A Bond Girl's Food Diary

The Taste Test: Mature Cheddar Cheese

6th July 20175th July 20176 Comments

Last week I told you that the taste test this week would be looking at chocolate, which, I suppose, proves I am a filthy liar. This week, I am looking at mature cheddar cheese. I decided that after the massive chocolate-fest that was my Paul A. Young review a couple of days ago, it was time to mix it up.

In the interests of fairness, I tried to choose cheeses here that were as equivalent as possible: all of these were rated 5, so you’d expect a sharp and mature cheese with a strong flavour. That said, there isn’t that much regulation. These days, cheddar cheese doesn’t actually have to be from Cheddar, as it’s not a protected term, although this tasting process has made me quite keen to actually go to the town of Cheddar and see how their cheese compares. Because that’s the kind of thing I find fun. Because I’m quite sad.

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 cheddar 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: Cheddar Cheese

Cheddar Cheese
per 100g	£*	kcal	fat	carb	fibre	protein	salt
Aldi	0.60	416	35.0	<0.5	<0.5	25.0	1.8
Lidl	0.92	410	34.4	0	0	25.0	1.8
Sainsburys	0.74	410	34.4	<0.5	<0.5	25.0	1.68
Tesco	1.33	416	34.9	0.1	0	25.4	1.8
Waitrose	1.25	416	34.9	0.1	0	25.4	1.8

A – Sainsburys – 5/10

Soft, pliable texture – not very crumbly, a bit plastic-y. Perhaps good for melting, but not ideal for grating, as it’s quite soft. Decent flavour. Sharp taste, seems like a standard mature cheddar, but nothing exceptional and a disappointing texture.

B – Lidl – 8/10

Crumbly, firm: a good texture with a little bit of delicious salty crunchiness from tyrosine crystals, which you can often find in matured cheeses. A lovely strong, interesting flavour – sharp, but not sour. My favourite.

C – Tesco – 3/10

Another crumbly cheddar with a decent texture, but no crystals from maturation. Not a great flavour – almost sour, and a bit unpleasant. Not a fan.

D – Aldi – 4/10

On the soft and bendy end of the cheddar cheese spectrum. Weaker and milder than the first cheeses, which is a shame for a mature cheddar. A rather strange aftertaste, almost like melon, which isn’t unpleasant in itself but seems odd for cheese.

E – Waitrose – 7/10

Another cheddar that’s nicely firm and crumbly in texture, not at all plastic-y, with a lovely crunchiness to it. Strong and sharp in flavour: a decent cheddar that I’d happily eat on its own. The only cheddar that came with a resealable pack, which is handy.

Conclusion

The cheddar from Lidl was so tasty that I absent-mindedly continued to eat it after I’d finished the actual taste test. I was surprised by how much the cheeses varied in taste and texture, because if you look at them in terms of caloric content and the levels of fat, protein, salt and so on, they are nearly identical. I rarely buy supermarket cheddar cheese to eat on its own: if I were buying cheese as a treat for the sake of eating cheese after a meal I’d get it from a the Jericho Cheese Company if possible. Cheddar cheeses like these in this house tend to be an ingredient in another dish rather than the star of the show. That said, I’d definitely buy the Lidl cheese just for the sake of eating it.

*Prices correct at time of writing.

Goats’ Cheese Stuffed Chicken with Bacon and Thyme

4th July 20175th July 20174 Comments

Full disclosure: it took me ages to come up with a proper name for this recipe, because at home we call it ‘chicken-y bacon-y goats’ cheese-y thing’. At least once a month, when I’m stuck for any original ideas regarding what to make for dinner, I will turn to James and say ‘Chicken-y bacon-y goats’ cheese-y thing?’ and he’ll say ‘Works for me’, and that will be that. I have stated before that I think chicken and goats’ cheese make excellent bedfellows. Also: goat cheese; goat’s cheese; goats’ cheese. I go with the latter because I think it denotes milk from multiple goats, which seems to make the most sense, but who knows? Also, well done if you got to the end of this paragraph without falling asleep.

I have been making this recipe, or some variation of it, for years. There are lots of versions of ‘chicken breast stuffed with some sort of cheese and wrapped in some sort of meat’ recipes on the internet, so this certainly isn’t an original concept, but this is how I make it.

James and I are by no means vegetarians, but we’ve been eating less meat recently, having it as a treat rather than a staple of every meal. This means a recipe like this is now something of a luxury, rather than a standard weeknight dinner, and it’s made me rather fond of it – hence it suddenly popping up on this blog.

You may think that stuffing chicken with something and wrapping it in something else seems like kind of a tricky faff, but it’s far easier than it perhaps sounds and it only takes ten minutes to put together. I am kind of lazy about this sort of thing and I don’t find it too onerous. The chicken also goes well with most grains, potatoes, salads, and greens, so it’s pretty versatile in that you can serve it with whatever you have knocking about.

