Month: March 2016

Braised beef cheeks with pear and bitter chocolate sauce

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I know you’re probably thinking, what the hell? It does sound bizarre! But Tim saw Michel Roux Jr. cooking this up on a TV programme the other day and really fancied giving it a go. I’m all for unusual food and trying out new things, so we bought all the ingredients and cooked it over the Easter weekend! Ingredients For the white bean purée 85g/3oz dried white beans 2 bay leaves sprig of rosemary sea salt small knob of butter 200ml/7fl oz double cream, heated to a boil For the beef cheeks 2 pears 2 tbsp lemon juice 2 beef cheeks, trimmed and cut into 4 equal-sized pieces sea salt oil, for frying 1 onion, sliced 1 garlic clove, sliced 125ml/4fl oz port 1 orange, juice and zest 1 litre/2 pints beef stock 1 tbsp cracked black pepper 16 button onions, peeled 50g/1¾oz butter 60g/2¼oz chocolate, 70% cocoa solids, broken into squares Method For the purée, soak the beans in water overnight then drain well. Place the beans in a pan of fresh water and …

Dinner at Orlando’s, St Lucia 

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When we were researching restaurants in Soufrière ahead of our stay there in January, we read and heard great things about Orlando’s, located in the main town close to the beach. Generally when I find somewhere I want to go to, I tend not to look into it much further, as I still want there to be an element of surprise. So we jumped in a taxi from our hotel and headed for dinner at Orlando’s, to celebrate Tim’s 30th birthday, not knowing quite what to expect, yet expecting good things! Orlando’s restaurant is owned by British born and internationally trained chef, Orlando Sachell, and serves ‘Ti Manje‘,which means small plate of food in the local Kwéyòl language. Orlando uses only the freshest local fish, meat and produce to create his masterpieces. We were seated in a beautiful little courtyard, adorned with local sculptures, paintings and décor. We ordered the set menu,  which consisted of: Pumpkin soup Cocoa ribs with red onion and papaya jam Kingfish and curry risotto with ginger fruit salsa Jerk pork and …

Icing Easter ‘Biskies’ at Cutter & Squidge, Soho

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Last week I discovered the ‘biskie’.  You run the risk of sounding like a toddler trying to pronounce ‘biscuit’ when saying it, but this is actually a delicious hybrid of biscuit, cake and cookie, filled  with light buttercream! It’s the brainchild of sisters Annabel and Emily Lui who started out selling them at Partidge’s food market in 2013 under the name ‘Cutter and Squidge’, and after successful commissions for Selfridges and Harrods, ending up taking full time residence at a shop/cafe in the heart of Soho. I was invited to a biskie masterclass at Cutter and Squidge, and for some reason I thought we would actually be baking biskies, but in fact we we trying (yum!) and icing them (fun!). It makes sense – I can’t imagine they’re going to be giving up their recipe for someone to copy and time soon. Because they’re really good! I was led downstairs to the very cute ‘secret garden,’ filled with vines, hanging fruits and flowers, designed by Callum Lumsden. We started off trying some ‘mini’ biskies’ in a …

Moroccan Lamb with Chorizo & Chickpeas

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This is something I threw together rather spontaneously the other night. We had some lamb shanks in the fridge and I wanted to try something a little different, aside from the usual roast with veggies, mint etc. This is a rich and meaty dish, that brings out the flavours of the lamb while giving it a nice, spicy kick! And it’s very easy to do, all in one pot on the hob! Ingredients 2 lamb shanks 150g diced chorizo 2 onions, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 400g tin of chickpeas (drained) 2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes 10 chopped, dried apricots 1 tbsp ras el hanout 1 tbsp crushed chillies 100ml beef stock 2 tbsps plain white flour salt and pepper olive oil Method Coat the lamb shanks in the flour. Heat some olive oil in a deep casserole pan on a medium heat and add the lamb shanks for a few minutes until they’re nicely browned. Remove the lamb shanks and set aside. Add a little more olive oil and cook …

Dinner at Bird of Smithfield, Clerkenwell

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I’d come across Bird of Smithfield online a while ago, and had been meaning to pay it a visit, but I don’t tend to find myself in the Clerkenwell area very much any more, since we moved from East to South London. Bur I recently got the chance to try it out with Ceri, and was really looking forward to it. Bird of Smithfield is set in a contemporary 5 floor Georgian town house, right opposite Smithfield Market. Now I’m going to say right now that my photos from the evening weren’t great – the restaurant was very dimly lit, and as this was a particularly ‘nice’ place, I didn’t want to ruin the evening for other diners by getting a second light out to try and get better shots. So I’m going to include a mixture of some of my photos and some taken from the website, to show the place off in the best light possible. But trust me, each plate of food was beautifully presented! While we were there, it was evening …

Easter Cupcakes with Lavolio & Bake With Maria

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One of my favourite companies I’ve come across since starting this blog is ‘Bake With Maria’, a wonderful baking school based in North West London. You may have read my posts about their chocolate event and baking with rye class. And recently, they introduced me to another lovely company called Lavolio, a boutique confectionery company. Their products are handmade by Artisans with real fruit, nuts and spices, and they’re 100% vegetarian and gluten-free. Each sweet can take up to five days to make. You can watch a video about the production process here: Lavolio Artisan Production from lavolioboutiqueconfectionery on Vimeo. Lavolio were kind enough to send me some of their Nutty Easter Eggs. Inside each white egg is one of three chocolate flavours – Extra Dark Chocolate, Hazelnut Gianduia Chocolate, and White Amaretto Chocolate. And Bake With Maria provided a cupcake recipe to put them to good use (probably a good thing, otherwise I could easily have eaten the whole box!) Ingredients: • 125g self raising flour (you can use gluten free flour here) • 125g …

1st Anniversary Lunch at Native, Covent Garden

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At the end of last month, Tim and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It was on a Sunday, so we wanted to go for a nice lunch, somewhere fairly chilled but with great food and something a little different. I’d been seeing some gorgeous photos of a new restaurant called Native in Covent Garden, and so we thought we’d give it a try! We really didn’t know what to expect as the website doesn’t give much away. As we arrived, there only seemed to be a few tables in the restaurant, but we were led downstairs ‘underground’ to more seating. We were a bit alarmed to find we were the only people down there, but it soon filled up and the little space was buzzing. Native is very rustic in design – it focuses on wild food and game – so the décor is very similar. Clean white walls with touches of flowers and wood dotted around, with handmade wooden tables and chairs. The chef and co-owner Ivan was trained at River Cottage, which …