now a staple for many celebrated British chefs.

Fish and Chips at Canteen in Baker Street

Fried-potato shops apparently spread down south from Scotland and these establishments naturally paired well with fried-fish shops that were making their way north from the south of England.  While I’m sure people had eaten the combination before, it wasn’t until 1860 that Jewish proprietor Joseph Malin opened the first proper British chippie.

Today, munching on a take-away of fish and chips is ingrained in British culture.  It’s not only in your classic high-street chippie, but in much more up-market restaurants like Geales – even chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsey regularly list the popular dish on their menus.

My most recent episode of fish and chips was at Canteen, (my new favourite restaurant) where founding partner and chef Cass Titcombe gave me a few top tips on how to make the best fish and chips.  My plate came with two different types one breaded and one battered, so I could try the difference – While the breaded fish was quite delicious, the batter was absolutely sublime and definitely my preferred choice!

Cass Titcombe

Cass’s top 10 tips:

  1. Choose your fat – the north of England prefers a meat-based fat, but the south prefers vegetable.  A meat-based oil has a better flavour.
  2. Decide on your cooking method, are you going to use batter or breaded fish?
  3. If you use batter, brush the battered fish in oil to set it before frying it, or it will stick to the bottom of the pan
  4. What fish are you going to use? Haddock is Cass’s favourite as it has lots of flavour but fresh and is always best
  5. Keep the fat/oil clean, don’t reuse
  6. Make your chips out of Maris Piper potatoes
  7. Cook your chips in two stages. (For small-ish chips) 130 deg for 5/6 mins; leave to cool; then 190 deg for 3 mins
  8. If you plan to batter your fish, use beer, or a pale ale, which makes a lighter batter
  9. If you want to bread the fish instead, then it is easier to gauge the cooking time if you use white, not brown, bread
  10. When using dried peas, never put salt in the water when you soak them

While this blog post is supposed to be about fish and chips, I can’t resist writing about Canteen, I was so pleasantly impressed that I plan to go back and sample everything else on the menu.  The mission statement of the chain (detailed in it’s fantastic recipe book, Great British Food), the design, the menu, the atmosphere – everything about Canteen is right…I just can’t wait to try their pies!

If you ever get a chance to go to one of its four restaurants across London, (Spitalfields, Baker Street, Royal Festival Hall, and Canary Wharf) please do let me know what you think, I guarantee you will be converted for ever!
Canteen Baker Street on Urbanspoon

Feb21

Phaidon crowned best cookbook publisher in the world

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Phaidon crowned best cookbook publisher in the world

Judges at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, recently held in Paris, have crowned Phaidon the number one cookbook publisher in the world!

Totally well deserved in my eyes, especially looking at the most recent cookbook to come from the company – Coco – my new all time favourite.


As well as Coco, Phaidon is the publisher of many other top cook books including ‘The Silver Spoon’, deemed the most successful Italian cookbook of the last 50 years, and Spanish home cooking best seller ’1080 Recipes’.


The jury at the awards cited “the creative design, enormous investment in quality production, inventive concepts, and distribution power in many languages” as the reasons behind Phaidon’s success.

The news gets better though, because in the next few months, Phaidon will publish two new cookbooks: ‘Recipes from an Italian Summer’ and ‘The Book of Tapas’.  Also ‘A Day at elBulli’ will be published in paperback.  Can’t wait!


Digg!

Jan12

Lunch boxes – how hard can it really be?

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Lunch boxes – how hard can it really be?

The news today reports that less than 1% of lunch boxes contain the nutritional value that school dinners do – so where are parents going so wrong?

Is it because kids refuse to eat healthy food? Surely not…I know plenty of children who love good food, or maybe the children I know have just been brought up to think that healthy food is just ‘normal food’?  

I struggle to understand why parents don’t bring their children up to love their food and experiment with different flavours.  They certainly do in Italy and France, so where did we go so wrong here?

I was always helping my mum cook, we loved it, it was something that we did together, and then what better reward than eating what you have cooked.

Here are some tried and tested ideas for lunch boxes:

  • A thermos of pasta with homemade tomato sauce (or have it cold)
  • A thermos of pasta with home made pesto (or have it cold)
  • Cold chicken drumsticks and potato salad with cherry tomatoes
  • Batons of fresh bread, celery, cucumber and carrots with home made humus
  • A thermos of home made soup, with a fresh bread roll. You can choose from so many different flavours, all simple and quick to make. Chicken, tomato, vegetable, minestrone, leek and potato etc
  • Sandwiches made with fresh brown bread – lettuce, cheddar and ham; or chicken (leftover from the Sunday roast) and salad; slices of beef (leftover from the Sunday roast) and salad; or Philadelphia, cucumber and ham
  • Always include some fruit; a tangerine, apple, some grapes, maybe even go the whole hog and slice up a combination so they have a little fruit salad

As one follower pointed out, all you need now are the skills to plan your day properly leaving time every evening to make the food.   Remember, most of this food can be taken from left overs from family meals.

