Scallop and Bacon Salad

Clearly, this is not the healthiest salad in the world! There are far too many crunchy, oily, salty bits for good health. But boy it tastes good. It's just a big pile of leaves, dressed with the last of my chocolate balsamic reduction and topped with fried bacon, lovely plump scallops, crunchy garlicky croutons and a good seasoning of black pepper. I deglazed my pan with a little more balsamic (plain, not chocolate) and poured that over the top too.

As ever with a warm salad, it needs to be eaten immediately, before the leaves wilt.

Boxty - hangover breakfast of champions

One of the things about not being totally on-board with the whole Jubilee business is that I haven't overindulged quite so much as some. But if I had, these delicious Irish potato pancakes (served with bacon, black pudding and tomatoes) would definitely be my restorative breakfast of choice. They are made with a combination of raw (grated) and cooked (mashed) potatoes, bound with a bit of flour and lightened with a smidge of baking powder. I used this recipe, although I used plain yoghurt instead of buttermilk. And I made them much thicker than they should have been, so I did struggle a little to cook them through. 

The leftovers, warmed through in the oven, were fantastic later in the day with some cheese.

Only just realised how utterly filthy the stove is in this picture. Sorry!

Jubilee Tiramisu

"Bunting" is a strange word

It's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - 60 years on the throne - and it's being celebrated with a 4 day weekend.

I'm a bit conflicted over the whole thing, really.

The country is in a very bad way at the moment and the combination of the Jubilee and the Olympics feels very bread and circuses to me. Obviously when the country won the bid to host the Olympics we didn't know that we were going to be in a massive recession, but at the same time it feels like a very expensive distraction technique. Plus, while I like Elizabeth II's fashion sense and think she's probably a lovely lady, I find the notion of a hereditary head of state pretty obnoxious.

On the other hand... 4 day weekend! Lots of shops are running tenuously-linked sales! (although wouldn't you think that a Diamond Jubilee sale would have to be 60% discount?) Friends are having barbecues! Street parties! There is bunting! Yay! Rule Brittania!

Lots of lovely berries. In the background is a sponge cake, decorated beautifully with blueberries and raspberries, but as the person who made it is only 13, you don't get to see how much nicer her dessert looks than mine. My blog, my rules.

 Yesterday we went to a Jubilee barbecue. Massive amounts of booze and food and red, white and blue themed stuff and no embarrassing shows of patriotism or monarchist fervour. Perfect! And very, very British, as it ended with all of us huddled under a gazebo with blankets wrapped around us while the rain pelted down.

I had to consult a picture for the positioning of the crosses on the Union Jack, which was a bit disgraceful

My contribution was a berry tiramisu. Basically this recipe from Jill Dupleix, but with blueberries as well as strawberries. I went through a period about 6 years ago when I made this dessert quite often, but I'd shelved it for no good reason - I'm pleased to be reminded of it! I use marsala as my "sweet dessert wine", and I think for the first time ever I was a bit too sparing with it. It certainly wasn't dry, but it didn't have quite the luscious, creamy, boozy punch that I remember from the last time I made this. I might pour a little extra slosh of marsala over the leftovers. It'll help preserve them. Much like Her Majesty's mother and the gin.

I wanted a picture of me showing my awesome hair and excellent t-shirt, along with the dessert, but by the time I convinced Paul to wield the camera we'd missed the light and the dessert was mangled and it all lacks the charm I was aiming for.

Grapefruit cakes

I've mentioned the grapefruit situation with the fruit box at work. So. Much. Grapefruit.

Not very pink, pink grapefruit

There were a couple of office birthdays coming up, so I decided to make a cake utilising the grapefruit glut. In my last job, birthday cakes were very political. They were discussed in team meetings and policies were argued, formulated, and then ignored in favour of the unhappy status quo.

My new workplace is not like that at all. They are a thoroughly charming group of young people. I'm the oldest in the office by a reasonable margin, which is a bit of an odd experience for me, but I am so delighted to be working with this extraordinary bunch I just can't tell you. My mother might make a plea for the Shore boys of my generation, but really, at 23 most of them were still struggling to walk upright. These kids are an entirely different kettle of fish - clever, articulate, polite, radiant with youth. Totally awe-inspiring, magnificent creatures. A lot of them are volunteering for a brief period, and I haven't quite figured out how I am going to deal with the regular little bereavement of these beautiful people moving on to other things. 

So in my continued karmic journey towards reincarnation as an Italian mother (or journey away from foie gras farmer...), I am enjoying feeding them. And the thing about clever, articulate, polite people is that they are very sweet and gracious guineapigs for my experiments.

I think we can agree that my cake decorating needs some development

Right, this grapefruit cake then. My first attempt used this recipe, using evaporated milk instead of fresh (I was deeply sceptical about fresh milk and grapefruit juice not curdling. It might have worked but I didn't want to find out) and making it in one 8" square cake tin. Needed cooking for a bit longer than the recipe, obviously, but sticking a toothpick in it worked as an indicator.

I split the cooled cake in half (really must get a serrated knife, if snazzy cakes are going to become a more important part of my repertoire). I brushed the cut edges with a simple grapefruit syrup (i.e 1:1 grapefruit juice and sugar), and sandwiched it with fresh grapefruit curd mixed 50/50 with white chocolate buttercream. For some reason, I had been absolutely convinced that the white chocolate buttercream recipe contained cream cheese.  It doesn't, but I'd already bought it, so in it went. I used strained grapefruit juice and some zest instead of the cream and vanilla to carry the flavour through a bit more and moderate the sweetness of the frosting.

