Eggs on Saturday

Eggs on Saturday is a big deal for me. In fact breakfast at the weekend is the important thing. Take the time to make something that takes a bit more time, then eating it in front of the telly together, paired with a pot of coffee or copious cups of tea. I love not having to be anywhere at a particular time, to the point where getting me out of the house before midday is a challenge.

So for this (four day!!) weekend I've been doing a lot of breakfast planning and even though it wasn't Saturday, it being the first day of the weekend, it had to be eggs. Unfortunately I was also so excited we wolfed it before I remembered to take a photo. So, I've found this one on Google to give you the idea (just in case you didn't know what fried eggs looked like). I have to admit that mine was not as pretty as this, but screw it, because it had bacon on it too, I win ;-)

By the time Saturday came I was looking to branch out so we had Bircher. This is a wet muesli created by Dr Bircher-Benner in Zurich in the 1890's. He was a Swiss physician and pioneered some aspects of our modern attitudes to healthy eating, recommending a balanced diet of nuts, raw fruit and vegetables to his patients. These attitudes were contrary to the common thinking of the time of eating lots of white bread and meat.

Anyway despite this, it's lovely and especially this Ottolenghi recipe that I found last year.

Bircher

Serves 4-6

200g rolled oats

200ml cold milk (full fat, low fat, soy or rice milk are all fine)

80ml apple juice

150g yoghurt (low fat or normal)

1 large granny smith apple, cored and roughly grated

70g agave nectar

60g raisins

½ tsp vanilla extract

Juice of 1 lime

60g walnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped (I used pecan nuts because that's what I had)

Your choice of fresh, poached or roasted seasonal fruit – plums, peaches, apples, pears, rhubarb – and/or fresh berries (optional). I used some sliced pears which I caramelised under the grill with some butter, brown sugar and mixed spice)

Put the oats in a large mixing bowl and add the milk and apple juice. Stir and leave aside for 10 minutes to soften. You can leave them to soak overnight in the fridge, which will soften them up a bit more, but it's not necessary.

When ready to serve, add the yoghurt, grated apple, agave nectar, raisins, vanilla and lime juice. 

Stir and transfer to serving bowls. Top with nuts and fruit if you like.

Day three and this might have to be the last breakfast extravaganza for the weekend as I've promised 'him in doors' that we can actually leave the house tomorrow and go and do something. However, we finished on a high and this morning has blueberry pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. The breakfast of champions and concluding what I've just realised is an unwitting American themed couple of days.

I love this breakfast. We tend to have it on special occasions because of the amount of syrup and butter that are 'required' :-)... It's the ultimate of salty and sweet. With soft pancakes, bursting with fruit, the bacon as crispy as possible and several pots of coffee. Happy me.

American Style Blueberry Pancakes

Should probably serve three but we always manage to get through this between two.

200g self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

1egg

300ml milk

a knob of butter

large handful of blueberries

maple syrup

Mix together the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Beat the egg with the milk, make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and whisk in the milk to make a thick smooth batter. Beat in the melted butter, and gently stir in the blueberries.

Brush a frying pan with vegetable oil. Drop a large tablespoonful of the batter per pancake into the pan to make pancakes about 7-10cm across. Cook over a medium heat until lightly browned on the bottom and bubbles have started to burst on the surface of the pancake and at least the edges of the pancake have started looking dry (about 3 minutes). Then turn and cook another 2-3 minutes until golden. Pop in the oven on a plate covered with foil while you use up the rest of the batter. Place the plate in a warm oven. Serve with maple syrup, butter, bacon and loads of fresh coffee.

Lunch at The Breakfast Club

We had a little wander down to Hoxton today. Hoxton has never really been my speed, preferring the more polished and grown up areas like Islington. I've never been into ordering lunch sitting in a garage on beanbag served by a stroppy hipster with an ironic moustache. However today I was liking the vibe of things being a bit gritty and arty. Plus, whenever you hear about a new and interesting restaurant these days, the majority of the time it does seem to be around this area. I think I'll make a bit more of an effort to explore a little more down there.

Anyway, today Rhid took me to The Breakfast Club for lunch. Odd I know. It's a shame we'd already had breakfast because this place does seem to serve, you've guessed it, mostly breakfast and looked like it did it incredibly well. It also had a section devoted to comfort food which I loved the idea of. The upshot seemed to be that this place has been designed with both the weekend and the hangover in mind. We'll definitely be back to try what else they have to offer.

I was a bit disappointed to see that the comfort food wasn't being served and not being interested in breakfast we were left with sandwiches. However, when ordered I really didn't have any reason to complain. Rhid's bacon, cheese, ham and barbecue sauce club rocked and my hot pastrami was also great and as my demands for chips and beer were also met, I was happy.

Slightly unenthusiastic service didn't effect what was a very nice lunch.

