Early this week I saw a tweet mabout a Smitten Kitchen post from last year for braised ginger meatballs in coconut broth which looked excellent and I was excited to try it when I got home.
I love a real Christmas cake, a dark fruit cake, slightly too soft, a little booze, and disproportionatly more mazipan than strictly neccessary. This year I decided to to follow the very excellent Completely Perfect by Felicity Cloake.
The more I use the Instant Pot, the more I appreciate being able to easily use different cooking techniques without doing more washing up. Recently I’ve used it a few times to make curries and uncovered the left-right-left of Instant Pot cookery: saute - pressure cook - saute.
Whilst noodling through John Whaite’s very excellent Comfort I ran across his fig, prune and port tart tatin. I’ve alwaysrather enjoyed tart tatin, with it’s unctuous and gooey fruits and pleasingly crisp base/top, and it’s the time of year when dired fruits are often on offer in the supermarkets.
I remember this from growing up, but didn’t know where it came from. A bit of googling suggests it was probably from Nigella Christmas. The original reciepe calls for snipped sage leaves.
You will need For the dough 200g of plain flour 60g fat (I used some lard) About 6 tablespoons of cold water For the filling In total it should add up to a couple of big handfuls
Instance I joined the Cult of Instant Pot I’ve become a fulltime convert. The thing I love about it most is having everything in one pot which does everything.
This is an enriched bread dough, with a bunch of seasonal fruit, a dose of spice and some light brown sugar. I threw in a tangarine too, which lead to too much moisture and to load sinking in the middle, but it tasted great.
Roughly this time last year I made 5 ingrediant tomato meatballs for the first time and it is excellent, we’ve had it numerous times. Tonight I decided to enrich it a little with some leftover double cream and tweak the spice mix a bit.
Yet more Completely Perfect for a Saturday tea, but this time I went off piste when following the perfect sausage rolls. I love a sausage roll, they’re much better than the sad limp party food they are thought of as.
I’m continuing to work my way though Felicity Cloake’s excellent Completely Perfect and for a Saturday night what’s more fitting than the perfect chicken tikka masala with the perfect naan.
I got a copy of Felicity Cloake’s Completely Perfect for my birthday and I’ve been working through it for the last few months. It’s brilliant, you should absolutely buy a copy.
The airfrier came into its own this week when I discovered I could use it to make tiny cubed roast potatoes. Delicious in their own right, but excellent as part of the bulk of a meal.
Another Friday night fake takeaway, though this time probably just as unhealthy as the bought variety. I realised I’d never had a vindaloo before, always writing them off as too hot (and thus generally not very flavoursom), but the combination of pork and mustard always sounded good.
I love Chinese food, especially dim sum and Sichuan hot pot, but when it comes to takeaway, naff English style dishes are my weakness. There’s something about crispy fried things in a slightly gelatinous sauce that really hits the spot.
Tonight was one of those nights where I wanted something quick, tasty and passingly healthy. “Vegetable corner” of the kitchen looked like it needed a clearing out, so it was a good excuse to roast it all.
This year I’ve had more success than last year growing chillis, so it was high time I made a chilli with them. I also managed to grow a tonne of herbs, so I thought I’d make use of them too.
Many years ago, whilst watching Buffy, Spike (the best Buffy character) mentioned Blooming Onions. The idea piqued my interest, and then I forgot about it.
Recently I’ve been cooking a lot of spiced spinach dishes. It’s a tonne of green vegetables, full of spicy goodness and if you squint you can convince yourself it’s healthy.
After a busy week mostly fuelled by snacks and black coffee we needed a dinner full of vegatables than was also satisfying. The combination of a tonne of spinach and cheese fitted the bill.
Reasonably often we make flat breads, pile them full of tasty things and hot sauce and at them with our faces. It might be a bit formulaic, but it’s always tasty.
In a recent tweet my friend Branden mentioned making his own yoghurt to reduce the amount of single use plastic in the house and it reminded me that I’d always meant to have a go.
I love bread and butter pudding and I love hotcross buns, so when I left a pack of hotcross buns out and they went stale there was only one option - another using up combo recipe.
