A Bond Girl's Food Diary

The Taste Test: Feta Cheese

7th September 20176th September 20175 Comments

After last week’s taste test post, I’m going back to human food. For now, at least. If anyone has a puppy they want to lend me to help out with a dog food taste test, just let me know. Today though, feta cheese. One of the very first taste test blogs I did was on cheddar cheese, but really, why stop there? Now I think about it, there are dozens – hundreds, even – of cheese related taste tests I could do. Halloumi? Parmesan? Stilton? If you are particularly curious about any specific cheeses, then let me know in the comments and I will make it happen.

I also keep meaning to get round to posting a recipe for a baked vegan feta cheese substitute. I had some at a class I was helping with a couple of months ago and, my god, it was a revelation. I’ve absolutely no need (in dietary terms) to eat vegan cheese rather than normal cheese, but this stuff was stupidly delicious. Again, if you’d be interested, then let me know.

For now though, feta. I try to keep some feta cheese in the fridge most of the time, because it’s wonderful versatile and delicious. Whether you’re crumbling it on top of a salad, stirring it into a pasta dish, or having it in fritters, it will always give you a satisfying kick of salty flavour.

As before, I feel I need a rambling disclaimer: obviously, I am doing this in my kitchen and not in a lab and I am not a scientist. These are the opinions of one person – that said, one person who has been trained to taste for quality. Also, the products used in this series are just examples – obviously each supermarket has, say, eight or nine different types of feta cheese or whatever the product may be, and I’m not going to try every single one because what am I, made of money?

Finally, I should highlight that I tasted all the products blind, and at the time of tasting and making my notes I didn’t know which product came from which shop. I sat in one room while my glamorous assistant (er, my husband), prepared the samples in another. Any notes added regarding packaging and so on were only done after blind tasting, when I learned which supermarket had made A, B, C, D, or E.

The Blind Taste Test: Feta Cheese

Feta
per 100g	£*	kcal	fat	carb	fibre	protein	salt
Lidl – Eridanous	0.50	278	23	0.7	0	17	2.2
Totally Greek Feta Attis	1.00	276	23.0	0.7	0	16.5	2.25
Sainsbury’s	1.30	284	24.3	0.5	0.5	16.0	3.0
Tesco	0.60	279	23.0	1.0	0.0	16.9	1.9
Waitrose	1.25	283	24.2	0.2	0.3	15.9	3.15

A – Attis Totally Greek Feta – 4/10

Fair amount of water coming off it. Very smooth and soft, rather than crumbly. Tasted kind of like set cottage cheese – not particularly salty. Fine, but not great.

B – Tesco – 6/10

Less water coming off than A – firmer, and more crumbly – more pleasant to eat. Decent flavour, reasonably salty. Good, but not amazing.

C – Lidl – Eridanous – 8/10

Another firm and crumbly feta – what I would expect from feta texture. Well-flavoured, quite sharp with a lemony taste, good level of saltiness.

D – Waitrose – 7/10

Fairly firm, and somewhere in the middle regarding crumbliness. Saltty, rather than lemony. Not as flavoursome as C, but pleasant to eat.

E – Sainsbury’s – 6/10

Firm, no water coming off. Not crumbly like some others. Not overly salty, quite lemony, with a stronger cheese flavour.

Conclusion

Sample A seemed notably different to the other four samples, and it was my least favourite. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but did seem like a different kind of product, and less suited to my personal taste. Generally, any of the other four feta samples would do me just fine, although once again the Lidl cheese was my favourite. Turns out, Lidl do good cheese.

That said, none of these samples were anything like as good as the feta from Blackwoods Cheese Company that I brought from 2 North Parade a few weeks after doing this taste test. It’s not a day-to-day supermarket purchase, and it’s pretty extravagant, so it doesn’t really belong here. But if you’re looking for something special then go and buy it – you won’t regret it.

Otherwise, go to Lidl!

*Prices correct at time of writing.

Courgette and Feta Fritters

5th September 20175th September 20171 Comment

These courgette and feta fritters do a pretty good job of exemplifying my attitude towards health food. That is, you can take something perfectly healthy and fresh and lovely, like a courgette, and that’s fine. But then you can mix it with eggs and cheese and fry it. Yes, you’ve kind of marred its health credentials. But hey, you’ve got a super tasty snack.

This is the second in my series of recipe collaborations. Last time, I was working with Wild Honey. This time, it’s 2 North Parade. They’re a fantastic independent produce shop here in Oxford, who work with local suppliers and really focus on high quality, fresh, seasonal food. When I visited the shop to pick up some bits and pieces to work on this recipe collaboration, I was absolutely spoilt for choice.

