Pizza nostalgia and disappointment

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I shared a house in Erskineville with three other women. It wasn't a particularly satisfactory living arrangement, and after that I ended up living in a one-bedroom flat I struggled to afford while swearing that I would never again live with another human being.

It wasn't all bad of course. I am still on good terms with two of the other women. I also developed a taste for the Inner West lifestyle and picked up some very good ideas about food. Making a fragrant Thai tom yum soup with slowly cooked oxtail. Beer-battered chips. A delicious take on a mojito involving three forms of mint.

Recently, I've been thinking fondly of the Aegean pizza that we used to get at Pizza Picasso. It was memorable for being a seafood-topped pizza that was actually nice, but the thing that really made it stand out were the slivers of lemon baked onto the top.

I see from the Pizza Picasso menu that the Aegean is still there, but that my memory of it was quite inaccurate. I have a very clear recollection of it being a pizza bianco, with prawns, feta and the lemon - no tomato base or sun-dried capsicum.

I'd bought a new product to try, some frozen balls of pizza dough, so I thought I would make the Aegean pizza as I remembered it. As the dough balls thawed, I was a bit apprehensive, because they had a thick, dry layer around the outside that cracked quite badly and made it difficult to roll out. But I followed the instructions and thought it didn't look too bad when shaped.

I drizzled the base with olive oil and scattered over some chopped garlic. Then I distributed raw peeled prawns, (too much) crumbled feta and thin slices of lemon cut into quarters. Halved cherry tomatoes, a sprinkle of dried oregano and a splash more olive oil and into the oven it went.

The result was... not good. The pizza base adhered to the tray like superglue. There was no possible way I could get it off the (old, reliable, never-done-this-before) pizza tray. We ended up scraping the topping off and eating it with a few rescued fragments of the crust. The next pizza did exactly the same thing. The trays had to soak over night for me to scrape the failed bases off.

The topping was delicious, exactly as I remembered it. Using raw prawns and cooking the pizza for a short time at a high temperature keeps them plump and sweet, the sharp bites of lemon and acid sweetness of the tomatoes cuts through the salty creaminess of the feta. It is a lovely, lovely combination. I will have to make it again soon using my own pizza dough, it's too good to wait another 10 years.

Don't let the good looks deceive you, this pizza was a failure

Beefeater Cocktails

Last month I was invited to attend a Beefeater gin cocktail-making masterclass as part of London Cocktail Week. Unfortunately I had a prior engagement (which did not involve booze and definitely didn't involve turning up late and drunk) and couldn't make it.

Pretty people making pretty drinks

Snacks

To really rub in just how much fun they all had, I was sent some pictures of their jolly japes. It was held at Graphic Bar, so to add insult to injury I know exactly how good the snacks were (very - especially if those were the polenta chips they do).

Then, to soothe the sting a bit, I was sent a bottle of Beefeater London Dry gin and a copy of some of the cocktail recipes they made, so I could have a bit of a play with them at home.
 
My taste in cocktails tends towards the tangy and tart. I've even gone off Schweppes tonic water because I find it too sweet (the Fevertree Naturally Light tonic is so much nicer, and has fewer calories). Of course, the slightly savoury aromatics in gin do lend themselves to lighter, fresher sorts of drinks, so I was delighted by the recipes that were included. I have heard of gin and milk as a combination, but that really is too disgusting to contemplate.

I didn't have any peach liqueur, and inexplicably the local Costcutter doesn't stock it, so the Peach Collins was out of the running. That still left me with two cocktails that I had the ingredients for and that I wanted to taste.

I filled the ice trays, cleaned off the cocktail shaker and martini glasses (Paul didn't even know we had a cocktail shaker, so you can tell how rarely I use it) and settled down to wait for cocktail hour.

Now, I don't want to come over all Stepford wife, but I have to say Paul was very impressed by being greeted with a martini glassful of cheer when he came home from work. I maintained my feminist integrity by wearing yoga pants and not brushing my hair.

