Beef Shin braised with Orange Juice, Cinnamon & Star Anise

I recently read a post on the BBC Food blog chiding the rise of the ‘quick and easy’ meal and found myself getting rather annoyed with it. “What’s wrong with trying to make your tea in 30 minutes?” I found myself asking no one in particular (as you may have gathered by now, I’m quite fond of shouting at the people inside my computer, thinking that somehow they can hear me). “Seriously, by the time I’ve worked an eight hour day, gone for a run and battled with the delightful Merseyrail, I just don’t have the time left to whip up a delightful Beef Daubé.” 

Like many other food writers, I do feel that there’s an over reliance on convenience foods in this country – ready chopped vegetables, horrible plastic pre-grated cheese, expensive over-salted jars of sauce with a celebrity chef’s grinning face on the label. But at the same time, I refuse to feel guilty because sometimes all I want at the end of a long day is a big bowl of something nourishing that I can throw together during the Channel 4 news.  And while I’d love to pretend that everyone reading this blog lives in a fantasy world where they can spend their afternoons wandering around artisan markets gazing at perfectly ripe peaches, before coming home to cook Coq au Vin, I’m well aware that the person reading this probably doesn’t because, well, I don’t. And hell, if the average food blogger (a person who – after all – has a vested interest in food) can’t be arsed sometimes, this means that the average person definitely doesn’t.

So, allow me to introduce you to my secret weapon. THE SLOW COOKER. In the great tradition I have of naming all of my household objects, he is called ‘Mr. Steamy’ and I love him with all of the affection that most people devote towards their household pets. I use this bad boy to cook pretty much everything – stews, tagines, sauces, stocks, even the occasional dal. So, on Sunday, when my mind was taken up with higher pursuits (such as screaming at my television when my beloved Manchester City won the premier league), it seemed only natural that I’d drag it out of the cupboard beneath the stairs to make dinner.

This Beef shin braised with Orange Juice, Cinnamon and Star Anise is a Vietnamese-ish dish inspired by what I just found in my cupboards. Beef shin is a relatively cheap cut of beef, which becomes deliciously tender when braised slowly for five hours, whilst its fat turns the sauce wonderfully silky and glossy. The orange juice, soy sauce and beef stock provides it all with a delicious tang, helped in no small part by warmth of the star anise and cinnamon. I served this with toothsome rice noodles and candy pink pickled radishes (which might just be my new favourite garnish).

OK, while it’s a push to say that a slow cooked stew is ‘quick’, it is the kind of thing that you can throw into a crock pot before you go to work, and shovel up in a huge bowl twenty minutes after you walk through your front door. Which, I have to say, is my favourite interpretation of ‘quick and easy’.

BEEF SHIN BRAISED WITH ORANGE JUICE, CINNAMON & STAR ANISE (Serves Two)

You will need:

• 500g beef shin
• 300ml orange juice
• 200ml beef stock (I used Bovril)
• 2 tbsp ginger cordial/a thumb sized knob of fresh ginger, minced
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• The zest of an orange
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 star anise
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 fat garlic cloves, crushed
• 5 black peppercorns

To serve:

• 120g rice noodles
• A handful of mint leaves, julienned
• 2 shallots, sliced and cooked until crispy
• 1 tbsp of pickled radishes (I like David Lebovitz’s recipe)/pickled carrots 

Make It!

1. Season your beef shin with salt and pepper, slice it into cubes, and brown.
2. Put this into your slow cooker with 150ml of orange juice, the beef stock, soy sauce, ginger cordial (or minced ginger if you’re using it), orange zest, garlic and spices. Cook on a medium-high heat, checking on it occasionally.
3. After three hours, add the rest of the orange juice to the pot and give the mixture a good stir. Cook for another two hours.
4. Once the meat is fork tender (feel free to take a piece out of the pot and ‘test it’ by eating it), strain the mixture, discarding the spices. Add the beef back to the braising sauce and heat until it turns thick and glossy.
5. Prepare your rice noodles by submerging them in boiling water. Drain, and toss with a teaspoon of chilli oil so they don’t stick together as they cool.
6. Toss the beef with the rice noodles, and garnish with the mint leaves, crispy shallots and pickled vegetables. This also goes well with an ice cold lager (e.g. Singha or Chang).

