whatkimcookednext

It’s flipping pancake day again!

It’s that time of year again when you are racing home late from work and remember that it’s Shrove Tuesday and that traditionally you should be making pancakes. Now there are options here, you can nip into your local supermarket and buy ready made ones; you can buy ready-made mix and pretend it was your own, or you can ignore completely and pretend that you a) hadn’t remembered or b) that you don’t like them anyway. Finally, you can just bite the bullet and make them yourself. Simples! As that ghastly meerkat thing would say.

Pancakes are very easy to make and are good for both savoury and sweet toppings. They always remind me of those brilliant crepe stalls you get in France, where even if you’re not hungry, there’s always room for a crepe.

Pancake recipe

110g plain flour, Pinch of salt, 2 large eggs, 200ml milk, mixed with 75ml of water (Optional 1 tablespoon of Grande Marnier or any other orange liqueur); Groundnut oil for frying (I like this best, as it doesn’t burn as easily as olive oil)

Method

Chuck eggs and the flour in to a food processor or use an electric whisk. I mix it with my hand whisk straight in a jug which makes it easier
Add water and milk mixture
Add liqueur if wished, this is for really fancy “crepe suzette” type pancakes
Whisk until all lumps have gone and it had a texture like thin cream
Add a little groundnut in to a hot frying pan
Add a little of mixture and immediately swish round the pan until it is thinly covered, you’ll soon get the hang of how much mixture you need, the thinner the better and the first one is always a disaster so don’t be downhearted
When the underside of the pancake is beginning to go very light gold, either flip with a spatula or toss confidently in the air to cook the other side

At this point, I like to add a couple of broken chocolate truffles and a spoonful of golden syrup to the pancake so it starts to go melty and lovely, but that’s optional

Slide off the plate and serve
Use my topping as above, or alternatives are:
- Chunks of chocolate, with golden syrup and whipped double cream
- Chopped banana, with greek yogurt and honey
- Lemon juice and sugar – Shrove Tuesday purists will say this is the best way to go
- Nutella – just on its own (Ellie’s favourite)
- Very thinly sliced apples with a sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon (if you cook the apple with a little, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan beforehand, just for a few minutes it is a really lovely topping)
- Chopped up walnuts and maple syrup
- Ham or salami and grated cheese (omit the orange liqueur if you choose this)

Oh and of course, all of the above should be with a big scoop of the ice cream of your choice!

Let me know your choice of topping!

Sweetcorn fritters – such versatile little chaps

Sweetcorn fritters can be just about anything you want them to be. They are brilliant with crispy bacon as breakfast food; lovely as a quick vegetarian lunch with salad or we now have a tradition of serving these with our roast turkey at Christmas, but they are always stunning with roast chicken. You can even try them with a little chopped red chilli added as part of a mexican-style meal with salsa and sour cream. The main base of these yummy little chums, is creamed sweetcorn, which isn’t always available, so whenever I see a can at the supermarket (Waitrose normally has them) I always buy a couple to keep in my store cupboard.

They are absolutely best eaten hot and straight out of the pan, but you can cook them in advance and store in greaseproof paper, but I can’t pretend they are nearly as nice. You can make the batter in advance though which does help. Here is my simple recipe:

Sweetcorn Fritters

100g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
a little salt and black pepper (to suit your tastes)
1 large egg
440g can of creamed sweetcorn (MUST be creamed, not just ordinary corn)
vegetable oil (not olive oil- it burns) for frying
A good non-stick frying pan

Method:

Mix sweetcorn, salt and pepper and the egg in a mixing bowl or jug until they are well combined
Sieve in the flour and baking powder, holding the sieve nice and high so that as much air as possible gets in to the mixture
Fold in to the mixture, trying to keep as much air in as possible
Heat a little oil in a hot frying pan.