The first drink we tried was the White Lady - Beefeater Dry, cointreau, lemon juice and an eggwhite. Paul was very sceptical about the eggwhite, despite my protests that all of the sours have that to give the froth on top and a creamy texture. Fortunately, when he tried it he liked it! Very strong but really good, with a nice depth of citrus from the cointreau and lemon juice.

White Lady - all but one of the bulbs in the kitchen blew and we didn't have a spare

The following night (these cocktails are too strong to have more than one of an evening, although that may be a sign I am getting old) we tried the Breakfast Martini. This was supposed to be made with Beefeater 24, which has a blend of teas, grapefruit and liquorice added to the botanicals to give more fragrance, but I made it with the Beefeater Dry. Like the White Lady, it had gin, cointreau and lemon juice, but instead of the eggwhite it was shaken with some fine-shred Seville orange marmalade. This was absolutely lovely. The burnt-orange flavour of the marmalade made the citrus aromas of the gin sing, while the extra sweetness rounded out some of the more aggressive alcohol flavours. I don't think the Breakfast Martini will replace the Bloody Mary as my breakfast booze of choice, but it is a very nice pre-dinner drink.

Breakfast martini

Onglet Wellington

I don't like to play favourites with food. There are so many very delicious things to eat in the world that it seems a shame to single out one or two dishes. I do go through periods of obsession, though, where everything I cook has nutmeg, or prawns, or pomegranate in it, and there are some dishes that I am delighted to eat more often than others.

Beef Wellington is one of the ones that I am delighted to eat quite often. Unfortunately, the recipe usually calls for an astonishingly expensive piece of beef, which means we really can't afford to eat it quite as often as I would like to. I've now worked out a way of making it a more regular treat.

Onglet is our usual cut of steak. It's inexpensive, delicious and, when cooked with a bit of care, as tender as you like. I couldn't see why it wouldn't work in a Wellington.

I seared the steaks for about a minute a side, then let them cool completely. They were the same weight, about 150g each, but one was long and thin and the other short and squat, so I cut a slice off the long one to even them up a bit. I made a duxelles from onions, mushrooms and garlic, flavoured with some tarragon, vermouth and a spoonful of minced truffles. I poured all the juices from the cooled steaks into it as well.

When the duxelles had also cooled, I spread it onto a sheet of puff pastry, topped it with the meat, rolled it up and gave it a good glazing of egg.

Then it waited obediently until I was ready to bake it. Half an hour in a 180C oven had it beautifully cooked. So beautifully cooked, in fact, that we didn't get a picture of the final plated portion. The flavour was just right, and the texture didn't suffer at all from being made with the cheaper cut of meat. Fillet at £37.25 a kilo or onglet at £12.45 a kilo? I will still use fillet for special occasions, but the onglet does make it an affordable option.

Meat Free Monday - Cheese & cider pumpkin fondue

This seasonal symphony of melted cheese and booze is this recipe from the Metro. But I decided that it was a good way to use up the scooped-out pumpkin flesh from my Halloween cat pumpkin. After all, those pumpkins are grown for size, regular shape and large seed cavity, not for delectable flesh, so the culinary uses need to involve lots of other strong flavours. This combination of cheese, cider, porcini mushrooms and calvados certainly fit the bill.

I finely chopped my leftover pumpkin and roasted it until tender, then divided it between two deep oven-proof dishes. Then I topped it with the fondue mixture. It's worth seeking out a really dry cider for this, because the pumpkin doesn't really need too much extra sweetness. I used real garlic, not granules, and a very strong Somerset cheddar. And, because I am incapable of making anything vegetable-and-cheesy without it, I added a grating of nutmeg on top.

We ate it with slices of crusty chickpea cob dunked in it and glasses of red wine. Warming right to our toes.

Yes, I watched the Great British Bake-off masterclass, why do you ask?