Really good crumb

I iced it with more of the buttercream, without the curd added, and got a bit fancy with the piping bag and some pink cachous. It was delicious - and very popular in the office - but the grapefruit flavour was very subtle. Almost undetectable, in fact.

There were more grapefruit in the following week's box, so I made another cake. This time, I used the grated zest of 2 grapefruit in the cake itself. I reduced the grapefruit syrup down a bit further to concentrate the flavour and melted a couple of my remaining pâtes de fruits into it before brushing it onto the cut surfaces of the cake (which was a 9" round). I filled it with grapefruit curd mixed with cream cheese, then iced it with the grapefruit-flavoured white chocolate buttercream (without cream cheese in it). I was playing with food colouring, aiming for a sort of ombre effect, but I didn't quite get it. Much better flavour though.

I've cancelled the grapefruit in the fruit box now. They make a pretty good cake, but I'd really rather use lemons. And if there are always grapefruit cakes, where does that leave chocolate?

Some of my colleagues have said they read my blog. I am seeing how closely they read it.

Soho Food Feast - best school fête ever

When you are one of the best-known chefs in the country, and your kids' school is short on cash, you don't hold a car boot sale. You get some mates to cook some stuff, you sell tickets and you spread the word. Yesterday was the second annual Soho Food Feast, organised by Fergus and Margot Henderson, in support of Soho Parish Primary School.

It was sold out (and why wouldn't it be, when tickets were only £4?), but one of my friends works for a company that sponsored the event and managed to wangle a couple. We had the best weather of the year so far for it, and as far as I could tell a jolly good time was being had by all.

St Anne's church garden doesn't normally look like this

The deal was that you bought tokens for £2 each, which you swapped for little tasting plates of food, and bought drinks separately. And that was a very, very good deal. I'd prefer it if you didn't tot up the number of tokens I must have bought though.

Mahoosive Mojito from Milk & Honey to open the innings. Very restorative. £7.50 well spent.

Angela Hartnett demonstrating how to make pasta. She has really lovely aquamarine earrings

It was such a nice, intimate setting. This was the only cooking demonstration I got to see, but I will take on board some of the pasta-making tips. Adding a bit of semolina to my paste to give it a bit more of an al dente quality. Wish I'd asked where she got her sausages for the sauce though - they looked superb.

Melon, tomato and lemon thyme salad with jamón from Brindisa. Not jamón ibérico.  Amazing fragrance from the lemon thyme.

There were many pork-based offerings. good for me, not for my friend who eschews the pig.

Crumbed pigs cheek bun, served with a little salad and a divine grilled spring onion. Tender, porky heaven from St John.

The Kopapa team - the Adidas-shod feet belong to Peter Gordon but I was trying not to come across as too much of a star-fucking chef groupie so I didn't dwell on taking pictures of all the chefs. My friend had the glazed lamb rib, which was delicious but tricky to eat.

The Polpo offering. Least successful plate of the day - the asparagus wrapped in speck with a little salty cheese was good but the baccala mantecato was pasty and flavourless and the meatball was a little bland.

Pork and beans in mustard sauce from Quo Vadis. Not the best-designed dish for eating out of little cups but utterly delicious. I told Jeremy Lee that he is my favourite person on twitter.

Smoked salmony nibbly things from Hix. Possibly the best smoked salmon pâté I've ever had.

Another non-pork offering for Penny - a vegetable taco from Wahaca

One vendor, which I will politely not name, was offering vegan, gluten-free cupcakes and calling them  "a treat" and using "you can eat 3 and not feel bloated" as a selling point. Not my idea of a treat. Blood orange sorbet from Gelupo is a proper treat.

Peony

Our garden is looking pretty shite at the moment. Lots of rain and not a lot of time, money or energy have really taken a toll.

The only things that are looking really good are the peonies. Stunning. They also prove that I have no future ahead of me as a sniper - I couldn't get a properly focused picture no matter what I did (falling short of actually getting out my tripod, that would have been an effort too far). Fortunately, I like this over-exposed, slightly-blurred, shaky-hand, bad-tattoo effect.

Left. Over. Roger - stuff with chicken

I really enjoyed last month's inaugural Left.Over.Roger challenge hosted by Carla at Can Be Bribed With Food. I do like a blogging event where I don't have to make an extra effort, just cook as I usually do and remember to take a picture.

This month, we had a leftover chicken breast and wing from a roast chicken.

Leftover roast chicken - I'd pretty much picked the brown crispy bits off it already. Cook's perk.

We also had a large bowlful of a light chicken stock, made from the carcass and jellied juices of the roast chicken and a few odds & ends of carrot, celery and onion. Stock made this way is never going to be the absolutely most flavourful liquid, but it gives depth and body to dishes in a way that plain water or a stock cube doesn't.

Light chicken broth

 The night after the roast chicken, the leftover breast meat and about half the broth cuddled up to a handful of mushrooms, a couple of leeks and some arborio rice in a risotto. To give that nice mantecato finish, I stirred a big knob of butter and bigger handful of grated parmesan in at the end.

Chicken, mushroom and leek risotto

Then the night after the risotto, the rest of the broth joined some chickpeas, chorizo, yellow peppers, spring greens and a can of crushed tomatoes to make a sort of broth-y, stew-y, minestrone-y thing with Spanish flavours. There was a tiny amount of risotto left, so I chucked that in at the end to provide a bit of thickening for the broth, then squeezed some lemon juice over to brighten the flavours. It's hard to go wrong when chorizo is in the equation - this was definitely the most successful dish of our chicken run.

Sort of Spanish-y minestrone sort of affair