For these courgette and feta fritters, I’ve used 2 North Parade’s beautiful courgettes, along with the feta they sell from Blackwood’s Cheese Company (seriously the best feta I have ever tasted), and the yoghurt they stock from North Aston Dairy. When I was there, though, I also picked up some beautiful sweetcorn, along with a delicious jar of local honey. The staff are really friendly and very happy to chat with you about all the produce they stock. Well worth a visit, particularly if you are looking for something special.

Notes:

You can fritter all sorts of vegetables! Sweetcorn? Definitely. Cauliflower? Why not! Broccoli? The choice is yours. Make your own adventure. If anything, courgettes are the slightly (ever so slightly) trickier option, because you have to wring the excess liquid out of them.

This recipe should make around 10 fritters, depending on how large you make them.

Ingredients:

500-600g courgette (you don’t need to be too exact, but it’s about 2 large courgettes or 3 medium ones)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
½ red onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
150g feta cheese, crumbled
zest and juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
100g wholemeal flour (plain works fine too, but I like the taste of the wholemeal here)
½ tsp baking powder
a generous pinch of chilli flakes
olive oil, for frying
150g plain natural or Greek yoghurt
a handful of fresh dill, finely chopped

Method:

Put your oven on a low heat – around 100C/ gas 1. First, top and tail your courgettes, and then grate them roughly. Toss the grated courgette with a good pinch of sea salt, then pop it all in a sieve above a bowl to drain for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, crush your garlic, finely chop your onion, and pop them both in a large bowl. Add your eggs, feta cheese, lemon zest, and a good pinch of salt and grind of pepper. Once your courgettes have had around ten minutes of draining time, get a bit more water out of them by either pressing them firmly against the sieve or popping them in a clean tea-towel and wringing them out. Put your drained courgettes into the bowl with the other ingredients, then add your flour, baking powder, and chilli flakes. Give it all a quick mix until combined.
Pop your biggest frying pan on a medium-high heat, and pour in a generous glug of olive oil, to just coat the base. Shape the courgette mix into fritters in your hands. When the oil is hot, put your fritters in (in batches, so as not to overcrowd the pan) and fry for 3-4 minutes a side until golden. When they’re cooked, remove from the pan and pop in the low oven to keep warm while you fry the rest.
Finish by mixing your yoghurt with your lemon juice, dill, and seasoning to taste, and serve the courgette and feta fritters warm with the yoghurt.

The Bake Off Bake Along: Pear, Chocolate, & Almond Cake

4th September 20173rd September 201710 Comments

The Great British Bake Off is back. I, for one, couldn’t be happier. Yes, all things being equal, I would have preferred for the show to remain on the BBC, but at least in part for fussy logistical reasons. I don’t like advert breaks, and I don’t like All 4 as much as iPlayer. But I still think everything’s going to be okay. I love Mel and Sue, and I love Mary, but I can hardly go complaining about Prue Leith as a replacement (having somewhat of a Leiths connection…), and I think Sandi and Noel stepped admirably into large shoes. They kept the music. I’m happy. So, here we are again, for the Bake Off Bake Along. And here’s my pear, chocolate, and almond cake. Really, any excuse to make a chocolate cake.

I’ve got a rather busy couple of months coming up, as I’ll be commuting to London and working full time for a while. Unfortunately, this busy period coincides exactly with the time to Great British Bake Off is airing. so while I’m going to try to have a stab at the Bake Along, I’ll be taking the path of least resistance every time. This week, that means a fruity cake.

Mini rolls are lovely and all, but fiddly and hard to make look pretty. And the showstopper was never going to happen. One of the things I am most terrible at, baking-wise, is making cakes look like other stuff. If it’s tasty and looks like a cake, I’m all for it.

And this pear, chocolate, and almond cake is tasty. And it looks like a cake. A chocolate cake, at that.

If you want to know what this Bake Off Bake Along shindig is all about, check out this post by Amanda over at Rhyme and Ribbons here. It’s just an excuse to watch TV and bake cake, really.

Source:

Loosely adapted from this recipe.

Notes:

This lovely chocolate cake just so happens to be gluten free, but doesn’t use any fancy special flours or ingredients. It’s moist, soft, and keeps well. You could, of course, try it with other fruit. The fruit will sink into the cake quite a bit as it bakes, but don’t worry, you’re going for a rustic look.