Momofuku Milk Bar’s Cornflake-Chocolate Chip-Marshmallow Cookies

Ah the joy of Bank Holidays. There’s something unequivocally British about them; with their awful weather, terrible TV and pathetic excuses for public transport. In true ‘English-person-with-their-head-in-the-sand’ style, Mr. Cay and I had planned to go to Southport for a day trip on Monday. My only prior experience of Southport has been an ill-advised family trip to a Pontins Holiday camp there when I was seven. I got into a fight with a bloke dressed as a giant crocodile and my brother got very bad stomach flu. To be honest, it was a miserable experience for everyone involved. But, I was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt this time, mainly because I’d been led to believe that it was a place which served up excellent donuts and fish & chips, and also because it was only a 30 minute train journey from our house. Then the trains decided to go kaput. I’m not good with rail replacement services at the best of times, but especially not when I could be at home drinking wine and watching Dexter.

When life hands you a cancelled adventure, the only right and proper course of action is to make cookies. I’d been meaning to make Christina Tosi’s (of Momofuku Milk Bar fame) Cornflake-Chocolate Chip-Marshmallow cookies for a while, but had never gotten the chance. Despite my ridiculous girl-crush on her (hey, we bakers-called-Christina have to stick together) it seemed like a lot of faffing for a plateful of biscuits; all that cornflake-crunching, butter-creaming and dough resting, and going to the shops to buy skimmed milk powder. But with a spare day on my hands, and some serious book-writing-displacement-activity to indulge in, it seemed churlish not to at least give them a try.

And man, I’m glad I did. These cookies may just be the best cookies I’ve ever tasted in my life – a riot of tastes and textures. First, there’s the wonderful toffee notes of the (seriously addictive) cornflake crunch, followed by a hit of chocolate and wonderfully gooey melted marshmallows. Yes, it’s a sugar bomb, but it’s a sugar bomb which packs one hell of a punch. I took a batch of these into my office yesterday and couldn’t help feeling a note of pride when they were devoured in record time.

There are a few things to consider when you’re baking these though. First, mixing and resting the dough is vital. My trusty hand mixer actually conked out on me halfway through making these, causing me to curse £6 ASDA home baking equipment and pray for God to deliver me a KitchenAid for a wedding present. Secondly, don’t skimp on the dough when you’re portioning these out for baking. They spread out quite a bit when they’re baking, so if the balls of cookie dough aren’t large enough, they’ll be too thin and burn before you know it.

Other than that, I can’t think of a better way to waste an afternoon in a kitchen. Sorry Southport, nothing personal. But I think that this time, I got the better end of the deal.

CORNFLAKE CRUNCH

You will need:

• 120g cornflakes (I used Crunchy Nut cornflakes)
• 40g skimmed milk powder
• 40g white sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 130g unsalted butter, melted

Make It!

1. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C/Gas Mark 4.
2. Pour the cornflakes in a medium bowl and crush them with your hands to 1/4 of their original size. Add the milk powder, sguar, and salt and toss to mix. Add the butter and toss to coat. As you toss, the butter will act like a glue, binding the dry ingredients to the cereal and creating small clusters.
3.  Spread the clusters onto a baking parchment lined baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes, at which point they should look toasted, smell buttery and crunch gently when cooled slightly and chewed.
4. Cool the cornflake crunch completely before storing or using in a recipe. Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, the crunch will keep fresh for 1 week; in the fridge or freezer, it will keep for one month.

CORNFLAKE-CHOCOLATE CHIP-MARSHMALLOW COOKIES (Makes 15-20 cookies)

Adapted from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook

You will need:

• 225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 250g granulated sugar
• 150g light brown sugar
• 1 medium sized egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 240g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 270g Cornflake crunch
• 125g chocolate chips
• 65g mini marshmallows

Make It:

1. Combine the butter and sugars in a bowl. Cream the two together with a hand mixer for 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and vanilla and beat again for 7-8 minutes. Do not skip this part. This is a very important step to achieving the right consistency for Milkbar Cookies (If you’re lucky enough to own a KitchenAid, this is where it will come in handy. If you don’t, be prepared to develop some serious upper-arm muscles).
2. Turn your hand mixer/stand mixer to low and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute (Don’t do it for any longer, or you  risk overmixing the dough). Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
   Add the cornflake crunch and mini chocolate chips to the dough and mix for 30-45 seconds, until they are just incorporated. Add the mini marshmallows, and mix for another 30 seconds.
3. Portion out your dough into balls which are (roughly) the size of your fist onto a parchment lined sheet pan.  Don’t make them any smaller than this – if you do, they’ll be too thin, and won’t obtain that lovely chewy effect. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat, wrap the sheet tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature- they will not hold their shape.
4. Heat your oven to 2oo degrees C/Gas Mark 4. Arrange the chlled dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on a parchment-lined sheet pans. Bake for 12 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle and spread. At the 12 minute mark, the cookies should be browned on the edges and just beginning to brown toward the center. Leave them in the oven for an additional minute or so if they aren’t and they still seem pale and doughy on the surface.
5. Cool the cookies completely before transferring to a plate or an airtight container for storage. At room temperature the cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.