Notes: This recipe will feed four, assuming you make a side dish, or you can do what James and I often do and eat two pieces of chicken for dinner and have the other two the next day. Also, all quantities are easily halved.

The side dish in the pictures is a lentil salad type deal that I often make. It is very, very simple so I haven’t included the recipe, but let me know if you have a desperate yearning to know what is in it.

Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves
handful fresh thyme
handful of tomatoes (optional)
4 chicken breasts
200g soft goats’ cheese
1 pack streaky bacon
pepper
olive oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 210C/190C fan/gas 5. Grab some sort of roasting dish or tray. Roughly chop your thyme, crush your garlic, and set both aside. If you’re using tomatoes, cut them in half or into quarters (depending on size) and chuck them in your roasting tray.
Lay your chicken breasts flat, and cut a slit into the side of each, trying not to cut them in half completely. Cram about a quarter of your goats’ cheese into each chicken breast, then wrap each up tightly in streaky bacon – you need about three rashers for each. Lay them in your tray, directly on top of the tomatoes if using.
Rub each piece of chicken with crushed garlic, and sprinkle with thyme. Season with plenty of pepper – you can use a little salt too if you like but I usually don’t, because bacon is inherently salty. Drizzle the whole thing with a little olive oil, then bake for 25-30 minutes until the meat is cooked through, the bacon is crispy, and the garlic is golden. Serve with a drizzle of the juices from the pan.

Review: Paul A Young – Chocolate Tasting & Making Workshop

3rd July 201717th August 20175 Comments

Why, you may well as ask, did you go to a chocolate workshop? You did a full culinary diploma, mate! Shouldn’t you know all this by now? Was this just an excuse to eat lots of Paul A Young chocolate?

Well. yes. And no. I received broad and extensive culinary training, but because we had to cover everything in one very intense year, we didn’t focus with laser precision on every single technique. While we had a chocolate-making dem and a session on petit fours, we didn’t go into the art of chocolate in huge amounts of detail. I am keen to keep learning and sharpening my skills, and I want to make sure I continue to progress as a cook. Plus, you know, chocolate.

And thus I came to find myself, with my mother, in the basement of Paul A Young‘s extravagantly purple artisan chocolate shop in Soho. We’re wearing excessively sexy blue hair nets (hygiene first, people), but yes, my mother’s hair is also blue.

The basement kitchen where the class took place is where the team at the shop make the chocolate that is sold there. Each of the three Paul A Young shops has its own kitchen where the chocolates are made fresh daily, to prevent them being transported all over London, and possibly contaminated or damaged. There were seven of us in the class group, and we were led by two female chocolatiers who work in the kitchen day to day. They were friendly, professional, and clearly very knowledgeable and confident in their chocolate skills. Everyone in the class was already familiar (in my case, too familiar) with Paul A. Young and his products. We learned a little more about how the shops actually function and were given one of his books to work from before we launched into the first practical job of the day: making water ganache.

I’ve made ganaches before, but the method was clearly explained and would have been completely accessible to anyone who was less familiar with the concept. We used a beautiful dark couverture chocolate and got to work, whipping up silky-smooth and rich ganaches destined to be transformed into truffles. We were then given the choice of a selection of beautiful NHR Oils to flavour our ganaches, as well as an explanation of the best way to create a harmonious flavour profile. Starting with something citrussy and complementing it with something herbal is a good way to go – who knew!? I went with fennel and mandarin in the end because basically I will put fennel in anything. Including, apparently, truffles.

While our ganaches set, we were treated to an extensive chocolate tasting, starting with a mellow 38% blended milk chocolate and working our way up to a hardcore 100% dark chocolate. It reminded me a lot of the wine tasting we used to do for the WSET course at Leiths. We were encouraged to really taste each variety of chocolate thoughtfully, looking for flavour profiles and scoring each chocolate based on how much we enjoyed it. We were taught about the difference between blended and single origin chocolates, and introduced to some new brands that even I hadn’t heard of before.

The real skill of the day was tempering, using the tabling method. Paul A Young staff are obviously excellent at this. Me, not so much. I have tempered chocolate before, but never on a marble slab (marble slabs being in short supply in my minuscule kitchen). I have also always stuck religiously to using a sugar thermometer when tempering, bringing the chocolate up to a certain temperature, then down, then up again… We were quickly informed that the real chocolatiers need no such technological aids, and can tell if chocolate is tempered correctly simply by look and feel. I found this incredibly impressive, and imagine it takes a lot of practice. I am a long way off being able to tell if melted chocolate is at 33 degrees or closer to 31 by feel alone.