Ingredients:

100g butter, plus a little extra to grease
100g 70% dark chocolate
2 tbsp rum (you can skip this if you want)
100g caster sugar, plus a little extra for the tin
3 eggs, separated
100g ground almonds
2 ripe pears, peeled, cored, and quartered
100g raspberries
icing sugar to dust and cream or ice cream to serve, if you like

Method:

Heat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan/ gas 4. Put your butter and dark chocolate in a glass bowl above a pan of simmering water to melt together. Butter a 23cm loose-bottomed or springform cake tin, line the base, butter everything again, and then pop a couple of tbsp caster sugar into the tin and roll it round to coat the base and sides.
Remove your melted butter and chocolate from the heat, stir in the rum if using, and leave to cool. Pop your caster sugar in a bowl with your egg yolks and whisk with an electric whisk until thick and mousse-like. Fold this into the chocolate mixture, then add the ground almonds and fold those in too.
In a separate bowl with clean beaters, whisk your egg whites to stiff peaks. Beat a big spoonful of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen, then fold the rest in carefully. Gently pour your mixture into your cake tin, then arrange your pear slices and raspberries on top of the batter. Bake for around half an hour, or until risen and firm. Leave to cool in the tin for at least 15 minutes before trying to remove it, as it’s quite delicate. Serve with icing sugar, cream, or ice cream, if you like.

The Taste Test: Cat Food

31st August 201731st August 20176 Comments

Week after week, Freddie watches me make and photograph recipes for this blog. She’s stared at us plaintively while we’ve done taste tests, protesting vociferously with her accusing eyes and surprisingly loud and expressive yowls at the unfairness of it all. Here we are, cooking and tasting and enjoying all this food. And what does she get? The same boring old cat food. Just out of a pouch, day after day. Well, except yesterday, when she caught a weasel and brought it proudly to us. (True story. It was mildly horrifying.)

So, to lessen her ire and to help protect the lives of the small woodland creatures dwelling around us, we’ve finally, just this once, let her in on the fun. Welcome to the cat food taste test.

(By the way, this is obviously a joke blog post, but it does have a slightly serious kernel – have you read the ingredients list on any cat food product lately!? For the standard brands – Felix and so on – it is literally 4% chicken or whatever meat flavour it’s supposed to be, 82% water and 2.5% crude ash! Among other things.)

As before, I feel I need a rambling disclaimer: obviously, Freddie is doing this in our kitchen and not in a lab and she is not a scientist. These are the opinions of one cat– that said, one cat who is used to the freshly killed mice and weasels of Oxfordshire and expects high quality. Also, the products used in this series are just examples – obviously each supermarket has, say, eight or nine different types of cat food or whatever the product may be, and Freddie isn’t going to try every single one because her humans are cruel and didn’t buy them all.

Finally, I should highlight that Freddie tasted all the products blind, and at the time of tasting she didn’t know which product was which. She sat in one room while her slaves prepared the samples. Any notes added regarding packaging and so on were only done after tasting, when she learned which brand had made A, B, C, D, E, or F.

The Blind Taste Test: Cat Food

A – Sheba Fine Flakes with Chicken – £5.88 per kg – 8/10

A contender from the start: this is the food I immediately gravitated towards. Strong and meaty. Would definitely eat again.

B – Sainsbury’s ‘The Delicious Collection’ Chicken Breast – £7.06 per kg – 7/10

A bit too heavy on the jelly and light on the chicken for my taste, but a good flavour and decent quality meat.

C – Gourmet Perle Tuna and Whole Shrimps in Gravy – £6.47 per kg – 6/10

I question the wisdom of putting tuna and shrimp in gravy. Surely gravy is for meat rather than fish? But I did enjoy the whole shrimps.

D – Encore Pacific Tuna & Whitebait – £14.28 per kg – 9/10

Delicious. I can’t resist a good fish dish. (Hannah’s note: I am not saying I would eat cat food but if I had to it would be this one. Here are the ingredients: Tuna Fillet 65%, Fish Broth 24%, Whitebait 10%, Rice 1%, Additives: None. No ash in sight.)

E – Gourmet Classic Soup – £22.50 per kg – 1/10

This is apparently a ‘delicately refined broth’. I’m not buying it. I’m a cat and we don’t eat soup.(Hannah’s note: she literally would not touch this, even after I took all the other food away.)

F – Felix with Tuna – £5 per kg – 5/10

I feel like that cat on the packet is watching me and I do not appreciate it.

Conclusion

Cats will eat live mice. They don’t really care what cat food you feed them, as long as it kind of looks like some sort of meat.

They do draw the line at cat soup, though.

By the way, technically Freddie isn’t our cat.

*Prices correct at time of writing.

Black Cherry and Chocolate Tart

29th August 201729th August 20174 Comments

I was challenged by Canned Food UK to create a recipe using a canned food, and I’ve gone for something easy but completely delicious. Black cherry and chocolate tart just sounds good, right? I mean, cherries and chocolate are a classic match. Think black forest gateaux. The great thing about this cherry and chocolate tart, though, is that it’s actually really simple to make. Even though it looks pretty fancy.

Canned cherries are definitely your friend here. Cherries are one of my favourite fruits, and they come up on this blog a lot. While fresh cherries are amazing, they won’t always be in season and they are often expensive. Plus, using fresh cherries here would mean adding the extra step of stoning your fruit. And that isn’t going to be happening in a recipe that’s all about simplicity.