General Tso’s Tofu

Tofu – somewhat unfairly – gets a bit of a bad press. Whenever I’ve posted on Twitter that I’ve just scoffed an alarmingly huge portion of the stuff, I’ve had reactions ranging from “Ewwww! Tofu!” to “If you want me to ever read your blog again, you’ll stop posting recipes which contain this vile product.” My answer to this is simple. a) You’re wrong and b) don’t ever tell me what I can and can’t cook in my own kitchen kthxbye.

Where people slip up with tofu is by treating it as a meat substitute rather than an ingredient in its own right. I may be a fully paid up member of the meat-eating classes, but sometimes there’s nothing better than sinking your teeth in a delicious piece of deep fried tofu- that delicious crust yielding to reveal warm, custardy innards. And Mapo Tofu is the ultimate comfort food for both the ill and the ridiculously hungover.

Which leads us to this recipe for General Tso’s Tofu. I’m not entirely sure who General Tso is, but I know that his chicken is a staple in pretty much every Chinese restaurant across the USA. This is a recipe I’ve made more times than I care to remember, mainly because it’s ridiculously tasty and also because I will crawl over broken glass to get to anything which has been deep fried in chilli oil. The cubes of tofu soak up all of the deliciously savoury-sweet sauce, until they practically burst with a fragrant ginger and garlic flavour. If you’re totally averse to the idea of cooking with tofu, it can easily be subbed for chicken thighs. But, take it from me – you won’t know what you’re missing.

GENERALTSO’S TOFU (Serves Two)

Recipe adapted from “Mastering the art of Chinese cooking” via Serious Eats

You will need:

• 1 large egg
• 280g (or one pack) tofu
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• A good grind of black pepper
• 5 to 6 tbsp cornflour divided
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp hoisin
• 2 tsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp Shaoxing rice wine (you can use dry sherry if you can’t find this)
• 1 tsp red chilli oil
• 2 tsp minced garlic (I used garlic paste)
• 1 tbsp peeled and minced ginger
•  2 tsp sugar
•  3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 8 small dried red chillies
• 3 spring onions, white parts only, sliced 1/2-inch thick

Make It!

1. Crack the egg into a medium-sized bowl, and lightly beat it with a fork. Add the salt, black pepper, and 2 tablespoons of the cornflour, and stir until combined. Add the tofu, and toss well. Set mixture aside for 15 minutes. (If you have a rice cooker, you can cook the rice whilst your tofu is doing its business).
2. Meanwhile, in a second bowl, combine the soy sauce, hoisin, rice vinegar, Shaoxing rice wine, red chilli oil, garlic, ginger, and sugar. Whisk until smooth.
3. After the 15 minutes, pour the oil into a large wok set over high heat. Heat the oil up until it begins to spit slightly. While the oil warms up, place a sheet of baking paper on your countertop and add 3 tablespoons of the cornflour. Add the pieces of tofu on top, and toss until they are completely coated. Add an additional tablespoon of cornflour if needed.
4. When the oil is ready, shake off any excess cornflour on the tofu, and carefully add them to the wok. Cook, stirring occasionally with a slotted spoon, for two-three minutes until the outside of the tofu becomes brown and crispy. Turn off the heat,  remove tofu pieces with the slotted spoon, and drain on some paper towels.
5. Remove all but 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil. Turn the heat to high, and when the oil is just starting to smoke, add the dried chillies, and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add the spring onions, and stir-fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tofu pieces back to the wok, and toss constantly for a minute until the pieces are coated in the chilli and spring onion oil. Pour in the sauce, and stir-fry for a minute and a half until all of  the pieces are evenly coated. Turn off the heat.
6. Serve immediately with rice.

Spaghetti with Morcilla and Tomato Sauce

I’m a huge lover of black pudding – be it deep fried and slapped on a bap, bathed tenderly in a tomato sauce or served up with the ubiquitous pea purée and scallops. Whilst some people may turn their nose up at the idea of eating blood-based-offally-treats, I have no time for their naysaying ways. After all, what’s there to dislike? It’s  just a bit of blood. And ridiculously tasty blood at that.

Whilst my Northern heart will always be allied to a nice juicy Bury specimen, I have a very soft spot for morcilla, a Spanish interpretation which uses rice as a binding agent instead of the usual suet, and is spiced with paprika. This makes it slightly moister, and gives it a wonderful rich, punchy flavour.  Whilst I’m not averse to simply frying it and eating it straight out of the pan with my fingers, it’s even better when it’s cooked with love, care, tomatoes and smoked paprika.