We all got to have a go at marble slab tempering – and were given lots of help, thankfully – before we made our own flavoured chocolate bars and covered our truffles in two thin layers of tempered chocolate. We then had the fun of decorating them with beautiful edible lustre dusts and coloured cocoa butters to make our creations individual and, in my case, very sparkly.

In conclusion?

Overall, I enjoyed the class hugely, and am thinking of going back to Paul A Young for the intermediate session. The staff are expert and passionate, and we got to work with fantastic ingredients. We also ate a huge amount of chocolate. When the class was over we each got to take home about fifty of our own hand-made truffles, as well as the slab bars we’d made, so we left with a decent stash of very high quality product.

However, as someone who has studied at culinary school, attended lots of enthusiasts classes, and now teaches cookery herself, I did think there were a couple of things about the logistics and structure of the session that could be improved. Firstly, a simple thing: name labels! We were only told the instructors’ names once at the beginning of the class and I have unfortunately forgotten them. Plus, it was a bit odd to be working closely with six other people for five hours and never be given an opportunity to introduce ourselves or learn the others’ names. I suppose I could have gone round the circle and asked everyone, but I am too British for that.

Secondly, it would have been nice to have had stools that we could sit on while listening or tasting, to rest. Five hours standing and leaning over low counters is a long time. It’s fine when you’re moving around but difficult if you’re still for long periods or if, like me, you have a messed up back. It would also have been helpful to get a heads-up in our booking email that we’d be working in a highly air-conditioned space: obviously that’s necessary for working with chocolate, but as it was a warm summer’s day I hadn’t thought to bring layers, and it was freezing.

Finally, we did the whole 10am to 3pm session with no breaks! I had expected that we would get a lunch break. Obviously weren’t starved because of all the chocolate, but it’s a long time to focus on something without any chance to rest (even for me, and I am used to working in kitchens and doing long teaching sessions). If there was too much to do to allow us some time to go out and get lunch, it would have been good to have a couple of ten or fifteen minute tea breaks to give us a chance to rest our brains after taking in lots of information, and maybe to sit down for a moment.

I realise this sounds like quite a lot of criticism, but I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot. I only note these things because I think that there are simple changes that could be made to make the courses more logistically accessible and enjoyable for all, and I’d really love to return myself. I’d definitely recommend the classes as a special treat or present for someone who is interested in making their own chocolates. And if you’ve not been to any of the Paul A Young shops before then they are well worth a visit. Please bring me back some of the salted caramels. And maybe some of that popcorn chocolate. Perhaps some almond praline. And also a crane to get me out of this chair.

The Taste Test: Houmous

29th June 201717th August 20176 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article that has to be a pretty strong candidate for ‘most first world middle class problem ever‘. Customers at Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, and Tesco complained of strange-tasting houmous, and many products had to be withdrawn. The company that supplied all three supermarkets, Bakkavor, warned the supermarkets that there had been an issue with the manufacturing process.

I am a fairly loyal Sainsbury’s shopper, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is a large Sainsbury’s five minutes away from where I live. Secondly, when I was growing up in London there was a large Sainsbury’s five minutes away from where I lived, so that’s what I have always been used to. Thirdly, it always seems like the mummy-bear moderate choice, in terms of supermarkets: not the cheapest; not the most expensive – about right. Sure, I’ll go to Aldi or Waitrose occasionally, and sometimes to the fishmonger for fish and the butcher for meat if I am looking for something special, and I shop quite a bit at small independent stores on Cowley Road for obscure fresh exotic ingredients, but basically, I’m a Sainsbury’s girl.

But how much difference is there really between the own-brand products of the various big supermarkets? Of course, a KitKat you buy from Tesco will taste the same as a KitKat you buy from Waitrose, but what about Marks & Spencer own brand houmous vs. Tesco own brand houmous? Do they actually taste different? And, if so, is the more expensive brand any better? If several products for different supermarkets are coming from the same suppliers, are different ingredients of varying quality used?

This series is not going to be particularly scientific and, of course, it is necessarily subjective. But, out of personal curiosity as much as anything, I’m going to have a look at some supermarket own-brand products and taste them comparatively. I admit, I would assume that an expensive houmous from Waitrose would be tastier and of better quality than a budget version from Lidl. But is that simply years of being exposed to supermarket marketing and in-built prejudice working their magic on me? I’d like to challenge my own assumptions and break down my associations between fancy brands and superior quality.

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 houmous or whatever the product may be, and I’m not going to try every single one because what am I, made of money? So I’ve tried to buy roughly comparative products from each shop.

So, since I’ve been going on about it so much, I will start with houmous.