I'm going to link this up to Heather and Joanne's 12 Weeks Of Winter Squash event, where the mighty squash is being properly celebrated.

Masala chai friands

I've never had a pumpkin spice latte. It seems so perverse to me that a country that generally abhors actual pumpkin goes weak at the knees for sweet frothy coffee with pumpkin pie spices, and it's disrespectful to good coffee. I also avoid chai tea lattes because it's a stupid, tautological name for a product that already has a good name. Masala chai.

I know it is all kinds of contrary to dive into the middle of pumpkin pie season with an alternatively spicy dessert, but if you haven't figured out that I am contrary by nature this must be your first visit to my blog. I also happen to think that the masala for a delicious sweet cup of masala chai is quite a lot nicer than the standard blend for pumpkin pie spice, with pepper to give it kick and cardamom rounding out the aroma. Anyway, as an alternative to other spicy cakes, these friands are slightly spicy, beautifully buttery and not too sweet, perfect after dinner with a glass of dessert wine, mid afternoon with a glass of mulled wine or mid morning with a cup of tea. Or glass of wine. Drink it while you can.

Masala Chai Friands (makes 12 large & 16 mini friands)

250g butter
1 1/2 tsp masala*
120g plain flour
380g icing sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
200g ground almonds
9 eggwhites (or 240ml pasteurised liquid eggwhite)
2tbs chopped stem ginger (preserved in syrup)

Preheat the oven to 210C.

Melt the butter. Use some of it to thoroughly grease your friand tins (or muffin/cupcake tins, if you don't have friand tins), then add the spices to the remaining butter and allow to infuse while you get on with the rest of it. The aromatics in these spices are fat-soluble, so you will get more flavour carried through the friands if you allow them to sit in the butter for a while.

Combine the sifted flour and icing sugar in a large bowl, then stir in the lemon zest and ground almonds.

Beat the eggwhites until slightly frothy then mix them into the dry ingredients and mix in the spiced butter. Fold through the chopped ginger.

Spoon into the prepared tins, filling them about 2/3 full. I like to use a Chinese soup spoon for this sort of thing; I feel like I make less mess.

Bake the large ones for 15 minutes at 210C, then reduce the temperature to 200C (rotate the trays at this point if you need to in order to get an even bake) and cook for another 10 minutes. Then remove and bake the small ones for 10-15 minutes at the lower temperature, or until slightly risen and nicely browned.

Cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning onto wire racks to cool completely.

*for my masala I used Schwartz whole spices - 1 stick of cinnamon, the seeds of 9 cardamom pods, a few cloves, a small piece of nutmeg and some peppercorns, ground in a spice grinder. You could also use ground spices, but I wanted the little flecks of imperfectly powdered cinnamon scattered through the friands. If I was making this to use in masala chai I'd normally add ground ginger as well, but I left it out because of the stem ginger - I didn't want the ginger to dominate!

In association with Schwartz.

Quiche

I'd decided to make some mini quiche for Paul's lunchbox - using Simon Hopkinson's recipe but using half-fat creme fraiche instead of whipping cream, and pancetta instead of streaky bacon. I also used bought butter shortcrust pastry instead of making my own.

After making 12 dinky little mini quiche I still had enough pastry and filling leftover to make a full-sized quiche for our lunch. I also had a log of goats cheese nearing its use-by date, I cut it into rounds and placed them on the top of the quiche so it baked in and browned beautifully.

Fortunately, having the extra quiche saved us from ourselves, and all the mini quiche survived to face the lunchbox.

The Bricklayers Arms - 10th Anniversary Dinner

I couldn't get a good picture of the centrepiece

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, reckon that 26 pubs a week are closing in the UK. I'll be honest with you: as a general principle, I'm not that bothered. Yes, of course it is sad in this economy to see employers going under. Yes, it is sad to see boarded-up buildings on street corners. But I haven't actually noticed that we are under-supplied with pubs and as far as I can tell, the good ones survive.

