A Week of Mild Experimentation

With my GDL course starting in earnest this week, I have been flying by the seat of my pants in terms of 'life outside study' and particularly so in feeding myself - catching a quick bite here, chucking whatever I've got in the fridge together, and keeping it cheap.  (As an aside, from my recent experience it seems that, far from being lazy, students actually have terrible diets because they're just too busy... Or maybe that's just me.)  Luckily, the results of this week's panicked approach to food - in between delving into the concept of property and learning about the history of EU law-making - have been pretty acceptable.  One could even go so far as to suggest successful.

First came an improvised Mediterranean chicken bake.  Chicken thighs are without question the best part of a chicken.  The meat to skin ratio is spot on, and the dark meat is more flavoursome and moist.  I coated the thighs (2 each) in flour and briefly fried them skin-side down in a drizzle of oil (the flour will be useful in thicken the sauce later).  I added peeled whole small onions (3 each) and fried these with the thighs, which I had now turned over.  I chucked in a chopped red pepper (big chunks), whole peeled garlic cloves (2 each) and some chunks of courgette.  I squeezed over a lemon and tore in some fresh rosemary and popped the pan in the oven at 180C (with the thighs skin-side up) for about 25 minutes, occasionally stirring around the vegetables.  Once it was ready, I checked the sauce and added a little further flour to thicken it up and served in bowls.  This would be good with mash for soaking up the sauce, but bread sufficed on this occasion.

My second successful experiment came last night in the form of a Thai-ish curry, upon my brother's request.  At the farmer's market I bought a basket of green beans and 2 large aubergines for £2 - total bargain!  I had chilli, garlic, ginger and other store-cupboard bits and pieces at home, so just needed to pick up coconut cream, fresh coriander and lemongrass.

Green Bean and Aubergine Thai Curry

Once home, I got the rice on.  I chopped up one of the aubergines and half the green beans and put them in a large bowl, sprinkling with ground cumin, ground coriander seed, smoked paprika and a splash of nam plah.  I bashed up two cloves of garlic, half a large red chilli, and about an inch of ginger, and mixed this in with the vegetables. I sliced along the length of the stalk of lemongrass, not cutting through the root, and then bashed this with the back of my knife.  This I added to my veg bowl along with a good handful or chopped coriander.  With 15 minutes to go before the rice was ready, I heated a little oil in a pan, and softened some roughly chopped spring onions.  I added the vegetable mixture and half a small tin of coconut cream, before pouring in about 200ml of vegetable stock.  I turned it down to a low simmer and left uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the rice was ready.

The result was a very satisfying vegetable curry with lots of interesting flavour and a hint of heat.  A perfect way to end a successful week of experimenting.

A Big, Yellow, Dirty Bucket

Dinner last Wednesday came in a big, yellow, dirty bucket.  I kid you not!

Having made dinner on Monday (see my Stimulating Summer Sea Bass post), and my brother and his friend providing dinner on Tuesday, my housemate offered to cook dinner for the group on Wednesday.  As it happened, she was busy with her farming - still harvesting - so I received a call as soon as I got home from work informing me that everything for dinner was at the farmhouse.

I popped my head round the farmhouse door and was presented by my friend's mother with a bucket of newly-unearthed potatoes.  I was then led up the garden, where we dug up a bunch of carrots and picked runner beans.  All of which went into the bucket.  Back in the kitchen, I was given a huge joint of beef, which took the contents of the bucket up to the brim.

And off I went with a big, yellow, dirty bucket full of dinner.  The joint was roasted atop a bed of carrots, garlic and onions.  The potatoes were roasted and (very bad) yorkshire puddings were made.  Job done.

As an addendum, we ate about two thirds of the joint between the four of us that evening.  I had already started making plans for the remaining meat the minute I'd served up.  All in vain, though, as Tim's friend polished off the rest of the roast after we'd left that evening.