Drop a few tablespoonsfuls of the mixture into pan – they will puff up, so don’t do too many at once
Fry until a lovely golden colour, then flip to cook the other side
Drain on some kitchen roll and serve

If you are doing these for breakfast, they are lovely if you cook the bacon first, then cook the fritters in the bacon fat. Very naughty, I know or alternatively if you are being good, you can always use Fry-light.

What Kim’s blog did in 2011

This is very exciting! The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for my blog and I think it makes very interesting reading, click on the link below to have a good look.

Thank you so much everyone who has taken the time to visit the blog (6,500 visits!) and wishing you a happy and healthy New Year! (Our New Year’s Eve was definitely happy but maybe not so healthy, did Sherri and I really think we looked good in those glasses?? John and Mark clearly didn’t think so)

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

We’ll leave the last word to Josh as he sings in to 2012 in to his Cobra microphone..

Don’t panic…last minute Christmas present? Make Christmas Jam!

Christmas Jam is just great. It’s cheap, it’s tasty, it shows how thoughtful you’re being by making something so personal and best of all… it is a brilliant red colour! It has the lovely flavours of cranberries, orange and cinnamon with the freshness of strawberries.

It really doesn’t take long to do and here is the recipe:

You will need:600g cranberries, 450g fresh strawberries chopped in to small pieces, 1.2kg of jam sugar with pectin, juice and zest of a large orange, 1 bottle of certo pectin, ground cinnamon and cloves to taste.

Method:

Add one and a half pints of water to the cranberries, orange and zest, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes
Sieve the mixture to get rid of the seeds and skins, really push the mixture through to get the maximum fruit puree (You don’t have to do this if you don’t mind it slightly coarser textured)

return to the heat and add the chopped strawberries and the sugar bring slowly back to the boil
Stir in half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and a quarter of ground cloves, taste and add more if you like
Boil hard for 1 minute
Remove from heat, stir in the bottle of certo
Pot in to clean jam jars

This is such a pretty jam and people do like it when you’ve taken the trouble to make something special.

Merry Christmas!

My beautiful bread sauce recipe

Bread sauce is a wonderful thing provided you make it yourself. The bizarre thing is that if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, I actually prefer the Knorr packet variety to the fresh ready-made goo that you can buy in Supermarkets, does that tell you something about my taste buds? Oh well…. I think the key to a great bread sauce is to keep the onions in it, if you cook them very gently and make sure they are finely chopped they make the flavour amazing. The other good thing, is that it freezes really well, so if you make it now, you can just take it out of the freezer on Christmas Eve.

We love bread sauce hot with our turkey on Christmas Day, but most of all we love it cold in the ultimate left-overs Boxing Day sandwich (turkey, bacon, cold stuffing, tomatos, mayonnaise, cranberry sauce and bread sauce – add avocado if you have any knocking around). Trust me, try it before you immediately dismiss the idea! Anyway, for it’s more traditional usage here is my recipe! I have got 10 people for lunch on Christmas Day and I have made double quantities.

Ingredients: 1 small or half of a large, mild white onion, finely chopped (don’t use a red onion, it won’t work), 10 cloves, 10 peppercorns, 1 bayleaf and 2 sprigs of thyme, 500ml full cream milk, 100g butter, 100g of dried white breadcrumbs or cubed, stale white bread, Salt and pepper to taste

To serve: 4 tablespoons double cream, knob of butter (what is a knob? No rude suggestions please! It is approximately 1 teaspoon), fresh grated nutmeg

Method

Melt 100g butter in a saucepan on a low heat and add the finely chopped onion
Sweat the onion gently (that means heat them gently on a low heat, don’t fry them), until soft and translucent for 5 to 10 minutess – do not allow to brown, they should be soft and translucent
Add the cloves, peppercorns, bayleaf and thyme and the milk
Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and stand for at least 2 hours or overnight if preferred
Fish out the herbs, cloves and peppercorns (You’ll be very pleased you counted them!) but leave the lovely soft onion bits in
Place over a low heat and add the breadcrumbs
Bring to the boil
Simmer for 3-4 minutes
IF YOU ARE GOING TO FREEZE YOUR BREAD SAUCE, ALLOW IT TO COOL AND FREEZE NOW
If you’re serving straight away,take off the heat, stir in the double cream and the knob of butter and serve with a sprinkling of nutmeg

If you have defrosted your bread sauce, place in a saucepan and add the 4 tablespoons of cream and the knob of butter and heat gently without boiling and serve as above.

