Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil Salad

With the weather being so amazingly hot the thought of standing in front of a hot stove removes my usually insatiable appetite, even the thought of too much prep is quietening my regular belly rumbles..

With our wedding only a month away this should be a good thing, eating a little less will make the wedding suit fit that little bit better. But a boy does still have to eat! 

So, this is the time to throw a small number of excellent ingredients together and just sit back and enjoy with a nice cold drink. The quality of the ingredients is all important!


Ingredients, for one plate -

Get the best quality of each of these -
125g Buffalo Mozzarella Ball
Approx 10 cherry tomatoes / 4 normal tomatoes
Handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly shredded
Salt and pepper, freshly ground
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• Slice or tear the mozzarella, your preference, slice some ripe beautiful tomatoes and arrange both on a plate. 
• Roughly tear the fresh basil to release the flavours and sprinkle generously over. 
• Drizzle with best quality extra virgin olive oil and grind over a little pepper and salt.  
• Serve at room temperature with some fresh crusty bread and a glass of vino.

 

Corned Beef Hash Pie

The recent sunny spell didn't last very long, so Rachel and I found ourselves having to get our coats back out and craving warming comforting food again...We've got an expensive few months coming up with our wedding and buying a flat so are trying to keep all other expenditure to a minimum. That unfortunately includes my food shopping so this recipe was perfect - warming and cheaper than chips!

Corned beef hash used to be a common dinner when i was a child but we haven't seen much of it for a couple of decades. Now like other fashionable things from the 80's (neon, converse trainers, shoulder pads, high waist shorts...)  it is making a bit of a comeback, albeit with what we'd consider an improved twist.

So this is what i've tried to do, take something great from the 80's and refine it with the knowledge and experience that hindsight and over two decades has provided us with.


Ingredients for 6-8 servings - 

Can of corned beef - 340g
Onion large, finely chopped
Red pepper, finely chopped
Garlic 2 cloves, finely chopped
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp sherry
Tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp tomato puree
Approx 350ml beef stock

Salt and pepper

1-1.25kg of maris piper potatoes, roughly chopped, skin on
Butter
2 tbsp english mustard

Large free range eggs

• Fry onion and garlic in oil in a pan for a few minutes until soft.
• Add thyme and red pepper and continue to fry.
• Add corned beef and fry for a few minutes, breaking up the meat.
• Splash in sherry and worcestershire sauce, fry for 2 mins.
• Add tomato puree and stock to the pan, boil for around 10 minutes to reduce slightly.
• Add salt and pepper to taste and then transfer to a baking dish.
• Chop the potatoes, leaving skin on (this adds another texture and speeds things up!) until soft then mash.
• Add mustard, butter and a little milk and mash until smooth.
• Top the meat with mash like a shepherds pie and bake at 200c for 25 mins until browned and crispy on top.
• Serve each portion with a runny yolk, fried egg on top.

BBQ Season - German Potato Salad

'The sun is shining, the weather is sweet,
Make you want to barbecue all kinds of meat.....'

The only trouble with this great weather is that we live in London and our budget stretched to a lovely one bedroom flat but did not extend to any outside space...

So while this potato salad is the perfect accompaniment to barbecued meats we do not have the ability to barbecue any meat, and everyone knows that the inside grill is just not the same.

So which lucky garden owning friend is coming 'to the rescue, I've let you know, yall, where i stand!'


Ingredients -

1kg new potatos, halved, third big ones
Large bunch of spring onions, all chopped
4 hard boiled eggs
3-4 heaped tbsps of mayonaise, light is fine
Heaped tsp english mustard
Freshly ground black pepper
6 rashers of smoked bacon, grilled and chopped
Gerkhins, sliced or mini ones halved to serve

• Bring the potatoes to boil in salted water and then simmer for 15-20 mins until soft
• Remove from the pan and cool completely
• Hard boil the eggs - if you need help try delia's website
• Chop eggs
• Put everything in a large bowl and stir to evenly combine, refrigerate until ready to eat
• Top with gerkhins, baby or sliced.

Serve with german sausages or other meat as a main course, on it's own as a snack or as side dish at a bbq

Chinese Tomato Scrambled Eggs

As a child I did not like scrambled eggs until one day a friend showed me how delicious they could be with a good squirt of tomato ketchup stirred through. I enjoyed my eggs like this for a few years until i grew out of the need for everything to have a sugar kick for it to be worth eating.

Many years later on a 48 hour train journey to Tibet from Chengdu in China my enjoyment of the incredible views was interrupted by a flash back to munching down those ketchup covered eggs.