We’re also saving time and effort on the base. I love pastry, and I love making it, but I’m not going to lie – sometimes I just cannot be bothered. You could definitely make this cherry and chocolate tart with a traditional shortcrust or sweet pastry, but you don’t need to. As ever, biscuits are your friends. Biscuits will always be there for you. Biscuits won’t let you down.

So we’ve got a dark and chocolatey buttery biscuit base (any excuse). We’ve got a rich and smooth chocolate filling, just holding together and then melting away in the mouth. And we’ve got those plump black cherries, steeped in a decadent kirsch syrup.

I might go and make it again, actually.

Notes:

You can add a few little flourishes to this chocolate and cherry tart. Or you can skip them entirely. It’s completely up to you. It’s beautiful plain, but if you feel inclined to finish it off with crème fraiche and almonds, it’s a little extra touch that makes this tart even more special.

Ingredients:

1 can (425g) pitted black cherries
150ml kirsch (brandy or Grand Marnier also work well, or use juice from the can if you are avoiding alcohol)
30g caster sugar
Pared strip of lemon zest

For the base

30 Oreos (chocolate bourbon biscuits also work well)
50g dark chocolate (ideally 70% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces
50g butter
½ tsp sea salt

For the filling

300ml double cream
2 tsp caster sugar
½ tsp sea salt
50g butter, cubed
200g dark chocolate (ideally 70% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces
50ml whole milk

To finish

A handful of whole almonds, finely chopped (optional)
Crème fraiche to serve (optional)

Method:

Drain your cherries, then place them in a small saucepan with the kirsch, sugar, and lemon zest. Simmer for five minutes, then take off the heat and leave to sit while the flavours infuse.
Pop your biscuits and chocolate for the tart base in the food processor, then give them a good blitz until you’re left with crumbs. Add the butter and salt, and blitz again until the mixture clumps. Press your biscuit mixture into the base of a non-stick, loose-bottomed tart tin of around 23cm diameter. Work the mixture up the sides of the tin, pressing it into the flutes with your fingers, and make sure the base of the tin is well covered and as smoothly lined as possible. Pop the tin in the fridge for the base to set.
For the filling, put your cream, sugar, and salt in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Put your butter and dark chocolate in a glass bowl, then pour over the boiling cream mixture. Stir until smooth and blended – it might take a couple of minutes to come together, as the chocolate melts. Stir in the milk and keep stirring until the mixture is smooth and shiny.
Drain your cherries, remove the lemon zest, then spread them across the base of your tart tin. Carefully pour the liquid chocolate mixture over the cherries. Pop your tart in the fridge for at least two hours to set. Finish with chopped almonds and serve with crème fraiche, if you like.

The Taste Test: Milk Chocolate

24th August 201724th August 20174 Comments

If you’ve read my dark chocolate post or, er, met me, you will know that I am a chocolate person. There are so many chocolate related posts on this blog that I couldn’t even begin to link to them all. I started with the dark chocolate taste test because it’s seen as the complex and sophisticated older sister to milk chocolate, and because I use it so much in baking. But for eating, I do love good milk chocolate. Or, sometimes, bad milk chocolate. Depending on how the day is going.

With dark chocolate, it was fairly easy to find products with 70% cocoa solids for a direct comparison. With milk chocolate, it was much trickier to find samples that were so directly comparable, and so I’ve got a bit more of a range. You can quite clearly see even from the picture below that some of the chocolate samples are darker, but I didn’t get the information from the packaging regarding which products had which levels of cocoa solids until after the taste test, in an effort to keep the tasting as blind as possible.

As before, I feel I need a rambling disclaimer: obviously, I am doing this in my kitchen and not in a lab and I am not a scientist. These are the opinions of one person – that said, one person who has been trained to taste for quality. Also, the products used in this series are just examples – obviously each supermarket has, say, eight or nine different types of milk chocolate or whatever the product may be, and I’m not going to try every single one because what am I, made of money?

The Blind Taste Test: Milk Chocolate

Milk Chocolate
per 100g	£*	kcal	fat	carb	fibre	protein	salt
Aldi – Moser Roth (32%)	1.03	563	36	52	2.8	6.8	0.19
Lidl – Bellarom (33%)	0.60	568	36.5	52.7	1.9	6.2	0.25
Sainsbury’s – (31%)	1.45	558	35.2	50.6	2.3	8.5	0.25
Chocologic (36%)	1.50	484	36.2	33.7	17	7.9	0.62
Waitrose (49%)	1.88	618	47.0	39.0	3.4	8.0	0.17
Green & Black’s (37%)	2.00	565	36.0	48.0	3.0	9.8	0.23

A – Chocologic – 3/10

Visually one of the darkest. Breaks nicely with a good snap. Smells fine but not a great taste or texture – a bit chalky and bitter, with a particularly unpleasant aftertaste. Not sweet at all. No creaminess. Wouldn’t eat again.