I love these “Pour and Store” bags for freezing or for storing sauces and soups. They are a really handy shape and you can pour things in to them whilst they are still hot.

“It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees..” whilst there’s always a time to listen to Joni Mitchell, now is the time to make your Christmas sauces

Listening to “River” by Joni Mitchell always makes me feel nostalgic and christmassy, and a little bit sad but this really is the time of year when you need to turn off your old nostalgic 70’s songs and think about making bread and cranberry sauce in advance, to be placed in the freezer ready for Christmas day (or you could cook whilst listening to 70’s nostalgia, another option?). You will thank me, when you smugly take them out to defrost the night before and that is just two less things to worry about

Today, however we are starting with the Cranberry Sauce. Fresh cranberries are available in the supermarket from about now, and whilst you can buy bottled or even shop-made cranberry sauce, it is so, so easy to make your own and much more satisfying. I always buy them now, make and freeze the sauce; ready to take out on Christmas Eve.

Ingredients:

150g caster sugar, the Juice and zest of 1 lime and 1 orange, made up to 150 ml with water,

300g fresh cranberries.

Then for serving on the day, you can add the zest of a lime or an orange and if you want a very grown up flavour, 1 tablespoon each of tequila and triple sec which makes it taste deliciously like a cosmopolitan meets margarita. I made this version of the recipe on GMTV and apparently it was very popular!

METHOD:

Add the sugar, water and orange and lime juice and zest to a saucepan

Over a low heat, gently dissolve the sugar and simmer for 2-3 minutes until it is clear and syrupy

Add the cranberries and bring to the boil – this is the best bit as you can hear the beautiful little red berries popping.
Reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes

Remove from the heat, cool and freeze if you wish
Before serving: Add the orange zest and if wanted, the triple sec and vodka

(If you want to make a less alcoholic version but want the flavour, add the booze at the end of the cooking and boil for a further few minutes which will burn off the alcohol but leave the taste)

And that’s it! Watch this space over the next weeks for more Christmas loveliness, bread sauce next week.

Experimental jamming, the ideal stress buster and this week it’s rhubarb and ginger

Now I don’t mean jamming in the musical sense, although I expect that would be a lovely, calming experience too even if you can’t play a note in tune, like me. No, I mean playing with hot sugar, fruit and jam jars. Honestly making jam is really therapeutic and calming and not only that, if you start doing it now,you can make brilliant Christmas presents. It’s a real myth that you have to make vast quantities of jam or marmalade every single time which can put people off making it. If you choose and weigh your ingredients carefully, you can experiement with flavours and only make small amounts, then go ahead and make masses if you want to or just make it a little at a time.

One of the key challenges of making jam, is understanding when the jam has reached setting point and the beauty of experimenting with really small quantities is that they set very quickly. Everyone has their own preferred methods of checking, but I always place a couple of saucers in the freezer before I start cooking, and then when you think your jam is ready, take it off the heat and drop a teaspoonful on to the cold plate. If you push it with your finger it should wrinkle, that means it will set.

