Back to Basics - Fool Proof Poached Eggs

One of my weekend breakfast favourites is poached eggs with parma ham and hollandaise sauce on rye bread...or poached eggs with bacon, or smoked salmon. Anyway, you get the idea, I love poached eggs. I worked for a long time to try and perfect poached eggs and here are my tips to try and make things easier for you at home:

1. Make sure your eggs are as fresh as possible. Always use your freshest eggs. This is to do with the mollecular structure of the white of the egg holding together more when it is freshly laid.

2. Always keep your poaching eggs in the fridge. Again, this is to make sure the white of the egg keeps together as much as possible.

3. Boil a medium pan of water on the hob and add a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar and a generous pinch of salt. Leave to boil for a minute or so, so that the acidic flavour of the vinegar evaporates.

4. Turn the heat down so that there are only a couple of bubbles coming to the surface of the water.

5. With a wooden or metal spoon, stir the water to create a vortex of sorts in the middle of the pan and then leave to calm slightly.

6. In the meantime, crack your egg into a laddle (or a cup if you dont have one) and pour it into the middle of the gently swirling water.

7. For soft boiled eggs, leave for 2 minutes, medium 3 and hard 4. Take a slotted spoon and strain the egg onto some kitchen towl and serve.

Please let me know how you get on and let me know if you have any problems. Good luck!

Its been a long time baby..

It's been a while (sorry about that) but i'm back! I've had some fantastic, inspirational meals over the past few months (Gavroche) and some not so impressive (Bistro Du Vin - although the decor was lovely). It's reminded me more than ever that produce is key and seasonal ingredients treated respectfully will always win over trying too hard. And a knockout sauce can completely transform a dish.

With that in mind, i'm going back to basics...my next post is going to be about eggs, specifically a great brunch. Poached eggs, perfect bacon and hollandaise sauce.

See you soon!

Thai Green Chicken Curry

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/11252/the-ultimate-makeover-thai-green-chicken-curry

This has to be one of the best thai green curry recipes I've ever tried and wonderful for filling the freezer, better than a recent restaurant visit! Also good with prawns. I substitute the rice for brown rice to make it low GI.

Enjoy!

A case of the Emperors new clothes? Zucca, Bermondsey - A review

Whilst I don't usually write reviews on here, I felt compelled to write about the restaurant I went to last night. It had taken me an age to get a suitably timed table and it was infamous for its rave reviews so I went along to Zucca with great expectations (as no doubt did my companion considering how much I'd been going on about it!). Unfortunately, I left deflated and disappointed.

It started well with us being shown to a nice table against the back wall and then we saw the menu. It was somewhat limited (don't get me wrong, I have nothing against small menus, in fact huge menus fill me with dread most of the time) and if it wasn't for the daily special I would have really struggled to have chosen a main.

While we were choosing, we were brought an assortment of breads and some of their olive oil which was delicious and can be bought at the restaurant. Within minutes our starters arrived, I had ordered the Zucca fritti and my companion had the salami with fennel seeds. The first bite of the pumpkin was lovely, crisp with tempura batter and seasoned well but halfway through the very generous portion I was bored and longing for a different texture or added flavour. The generous portion worked well though as my companion was given two thin slices of salami (albeit with some accompaniments) and was able to help me out.

Meanwhile, we still hadn't been able to order our wine. When we finally were able to and asked for recommendations, they were good. A Valpolo for me and a slightly less full bodied one for my companion worked well. What didn't help was that the staff waiting area was right next to our table so we spent most of the evening with a nice close view of their backs. As they were so close you would have hoped that the service would have been good - not once were we asked if we were OK or what we thought of the dishes.

This is more pertinent when it comes to the main course though. I'd ordered the special which was duck ravioli. Absolutely delicious, I cannot fault it. It was full of flavour, excellent home made pasta in a lovely herb butter. However, my companion did not fare so well. He'd ordered the lamb which was fatty and tasteless. Polite as he is, even he didn't finish it and left the majority on his plate. When the waiter came to clear the table, no questions were asked as to why most of it was left.

The waiter then asked if we wanted anything else, I asked for the dessert menu - apparently there isn't one, they just tell you what they do. Why this is I have no idea and we struggled to remember the list of things that were read out. My companion had the Pannacotta which had a perfect texture (like a quivering woman's bosom) and I'd gone for the cheese as nothing on the "list" had appealed. The cheese was nice enough but I do wish that restaurants in England would take note from France and arrange their cheese plates in order of strength. That way your palate isn't assaulted by a strong cheese and then unable to savour the rest. Another oddity, it was served with raisin fruit bread. A first for me and not one I'll be repeating, a bit like the chutney. I have no idea exactly what it was but it managed to be overly sweet and sharp at the same time and did nothing for the cheese.

At arrival we'd been told that they'd need the table back in two and a half hours. That's fine, I'm used to that sort of turnaround time and was looking forward to a nice leisurely dinner. The pace at which the courses were served made me feel like we were at Nandos and within just over an hour, we'd paid the bill and were on our way. It wasn't cheap either; for the above (and my main was a starter portion) and a glass of wine each, it was around £72 including 10% for service.

Its a shame and I wont be going back, but there are far more deserving Italian Restaurants out there. Santore in Exmouth Market, Farringdon is fantastic, well worth a visit. I'll probably come under scathing criticism for daring to point out that Zucca isn't the best little Italian around, but I'll live.

The Perfect Steak...