B – Aldi – Moser Roth – 4/10

Light in colour. Very creamy, and notably sweeter than A – possibly too sweet. Nothing terrible, but nothing interesting. Just a sweet milk chocolate.

C – Sainsbury’s – 8/10

Creamy and smooth, with a hint of hazelnut. Immediately much nicer than A or B, with more flavour. Not too sweet, but not bitter. Really enjoyed this.

D – Green & Black’s – 9/10

Firm, with a good snap. Dark in colour. Full and rich in flavour. Creamy and smooth. Tastes like it’s good quality. Sweet, as you’d expect milk chocolate to be, but not overly so. My clear favourite.

E – Waitrose – 6/10

Initially looks similar to D, but not as nice. Certainly not bad, but not as enjoyable as D. A slight bitterness, especially in the aftertaste, which I didn’t really like, and less creaminess.

F – Lidl – Bellarom – 4/10

Light in colour. Sweet, rather than rich or complex in flavour. Tastes like cheap milk chocolate: not terrible but nothing special in terms of flavour.

Conclusion

This time, I tested a brand leader (Green & Black’s) against supermarket brands, to see how it compared. I have to say, before I started I was quietly confident that I could pick out Green & Black’s in a blind taste test, and I turned out to be right. Once I’d finished the actual tasting of the milk chocolate, I tried my hand at guessing which blind sample was which, and I got full marks.

This is partly because I’m a bit of a crazy chocolate freak, and partly because there weren’t really any surprises here. The Chocologic ‘no added sugar’ chocolate really didn’t taste sweet enough to be enjoyable. The cheapest options did taste less luxurious and complex than the more expensive products. My favourite milk chocolate here was the most expensive of the bunch.

So, I guess I can’t go subverting expectations every week.

*Prices correct at time of writing.

Courgette, Lime, & Coconut Cake

22nd August 201721st August 20174 Comments

The courgette cake hasn’t yet taken off quite like the carrot cake. I’m not sure why. I think it’s a shame, really, because a good courgette cake is just as simple and delicious as a carrot cake. While the natural sweetness of carrots works wonderfully in desserts for obvious reasons, a courgette is a more neutral vegetable. The advantage of that is that it’s a great vehicle for all sorts of exciting flavours. Here, I’ve added lime and coconut to go for a kind of tropical vibe. Even though courgettes are possibly the least tropical vegetable ever.

I am good at looking after children and animals but, for some reason, totally useless at keeping plants alive. We don’t have a garden so I don’t have anywhere to practice. But really, that’s just an excuse: I’ve never been able to grow things anyway. I always get confused (too much water? not enough water? who knows?) and then forget about whatever plant I’m supposed to be tending to.

Luckily, we have plenty of lovely neighbours who are digging their way to victory, and occasionally we will receive donations of tasty home-grown vegetables. I say donations, but the neighbours from whom we got the magnificent courgettes that went into this cake were practically begging us to take them off their hands. They seemed slightly panicked about the sheet volume of courgette they had managed to produce. One of them was the size of my arm.

So anyway, obviously if you have an abundance of courgettes you could put them in a stir-fry, or on a savoury tart, or make courgette fritters. Or, you could add a load of sugar and make a courgette cake. I bet you can guess which direction I went in.

Source:

Adapted from this recipe.

Notes:

I think this recipe would also work brilliantly well with lemon or orange, if you have them lying around. Or if you don’t like lime, I guess? I don’t think I have ever met anyone who doesn’t like lime though.

If you want a quicker or more simple courgette cake, you can leave all the stuff at the end and have it unadorned. It’s really easy though, and I promise it only takes five minutes.

Ingredients:

for the cake

350g courgettes, unpeeled
150g soft brown sugar (or any brown sugar, or coconut sugar if you have it)
50g desiccated coconut
125ml sunflower oil, or other neutral oil such as vegetable or corn
3 large eggs
zest of 2 limes
100g sultanas, or raisins if you prefer
300g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

for icing and finishing

100g icing sugar
juice and zest of 1 lime
handful of desiccated coconut

Method:

Preheat your oven 180C/160C fan/gas 4, and lightly grease a large non-stick loaf tin. Grate your courgette, then pop it in a sieve and try to push and squeeze as much liquid as possible out of it, to stop your cake going soggy.
Pop your courgette in a large bowl, then add your sugar, coconut, oil, eggs, lime zest, and sultanas, then give it all a good mix. Add your flour and baking powder, then quickly stir until just combined. Pour your mixture into your loaf tin, then bake for around 40-50 minutes, or until the cake is firm and well risen, and passes the skewer test.
Mix your icing sugar with enough lime juice to make a thick icing. Let your cake cool, then zigzag it with your lime icing, and finish with a sprinkling of the lime zest and a bit more desiccated coconut.