English forced rhubard, with its pretty pink colouring and sharp taste is a noble ingredient at the best of time and is wonderful in crumbles and fools, but combine it with crytallised ginger and you have a jam made in heaven, and so, so easy. You will need:

275g chopped, washed rhubarb (English forced pink is best)
275g preserving sugar with pectin
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon (or more if you really like it) of chopped, crystallised ginger
2 small jam jars with lids

Method:

Place your clean jam jars in the oven for 10 minutes on regulo 4/Gas 180 or 160 fan to sterilise them
Immerse the lids in boiling water (I just pour it over them from the kettle) and wipe them dry with clean kitchen roll
Simply place the washed rhubard and lemon juice in a non-stick pan over a low heat until the fruit is soft, takes 5 to 10 minutes.
Add the sugar and stir gently until it is absorbed
Increase the heat until it is bubbling – be careful not to do it for too long, mine only took 2 minutes to reach setting point
Allow to cool for 5 minutes and then stir in the chopped crystallised ginger
Pour or spoon the mixture into the hot jam jars (place waxed circles on top if you wish) and place the lids on the jars

This is so delicious with hot toast and butter, or Katy just eats it by the spoonful straight from the jar. It would be wonderful in a microwave sponge pudding or with scones. The joy is, that with small quantities you can try any flavours you like – plum and vanilla (Thanks Debbie, for that suggestion), blackberry and star anise, lime and ginger or orange and chocolate chip marmalades (or is that just wrong- jaffa cake marmalade?), the possibilities are endless. Watch this space for suggested christmas presents – flavoured oils, vodkas and a special Christmas jam recipe.

What the Halloween shall I do with all that pumpkin? Cupcakes and spooky soup, of course!

It’s that time of year again, when Katy and I carve pumpkins, just because we can and it’s such fun and we hope that the “Trick or Treat” brigade don’t throw bricks if not donated with sufficient amounts of chocolate (It was worrying last year how many of them had voices that had already broken). Disappointingly, no Halloween parties or discos this year, but on the plus side it means we don’t see Josh in his red velvet devil costume (Yes he really does, the minx, be grateful it’s Katy in the photo).

However, the biggest question on everyone’s mind is not “Paranormal 1” or “Paranormal 2”, it’s what the heck do you do with all that scooped out pumpkin? Well, Ellie’s recipe for a really good curried pumpkin soup to use up the flesh and for roasted pumpkin seeds is always a winner. I’ve included those further down as they are very easy to make and delicious. However, making cakes with vegetables is still the new black, so never one to resist a fashion trend, I present to you my Pumpkin Cupcakes.

PUMPKIN CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

100g unsalted butter, softened
190g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger and ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
120g cooked, mashed pumpkin
275g self-raising flour plus 1 teaspoon of baking powder
Splash of milk if the mixture looks a little stiff
50g chopped walnuts plus a few for decoration

For the icing: 100g unsalted butter, 200g icing sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence all beaten together until pale and creamy

For the Cupcakes: Pre heat the oven to Gas mark 4/160 fan/180 electric. Cream the butter and sugar together (I chucked them in the food processor) once they are pale and creamy, add the eggs followed by all the spices and the mashed pumpkin. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold in gently, add a little milk if very stiff. Stir in the chopped walnuts and place in twelve large cupcake or muffin cases.

Place in the oven for 25 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Decorate as you wish, I used vanilla butter icing (Literally, combine all the ingredients until creamy) and sprinkled with bright orange glitter, or get as spooky as you like with black icing etc. The pumpkin really does make these cakes lovely and moist, in fact if you have left over mashed butternut squash or parsnip it would be just as nice.

Ellie’s Spooky Soup

You will need: The innards of one pumpkin, (less a little bit for your cupcakes!) flesh chopped into manageable chunks.

One onion, chopped.
A couple of cloves of garlic, chopped.
One chopped up chilli).
A big pinch of dried curry leaves, or a big spoonful of curry powder.
Approximately 750mls of vegetable stock – made from 2 Kallo Organic chicken cubes
Salt and pepper to taste.
A big dollop of double-cream or half-fat crème
A splash of the oil of your choice.

