Classic bolognese
Published on 20 Aug 2008 at 9:52 am.
No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Windows video
mp4 video
Spaghetti bolognese - it’s an old standby, and as such has become one of the most used and abused recipes under creation. Outside of its hometown of Bologna in Italy, bolognese has become a catch-all name for any meat-and-tomato sauce quickly slapped together and served over pasta, which is almost invariably spaghetti.
But start investigating bolognese and you’ll find out some interesting things. In traditional Bolognese cooking, ragu alla bolognese is rarely served with spaghetti (usually it goes with tagliatelle); it contains very little tomato (eschewing the pound can or two of tommies that many people dump into the saucepan); there are no herbs in it (so rack off home with your shaker of dried oregano); and one of the key ingredients is time (not the herb - the stuff in your wristwatch).
Most surprisingly of all - to me, at least - the key to a lovely rich bolognese is a goodly portion of milk.
Good golly fish curry
Published on 8 Jul 2008 at 5:48 pm.
5 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
King of curry Atul Kochhar had his meen molee published in Observer Food Monthly a while back - and we had the chance to crash-test the recipe.
Meen molee is a coconut fish curry, with green chillies providing the kick. Lenny elected to fillet the fish herself, as a chance to show off her flash filleting knife. We kept the wreckage for our slow cooker dabbling and made a decent fish stock. Don’t feel that you’re punking out if you just buy ordinary fillets or get the fishmonger to do it. (more…)
Portuguese custard tarts
Published on 13 Jun 2008 at 11:22 am.
17 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
I’m not much of a sweet tooth, and unlike Waz I’m not much of a coffee drinker. But when I do indulge in a proper espresso it’s always lovely to complement it with a sweet little morsel. Just like nata - or proper Portuguese custard tarts. These delicacies are made with a puff pastry base and a vanilla egg custard filling with a hint of orange zest.
They are by no means the only custard tart around. Waz and I are also huge fans of Chinese dan ta - those lovely little glossy-topped, flaky-based tarts you get when you have good yum cha (also known as dim sum). (more…)
Loaf to admit failure
Published on 29 May 2008 at 10:32 am.
11 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
You can’t beat waking up to the smell of fresh-baked bread. But how to get it without the rising, the knocking down, the second rise, and then the EARLY rise on your own part to stick the dough in the oven?
Yes yes, I’ve heard of bread machines. They seem a great idea, but aren’t they a little soulless? Load everything in the evening and it’s done in the morning - the washing machine school of cookery. Surely the tactile experience - getting your hands messy - is part of the satisfying process of baking your own bread.
From what I’ve seen, people tend to buy bread machines as a fad item, then shelve them to gather dust or ship them off to the charity store within a few months. So I’m not sure they are worth the investment. (more…)
Stock while-u-don’t-wait
Published on 21 Apr 2008 at 3:46 pm.
9 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Making stock is easy enough - bones, vegetables, herbs, seasoning, then simmer simmer simmer. For a long, long time. And therein lies the problem - can you afford to be housebound for eight hours or so while you wait for all that boney, marrowy, veggie goodness to leach out?
We’ve heard some people talk about making stock in a pressure cooker. You can cut the cooking time down to an hour and a half, maybe less, which should fit in nicely with your TV watching. But do you have a pressure cooker? No, neither do we. But we do have a slow cooker, or crock pot, as featured in our last episode. In this latest instalment of our Adventures in Slow Cooking we find another way to put it to good use. (more…)
Automatic for the porridge
Published on 25 Mar 2008 at 9:03 am.
16 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
I’m pretty anal (can I say that in the international blogosphere?) about my breakfast routine. Rarely do I break it. I have two staples that I alternate daily. The first: two slices of toast, one with grilled cheddar, the other with quality marmalade (or, occasionally, Vegemite, and, it almost goes without saying, butter). The second: porridge cooked with chopped apple, topped with banana, milk and honey (and, occasionally, summer fruits). No sugar. No salt. Always with a pot of weak black tea (Loose. Leaf. Only.), in a proper teacup, with a saucer and a tea strainer.
So when Waz decided to experiment with a slow cooker (crock pot to many of us, though that is really a brand name) that our mates Shaun and Jeanette gave us when they left London for Australia, I was very sceptical when he told me he wanted one of the experiments to feature my tried-and-tested porridge. (more…)
Pudding it simply
Published on 20 Feb 2008 at 8:31 pm.
14 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
We’ve been cooking up a few videos for the Word of Mouth food blog, as we’ve mentioned before. Here’s another one, where we make a gorgeous and failsafe baked treacle pudding by Fergus Henderson of St John restaurant, London.
OK, straight away you North Americans are asking “What’s treacle?” Basically it’s a sugar syrup, lighter than molasses but heavier than golden syrup. These days you’re likely to find golden syrup used in its place, as with this recipe. I guess pancake syrup (not maple) as found in the US/Canada is fairly similar. (more…)
Brocolli soup with left-handedness
Published on 28 Jan 2008 at 8:05 pm.
23 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
A few weeks ago, on a (typically) miserable London winter’s day, I was at home by myself and at a loss for what to have for lunch. The pantry (or store cupboard as the English call it) was pretty much bare and all I had in the fridge was a limp bit of broccoli, the dag end of some parmesan and a few dregs of cream which weren’t quite off.
I boiled up the broc in a bit of water to which I’d added some liquid stock, blitzed it in the blender and added salt, pepper, parmesan and cream for what was a surprisingly delicious repast. I couldn’t believe my luck – I’d stumbled upon the recipe for a yummy, warming lunch from a few ingredients that you might just have in your fridge. (more…)
Going, going, tarragon chicken
Published on 17 Jan 2008 at 10:01 am.
5 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Here’s an episode we prepared earlier. We’ve been doing a few shows for Word of Mouth (WOM), the blog of Observer Food Monthly magazine here in the UK. A lot of you probably didn’t know about these CTK specials, as they were posted only at WOM and didn’t go out in our feed.
It seemed a shame that some of you might miss out, especially the great number who subscribe to CTK via iTunes, so we’ve decided to repost them here for your enjoyment. Even if you’ve seen the episode before, you can now download it to your iPods, Apple TVs and what-not. (more…)
Rice to the occasion
Published on 9 Jan 2008 at 11:12 am.
4 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Lenny is a whiz with fried rice. Last time she made it I was well impressed, to the point that I would eat it over stuff from a Chinese restaurant any day.
And that’s saying something. I reckon it’s really hard to replicate the flavours of your better-than-average Chinese takeaway. Maybe it’s down to MSG, which in some Asian cultures is literally known as “taste” (oh, if only you could buy good taste in powdered form). We’ve got nothing against MSG, really - it’s either in the food we buy or it isn’t - but we don’t have it in our kitchen, and don’t have any idea how, or how much of it, to use. (more…)