Either Rhid was having to think really hard to decide whether he liked his breakfast smoothie or sucking it through that straw is harder than I anticipated.

Give me a bucket of chicken!

My latest obsession recently has been fried chicken. Maybe I'm missing my old flat in south London? Maybe I'm getting excited about our up and coming trip to San Francisco? Maybe I'm reminiscing about my ex boyfriend who used to promise to take me out to dinner only to turn up at my flat three hours late with a bucket of chicken (for himself). Actually, maybe scratch that last one.

I think the real reason is that I was recently reading a blog about a fast food pop up in Kentish Town called Lucky Chip's Fried Chicken. It sounded like it kicked Colonel Sanders arse and I was planning on dragging Rhid up there a few weekends back to try it out. Through a catalogue of failures we missed the lunch service by 15 minutes and I only found out later that it was the last day! This lit a bit of a fried chicken fire inside me and I began to ask Google, 'Where is the best fried chicken in London?'.

Do you know where the best friend chicken in London is? Do you? According to every food blog I can find. Only Lucky-sodding-Chip in Kentish-bastard-Town!

So, if I can't get my hands on that version then I'm going to bloody make my own. I've started reading lots of accounts on how you can get the combination of soft and tender meat, crispy coating and of course that 'special' blend of spices which we've all been told about since birth.

One of the things that I've found out which I think is really interesting is that you don't get the soft flesh by slow cooking the chicken. This is normally what I'd do with joints of chicken as I love the flavour and the moist flesh but I'm not really a fan of chewy meat and gnawing at bones. No, in fact you get that soft meat by soaking the meat overnight in buttermilk. The culture in the buttermilk is supposed to breakdown the meat proteins  Apparently it's similar to brineing meat but with the added bonus that it adds a really nice flavour as well as tenderising.

The other myth apparently is that the chicken is battered. No, it seems that the crunchy coating is only flour. I can't see how this in going to work but I'm prepared to give it a go. Here's how it went...

The process is actually remarkably simple. Soak the chicken in butter milk, coat it in seasoned flour and fry on each side for six minutes. I was quite intimidated before I started, but next time I'd be much more relaxed about it. The main reason for nerves were because I'm not that used to deep frying. Hot oil scares me and I don't think it's something that people of my generation do very much. I remember my mum always having a deep fat fryer and making home made chips. However the health junkies have beaten us into a grilling and steaming submission. Bastards.

They came out looking remarkably authentic and I was dead chuffed. I put them in the oven to keep warm, desperate to try them. Then our guests got stuck in traffic and where half an hour late. Argh! But when they got here and we finally tucked in. I was so chuffed. The chicken was meltingly tender and the seasoned coating was crispy and tasty. A definite result and I'll definitely do this again, but maybe not for a while.

I served this with maple and mustard pulled pork, which was amazing! Coated in marinate and done in the slow cooker for 8 hours then finished in the oven. I'd add a photo but it looked like cat food. We also traditional American cornbread, which was essentially just a slightly savoury cake with sweetcorn in it. Weird!

Anyway, here is the recipe for the chicken. The only thing I would change would be to add more salt, but then I'm a bit of a salt demon. I also added some onion powder to the recipe I found so you could leave that out if you wanted. I also soaked the chicken in butter milk for about 20 hours. I've read that you can do it for anything up to two days. Although there does seem to be a risk of the meat going soggy:

Southern Fried Chicken

300ml buttermilk
1 tsp salt
6 pieces of chicken (I use a mixture of legs and thighs)
150g plain flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp smoked paprika
Vegetable oil, for frying

Combine the buttermilk and salt in a bowl large enough to hold the chicken, and add the meat, spooning the buttermilk over it to coat. Cover and refrigerate for about 8 hours, allowing it to return to room temperature before cooking.

Put the flour, salt and spices in a large, flat dish and whisk briefly to combine. Put 1.5cm of vegetable oil into a wide, straight-sided pan with a lid and heat until very hot: a cube of bread should brown almost immediately (about 170C). Wipe as much buttermilk off the chicken pieces as possible then roll them in the seasoned flour until thoroughly coated.

Put the chicken in one layer in the pan (you may need to do this in batches, depending on the size of the pan) and cover. Turn the heat right down and simmer for 6 minutes, then turn the chicken pieces over, cover again and cook for another 6 minutes. Prepare a rack to drain the chicken.

Turn the heat up and fry the chicken until it's a deep golden colour on all sides. Transfer to the rack and blot with kitchen paper. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Red wine and lamb stew with herby dumplings

I knew we were going to be out this evening so I took the opportunity a few days ago to do some batch cooking so we could have something tasty and hearty when we got in from this freezing cold weather. I have to admit to having a total sense of humour failure about the continuous Baltic temperatures, but the one major (and only) win about the situation is the continued presence of stews and red wine in my life. Hurrah!