While savouring the ever more incredible scenery, we were getting rather tired of scrabble and the snacks we had brought with us so we ventured through a couple of carriages to try out the on board restaurant. It was around brunch time so Rachel ordered the tomato eggs. When they arrived, a bowl of scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes and lovely Asian juices we tucked in, rather awkwardly with chop sticks, and there was that taste again. This time though there was SO much more, the ginger, chili and soy sauce adding an intense Asian zing but there was still the added sweetness that defined my ketchup eggs.

These are great for an alternative breakfast, light meal or as a side dish as part of a Chinese feast.
 

Ingredients, for 2 servings -

5 large free range eggs
Tsp of dried chili flakes (optional)

Sunflower or other flavourless oil

2-3 spring onions, chopped, reserve the chopped green leaves, from the upper third
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
Approx 8 cherry tomatoes, quartered (or two medium tomatoes, chopped)
Tsp sugar
Tsp soy sauce

Sliced red chili for serving, along with the green part of spring onions, above.

• Beat the eggs with some chili flakes, if using, and add a little salt.
• Heat a tbsp of the oil in a wok until hot, add the eggs and scramble until nearly done, remove to a plate.
• Clean the wok, add 2 tbsp of oil and heat until hot.
• Add the spring onion, tomatoes, ginger and sugar, stir fry for a few minutes until fragrant and tomatoes are softening.
• Add the splash of soy sauce and continue to toss together for another minute.
• Add back in the eggs and toss to combine, cooking for another minute to finish the eggs off.
• Serve immediately (over some stir fried pak choi perhaps) with a sprinkling of chili slices and the reserved, chopped green part of the spring onions.

Kao Nio Ma Muang (Mango with Sticky Rice)

In 2008 i was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend a few months travelling around South East Asia and it was during this trip that my interest in cooking and ingredients really began. After a number of weeks sampling the culinary delights of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, Matt and I (a very fine gentleman from Gloucestershire that i had ended up travelling with) were spending a few days in the Northern town of Chaing Mai.

Matt and I were both single men at the time and we decided one day to spend some time on personal improvement, arming ourselves with abilities that would make us more attractive to the opposite sex. We signed up for a local cookery course, hopeful that being capable of throwing together an exotic meal would entice girls into our beds, and also a traditional massage course, for when we got the said girls into our beds. 

The course was great fun and even included a trip to the local market where we learnt more about the ingredients used in the actual class later in the day. We were taught how to make a number of savoury dishes as well as a traditional Thai desert, which i'd enjoyed many times from the excellent street vendors across the country, of sliced mango with delicious coconut sticky rice.

Unfortunately after the day of cooking Matt and I decided we deserved a few drinks and ended up getting so drunk on Chang beer that we had to cancel the massage course the next day and leave our personal improvement there. Luckily for me, once back in the UK, i stumbled across a girl called Rachel and while she does enjoy a nice massage she loves her food that little bit more!


While writing this i flicked through some of my photos from the trip and found this one where i think the knife skills on show prove how far i've come over the last 5 years! 


Ingredients for 4-6 portions

275g of Thai glutinous (sticky) rice
One 400ml can of good quality coconut milk
3 tbsp of palm sugar (or substitute brown sugar)
Approx half a tsp of salt

2 ripe mango

• Soak the rice in fresh cold water, minimum 4 hours or even better overnight.(you can skip this step if you have to!)
• When ready to use, wash the rice with fresh water at least twice.
• Steam the rice if you have the equipment, about 30 minutes, or boil the rice in just enough water with a lid on, stirring regularly.
• Put the coconut milk, sugar and salt in another pot and bring to the boil.
• Pour over the cooked sticky rice, mix well and allow to cool slightly.
• Serve with fresh mango slices. How to slice

While on the cookery course we also topped with a few roasted mung beans, but i've never done this at home and can't remember how nice it was....

Italian Slow Roasted Lamb Shoulder

Over Christmas, Rachel and I had the opportunity and pleasure to eat at Richmond's best restaurant for a second time. Al Boccon Di Vino is a small, traditional Venetian restaurant run and owned by Riccardo, a flamboyant and gifted chef. 

Riccardo

There is no menu, just whatever Riccardo decides to serve on any given day. The very best seasonal produce prepared using the expertise passed through generations of his family and the passion for gorgeous food running through his veins.  

There may be no menu but there is certainly no lack of food, the courses keep coming all evening - charcuterie, smoked cheese, prawns, scallops, salad, ravioli, risotto, carpaccio, lasagna, fish and more, all beautifully prepared and washed down with good Italian wine. Then the organised chaos of the kitchen quietens and gasps of shock and surprised desire spread around the room followed by warm applause, here comes the pinnacle of the savoury dishes - a deliciously slow cooked lamb, straight from the oven and paraded through the restaurant.