Method

Heat up your oil in a big pan and throw in the onion, garlic and chilli. Cook until it all starts to soften but not go brown.
Chuck the pumpkin chunks in with it, add all the seasoning, and cook the lot until it’s going a bit golden and gooey (about 5 minutes).
Pour your stock in over the top, bring to the boil, and then simmer over a low heat for maybe 20 minutes, until the pumpkin has gone really soft.
If you have a hand blender (the kitchen gadget of champions, in my humble opinion), then whiz it up in the pan until it’s smooth; otherwise, obviously, you could stick it in a proper blender; if you are not lucky enough to own either of the above, a masher and a lumpy soup will still be tasty.
Dollop in your creamy component of choice, and then give it another whiz and heat it again for another minute or two. Serve with some sort of bread.

Toasted Pumpkin seeds

Take your pumpkin seeds (you can use butternut squash seeds as well, which is also good made in to Ellie’s soup as a pumpkin substitue). I tablespoon of olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon paprika.

Pre-heat your oven to low – Gas Mark 1 120 degrees C for fan assisted, C140 not
Rinse your seeds and then pat them dry with some kitchen roll
Place in a bowl and stir in the oil, salt and pepper and paprika
Line a baking tray with aluminium foil
Spread the seeds out on the tray and place in the oven for around 15-30 minutes until golden brown or until your hear them start to pop

These are great on the top of the soup, but also lovely hot from the oven with a glass of wine. Experiment with curry powder, worcester sauce, garlic or chilli oil.

Have a lovely Halloween!

Alain Roux – I love your cooking – try his sublime scallop mousse

Everyone knows that my favourite restaurant in the world is “The Waterside Inn” at Bray and that I have a bit of a pash for Alain Roux, who is not only a genius cook but one of the nicest people you will ever meet. His father of course is incomparable, but Alain has a much lighter touch and some of his new dishes are truly brilliant, But at the end of the day during my unforgettable cooking course at the Waterside, it was Alain who taught me how to fillet a Dover Sole and to make Italian meringue, so my heart stays with him.

Having seen father and son on “Saturday Morning Kitchen, which was pure entertainment in itself, I have been meaning to try the scallop mousse that Alain cooked on the show for ages. Having done this it was so easy and so delicious I really do urge you to try it. I changed the recipe very slightly (apologies Alain) but here’s my version, I also think this would be wonderful done with lobster or crab.

You will need 4 -6 small ramekins (those funny little ovenproof dishes) Ingredients: Enough butter to generously grease the dishes, 150g/5ozs scallops (white only no corals), 2 large eggs, 200m/7fl ozs double cream, pinch salt and some cayenne pepper. Alain used fresh herbs but I missed these out and used some of the asparagus ends lightly sauteed instead:To garnish: 25g/1oz butter, 150g fine asparagus, lemon juice and 4 large scallops (white only) (Alain made more of a sauce, I kept mine a little simpler)

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3.
Grease the ramekin dishes generously with the butter
Lightly saute the ends of the asparagus

Place them at the bottom of the greased ramekins

Blend the scallops and eggs in a food processor for one minute or until smooth. Add the cream, salt and cayenne pepper and blend for a further minute.

Divide the mousse mixture evenly between the ramekins and cover each ramekin with aluminium foil.

Place the ramekins in a roasting tray and add enough boiling water to come half way up the sides.
Place into the oven and cook for about 20-25 minutes. A skewer should come out cleanly
Heat the butter in a frying pan and cook the scallops on high for a couple of minutes until they are slightly browned on the outside but still tender inside – don’t overcook!
Remove from the pan and toss the cooked asparagus in the butter until it is warmed through, drizzle lemon juice over the top
Remove the foil from the ramekins, loosen the timbales with a small knife and turn each one out onto a warm plate.
Place slices of scallop on the side, along with the asparagus spears and any remaining butter.