I first saw this recipe at Eat Like a Girl, and  immediately bookmarked it, intending to make it as soon as I had a chance and some spare black pudding at my disposal. Me being me, I’ve tweaked a few of the elements – added a few more chillies, a bit more smoked paprika, and simmer the sauce rather than roast it, as my morcilla melted into my sauce pretty quickly, and I was scared that cooking it in an oven may lead to Mr. Cay moaning at me because he has to scrub the carbon stains off yet another casserole dish.

What you’re left with is a saucepan full of something which (I’ll be honest) isn’t the most attractive looking sauce in the world, but which yields a plate of comfort – full of warmth and flavour, comfort and spice. The best thing about it is that it takes no time at all to pull together – an hour tops if you count the time it takes to open a bottle of wine and glug a glass whilst you’re waiting for your pasta to boil.

So, here’s to blood, to offal, to everything dark and cheap and delicious. You may not be pretty, but boy, you sure are tasty.

SPAGHETTI WITH MORCILLA AND TOMATO SAUCE (Serves two hungry people)

Adapted (slightly) from Eat Like a Girl 

You will need:

• 200g morcilla
• 2 shallots, finely sliced
• 2 fat cloves of garlic, finely sliced
• 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp red chilli flakes
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 200g (good) white spaghetti
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Make It!

1. Sauté the shallots and garlic in a good glug of olive oil for around five minutes. They should turn soft, but not brown.
2. Chop your morcilla into large chunks, and add it to the pot. Cook for around five minutes until it begins to soften and fall apart.
3. Add the tomatoes, chilli flakes, smoked paprika and red wine vinegar to the mixture. The morcilla will melt into the sauce, so keep tasting it to ensure it’s all to your liking. Needs more chilli? Or perhaps a touch more red wine vinegar? Throw it in there!
4. Simmer the sauce for twenty minutes. After ten minutes, boil your pasta until it is cooked al dente. Drain and add to the sauce.
5. Serve immediately with a smattering of parsley.

Bacon, Fennel and Potato Crumble

Crumble is one of those peculiarly English things which appears to have passed me by. Whilst everyone I know adores it, I’ve always found it to be quite underwhelming. Perhaps it’s because my overriding memory of the stuff is being served it at school dinners. Mancunian school-dinner-crumble was practically inedible – big lumps of fibrous mulch hidden underneath a bone dry topping. The best part was the chocolate custard it came with, although this was invariably lumpy, with a rather unpalatable skin on top. No wonder I begged my Mum to allow me to take packed lunches to school.

Perhaps the problem lay with sweet crumbles. OK, so they’re the quintessential British teatime treat, but apple crumble has never really buttered my crumpet. Savoury crumbles however. Well, they’re another matter entirely.

The idea for this Bacon, Fennel and Potato crumble came when I was wondering exactly what to do with all of the fennel bulbs festering away at the back of my fridge and contemplated turning them into a tasty gratin. However, I was all out of breadcrumbs and there was no way I could acquire any (if by ‘no way,’ you mean ‘I couldn’t be arsed schlepping to ASDA to buy any’). So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and create my own savoury teatime masterpiece. Potatoes were boiled and sliced, bacon and fennel sweated in their own delicious juices, and the whole thing was smothered in créme fraiche and a bucketload of cheese. The end result was delicious – sweet, salty and savoury all at the same time, a big plate of comfort.

Whilst I may still take some convincing on the merits of fruit crumbles, this Bacon, Fennel and Potato Crumble is definitely a keeper. In fact, it’s so good, it deserves to have an entire song dedicated to it…

BACON, FENNEL AND POTATO CRUMBLE (Serves Four)

You will need:

• Four medium sized potatoes
• Two bulbs of fennel, thinly sliced
• Four slices of good quality bacon
• 300ml créme fraiche
• 50g cheddar, grated
• Salt and Pepper

For the crumble topping:

• 150g plain flour
• 150g butter
• 50g parmesan, grated (I estimated it as being 50g, but honestly, just add as much as you like to make it tasty)
• 1 tsp chilli powder (optional)
• Salt and Pepper to season

MAKE IT!

1. Peel your potatoes, cut them into chunks and boil them for around five minutes. Drain, leave to cool, and slice thinly. Layer these at the bottom of a large casserole dish
2. Slice your bacon into chunks, and fry in a tablespoon of olive oil. Once it’s sizzling, and there’s lots of lovely fat in the pan, add the sliced fennel, and sauté until it’s turned soft. Layer these over the top of the potatoes and smother in the creme fraiche and the grated cheddar.
3. Make your crumble topping by adding the butter, chilli powder (if using), grated parmesan and salt & pepper to the flour, and rubbing the mixture between your fingers until it turns sandy and resembles breadcrumbs. Pour this on top of the bacon, fennel and potato mixture.
4. Bake at 200 degrees C/Gas Mark 5 for 40 minutes until the crumble has turned crisp and golden.
5. Serve immediately.  The leftovers can be reheated and make a nice lunch (or breakfast if you’re greedy and don’t fancy a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes).