Customers that have already had their fill five times over are caught up in the atmosphere created by the theatrical culinary performance starring Riccardo and ably supported by his staff, again brought to a state of desire to eat even more delicious food!
 
The lamb is beautifully cooked and beautiful in it's simplicity. No fancy sauces or spices. Just great quality meat, cooked to perfection, enhanced with a couple of flavours - in this case garlic and rosemary, a classic combination, with some simple potatoes on the side. And there was still the deserts to come...
 
I cannot recommend Al Boccon Da Vino (translation - 'A Devine Mouthful') enough, for days after memories of mouthfuls of wonderful tastes come flashing back from the many different courses throughout the 4 hour banquet. If i were to try, i would struggle to real off everything we were served, such was the generosity of the event made more hazy by a good helping of the house wine.

I managed to ask Riccardo how he prepared the lamb and he responded 'Italian food is simple, just great ingredients, the lamb - 5 hours with olive oil, garlic and rosemary' - perfect. 

So a few days later when my stomach had flattened slightly I decided to give it a go. Rachel suggested we should roast some sweet potatoes as well as normal potatoes and this added a great sweet addition to the final dish. The next day we had the leftovers with a simple feta, rocket and tomato salad which also went well but is really not necessary, the lamb and potatoes alone are so full of flavour and splendidly moist.
 

Ingredients, serves 4 to 6 -

Approx 1.75kg lamb shoulder
Whole bulb of garlic
4 rosemary stems
Good quality olive oil

3 medium sized potatoes
3 sweet potatoes
(Both unpeeled and chopped into large pieces, around 1 inch thick)

• Preheat oven to full temperature.
• Rub olive oil into the meat, season both sides generously with salt and pepper.
• Slice into the fatty side of the meat with a knife.
• Smash the garlic bulbs and add half to the bottom of a high sided baking tin with half the rosemary.
• Place the meat on top.
• Add the rest of the garlic and rosemary to the top of the meat, tucking into the scored fat.
• Tightly cover with foil.
• Place in the oven and immediately turn down to 160c/150c (fan).
• Cook for 3 and a half hours.
• Add chopped potatoes to the baking tin, stir to coat in the lamb juices and thick sticky garlicky deliciousness which has developed in the roasting tin. Take the opportunity to baste the lamb too.
• Recover and cook for a further hour.
• Remove the lamb and allow to rest, covered in foil. 
• Spread the potatoes out, turn the oven up to 210c and return to the oven, uncovered to crisp up, approx 20 mins.
• Just before the potatoes are done pull the lamb from the bone using a fork. 
• Serve the crisp potatoes and sweet potatoes with a generous portion of lamb.

 

Apple Martinis

Christmas cocktail and our Christmas rat

I recently had the privilege to experience the extremely cool and imaginative The Cufflink Club in Singapore, owned by good friend Joel Fraser.

A number of my friends have recently become parents and for Joel The Cufflink Club is his baby. The culmination of many years hard work, honing skills and perfecting ideas while travelling the world. The bar is very cool with insights into the owners personality everywhere from the beautiful bar design mirroring the style of it's owner, who, i was reminded on a number of occasions, has been voted the second best dressed man in Singapore. The comedic touches, not only on the ever changing drinks menu but also inside the toilets where Alan Partridge takes over from Joel's front of house entertainment, providing the ongoing amusement with his audiobook on loop. The third notable area of Joel's personality is within the ingredients for the cocktails - Refresher bars and other sweets from the 80s and 90s show the continued existence of the child inside, the unshackled imagination necessary to continue to create the ever changing, individual menu.

The visit and many, many drinks consumed have rekindled the cocktail passion in myself, so over Christmas i dusted off the old cocktail shaker from it's very faded box and gave a simple recipe a try. Joel shared with me one of his secrets - the importance of exceptional ingredients and you can find non better than Mr Fitzpatricks cordials which i used in my drink.

Joel, please feel free to steal these Apple Martinis for your next menu, I'm sure they'd be even better with freeze dried apple slices and enjoyed in Singapore's finest cocktail establishment!


Ingredients for 2 drinks -

90ml Vodka
20ml Calvados
20ml elderflower and apple cordial
One eating apple
Ice

• Cut the apple in half, core and peel one half. Chop the apple into small cubes and place approx 1 tbsp in the bottom of a martini glass.
• Pour over the cordial, 10ml per glass, and muddle (cocktail speak) in the glass to release and mix flavours.
• Add ice to your cocktail shaker, add the vodka and Calvados.
• Shake well, do not stir...
• Strain into the 2 glasses and serve with a slice of the unpeeled apple.