Nov10

What to do with leftover wine? Don’t pour it down the sink…

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What to do with leftover wine? Don’t pour it down the sink…

According to an article in today’s edition of The Times, Brits pour £470 million worth of wine down the drain every year – what a waste!

The figures, compiled for the Waste & Resource Action Programme (Wrap) are pretty shocking, revealing that 1.8 million tonnes of food and drink are chucked away, for the most part just because of bad planning/lack of desire to keep for later.

I don’t know about you, but if wine doesn’t get finished, (rare, I know) I just keep it aside and use it for cooking later in the week.  I assumed everyone did that, but not according to these figures!

A few suggestions, with what to do with your left over wine:

  • Freeze it into ice cubes and use for sauces.  For red and white, although apparently Sherry doesn’t freeze well.
  • Decant it into a half bottle, keep it in the fridge for a later date. It should keep for a good few days. For Red and white.
  • Take out the cork, and replace it with a rubber one, it will last a bit longer.
  • If you don’t want to drink it, keep it for cooking. Red for bolognese or gravy, and white for soups or sauces.
  • Make it into vinegar

If you have any more suggestions, then do please let me know…

Nov9

Gordon launches ‘World Kitchen’ recipe book

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Gordon launches ‘World Kitchen’ recipe book

I guess it must be nearly Christmas, as another cookbook has just been published – that’s two in one week!  This time, it’s Gordon Ramsay’s WORLD KITCHEN.

P1010911

Accompanied by stunning photography, the book includes a selection of a 100 of Gordon’s favourite, yet simple, recipes from 10 countries across the globe, featuring dishes from The Middle East, China, Spain, America, Thailand, France, Italy, Greece, India and the UK.

A particularly appealing quality of the book is that Gordon includes little explanations of how to master key techniques from each cuisine, such as how to pan-fry scallops, shape ravioli, make Thai curry paste or barbecue sardines.

P1010903

I have to say that Gordon really does have impeccable taste, as I would happily munch every dish in the book, well actually I am not sure about the ‘carrot and coconut halwa’, it doesn’t really sound like my thing– other than that they all look amazing!

Added to this, every delicious recipe is really simple to create, making this book perfect for both the novice and experienced cook alike.

Published by Quadrille publishing, World Kitchen is available in hardback at a price of £20.

Digg!

Nov9

COCO, a ‘must have’ for the food enthusiast!

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COCO, a ‘must have’ for the food enthusiast!

For someone who doesn’t tend to open recipe books more than once, I was pleasantly surprised at how keen I was to hear more about the launch of a new book called COCO. COCO book shot

Described as a ‘global survey of the most significant and exciting culinary talent working today’, the book really is the first of its kind. It is a fantastic insight into the food industry, revealing fascinating nuggets of information about the top 100 up and coming contemporary chefs across the world.

Chosen by ten internationally renowned chef curators, including Gordon Ramsay, Fergus Henderson and Alain Ducasse, each chef has four dedicated pages including a short biography, spectacular photography, a few of their recipes and details of a sample tasting menu.

P1010890

The survey delves into culinary talent across the globe from the likes of Japan, Australia, Denmark, Spain, France, USA, South America, Russia and the UK, but not just those working in restaurants; the book also sheds light on food idols such as caterer Lyndy Redding, and ice cream maker, Kitty Travers.

P1010891

I was particularly impressed to see that British chefs featured highly in the book, including Tristan Welch, Theo Randall, Tom Kitchen and Jason Atherton.  Thirteen Londoners were featured compared to only eight from New York, and five from Paris – testament to how far the British food industry has come.

The best thing about COCO is that it really is not your average cookery book.  I have only had the book for a matter of days, but I can’t stop looking through it. I have to admit that the evening I got it, I flicked through each and every page; eager to discover more about the talent that is shaping the industry. I might even go as far to say that it is becoming one of my favourites, alongside the likes of Leith’s Bible and Larousse Gastronomic.

COCO is a contemporary epic of the food industry. It really is a must have for anyone interested in food and what a great time for it to come out, perfect for Christmas presents!

Available now, COCO is published by Phaidon Press and is priced at £29.95.

Digg!

There is more…over the next few days, I will be blogging about an awesome gallop I had across London last week visiting four of the aforementioned chefs and tasting their culinary delights – watch this space.