Meatballs in a fresh herb and tomato sauce

This post is kindly sponsored by Le Creuset Cookware

I’ve been joking on Twitter recently that I should rename this blog ‘Cake, Meatballs and Ranting.com’ as that’s all I ever appear to talk about on here of late. And today is no different because – oh look! – here’s a recipe for some meatballs. But hey, as my Bubbie says, it’s good for a person to have a shtick. And I’m sure there are worse ones to have than a love of cakes and small round meat products.

You see, here’s the thing. Meatballs make perfect comfort food. And I’ve found myself to be in need of a bit of comfort of late. Take yesterday for example. I spent my day wandering around my house waiting for some news which – if it had been good – could have changed my life for the foreseeable future. Now, I’m not good with waiting, especially if I’m on my own. I have one of those one-track minds which locks into an idea and will not let go. Nothing could distract me – not a bike ride to the shops, not a walk around Liverpool City Centre, not even my beloved America’s Next Top Model could do the trick (although, lets be honest, this most recent cycle is bloody awful). I needed salvation and the ultimate displacement method. Something which would require me to be up to my elbows in something so I couldn’t check my phone every 30 seconds. The answer was plain. I needed meatballs.

I’ve mentioned before that I find the whole process of making meatballs utterly soothing. It’s the kind of thing you can just lose yourself in – the mashing together of ingredients with your fingers, the process of rolling each little ball into a perfect sphere, that whole lovely ritual of stirring and chopping to create something wonderful. The trick to these meatballs is to use the best beef mince you can afford (if you can get to a butcher to buy some decent steak mince, do. A pound of mince cost me a mere £2.20 from my favourite meat counter – both cheaper and better than the stuff you find in my local supermarket) and to let them rest. If you cook them too soon after making them, you’ll be left with a giant pan of meat paste. I have inadvertently done this more times than I’d like to admit, so LEARN FROM MY FAIL.

Eventually, the news I’d been waiting a day for came, and it turned out to be bad. But hey, these things happen I suppose. So, I did what any sensible person would have done in my situation – I turned the darts on, made myself a large gin and tonic and stuffed my face full of meatballs and cheesy polenta. And immediately felt better.

MEATBALLS IN A FRESH HERB AND TOMATO SAUCE (Serves four)

You will need:

Meatballs

• 300g beef steak mince
• 1 egg
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 small red onion finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• Small fistful of  fresh parsley, finely chopped

To Sear

• 10ml vegetable oil

Tomato Sauce

• 10ml olive oil
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic – chopped
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 100ml strong beef stock (such as Bovril) or 1 stock cube dissolved in 100ml water

To finish

• 20g butter
• Basil leaves

Make It!

1. Mix together all the meatball ingredients and form into small balls (Makes 20). Leave to rest in the fridge for an hour or so before use.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and in batches sear the meatballs well on all sides.
3. To make the sauce heat the olive oil in the saucepan and fry the onion and garlic till softened but not brown.
4. Add the remaining sauce ingredients and simmer for about 10 minutes until the consistency has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Stir in the meatballs and cook with the lid on over a low heat for 20 minutes. (If you like, you can do this part in the oven. I put the meatballs and sauce into the Le Creuset Cookware pot that I got for Christmas. Thanks Mum Cay!)
6. Stir in the butter and serve with the fresh basil leaves.
7. Serve with either spaghetti, rice or cheesy polenta.

Honey Spice Cake

I didn’t get Easter eggs this year. Don’t worry, I wasn’t too miffed about the situation – I’m more a savoury than sweet kind of girl, and Easter eggs just don’t taste the same if they’ve not been shattered by my younger brother headbutting them into little chocolatey shards. Instead, I spent my Easter doing what I do best. Baking. I’d like to think that if Jesus was around nowadays, he’d be less interested in people gorging themselves on chocolate, and more interested in people gnawing on delicious looking cakes and gigantic legs of lamb. Then again, if Jesus was around now, I’m sure he’d be a massive hit at cocktail parties with that whole ‘turning water into wine’ trick of his.

And so, on Sunday, I rolled my sleeves up and pootled off to ASDA on my bike for baking supplies. I originally intended for this to be a spiced stout cake, if only to attone for the Humingbird Bakery Chocolate Stout cake which I attempted to make (with a cracking hangover) for Mother’s Day, and which resulted in an overly sweet pile of crumbs which was only held together by a heart-attack-inducing amount of cream cheese. But alas, it wasn’t to be. Mainly because ASDA was closed, so I had to turn to the heathen cornershops of Bootle for salvation.