The Blind Taste Test: Houmous

Houmous
per 100g	£*	kcal	fat (g)	carb (g)	fibre (g)	protein (g)	salt (g)
Aldi	0.28	346	29	12	3.3	7.7	0.64
Lidl	0.28	351	30	12	3.1	6.6	0.58
Sainsbury’s	0.57	278	22	10.6	5.3	6.7	0.63
Tesco	0.55	306	24.6	11.4	4.9	7.2	0.8
Waitrose	0.46	284	22.7	11.6	4.1	6.3	0.80

A – Aldi – 5/10

Notably loose texture, smooth. Taste-wise, very sharp with an almost vinegary aftertaste, but can taste the chickpeas, and I wouldn’t say there’s no flavour. Not ‘sealed for freshness’ with the extra plastic collar seal around the edge of the tub.

B – Sainsburys – 6/10

Firmest and driest texture of the group, held its shape on the spoon. Also roughest in texture so tasted less processed. Not too sharp, quite mild, pleasant enough but not very flavoursome – can’t really pick out much in terms of lemon, garlic etc. The lowest in calories of the group – seems likely it has less oil than some of the others, hence firmness.

C – Tesco – 7/10

Moderate in texture, smooth and creamy. Mellow, not too sharp, and easy to eat straight off a spoon unadorned (which can’t be said for all houmous, I have learned). Can taste tahini, but not much in the way of chickpea flavour.

D – Waitrose – 8/10

Fairly firm texture – the next firmest after Sainsburys, and the next lowest in calories. Again, probably a lower proportion of oil. A good balance of richness and creaminess, with a hint of sharpness and a good chickpea flavour. My favourite.

E – Lidl – 3/10

Also a loose texture, sliding around on the tasting spoon. Didn’t taste very fresh, and actually had quite an unpleasant aftertaste – it tasted notably different from all the other examples. Also not ‘sealed for freshness’, as with Aldi.

Conclusion

This time, it seems, no surprises: I found the budget branded products less enjoyable than the premium products. However, worth noting that the Waitrose houmous was actually not the most expensive of the lot, gram for gram, though I think most people would expect to pay more at Waitrose than at other supermarkets. If you’re buying the Essential Waitrose brand, it’s actually cheaper in this case than the mid-range options from Sainsbury’s and Tesco. A tasty product that I will buy again.

Next week: chocolate…

*Prices correct at time of writing.

Blackberry and Pistachio Frozen Yoghurt

27th June 201717th August 2017Leave a comment

I know, I know, I used blackberry and pistachio together in a recipe last month. And I also put pistachios in pretty much absolutely everything. I’ve mentioned before that I go through food obsessions and phases, and poor James has to put up with eating the same things over and over until I get bored and move onto something else. Basically, purple and green is just where it’s at with me right now, I’m afraid, so that’s what you get. Frozen yoghurt.

I never picked fruit as a child, living mainly in London and lacking that sort of bucolic rural upbringing, and so it never really occurred to me to do so as an adult until recently. A couple of summers ago, I was walking the dog of a dear friend who was temporarily immobile, post-surgery, and stumbled across the most incredible treasure-trove of untouched, heavy-ripe blackberries, just across the river from where our boat is moored.

It was part of our neighbouring nature reserve, and the plants had grown so high and wild that they’d formed winding paths through the field down to the river, each lined with dripping, plump fruit. We’re not in blackberry season yet – although it’s been so warm that perhaps it will come early this year – but when the time is right I am going to find my way back there again and gather a few tubs of berries to freeze for the colder months. Frozen yoghurt is only one of a thousand things to do with them.

Of course, you can buy perfectly lovely frozen fruit from the supermarket, but it makes me feel outdoorsy and practical to try and pick it myself occasionally. In reality, I am the least outdoorsy person you are likely to ever meet.

Anyway, we had what passes for a heat-wave in these parts last week (three full days of heat, anyone in an actual hot country is laughing at us right now), and all we really wanted to eat was ice cream. But I don’t have an ice cream maker. And I’m kind of too impatient for all that setting, stirring, setting thing you have to do with a no-churn recipe. So instead, I give you frozen yoghurt. It’s an incredibly simple recipe (as was last week’s actually – clearly I am getting lazy). It’s healthy-ish. But also nice, promise. You could legitimately have this for breakfast. I did have this for breakfast.

Notes:

Obviously, you can make this with just about anything you like. I think raspberry and almond or blueberry and pecan would also be delicious, but hey, throw whatever you’ve got in the cupboards or the freezer in there and go wild. You could also stir through chocolate chips, crumbled biscuit, fudge pieces, cereal… That’s the beauty of frozen yoghurt. It’s adaptable.