                   

Served with a red wine sauce and vegetable slice

I love steak...a nice juicy, medium rare fillet steak, caramelised on the outside and flavoured with garlic served with creamy mashed potato and spinach and a rich red wine sauce. Or with crispy chips, fluffy on the inside served with mayonnaise or Dijon mustard. It was the first thing I ate when I started to eat meat again. Anyway, whatever you like with your steak, its hard to make it at home as good as in the restaurants (and even they get it wrong sometimes!). If you've spent out on good quality meat, you want to be pretty sure that you're going to end up with something decent. You can do the below in a frying pan or on a BBQ but if you're doing it on the latter, make sure you rub your steak with the garlic first. Get yourself a pair of cooking tongs, they're the best things for turning and checking pieces of meat. You can of course use other cuts of steak if you wish and apply the same principle.

Ingredients

Fillet steak - 1 per person, around 180g - 225g per steak
Clove of garlic, chopped finely
Salt & pepper
Knob of butter
Olive oil

1. Firstly, heat a large non stick frying pan with a knob of butter. Chop the garlic and fry gently in the butter.

2. In the meantime prepare your steak by freshly grinding salt and pepper on both sides and rubbing thoroughly with olive oil.

 

Oiled


3. Place the steaks in the hot pan - it must be as hot as possible without burning the garlic - and leave them. Do not move them around in the pan, leave them to caramelise.

4. It is difficult to give timings for steaks as they all vary in size so the easiest way to tell how your meat is cooked is to use your hands!

5. Link your thumb and index finger lightly together (it doesn't matter which hand) and prod the fleshy part at the bottom of your thumb. The way this feels is how your steak should feel when it's rare.

6. Next, link your thumb to the third finger. The fleshy part of the hand below the thumb is how a medium steak will feel.


Medium














7. Repeat with thumb and forth finger for medium to well done.

 

Medium to Well Done





8. And with the little finger for well done...


Well Done



9. Once your steak is cooked how you like it, take the meat out of the pan to rest on either a warmed plate or foil for 5-10 minutes to allow the juices to release back into the fibres of the meat.

   10. Serve with whatever takes your fancy!

Enjoy!

 



 

Chilli Con Carne

This is quite possibly the easiest, quickest, most filling and comforting recipe I know. It can be made out of store cupboard ingredients and whatever is left over can be frozen in individual portions (plastic freezer bags or old takeaway containers) so you have your own ready meals on hand. Much better (and cheaper) than buying something processed, filled with E numbers and preservatives and made by a complete stranger. You'll get 6 reasonably large or 8 small portions out of the below recipe and you can serve with brown rice or roasted Cajun sweet potato wedges to make it low GI, or white rice or flour tortillas.

Ingredients

Olive oil

450g beef mince (I use lean, around 10% fat. You can obviously use normal at 20% or extra lean at 5%, depending on what you prefer)
400g tin chopped tomatoes or passatta
400g tin red kidney beans, drained
2 x peppers (I use red and green, mostly for colour)
100ml water
Tomato ketchup
2 Chopped shallots (As before, I use the frozen pre chopped ones from Waitrose)
Clove of garlic, chopped
Butter (generous knob of to finish off)
Salt & Pepper (freshly ground, to taste)
4 x tsps Chilli powder,  tsps Paprika, 1 tsp Cumin powder, 1/2 tsp Cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper,  1/2 tsp white pepper (if you're struggling and want a quick way to do it, Schwartz does a good ready mixed powder)
Creme fraiche to finish (you can also use half fat)
Grated cheese (your favourite, to finish)


1. Take a large non stick frying pan and heat a drizzle of olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add the garlic and shallots and cook for a few minutes until the flavour is released into the oil.

2. Take the peppers and chop into rough pieces. When you chop the pepper, make sure you remove any pith (the white part on the inside, it's bitter). Add them to the shallots and garlic and fry off.

3. At this point, add the mince and break down with a wooden spatula until it is in small pieces. Stir into the vegetables and fry until the mince is brown all over. Once this is done, there will be some residual water in the pan from the meat. Carefully drain this away down the sink, retaining everything else in the pan.

4. Put back on the heat and add the kidney beans, tomatoes, water and spices. Add 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce and stir. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer for around 15 minutes until the mince is tender.

5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Once the cooking has finished, add the butter and stir. This adds a lovely glossiness and richness to the dish.

6. Serve with whatever accompaniment you choose and top with grated cheese and a generous dollop of creme fraiche. It really works well to cut through the slight heat of the chilli.

Enjoy!

Spinach & Ricotta Pancakes

This is a lovely simple recipe to be used throughout the year, not just on Shrove Tuesday. They're baked in the same spicy tomato sauce that we used in the chicken & spinach lasagne which goes very well with the creaminess of the filling. Hopefully you'll have some frozen from making a large batch when we did the lasagne but if not, please refer back to that recipe for details. There are also many "perfect pancake" recipes but I use this one http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9015/easiestever-pancakes which turns out pretty well. The first few will probably turn out a bit wrong but don't give up, they will improve!


Ingredients

1 x quantity of spicy tomato sauce (around 200ml but use as much or as little as you like)
2 pancakes per person if its a main course, 1 if its a starter/snack.
100g of spinach per 2 pancakes
100g of ricotta per 2 pancakes
Small handful of grated cheese (as usual, I use Gruyere!)

• Take the spinach and wilt in a pan with some butter. Season with salt and pepper when cooked and mix thoroughly with the ricotta in a bowl.
• Lay out the pancakes and split out the spinach and ricotta mix between the two down the centre. Fold in both sides around the filling and place in an oven proof dish with the fold on the bottom.

• Repeat with the second pancake and lay it next to the other one.

• Spread the tomato sauce over the pancakes and cover with the grated cheese. At this stage you can cover and keep in the fridge to heat up the next day.

• Place under a medium heat grill until the cheese melts. If you have kept it in the fridge beforehand as you've prepared it in advance, you'll need to keep it under the grill for 10-15 minutes until thoroughly piping hot.

Enjoy!