Category Archives: Everyday meals

Snail Porridge (My version) -YOU MUST TRY THIS DISH

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One of the best things about working in the fat duck was the things I learnt and what I picked up which I could then transfer into my everyday cooking. For example, you try going to the shops and buying a sous vide machine on a student budget, let alone find the time to individually separate grapefruit cells while trying to meet a deadline. But the brilliant thing about the fat duck is it isn’t just a show of conjuring tricks (hot and cold tea – just wow), foam for foams sake. It also has some of the most inspired texture, flavour and smell combination. While creating a dish, Heston thinks about every aspect and the overall sensation, no sense is more important than another, the dish should look aesthetically pleasing, it should impress with its innovation, but it should also taste pretty damn good. So I decided to spin a few of the recipes I saw being created to make them easier to create fast and easily, while maintaining the amazing flavours. Even if you are not a fan of snails (the snails are actually not essential in my version) YOU MUST TRY THIS DISH, think the warming sensation of porridge mixed with the flavour comfort garlic bread. 
Snail Porridge (My version)
Ingredients (serves 3 as a starter)
Snails
12 snails, shelled
butter
2 cloves garlic
Parsley Butter
3 cloves garlic
large bunch of parsley
200g butter
5 baby mushrooms
Fennel Salad
1 fennel head
1tbsp walnut oil
1tbsp white wine vinegar
Seasoning
To serve
150ml stock
100g oats
shavings of parma ham (optional`)
1.     For the butter, finely dice the garlic and mushrooms. Fry the garlic in 25g butter for 1min then add the mushrooms and cook for a further minute. Meanwhile pick the parsley from its stalks, puree in a food processor. Mix (using a electric whisk) the remaining butter, garlic mix and parsley and refrigerate.
2.     For the snails, melt the butter in a pan with 100ml water. Add the garlic cloves whole and bring to the boil. Add the snails for 2-3mins each. Remove and set aside.
3.     For the fennel salad, finely slice the fennel with a mandolin, toss in the oil and vinegar and season.
4.     To serve, heat the butter in a pan till melted. Add the oats, then the stock in two batches, whisking with a fork throughout. Cook for 2-3mins then place in small dishes. Carefully place the parma ham on top then top with a handful of fennel salad and serve. 

The Big Breakfast Dinner

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The Big Breakfast Dinner
So the man who lives upstairs is coming to dinner…. (this isn’t as creepy as it sounds, there is actually a flat that is adjacent to ours).  The young man who lives upstairs frequently pops over clutching a bottle of red wine, for good food and conversation. The state of the fridge is as sorry as ever and the torrents of rain are encouraging me not to leave the house. On top of that I really need to tackle the bombsite that I have called my room for the past 3 years in an attempt to pack for my final year. There is little in the fridge aside from the chocolate making ingredients for birthday presents, at least there is some peanut butter ganache (150g Bourneville chocolate, 2 dollops of peanut butter, a pinch of cayenne melted together) that I can pass as sauce for ice cream for dessert. There is even a little pine nut brittle left over from the Dean’s dinner that would compliment this perfectly and I might even throw in a few frozen raspberries for colour, so dessert is under control.
            There is always the salmon. I feel bad that I seem to never give my parents any meat. I constantly construct my meals around fish and leftovers, and this is no exception. I spotted some mashed potato in the back and had the idea that to make things a little different I would make breakfast for dinner. I’ve never made potato pancakes before but I thought I would have a go. Potato pancakes, confit salmon, horseradish crème fraiche and green beans with almonds. So I begun by putting a good 3 inches of oil into a deep frying pan with a dash of truffle oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, peppercorns, a bay leaf and some salt. Then I whisked 2 eggs, 125ml milk, salt, pepper, lemon juice, vanilla extract and the mash together before adding a dash of baking powder and 75g flour to create my pancake batter. Then I mixed a large spoonful of horseradish into two spoonful’s of crème fraiche with black pepper and then I dry toasted some flaked almonds. Then I went to the gym, as you do.
            Feeling incredibly, virtuous, sweaty and fired up to the soundtrack of Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’, I set about finishing off the supper. It was quite a simple assembly job at this point. I set the oil to a low simmer and put the salmon in and covered it.

Meanwhile I heated a large frying pan with a knob of butter in it till melted then placed a few dollops of pancake mix in and cooked each for about 2-3mins on the bottom and 1min after flipping them. For the salmon I turned the salmon about 4mins in and cooked for a further 4mins before turning off the heat and leaving them to sit in the oil for a little. Then I steamed the green beans, drained and mixed them with the almonds and a grating of parmesan. It was quite tasty, but the pancakes could possibly have done with a drizzle of the salmon oil. Not quite breakfast but I think it’s time pancakes branched out to other meals. Is it awful to say I’m seeing the flip side of pancakes…..