Ingredients:

300g frozen blackberries
50g pistachios
200g Greek yoghurt (I like the proper, thick, full fat stuff, but whatever you prefer will be fine)
2-4 tbsp honey (adjust to taste)

Method:

Either get your blackberries out of the freezer ten minutes before you want to make this, or whack them in the microwave for 30 seconds or a minute to soften them up – some blenders (mine included) will struggle with absolutely rock hard frozen fruit. Pop your pistachios in a dry pan on a medium heat to toast for around 5 minutes – keep shaking them around now and then to make sure they don’t burn.
Put your blackberries, yoghurt, and honey in a blender and blitz until smooth and thick. Taste, adjust honey if needed.
Chop your pistachios roughly and serve the frozen yoghurt sprinkled with chopped nuts, and some whole blackberries if you like.

Review: Abingdon Food Festival

26th June 201717th August 20174 Comments

The Abingdon Food Festival has a great deal to recommend it. This was its fourth year, and yet I’d never been before: James and I made the journey down to Abingdon to see what we could see, and came away very full and happy, occasionally turning to each other and saying things like ‘That was really very good, wasn’t it?’

The festival’s location couldn’t be better. They make use of a beautiful riverside meadow, which is not only convenient – providing plenty of space and lots of parking – but picturesque, with boats moored all along the side of the festival site and green space all around. The setting contributes to the laid back, friendly atmosphere of the event. There were dogs and children everywhere, and plenty of seating provided and space to wander without feeling crowded. The volunteers on the gate and giving out information all seemed lovely, and I was very happy that the low £3 suggested entry price went to charity, having recently attended a food festival that cost more than £20 per person to enter – and that’s before you’ve even bought any food…

My general approached to these events is to come early to avoid queues and to make sure I am very hungry, thereby enabling myself to eat enough to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Being obsessive, I like to do a lap of the whole site and see what’s on offer before committing to buying anything, wary of missing out on something for fear of not seeing it before I’ve already stuffed my face.

At the Abingdon Food Festival, James derailed this sensible system by dragging me over to Dick’s Smokehouse immediately and demanding the pulled pork in a charcoal brioche bun with apple and fennel relish. It transpired that we were the stall’s first customers at their first ever event so, feeling very honoured, we tucked into our, er, breakfast. It was a delicious twist on the classic pork and apple combination, the meat flavourful and succulent, the charcoal brioche adding a bit of interest and texture, and the fennel present but not overpowering. The stallholders were lovely and their branding is bold and on-point, as proven by the fact that James immediately made a beeline for them – I’ll definitely keep an eye out for them in the future.

My next pick was Polentista, who I’d never seen before and whose menu sounded delicious – I am, at heart, a carb lover. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to approach them and hear that they weren’t ready to serve food yet, despite it being 11am and the festival having opened at 10am. I don’t know if they’d had problems in the morning, but I was sad not to be able to try their gnocchi and polenta chips – next time! Instead we ended up with a satisfying pile of nachos from Hillbilly’s, which hit the spot. Maybe not the most original dish, but hey, they were well-made and delicious. James then grabbed a marshmallow lolly from the very friendly woman at Cottage Sweets, and consumed it in about forty-five seconds before proceeding to chew the stick, which I will take as a positive review.

Being somewhat of a brownie connoisseur (read: greedy brownie obsessive), I was keen to try the crème brûlée brownie from Ridiculously Rich. It’s pretty rare for me to come across a twist on brownies I haven’t seen before, so thanks Abingdon Food Festival. The brownie was a little thinner than I’d usually go for, but the topping was creamy and well-made, and the brownie itself was decadently chocolatey and more-ish. I am willing to concede that most people have a lower brownie tolerance than I do and would have found anything thicker too rich. The peanut butter fudge cake was a delight because, well, peanut butter fudge cake.

There was a great selection of alcohol at the festival, and I was happy to see stalls selling an impressive variety of good wines, as well as the beer and cider vendors that you’d expect to see at these events. Sadly, one of us had to drive home, so I didn’t get to sample the wines, but James very much enjoyed an unusually dry and flavoursome pint of Hitchcox Cider (I may have had a sneaky sip, just to test it) that was sold to us by the owner, a lovely guy. They also had a impressive range of drinks on offer, including loads of varieties of cider ranging from dry to sweet, as well as cider cocktails. Finally, before heading home, we grabbed a classic beef and Stilton pie from Brockleby’s, which was very much enjoyed for dinner later that evening.

Would we return?

Obviously we couldn’t sample everything we wanted to at the festival, and I was also sorely tempted by Caribbean and South African stalls in particular, but we very much enjoyed all we ate and had a great time chatting to the friendly vendors. With live music and cookery demonstrations as well as an impressive collection of all sorts of food from around the world, Abingdon Food Festival was the perfect place to while away a few hours, and we will certainly return next year.

Spanish Almond Cookies

20th June 201717th August 2017Leave a comment

These Spanish almond cookies are my attempt at going abroad this year. In a culinary, if not actual, way.