When life gives you a major supermarket-unfriendly-bank holiday that you’ve forgotten about because you have your head in the clouds, you have to improvise. So, I decided to replace the stout with some Hobgoblin ale, the black treacle with some honey, and glazed the bugger with a combination of icing sugar, and my old friend Mr. Ginger Cordial. What resulted was a beautiful, golden coloured cake, full of toffee flavours and a good whack of warming, zingy spice – like a giant toffee mince pie. It’s also wonderfully moist, a huge squidgey slice of comfort.

OK, so it may not have been particularly seasonal, but (if my poor recollection of my R.E. lessons from school serves me well), Jesus was more likely to relax with a delicious snack of honey when he wasn’t hanging out with his disciples than he was a giant chocolate egg…

HONEY SPICE CAKE (Makes one medium sized cake, containing 10-12 slices)

You will need:

• 360g self raising flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 5 pods cardamom – seeds ground in a pestle and mortar
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 200g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 150g firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 350ml ruby ale (I used Hobgoblin)
• 2 large eggs, beaten lightly

For the glaze

• 3 tablespons milk
• 100g icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons ginger cordial

Make It!

1. Preheat the oven to 200°c/gas mark 4. and butter a medium sized springform cake tin.
2. Into a large bowl sift together the self raising flour,  salt,  and the spices.
3. Combine the ruby ale, butter and honey in a medium sized pan, and heat gently until the butter has melted and is foaming slightly. Take off the heat, add the brown sugar and leave to cool.
4. Whisk the eggs in a small bowl, and add to the cooled honey-butter-beer mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until a firm, gloppy batter has been formed. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Leave it to cool completely before turning the cake out onto a cooling rack.
5. In a small bowl whisk together the icing sugar, milk and ginger cordial. Pour the glaze carefully over the cake, letting it drip down the sides. Brush the glaze over the the surface area with a small pastry brush until the entire cake is covered. Allow to stand for 30 minutes, or until the glaze is set.

Pizarro, Bermondsey Street, London

Apologies for no imagery to accompany this post – the restaurant was quite dark, I only had my iPhone camera on me, and the pictures came out so bad that they were almost unintelligible

“The next person to tell me a three-hour wait for food is “worth it” is going to get a punch in the face” said one of my friends recently. And, on reflection, it’s difficult not to agree with her. Queuing appears to be all the rage in London nowadays, especially when it comes to restaurants. It seems that no new opening will even get a sniff of hype unless you’re forced to wait four hours in the freezing cold for a burger. To non-London residents, such as myself, this all seems a little daft. I’m not good at queuing for things, especially if the thing in question is food. I probably wouldn’t have survived a day in Soviet Russia.

So, when I decided to pay London a visit last weekend (ostensibly with the purpose of being fitted for my wedding dress, but also because I wished to eat so much amazing street food that I would have to be rolled back to Liverpool) and was trying to decide on a place to dine with my friends, it all got a little tricky. Pitt Cue? That was out because it was a Friday night and would therefore be packed. The same applied to MeatLiquor, Spuntino, Polpetto, and pretty much anywhere else we could think of in Central London. In a fit of desperation, I turned to the place I always go to when I’m looking for culinary salvation. Twitter. “Why don’t you try Pizarro’s in Bermondsey?” suggested my friend. “It doesn’t do reservations, but you never tend to wait  for a table for more than 20 minutes”.  Whilst I am averse to waiting for my dinner, I am very very fond of cava, chorizo and other types of Spanish produce which begin with a ‘C’.  And so, last Friday night, we all weaved our merry way towards Bermondsey and Pizarro.

José Pizarro appears to be on a mission to slowly take over Bermondsey Street. His tapas bar, José, is situated further along and – when we went past it later that evening – appeared to be filled to the rafters with people guzzling sherry and iberico ham. Pizarro is an altogether more sedate affair. Rustic yet stylish (the tables appear to be made out of old sherry crates), it specialises in larger plates, whilst also encouraging diners to swipe bits of what their friends are having.

We started the evening with a bottle of achingly crisp cava accompanied by complementary snacks of sourdough bread, olive oil, and some radishes and cauliflower dressed with sea salt, and a tangy mix of olive oil and vinegar. I adored the little radishes – they were wonderfully fresh and crisp, their natural flavours enhanced by the simplicity of their garnishes.