                                          

Truffled Bacon Pasta

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Truffled Bacon Pasta
It’s only a few days till I go to Uni and I’ve been to London all day, for once the last thing I feel like doing is cooking. But mum and I have to eat. Because we have realised once I leave, virtually no-one is eating at home I decide that the only thing is to cook a simple pasta dish with what I can conceivably find in the freezer. The other problem is that my mum has headed out to help out at the schools ‘Boden evening’ – possibly the most middle class you can get – and I have no idea when she is back so a speedy dish is of the essence. The good news is dad is in France so we are allowed to have onions! There was a little cream and some bacon in the freezer – a carbonara would work rather well.
            When she finally walked in the door I was given my instructions with military precision, we had all of 15minutes before she returned to hoard the perfectly twee mums clothes that make up Boden. She was rather chuffed with her purchases, and at a discount. So I was looking for a very quick meal. I chopped up the half frozen bacon and fried it, simultaneously boiling pasta in another pan. I sprinkled a little salt on to the bacon and at this point spotted some dried mushrooms in the cupboard so I rehydrated them with a small amount of boiling water. When the bacon was crispy I added the whole lot of mushrooms and water to the pan, a little more salt, some chopped garlic and some dried herbs de provence. Thyme would be the best herb at this point but I had none. (pardon the pun) I let it bubble a little before adding a splash of sherry vinegar, some cream and a drizzle of truffle oil (my new favourite ingredient – lifts any dish). I added beans to the pasta’s last few minutes of cooking then poured a little pasta water into the sauce, drained the pasta and mixed the sauce in. Good thing there was enough leftover for lunch the next day – even better cold. 

Wot We Had in the Fridge

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Wot We Had in the Fridge
            Yet again I return for one of my short visits home to an empty fridge, complaints from my father of ‘your mother cooked baked potato with tuna TWICE IN A ROW’ and ‘ but dinner in college is so easy, who needs to grocery shop?’ welcomed me. So I was forced to feel around in the fridge for something to cobble together for dinner. What I found was, new potatoes, some rather old preserved lemons, one last dollop of mayonnaise, butter, a few leftovers from the Neighbours dinner and some dodgy looking green beans. The green beans were quickly discarded as they smelt like wet fish. So instead I turned to the freezer and found mackerel fillets, a good start, and some frozen beans. I used the lemons as my sole inspiration for a Moroccan pan-fried mackerel with rose infused crushed potatoes.
            Firstly I boiled the potatoes with salt, pepper, a bay leaf, garlic, parsley and the mint. Meanwhile I toasted some blanched almonds, added the chopped lemons a good 150g or so of butter, salt, pepper, ras al hanout, parsley and a little vanilla extract and cooked till golden. When the potatoes were boiled I simply crushed them with mayonnaise and a dash of rose extract. Finally I dusted the mackerel fillets with flour, pan fried them (1 min on top 4min skin side down) and poured the sauce over, add some green beans and you have a dish.
            I even managed to provide dessert which was eagerly devoured by my father who had been surviving on the afore mentioned potatoes grudgingly. I simply used the salted caramel and caramel mousse left over from the Neighbour’s dinner, white chocolate I found in the cupboard, vanilla ice cream and cherries I had actually originally bought for my breakfast. Oh well needs….must.

The Daily Experiment

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The Daily Experiment
Bacon care of business
Opened the fridge once again today to a hopeless mismatch of assorted leftovers and random ingredients. Spotting the pancetta pieces I had bought earlier for one of these sorts of occasions my first thought was a cassoulet. This was quickly discarded due to the lack of sausages or beans… So instead I decided on a lentil hotpot; potatoes, lentils and bacon – I could go from there. First I pan fried the bacon pieces till golden. While waiting for this I got bored so opened the spice cupboard, added a few juniper berries, coriander seeds, pinch of mixed spice, salt and pepper.

When brown, I added a spoonful of honey, the lentils, found some red wine, a beef stock cube and hot water, thyme I found in the fridge and a bay leaf. It smelt pretty good by this point so I poured it straight into an ovenproof dish. To finish I sliced up some potatoes thinly, layered them up on top of the dish, drizzled over walnut oil, salt and pepper and put in the oven at 140oC for about an hour.

           

At this point I turned the soundtrack of Matilda loud was singing somewhat un-tunefully when my mum came in with a bowl of apples she’d just picked from outside the house, the only thing our pathetic excuse for a garden comes up with….. (Although to be honest the hopscotch and climbing wall sometimes makes up for this). Just because I never like to see food go to waste (and she told me to use them) I decided to experiment with baked apples. I cored them, placed them on foil and filled the centres with what I found in the cupboard. This turned out to be honey, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sultanas, pumpkin seeds, pinch of salt and the last dregs of a bottle of amaretto that looked like it had been around before I was born. I wrapped them up, cooked them on high for about 20mins and they came up quite mushy, but delicious nonetheless with a bit of vanilla ice cream.