Stimulating Summer Sea Bass

A bit late for a summer post, you might be thinking, but not true!  In Britain, we take summer when we can get it, whether it be after the end of British summertime or not.  And the end of British summertime was indeed one of those days that you have to be thankful for.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take advantage of the spurt of summer, being at work for most of the daytime, but coming out from a stuffy office into warm, bright sun inspired me to cook something refreshing.

I picked up two sea bass from the supermarket.  It was a poor girl's first day behind the fish counter and I asked her to gut them for me.  Her supervisor suggested I carry on with my shopping and the pair of fish should be ready when I'd done.  As it happens, having gone up and down all the aisles twice, the fish were still not ready and I had to wait a further 5-10 minutes.  Nevertheless, I am happy that I was able to be some part of someone learning something new today.  And, anyway, I can't talk - I didn't gut the fish!

My wait at the fish counter also caused me to pick up some sea aster - which looked like some sort of salad leaf, but sounded suitably exotic for the dinner.  I finished off my shopping and headed home to stuff and bake my fish.

An Overstuffed Sea Bass!

Once home, I swiftly chopped some spinach, sea aster, lots of ginger, some garlic and some cashews.  I squeezed in some lime and stuffed the open cavities of the fish with the mixture.  I put a little oil on some tin foil, then folded the ends round to make a little package.  The packages were then placed in a preheated oven at 200C for 30 minutes (15 mins per 500g + 15 mins).  Meanwhile, I boiled some egg noodles and put together a vegetable stir fry.

30 minutes later (or what should have been 30 minutes later, but my brother and his friends had things to finish off before dinner) - a delicious summer dish was served with a nice glass of chilled sauvignon blanc.  Perfect!

Desserts To Impress

Anyone who knows me, knows that if I had to choose, I would choose a starter and over a dessert in the 2-course set menus every time.  I like desserts, of course, but I have a greater fondness for savory than sweet.  The obvious exception to my starter/dessert maxim is the cheeseboard.  As the father of a french exchange student I stayed with rather crudely put it, "a dinner without cheese is like a woman without breasts."  Although, on these occasions, I would probably push the boat out and go with a 3-course set menu!

Last weekend, I was kindly invited to a BBQ being held by the Partner in the team within the law firm that I am working at.  Everyone who was going was allocated a task - some colleagues were to bring salads, others burger buns.  My task was to bring desserts.

Not being a strong pudding maker, and with all of my recipe books packed up in storage, I turned to my friend and the internet for inspiration.  Mary Berry provided a very good, relatively easy, recipe to impress with a lemon meringue roulade.  My success with this recipe was somewhat hindered by 1) not having an AGA (the recipe came from her AGA recipe book); and 2) not having a roulade tin - something which I feel I may now need to purchase.  As it happens, a similar recipe is available on the internet here.  My recipe did not call for raspberries, but I scattered them round the outside anyway.

Lemon Meringue Roulade

By using a roasting tin instead of the prescribed roulade tin, my meringue was slightly under-cooked I thought, a fact which became more apparent when the rolling process began.  Thus ensued the epic battle of wit and stamina against the once-used Christmas blow-torch.  Good triumphed, the blow-torch was duly subjugated, and the pudding was saved!

I also made little chocolate mousse pots with Grand Marnier twist.  Nigella Lawson's recipe can be found here.  I used Willie's Cacao chocolate (not cacao) for the pots and, while extremely tasty, perhaps this was a little too dark for the average taste.  I also made little chocolate leaves covered in edible gold luster.  For the leaves, you melt the chocolate (there is a more precise tempering method that you could use, but melting seemed to work fine for me!) and brush it onto the underside of a leaf with very visible veins.  Allow to harden.  Now, you're meant to give it a second coat, and I should learn to follow instructions, because I didn't and I think a second coat would have been good.

When the chocolate is hard, peel the leaf off the back and voila!  A pretty, easy decoration.  To top it all off, I brushed edible gold luster on the leaves.  I ordered mine on the internet, but I discovered that Waitrose also sells it - and very reasonable priced too.  I used very little of it, so it will do for many other days.

And there we have it, two desserts to impress that were embarrassingly simple to pull off!