We then all decided to dive right in with a selection of larger plates – I opted for the salt cod with white beans and chorizo whilst my dining partners selected the pork cheeks with olive oil mash and lamb with lentils and radicchio. I’ve always been a bit wary of salt cod, and I worried that here, it might overwhelm the other flavours on the plate. However, it was divine – the cod wonderfully firm and bouncy, and just the right accompliment to the toothsome beans with their silky innards and the slight smokiness of the chorizo. Indeed, it’s a dish I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since.  My friends iberico pork cheeks with olive oil mash was positively luxrious – silky smooth potatoes topped with pork  which practically melted in the mouth.  The lamb was equally good, the sweetness of the meat matched nicely by crunchy – almost bitter – raddicchio and soft lentils.

However, the true highlight of the evening were the desserts. My friend Katharine opted for a pot of chocolate accompanied by a dollop of caramel ice cream, a delicious swoon of a dish. On their own, each component dish would have been too much to handle. However, together they became a veritable Ike and Tina of the dessert world – the sweet, slightly salted caramel biting through the molten ooze of the chocolate. James went for the cake with cinnamon ice cream. We all adored the cinnamon ice cream – spicy and sweet, it almost sizzled in the mouth.  I was slightly disappointed by my cheesecake with blood orange. It arrived in a deconstructed fashion – a chunk of a sweetened ricotta ‘cheesecake’ topped with biscuits and with a blood orange compote on the side.  It could have done with more crunch and more compote to cut through the fluffiness – one lonely smear and blood orange segment does not a decent side make.

A good dinner should be a harmony of different things – namely good friends, good food and good wine in a relaxed setting. Pizarro had all of these things and more. What I especially liked was its unobtrusive staff. Despite the fact that people were waiting, and we had been dining for over two hours, I never felt as though we were going to be shoved out of the door at any moment so our table could be filled. And, the price tag didn’t hurt either – dinner for four, with wine, came to just under £30 per head.

Pizarro’s is a delight of a place, and just what London dining should be all about. If you don’t mind (relatively short) queues for your dinner, then it’s definitely worth the journey to Bermondsey.

Pizarro

194 Bermondsey Street

London
SE1 3TQ

Restaurant: Mon-Fri 12 – 3 for lunch, 6 – 11 for dinner. Sat 12-11. Sun 12-10.
Bar open all day

No reservations, except for the private room.

The Bacon Sandwich challenge: Red or Brown?

Ah, the humble bacon sandwich. No weekend is complete without one. Well, not in my house anyway. I’m currently in the process of training for my first 5k race, and many mornings it’s only the thought of the pristine porcine goodness awaiting me afterwards which keeps me running. Indeed, I’m thinking of asking Mr. Cay to attach one to a piece of string and wave it in front of me to keep me going during race day.

I’m fairly fussy in terms of how I take my bacon sandwich sarnie. It should be served on cheap white bread (such as the ubiquitous Warburton’s Toastie loaf) which has been slathered in good salted butter. And it should always, always come with ketchup – although if I’m feeling adventurous, I may put a good dollop of sriracha in there. Brown sauce should never come into the equation, being a solely sausage-sandwich approved condiment.

However, here at Little Red Courgette, we (well, OK, *I*) believe in experimentation and breaking new culinary boundaries, even if that does require me to take one for the team and put brown sauce where brown sauce should never go. So when Tracklements asked me if I’d like to take their bacon sandwich challenge, I gladly accepted . The rules were simple. Which one is better on your bacon -  ketchup or brown sauce? Well, there’s only one way to find out. FIGHT! I mean FRY!

In the interests of fairness, I pulled my trusty research assistant (Mr. Cay) away from the Formula One for ten minutes to aid me in my tasting notes. First up was the bacon sandwich containing the ketchup. Tracklements describe this as being packed with ‘the best, ripe Italian tomatoes’ and you can tell. Mainly because it actually looked and smelt like it had come into contact with an actual  tomato at some point in its life.  Despite its smooth texture, it tasted more like a relish than a ketchup and had a fresh, vibrant flavour. Whereas Heinz Tomato Ketchup is quite sweet with a firm vinegary punch, this is far more grown up fare. We both loved this, and I found myself dipping rounds of toast into it throughout the day. I’m already thinking of ways in which I can incorporate it into various marinades and sauces I intend to whip up over the coming weeks (well, if we don’t use it all up on breakfast products first).

The brown sauce didn’t fare so well. Mr. Cay refused to go anywhere near it for one thing, declaring it to “not be to his taste”.  I, however, decided to go in there full throttle, using a whole three rashers for this little tasting session. Despite saying that it was ‘fruity,’ I couldn’t really taste any of the tamarind sourness that you usually expect to find in a brown sauce. Instead, what I got was a incredibly powerful savoury hit from the soy sauce contained within its ingredients, which overwhelmed the salty, porky taste of the bacon. Personally, I would have preferred the savoury notes to be dialled down a bit, as this would have helped to make the sauce taste a bit more complex. I imagine that this might go well with Bubble & Squeak, but sadly, it almost ruined my poor bacon sarnie.