James and I aren’t very good at going on holiday. We do overnight sojourns to odd corners of England every so often for various events, but we haven’t actually been properly ‘on holiday’ out of the country since a long weekend in Paris in April 2014. Which was incredible and wonderful and lovely and Paris is pretty much my favourite place and if every holiday for the next ten years was going back to Paris ad infinitum then I would be cool with it. But it was only for three days, and it was over three years ago.

Time and money, money and time. It’s so boring. They’re the same problems everyone else has too. But for some reason we haven’t managed to get round them, probably because I am an itinerant cookery teacher/freelance chef/food blogger. When you don’t have a proper salary and have full on anxiety about paying for things like the electricity and food, it’s kind of hard to justify spending money on flights and accommodation. And, er, more food in a different country.

We had a lovely little mini-honeymoon after we got married last year – a three day weekend in London. But we never went on the kind of honeymoon where you have to get vaccinations before you travel and end up take selfies at the top of mountains at sunset. And we’re never going to have that sort of honeymoon because no way am I climbing up a mountain voluntarily. But we have finally, tentatively, pencilled a week in Spain in October into the calendar. Flights to Spain are really cheap. We can worry about accommodation at a later date. Related: do I know anyone who lives in Spain?

Also, most importantly, the food in Spain is amazing. Or so I hear. I am trying to get into the spirit four months early with these little almondy morsels of delight. They are a liberally adapted version of what is apparently a Spanish almond cookie, so we’re not aiming for absolute authenticity here, but they are properly tasty: a crisp shell around a chewy, delicate interior, lightly lemon-scented and incredibly moreish. They’re also dairy and gluten free, and I was halfway to convincing myself they were healthy before I remembered the sugar.

I love a classic, American style cookie as much (and more) than the next person, but these Spanish almond cookies have won me over in their own delicious, subtle way.

Source:

Based on and adapted from this recipe for Spanish almond cookies.

Notes:

This recipe is stunningly easy. Only a few ingredients, five minutes to make the dough, five minutes to shape it into cookies, fifteen minutes in the oven, and you’re away. No dairy, no gluten, they keep well. Clearly the Spanish are onto something.

I doubled the recipe for these photos because I wanted to give the cookies to a friend, but the quantity below makes around 12-15 cookies, depending on how big you make them.

I made the dough in a food processor because I’m lazy, but you could just as easily do it in a large bowl.

Ingredients:

150g ground almonds
80g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 large egg
handful of whole, skin-on almonds to top the cookies

Method:

Heat your oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Line a baking sheet. Pop your ground almonds, sugar, lemon zest, and salt in a food processor, and blitz for a few seconds to combine. Add your egg, and blitz again, stopping to scrape down the sides. You should end up with an even, sticky dough.
Dampen your hands slightly with cold water so that the dough doesn’t just stick to your fingers, and roll it into balls, each around 1 tbsp worth of mixture. Arrange them on your baking sheet, press a whole almond into each one, and bake for around 15 minutes until golden. If your oven bakes unevenly you might want to turn the tray halfway through cooking.

Update:

August 2017 – I made about 200 of these as part of a wedding dessert table I was handling a couple of weeks back, and I can report that they freeze really excellently well.

Cucumber Salad

13th June 201712th June 201710 Comments

I am a complete animal obsessive – the kind of person who will stop people in the street so that I can talk to and pet their dogs (while ignoring the human attached to the dog because talking to those who can talk back is too much effort). When people ask me if I am a dog or a cat person I say I adore both, which is true: my brother and I grew up with three cats and two dogs in the house, and I love them more than most humans. That said, I think I am a cat person at heart. They are emotionally complex, tempestuous and smart and sulky, which apparently appeals to me in an animal. This is why I have let our cat-who-is-not-our-cat, Freddie, massively emotionally manipulate me until I am basically a slave who exists to serve her.

When Freddie first showed up at our door, she was all tentative and nervy, needing cajoling to convince her that we were good, cat-loving, unintimidating folk. We’re way, way past that point now, though. She has played James and I like fiddles. Without even realising how we got here, we’re at the point where if I start to eat any sort of human food near her she will come and try to put her nose in it to share it with me, and I have to actively push her away if I do not want to lose my breakfast to a feline.

These days I have to be extremely careful when I do my food photography. If I set everything up and then turn my back for a second to pick up my camera, that cat is across the room and jumping onto my little set like an overjoyed kid being let out of a classroom and into a playground. The problem is that she has discovered that human food is more delicious than animal food, and now she’s not interested in anything else.

Anyway, luckily cats are obligate carnivores and not really interested in cucumber, so this little dish was spared the threat of Freddie’s tongue. This salad is a weird mish-mash of different cuisines, but it’s light and summery and only takes ten minutes to make and, hey, I think it’s tasty and it didn’t get eaten by the cat, so here it is.