The Taste Test: Extra Virgin Olive Oil

17th August 201717th August 20172 Comments

Have you guys ever done shots of extra virgin olive oil? I’m going to guess not, because really, who does that? I’ve got to be honest: this was not the tastiest taste test ever. I kind of preferred chocolate week.

That said, this was actually not my first time drinking straight olive oil from a shot glass. At culinary school, you do a range of slightly odd things, and one of those things is olive oil tasting. Honestly, before I had to actually taste olive oil as one would taste wine, I didn’t really consider it to be a particularly interesting and complex product.

But I was so wrong! Olive oil is actually fairly analogous to wine in lots of ways. I mean, you’re talking about olives instead of grapes, but all the concerns of origin, climate, method of making, quality, price and so on do also come into play. There are professional olive oil tasters, and olive oil tasting events. It’s a whole new world.

Many of you probably don’t know (or perhaps care) about the difference between olive oil and extra virgin olive oil. I was once like this. It was a cheaper time. Now I have been educated (actually, we probably drank more straight olive oil at culinary school than humans should). Basically, olive oil is graded by its level of acidity. The level of acid in olive oil tells you how much the fat has broken down into fatty acids. If you want the good stuff, you’re looking for an unrefined oil. Extra virgin olive oil is unrefined, has lower levels of acid compared to blended oils (no more than 1%), and higher levels of the vitamins and minerals from the olive. It also has far more flavour than blended oils.

The whole issue of whether or not oil is healthy and which oils are evil and which will save your life is so stupid and complicated and confusing, and I’m not going into it. Personally, for standard cooking (unless I am deep frying or know I’m going to be working at a very high heat, in which case I will go for sunflower or vegetable) I use a cheap extra virgin olive oil. For eating cold, drizzling over dishes, finishing salads, dipping bread, making dressings, or blending into dips or pestos, I use a better quality extra virgin olive oil.

For baking, I sometimes use extra virgin olive oil if I want its flavour in the finished product, but I’ll often use flavourless oils if the taste doesn’t belong in that particular baked good. I don’t much go in for flavoured oils, but I do have sesame oil and truffle oil (I know, I know) around. I keep a few different bottles of extra virgin olive oil in the kitchen, and am not particularly loyal to one brand: there are so many to try and I like to mix it up.

But this is just me. If you prefer everything to be cooked in organic cold pressed coconut oil, or only buy vegetable oil and eschew all this fancy oil stuff, go on doing you.

As before, I feel I need a rambling disclaimer: obviously, I am doing this in my kitchen and not in a lab and I am not a scientist. These are the opinions of one person – that said, one person who has been trained to taste for quality. Also, the products used in this series are just examples – obviously there are, say, eight or nine different types of olive oil or whatever the product may be in each supermarket, and I’m not going to try every single one because what am I, made of money?

The Blind Taste Test: Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
per 100g	£*	kcal	fat	carb	fibre	protein	salt
Aldi	0.76	824	92	0	0	0	0
Tesco	0.52	900	100	0	0	0	0
Iliada	1.2	823	91	0	0	0	0
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference	1.2	823	91.4	0	0	0	0
Filippo Berio	0.85	822	91.3	0	0	0	0
Waitrose	2.4	823	91.4	0	0	0	0

A – Filippo Berio – 5/10

Smells grassy, herbaceous, and reasonably pleasant. The smell doesn’t really come through in the tasting. There’s a nice bitterness to it, but otherwise it’s a bit bland. Fine for cooking, but I probably wouldn’t use it for eating cold.

B – Waitrose – 7/10

Smells grassy, a bit spicy, and a little floral. An interesting taste and good flavour – a real kick of pepper on the finish, which is enjoyable, and a bit of fruitiness. I would use it for eating cold, dipping and so on.

C – Iliada – 5/10

Nothing particularly interesting in the scent. Tastes fairly bland. No peppery kick on the aftertaste. Not unpleasant but not going to set the world alight.

D – Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference – 8/10

Smells lighter than many of the other samples. A herbaceous, grassy tastes carries though in the flavour. A pleasant spiciness on its finish. Would use for salad dressings and so on.

E – Aldi – 7/10

No real notable scent, and initially doesn’t seem very interesting, but actually has a very nice flavour and a complex, strong, spicy finish when you taste it properly.

F – Tesco – 6/10

The only really visually different oil, looking much lighter and more golden than the others. Smells pleasant. Less body than the others and kind of disappears in the mouth, but has the pepper finish and quite a strong flavour – surprisingly not too bad.

Conclusion

I am not a professional olive oil taster, and it’s a whole skill that people specialise in. I am not one of those people. It’s quite possible that I am missing intricacies and subtleties here, so do remember this is a layman’s opinion. It would have been much nicer to dip bread into the olive oil, to be honest, but I wanted to have the best chance of just tasting the product.