Of course, if we were doing this scientifically, we’d have blind tastings and swigs of water between bites, rather than mildly-distracted tastings and mugs of strong builder’s tea to wash the whole lot down with. But, in our wholly un-objective opinion, when it comes to bacon, ketchup will always win out. Sorry brown sauce.

Thanks to Tracklements for sending me samples of their ketchup & brown sauce to review.

Cardamom-Cinnamon Crumb Loaf

For various reasons (ostensibly because of “book research” but also because of “boredom”, “procrastination techniques” and “hangovers”) I’ve been watching a lot of food programmes recently which have been fronted by women.  These all tend to follow a bit of a pattern – a model-pretty female cook (usually in her mid 20s – early 30s), dressed immaculately in a vintage gown, floats around an urban landscape picking up artisan goodies for a little soirée she is holding for some friends that evening. After a few token shots of her chuckling with a homely shopkeeper and squeezing some ripe fruit with her perfectly manicured fingers, she wafts home to her giant, beautifully attired kitchen where she coos over some cake batter that she’s just whipped up in her hot pink KitchenAid. A few minutes later, and she’s constructed a beautiful multi-layed confection, swathed in picture perfect icing which she will then slice, take a dainty bite of and declare to be “divine!” or “swoonsome!” before she shoves it to one side, lest she be tempted to scoff the whole thing and ruin her perfect figure.

Of course, it’s churlish of me to be annoyed by these kinds of programmes. After all, they’re designed for the sole purpose of escapism – for people like me to lose themselves daydreaming about how they could attain that perfect lifestyle, where the biggest worry a girl can have in a day is whether her local deli is stocking her favourite brand of  icing sugar. “But these women are charming!” people tell me. “They’re sweet as buttons and wouldn’t hurt a fly! How could you possibly take offence to them? What’s so wrong about a beautiful woman making cake?”

Well, as a decidedly unbeautiful woman who is quite fond of making cakes, I think I’d quite like to see a bit more realism in my female-orientated food programming. Perhaps, just for once, I’d like to see a show which involves a  harassed looking woman (preferably with a face like a frying pan, but it’s TV and I know they can be funny about these kinds of things) running around a Sainsbury’s Local after work desperately wondering how the shitting hell she is going to fit in going for a run, making her tea and getting her Google Reader down to zero before she passes out on the sofa whilst watching Seinfeld. I’d like to see a woman show us how to cook a Sunday Lunch for her extended family whilst wrestling  with a force 10 port-acquired hangover and trying not to throw up in the gravy jug. I’d like to see a working woman with kids attempting to figure out how she’s going to cook a decent meal for them on a limited budget after finishing an eight hour shift.

Women aren’t stupid. And whilst there are many of us who enjoy baking, it’s a litle bit patronising to presume that we’ll fall over with joy every time we see a female chef whipping up some “naughty little treats” on TV. So come on production companies, cut us a little slack. Stop treating us like twee little imbeciles. Give us some blood and spice with our sugar.

And on that note, here’s some cake.

CARDAMOM-CINNAMON CRUMB LOAF (Makes one medium sized loaf)

For the loaf cake

• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 200g unsalted butter
• 150g soft brown sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 200ml single cream

For the cardamom-cinnamon crumb

• 75g butter
• 75g soft brown sugar
• 75g plain flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• The seeds from 6 cardamom pods, ground in a pestle and mortar

Make It!

1. First, grease a medium sized loaf tin well, and heat your oven up to Gas Mark 4/200 degrees c.
2. Sift your plain flour and baking powder together in a medium sized bowl. Add the brown sugar and combine well with a wooden spoon.
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Leave to cool for around five minutes, then add the eggs, vanilla essence and cream.
4. Combine the wet ingredients with the flour and sugar mixture until a firm, sticky batter has been formed. If you find the batter to be a bit dry, add a touch more cream. Pour the batter into your loaf tin.
5. Now, make your crumb topping. Place the buter, flour, sugar, cinnamon and cardamom in a bowl and combine well with your fingers until rough sticky ‘crumbs’ have been formed. Layer these on top of the loaf cake batter.
6. Bake the loaf cake at Gas Mark 4/200 degrees C for around 45 minutes-1 hour. The cake is done when the crumb has become browned and firm, and when a toothpick comes out clear when inserted into the cake.
7. Serve with coffee and a side order of misanthropy.