This was escalated today by the last minute addition of dumplings. Taking advantage oh the longevity of suet, that I've had lying around since Christmas. I haven't had dumplings in about 15 years and the question I had tonight was, 'Why on earth have I left it this long?!' They were awesome!

I've cooked this lamb stew before but with lamb shanks, which was delicious. This time I did it with pre-diced lamb from the supermarket, which was fine but I missed having the big chunks of meat which balanced out the rich slightly sharp sauce. If think it might have been nice with lamb steaks too.

Ingredients

400g of diced lamb
1 carrot, finely diced
1 stick of celery, finely diced
1 red onion finely diced
1.5 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped
olive oil
1 garlic clove, sliced
50mls balsamic vinegar
250ml red wine
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp red current jelly
1 tbsp plain flour
Half a chicken or lamb stock cube
For the dumplings
85g Self raising flour
45g veg suet
1/2 tsp of baking powder
handful of parsley
pinch of salt
water

Method

Splash the olive oil into a large heavy based frying pan and add the carrot, celery, onion and rosemary. Pop on a low heat and cook for ages until the veg starts to caramelise and go brown. The rosemary will go fragrant and they will start to look really appetising  Don't cook too fast because they'll burn and turn bitter. Chuck the garlic in for the last minute.

Once the veg are cooked tip into a casserole dish and use the pan to brown the lamb well in batches. Browning meat is all about intense heat and giving the meat room to get really hot without sweltering and sweating. You need to get a good colour and scorch on it to give it flavour and that needs room. If there are brown bits left in the pan tip some cold water in and scratch them off. Tipping the water over the browned lamb which should be added to the casserole with the veg.

Once the lamb and the veg are in the casserole dish stir in the flour and tip over the red wine, balsamic, tomato paste, red current jelly and some salt and pepper. Top up with water if needed to cover the lamb and pop into an oven at 150c for two hours. Once cooked remove the meat and veg from the sauce and reduce down until the sauce is good and tick. At this point I added some water and chicken stock as the flavour was a bit strong but that's up to you.

To make the dumplings blitz the self raising flour, salt and baking powder with suet then add enough water to make a scone like mix. Blitz through the parsley and then form into about 10 balls. Pop back in the oven at 180c for 20 minutes. I then took the stew out of the oven, painted the dumplings with melted butter and popped under a grill until brown.

Chestnut, sausage pasta

Ahh, hello. First post of my new blog. Let's see how long this lasts. I have a feeling this is going to expose that I only actually find recipes from one or two places. Hopefully it will push me to try searching for things from a little further afield.

So, this is a little something I knocked up for lunch the other day from some leftovers. The original meal was a Nigel Slater recipe for stuffed mushrooms where you sprinkle big flat mushrooms with madeira and thyme before baking in the oven. Then stuffing with a mixture of fried onion, chestnuts, sausage meat and breadcrumbs. This was OK, but not something I'd make again.

The stuffing however was both lovely and very plentiful. So with stacks of leftovers I thought this might make the base of a nice pasta dish. The original dish called for the stuffing to be cooked briefly in the pan before stuffing the mushrooms and baking for half an hour.

For this pasta dish I drew a bit of inspiration from Jamie Oliver's Proper Blokes Pasta which I've cooked before. He uses Italian sausages, crumbled from their skins and then cooked down until the meat caramelises. It adds nice texture and makes the flavour of the meat sweeter and more intense. Also, as I was using the stuffing I'd already made, the bread crumbs were already incorporated. If I was to make this again from scratch I think I might fry the bread crumbs separately and mix it with the parsley and maybe some chopped raw garlic to make a fresh tasting gremolata to sprinkle on top of the pasta.

Sorry for the slightly crap photo. If I'm going to stick with this I think I'm going to have to invest in a new phone with a decent camera.

Ingredients

dash of olive oil
knob of butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
approx 200g of sausage meat (about two sausages worth, removed from the skins)
1/2 sprig of rosemary, chopped
50g breadcrumbs
50g chestnuts, chopped
100ml white wine
2 tablespoons of creme fraiche
4 tablespoons parmesan (plus extra for serving)
handful of parsley

Method

To make the sausage meat 'stuffing' put the onion in a frying pan with the butter and oil, crumbled sausage meat, the chopped rosemary, breadcrumbs and the sausage meat with some seasoning. Cook it right down until the sausage meat had caramelised slightly and everything else was nice and crispy.

Then add the white wine and wait for the alcohol to cook off. When the pasta is cooked, stir a dollop of creme fraiche through the sauce with the parmesan and some of the pasta cooking water, just to loosen the sauce. To finish I added the al dente pasta to the frying pan to warm in through and mix in the sauce before finishing with a handful of parsley, seasoning and more parmesan.