Notes: This should feed 3-4 people as a side dish, or two people as the base for a main meal with, for instance, some grilled chicken or fish.

Don’t skip the black onion seeds! They may sound like an odd ingredient if you are not used to them, but they are delicious and they make this salad, adding an interesting bitterness. You can get them from large supermarkets or local Asian shops – if you live in Oxford, you can get them in most stores up and down the Cowley Road.

Ingredients:

1/2 small red onion
juice of 1 lime
pinch of sugar
salt and pepper
1 whole cucumber
100g feta
1 small pack coriander
2 tsp black onion/nigella seeds/kalonji

Method:

First, finely dice your red onion. Put the onion in a mixing bowl, and squeeze over the juice of the lime, then add a pinch of sugar and some salt and pepper (bearing in mind that feta is very salty, so you don’t want to add too much salt at this stage). Mix it all around and let the onion sit in the mixture.
Next, halve your cucumber, scrape out the seeds (I use a teaspoon for this), and dice the remaining flesh. Crumble your feta cheese. Chop your coriander, stalks and all, as finely as you can be bothered to. Add your cucumber, feta, coriander, and black onion seeds to your red onion, give it all a good stir, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Job done.

Goats’ Cheese and Sun-dried Tomato Scones

5th June 20174th June 20174 Comments

The observant amongst you may have noticed that goats’ cheese has made several appearances on this blog. That is because it is possibly my favourite type of cheese (although choosing a favourite cheese feels rather like choosing a favourite child, and as I typed that last I was already starting to feel guilty about Stilton, halloumi, and St Jude) and it features fairly heavily in my cooking. Chicken stuffed with goats’ cheese and wrapped in bacon, shallot and goats’ cheese tart tatin, and raspberry goats’ cheese brownies are all regular fixtures around here. I would happily eat the stuff every day if I could.

Oddly though, I misguidedly disliked goats’ cheese as a young child. I vividly remember helping my mother put together some bruschetta for a party at around the age of ten or eleven, and her becoming cross with me when I insisted I didn’t like goats’ cheese.

‘Of course you like goats’ cheese’, she’d admonished. ‘And I don’t want you becoming one of those picky kids that whines about trying new things all the time’.

I didn’t become one of the picky kids, partly because I don’t think my mother would have stood for it. One of the many gifts my parents gave me was to let me (or force me) to eat a wide range of foods throughout my childhood and teenage years. Thus I was lucky enough to be spared the deep fear and mistrust engendered by anything both edible and unfamiliar that I saw in many of my peers when I reached university, and began to be wholly responsible for feeding myself for the first time. It’s kind of hard to justify being fussy about cheese when you’re used to seeing your mother eat an entire fish head, eyes included (and savoured).

So, in a brief foray into savoury baking, I bring you these goats’ cheese, sun-dried tomato, and thyme scones. They are quick and easy to make, and feel slightly less indulgent that the classic scone-jam-clotted cream triumvirate (one of my favourite things in the world, by the way), and could be reasonably appropriate for breakfast, or for lunch with some salad. Or some extra cheese, for good measure.

Notes: If you are one of those people who does not enjoy goats’ cheese (I mean, you’re wrong, but okay) then you could substitute grated cheddar or crumbled feta.

This recipe should make eight to ten standard scones, depending on your cutter size.

Ingredients:

140g self-raising flour
140g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g cold butter, cut into small pieces
80g goats’ cheese, crumbled
15-20 sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme
1 large egg
salt and pepper
2 tbsp plain/Greek yoghurt
4 tbsp milk

Method:

Heat your oven to 190/170 fan/gas 5. In a large bowl, mix both flours and baking powder, then rub in the butter until it reaches breadcrumb stage. Stir in 1/2 (40g) of the crumbled goats’ cheese. In a jug, mix together the other 40g of the goats’ cheese, the sun-dried tomatoes, the thyme, the egg, a good pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper, the yoghurt, and the milk until combined. Make a well in your flour mix and pour in your wet mix, then mix quickly with a cutlery knife, using your hands at the end to briefly knead the dough together – don’t overwork it or your scones will be heavy.
Working quickly, pat the dough out into a rough 2cm thick round on a lightly floured surface. Stamp out as many scones as you can, using a cutter (or a glass if you don’t have a cutter to hand). Be careful not to twist the cutter as you remove it from each scone as this can impede the rise. Gather the scraps of dough, then repeat the cutting until all the dough is used – the scones from the reshaped dough will be a bit rougher and won’t rise as high, but will still be delicious.
Put all your scones on a baking sheet and finish by brushing with milk or sprinkling with wholemeal flour, if you like. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden, firm on the outside, and easy to pull apart at the ‘waist’. .