I think what we have here is kind of a triumph of packaging. The Iliada oil, in it’s little can, looked interesting and pretty and very different to the other offerings, but the product didn’t really impress me. The basic Tesco packaging, though pretty uninspiring in and of itself, held an olive oil that had more of a unique taste than some of the other samples.

My favourite extra virgin olive oil from these six was the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference product, but the Waitrose, Aldi, and even budget Tesco options were all nice enough to use in dishes where you’d actually notice the flavour of the oil. The others were also fine, but I’d use them for cooking rather than eating. Please can I stop drinking straight oil now?

*Prices correct at time of writing.

Spinach, Artichoke, & Blue Cheese Galette

15th August 201714th August 20179 Comments

Ever really wanted some pie, considered making one, and then thought it was too much effort and fallen asleep on the sofa instead? Enter: the galette.

A galette will bring you the joy and happiness associated with eating pie, but with none of that ‘finding the right tin’ and ‘making sure the pastry doesn’t tear’ and ‘blind baking’ stuff that all seems like a bit of an effort. It’s free form. It’s rustic. You don’t even need a dish or a tin – a flat baking tray will do the job admirably.

What you get is delicious, crisp, more-ish pastry, cuddling up informally with the filling of your choice. Here, I’ve gone savoury, with this spinach, artichoke, and blue cheese number. But you can use any pie filling you like (including sweet ones, if you omit the herbs and spices from the pastry), and still enjoy a delicious pie-like treat.

The best thing is that a galette is meant to look rustic. The pastry is inherently cracked and folded. You don’t need to worry about perfect pastry technique. If you’re nervous about rolling and shaping pastry, the galette is your friend. And it looks appealing and impressive enough to be pretty fancy, if that’s what you’re looking for. But it’s also easy enough to just be dinner. A really tasty dinner. I’m going to go and snack on some galette now.

Source:

Pretty liberally adapted from this recipe.

Notes:

You may be wondering about the grated mozzarella. I would normally always go for a ball of mozzarella, rather than grated, but for this (and pizza toppings, incidentally), grated tends to work best because it’s not too wet, and is easy to distribute through fillings. That said, if you have whole mozzarella you’d rather use, that’ll be okay too if you shred it finely.

Ingredients:

for the pastry
150g plain flour
150g wholemeal flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1-2 tsp very finely chopped fresh thyme
175g cold butter, cut into cubes
1 large egg yolk
2-4 tbsp cold water (start with 2)

for the filling
300g fresh spinach
Glug of olive oil
3 large cloves of garlic, crushed
Generous pinch of cayenne
Juice of ½ lemon
300g artichoke hearts, drained, any huge pieces cut in half (from a tin or a jar is fine)
115g grated mozzarella (see note)
Salt and pepper
80-120g blue cheese, broken into chunks (choose the amount according to how much you like blue cheese/how much you have lying around)
Handful of walnuts
1 egg, beaten
Handful of fresh basil leaves, to garnish

Method:

Pop a small bowl of cold water in the fridge. Put both flours, salt, pepper, and chopped thyme in the food processor. Blitz briefly to combine. Add the cubed butter and pulse until everything is combined and looks like breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and two tablespoons of your fridge-cold water, and pulse again. If it’s starting to come together and looks like pastry, you’re done. If it still looks dry, add another tablespoon or two of cold water until it just comes together. Tip your pastry onto cling film, knead briefly to bring it to a disc shape, then wrap in the cling film and chill in the fridge while you make the filling.
Heat your largest frying pan over a medium heat, add the spinach and cook until wilted, then keep cooking for a couple of minutes to drive some of the moisture off – you might have to do it in batches depending on the size of your pan. Tip the spinach into a sieve and get rid of as much excess liquid as you can – don’t be too precious about it, though, because you can spend your whole life trying to get liquid out of spinach.
Put the spinach back in the pan and add the olive oil and the garlic. Cook the spinach with the garlic gently until it starts to smell tasty – 2 or 3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and add the cayenne, lemon juice, artichokes, grated mozzarella, salt, and pepper, then leave the filling to cool – pop it in the fridge if you’re in a hurry.
When your filling is cool, take your pastry out of the fridge. Flour your work surface and roll the dough to about the thickness of a £1 coin – aim for a circle-ish shape, but it doesn’t really matter. Transfer your pastry to a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Leaving approximately a 7cm border around the edges of the pastry, top the dough with the spinach mix, then scatter on the blue cheese and walnuts.
Fold the edge of the dough over the filling – don’t worry if it cracks a bit, you’re going for rustic. Brush the crust with the beaten egg. Place the galette in the fridge for 15 minutes, or until ready to bake – if you want to get ahead, you can leave it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 4. Bake the galette for 45-55 minutes, or until the crust is golden and crisp. Let it sit for five or ten minutes, then top with fresh basil, and serve.