Due warning though Waterside, our lovely friends Helen and Joe are taking me to Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester this week – you have come out top against other Michelin starred venues I’ve visited – will you still be triumphant after Thursday? Watch this space

The Bonnie and Wild in Islington – Scottish seafood and game of the highest quality

The Bonnie & Wild is one of the new concept restaurants that are spreading through London, although they prefer to be known as a part-time restaurant rather than a pop-up. It is a fantastic idea, and this group of young, passionate food enthusiasts is doing a stalwart job that deserves our support. Based at 74 Chapel Market Islington, on Friday and Saturday nights they turn what is a renowned Pie and Mash shop ( M Manze) in to a showcase for their cooking and produce. The best part of Bonnie and Wild is the quality of the food they serve, amazing game brought down fresh from Scotland mixed with other locally sourced produce, simply, but effectively cooked. The victorian building is listed and has that wonderful charm that is somewhere between a high-class public convenience and a cosy pub. (Fay Maschler might have been right about the cushions though, guys!) The tables are narrow and functional and the seating is booth-style, maximum of 6. The name Bonnie & Wilde comes from the two suppliers used Bonnie Gull Ltd and the Wild Game Co, who bring Scottish game down to a variety of markets, such as Leadenhall, However, here with the use of a BBQ they bring themselves, the kitchen is not the most sophisticated after all, it was just to cook pies, they cook their own produce. The chef is Iain Sim, who during the week cooks at the Mussel Inn in Edinburgh and he does a great job. The menu is simple and changes on a weekly basis, with a choice of 3 starters and 3 main courses, with a pud or cheese to follow for £29.00 per head. It’s a bring your own booze joint, at a charge of £3.50 per head.. This is always a mixed blessing and if your party is anything like ours was, we all totally over-compensated and ended up bringing twice as much as we would normally order and and of course, felt duty-bound to drink it. Judging from the raucous conversations coming from some of the other tables, this seems to be fairly normal here. Quiet and intimate it isn’t, lively and buzzing definitely.

On to the food, we started by ordering one of the starters, the fresh oysters, as a separate dish to have with our drinks and to accompany the rather delicious bread with balsamic vingaer and olive oil that was served. The oysters were traditionally served with lemon and a well prepared shallots in a red wine vinegar and were plump and delicious. The other two choices were a goats’ cheese and walnut salad, served on a crouton which was fine, the goats’ cheese was of a high quality and the simple salad and dressing went well. Nothing exceptional, but good solid food. However, my choice of first course was exceptional and is one of the things that they do so well there. I had the pigeon breast on a simple salad and it was cookedto prfection. Rare enough to be succulent, but cooked on their BBQ enough to get a beautiful flavour, I would go back just to eat that again. The choices for the next course were a vegetarian pasta, sea bass or venison fillet. Given Bonnie & Wild’s specialities, this is really not the place to go for vegetarian food, not because it isn’t good, although I ahve to confess I didn’t even try it, but because the meat is so fine, that it’s criminal to eat anythign else. Talking to Andy (pictured above with the lovely Errol Fuller – check him out on Youtube and see what you get – I guarantee you’ll love him), one of the co-owners the venison is apparently at the best of the season at the moment, and OMG (I’ve turned in to a texting teenage girl in my enthusiasm) it showed. This was without doubt the best and most delicous venison I have ever tasted. Don’t be put off by the presentation above, the truth is that we were all so greedy that we had already started eating before we realised we hadn’t taken a photograph. A fillet was shared between 2 people and was simply served on board, with chips and a little salad. There were 2 sauces served seperately – a redcurrant jus, which was pleasant and a hollandaise that had lovely flavours (you might want to re-think the consistency though guys) but the star of the dish was the venison itself. I do like mine super-rare, but those in our party who had it more cooked agreed it was still succulent and tender. Am I rambling? yes, possibly as I am positively watering at the mouth just thinking back to it!

The dessert/cheese menu was a little limited and the advertised pear and almond tart was substituted by an apricot version which was fine, but not amazing.

I went for the cheeseboard and would have liked a little more history about the cheeses that were served and where they came from, but again, perfectly adequate.

All in all, this is definitely worth a visit if you like simple high quality game and seafood, beautifully cooked then go and support this worthy venture. You can book direct on their website http://bonniewild.co.uk/ but hurry, because places go fast.