Salted Caramel Brownies

30th May 201730th May 201713 Comments

Granted, this is not an original idea in any way at all. Salted caramel brownies have become so popular that you’d be hard-pressed to find a bakery that doesn’t sell them. Salted caramel, unlike scores of other food trends (I’ve still not really got a handle on that whole cronut/cruffin/duffin situation, to be honest), has proven itself to have some serious staying power – probably because it’s stupidly tasty. Put it with chocolate, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a moment of happiness.

So I’m not really bringing anything new to the party with this recipe. And yet, brownies are the thing I bake the most regularly, and salted caramel is now the most requested flavour. I did a quick reckoning, and realised that I only have three brownie recipes on this blog which, considering I have been doing this for nearly two years, is actually pretty restrained. If you are thinking that this is not at all restrained, then probably you have not met me.

Anyway, it’s my little corner of the internet, and thus I have decided I am completely within my rights to swerve ‘pioneering’ and ‘original’, and land with a flump on ‘probably passé as food trends go but delicious enough to justify its own existence’. So here is my version of salted caramel brownies.

Notes: I have rattled on about why I think brownies are magical enough on this website and I don’t think I should really revisit the thesis. They’re still magical, though.

Obviously, feel free to skip or substitute where the white chocolate is concerned, but I really love it here. There’s something glorious about the light, sweet white chocolate against the bold density of the dark chocolate brownie and the salty complexity of the caramel.

The salted caramel recipe here will make about double the amount you will need for the brownies. I like to have spare on hand if I am going to the trouble of making it because I will always use it in something, but if you don’t want any extra then halve the quantities.

Ingredients:

200g good quality 70% dark chocolate
140g butter
2 large eggs, plus 1 extra yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g golden caster sugar
100g good quality white chocolate
100g plain flour
1 tsp salt

for the salted caramel

200g granulated sugar
90g salted butter, cut into cubes
120ml double cream
2 tsp sea salt

Method:

First, make the salted caramel, so that it has time to cool and thicken a little before use. Heat the sugar in a pan with a fairly large surface area (I use a frying pan) over a medium heat. Resist the temptation to stir it – you can shake the pan a bit. Keep an eye on it. Nothing will happen for ages, then the base of the sugar will start to melt. Gently swirl the pan around, moving the sugar about, until it’s all melted into a lovely golden coppery liquid.
Now whisk the butter into the sugar, a few cubes at a time, until it’s all incorporated and completely melted. Don’t worry if the mixture looks split at this stage. Now drizzle in your cream while continuing to stir the caramel – be careful, as the mixture will bubble and hiss. Boil the mixture for one minute, then remove from the heat and stir in the salt. Taste (carefully) and adjust as needed, then let cool.
Now, for the brownies. Break your chocolate into pieces and chop your butter into rough cubes and place them both in a glass or metal bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and leave them to melt, stirring occasionally. Preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line a 20x20cm square tin.
While your chocolate and butter melt, mix your eggs with your extra yolk and your vanilla, and weigh out your sugar. Chop or break your white chocolate into chunks. When your chocolate and butter have completely melted, beat in your sugar (I use an electric hand whisk), followed by your eggs. Add your flour and salt to the mixture and beat that in too. Stir through your white chocolate chunks.
Pour the mixture into the tin, smooth the surface, and then dollop your cooled salted caramel on top of the batter and swirl it around with a knife or skewer. Bake for around 25 mins – the salted caramel will sit in a liquidy way on top of the batter and make you think the brownies are not done, but they will firm as they cool.
Normally I advocate eating brownies warm from the pan, and while you absolutely can do that here, they will be very gooey. If I need to slice these neatly or take them anywhere I normally let them chill and firm in the fridge for a couple of hours first. Finish with a sprinkling of sea salt, if you like.

The Blind Taste Test: Cheddar Cheese

Cheddar Cheese

per 100g

£*

kcal

fat

carb

fibre

protein

salt

Aldi

0.60

416

35.0

<0.5

<0.5

25.0

1.8

Lidl

0.92

410

34.4

0

0

25.0

1.8

Sainsburys

0.74

410

34.4

<0.5

<0.5

25.0

1.68

Tesco

1.33

416

34.9

0.1

0

25.4

1.8

Waitrose

1.25

416

34.9

0.1

0

25.4

1.8

In conclusion?

The Blind Taste Test: Houmous

Houmous

per 100g

£*

kcal

fat (g)

carb (g)

fibre (g)

protein (g)

salt (g)

Aldi

0.28

346

29

12

3.3

7.7

0.64

Lidl

0.28

351

30

12

3.1

6.6

0.58

Sainsbury’s

0.57

278