The Bricklayers Arms, in the wonderfully-named Hogpits Bottom, is by far the best of our local pubs. Despite the fact that I find the drive, through single-lane country roads bounded by high hedges, utterly terrifying, I am always happy for Paul to suggest a lunch at the Bricklayers. They smoke their own fish and meat and everything they serve is just that bit better. It's a little more expensive than some of the other pubs, but the fact that they are full up every day of the week does sort of suggest that it isn't a bad thing to charge a little more and serve better food.

The menu writer has a novel approach to capitalisation and spelling

This month, the Bricklayers has been celebrating its 10th anniversary under the current management. They've had a series of events, but the one that drew my eye was the anniversary dinner - champagne & canapes followed by four courses, with wines, for £49 a head. Bargain.

My camera's limitations with low light were a serious disadvantage, because it meant I couldn't capture the beautiful flickering candles outside, or the chrysanthemum-wreathed silver candelabra centrepieces. It also meant I had to resort to the flash for the food.

As Paul is working down near Croydon at the moment, I made a pretty late booking. Well, pretty late by my stomach's standards. The canapes were very, very welcome. A sauteed mushroom topped with lurid orange carrot puree was a light and unexpectedly delicious combination. The goats cheese balls with onion marmalade and the blini with smoked salmon were predictably good, although the blinis I had for my birthday have spoilt me for anyone else's. My favourite of them was the puff-pastry puff, split and filled with a beautiful chicken liver parfait.

The canapes were substantial enough to tide me over until the starters arrived. I was 95% sure that "Lobster and pear avocado Tian" meant lobster and avocado pear tian, but the 5% doubt that they may have put pieces of pear in with the lobster and avocado put me off ordering it. I was apprehensive about ordering asparagus so far out of season too, but what arrived was so fresh and succulent that I would be prepared to bet that it was Wye Valley Autumn asparagus. The broccoli, ham and hollandaise were all very good, but I thought that tying the stalks into a bundle like that was an old-school affectation too far.

The lobster and avocado fortunately contained no pear. What it did contain was perfectly ripe avocado and generous chunks of tail meat, topped with lobster claw meat. I've almost given up on lobster because it is so often stringy, watery and bland - and of course British crab is so delicious that it is hard to go past - but from the bite I got of this dish, I might have to seek it out again.

Paul felt obliged to order the fish, because the rest of us had beef. He's been on a big fish jag lately anyway, so I didn't feel like sacrificing myself so that he could have the beef. Apparently that dark ring around it was some sort of band of vegetable, sort of holding the halibut fillet together. He liked the dish but felt there were way too many flavours on the plate fighting for dominance. You'll notice the threads of saffron in the sauce - they really were pulling all the stops out with the luxury ingredients.

With the beef, I think I was expecting a little block of foie gras parfait on top. I was certainly not anticipating this gorgeous, quivering slab of luscious livery joy. The piece of foie gras was about the same size as the beef. Utterly luxurious. The gratin dauphinois that came with it was gorgeous and I wouldn't have missed a bite, but probably overkill on the whole rich, fatty thing.

I was less impressed with the creme brulee. The white chocolate and almond "callet" (which, according to the dictionary, is an old Scottish word for prostitute) was having a bit of a hard time with the warm room but the toffee topping was beautifully crisp. My problem was with the custard itself - it had the faint grainy quality that suggests that it was thickened with cornflour that hadn't cooked out properly instead of being made with just eggs. I can see why you'd take the more reliable option when you were making so many, but the texture was a bit disappointing and had no discernable amaretto flavour.

Apparently I didn't take a picture of the cheese course, but you know what cheese looks like. Very nice cheese, with crackers, grapes and celery sticks. I can't say I did it justice, having been busy converting creme brulee, steak and hollandaise into gras on my own foie. Not a bad Thursday night supper.