The Taste Test: Vegetarian Sausages

10th August 20178th August 20174 Comments

Vegetarian sausages are going to be a bit easier to rank than eggs, guys. It’s not a big spoiler for me to tell you that now.

It might seem odd for me to be doing a taste test for vegetarian sausages, as I eat everything, including meat. However, partly inspired by two lovely friends of mine who have been practising six-day-a-week vegetarianism, I have been eating far less meat than I used to. I definitely do still eat meat (and fish), but when I do it’s the happiest, highest quality meat I can afford. It’s now more of a treat than a staple. Thus, I found myself buying vegetarian sausages for the first time at the beginning of this year.

You know what, though? Vegetarian sausages are kind of hard to find. That’s probably no news to vegetarians, but to a meat-eater, it was a bit of a surprise. A few supermarkets I tried didn’t sell them at all. There were only a couple of supermarket own brands that I could see – and I had to head to the frozen section for those – so there are a few brand name vegetarian sausages in here too.

As before, I feel I need a rambling disclaimer: obviously, I am doing this in my kitchen and not in a lab and I am not a scientist. These are the opinions of one person – that said, one person who has been trained to taste for quality. Also, the products used in this series are just examples – obviously there are, say, eight or nine different types of vegetarian sausages or whatever the product may be, and I’m not going to try every single one because what am I, made of money?

The Blind Taste Test: Vegetarian Sausages

Veggie Sausages
per 100g	£*	kcal	fat	carb	fibre	protein	salt
Linda McCartney	0.87	168	6.0	8.7	3.0	18.2	1.3
Cauldron Lincolnshire	0.91	182	9.8	5.5	3.6	16.1	1.3
Sainsbury’s	0.57	181	10.7	3.7	2.3	16.3	1.0
Tesco	0.65	222	15.8	1.6	2.2	17.1	1.0
Quorn	1.0	155	5.2	15.1	5.5	8.9	1.1

A – Linda McCartney – 4/10

A slightly odd orange colour, but crisped up well in the oven, and a nice texture on the exterior. Smells okay – a bit unusual, but not bad. Doesn’t smell or taste like a sausage though. Not an awful texture, and perfectly edible, but very bland and no particular flavour.

B – Sainsbury’s – 6/10

Looks more like a real sausage than A: a good colour. Smells nice, and kind of like a real sausage. Texture is actually reminiscent of meat. A bit bland but not bad – a bit of spiciness and flavour, but it doesn’t taste like meat.

C – Quorn – 5/10

A bit pale, but has a skin like a sausage and smells quite nice. Very soft and smooth texture, not really like meat. Doesn’t taste bad, but again, quite bland and lacking in real flavour.

D – Tesco – 3/10

Pink, thin, with a rubbery texture. The oddest looking of the bunch. Weird, and quite unpleasant, texture and taste. However, does taste quite like one of the fake hot dog sausages you get at theme parks or whatever.

E – Cauldron – Lincolnshire – 8/10

Looks the best of the bunch – a nice colour and size, cuts nicely. Smells good. The meatiest texture of the lot. Certainly more flavour than any of the others. Doesn’t taste exactly like meat, but a reasonable meat alternative, and perfectly pleasant to eat.

Conclusion

All the vegetarian sausages looked really different when the samples came out, and it was interesting to see how much variation there was between products. Initially, I wondered how I was going to rank this. Should I score the vegetarian sausages based on how much they taste like real meat, or on how good they are to eat in and of themselves? In the end, however, that wasn’t really a problem. The sausage that tasted the most like real meat was also the most pleasant thing to eat. The Cauldron sausages were the clear winner. That said, the Sainsbury’s own-brand frozen option were surprisingly nice, and much cheaper if you’re on a budget. I wouldn’t buy any of the other three options again, but I do have a pack of the Cauldron sausages in the fridge. Next to the bacon.

*Prices correct at time of writing.

The Blind Taste Test: Feta Cheese

Feta

per 100g

£*

kcal

fat

carb

fibre

protein

salt

Lidl – Eridanous

0.50

278

23

0.7

0

17

2.2

Totally Greek Feta Attis

1.00

276

23.0

0.7

0

16.5

2.25

Sainsbury’s

1.30

284

24.3

0.5

0.5

16.0

3.0

Tesco

0.60

279

23.0

1.0

0.0

16.9

1.9

Waitrose

1.25

283

24.2

0.2

0.3

15.9

3.15

Conclusion

Notes:

Ingredients:

Method:

Source:

Notes:

Ingredients:

Method:

The Blind Taste Test: Cat Food

Conclusion

Notes:

Ingredients:

Method:

The Blind Taste Test: Milk Chocolate

Milk Chocolate

per 100g

£*

kcal

fat

carb

fibre

protein

salt

Aldi – Moser Roth (32%)

1.03

563

36

52

2.8

6.8