Bread Crazy!!!

Bread Crazy!!!
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Today I decided to step up to the next level in my bread baking - I tried making bread with a 'poolish' ferment. According to the recipe as described in Richard Bertinet's book 'Crust', it meant making a ferment with flour, yeast and water overnight and then adding flour and rising (and rising and rising) until the baguettes are finally formed and baked. It turned out to be a weekend 'project' (okay, well, the weekend project that actually WORKED...) and I made pizza with a small proportion of the dough that I stole from the baguette recipe! Wow! It was all pretty good... More to follow, for sure... xx

Carrot & Courgette Soup with Lentils

Carrot & Courgette Soup with Lentils
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

One evening I had to work particularly late so I called Steve at his job and asked if he would cook dinner for us. "Sure!" came the ready reply. So I asked him to check his email because I'd be sending him a recipe that would use some of the wonderful vegetables that had come this week in our vegetable box from Abel & Cole. Then I sat at my desk and wrote off this recipe:

Carrot and Courgette Soup with Lentils

Ingredients
1 medium organic onion, chopped finely*
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 large organic carrots, chopped finely
1 large (or 2 medium) organic courgettes, chopped finely

3-4 tbsp olive oil

1 can chopped tomatoes
125g split red lentils

2 pints water, boiling
1/2 cube Vegetarian stock (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cracked black pepper

1-2 bay leaves (depends on size)
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 (generous) tsp crushed red pepper

Method:
* You can either chop and crush the first 4 ingredients by hand...
or do what I'd do which is chop them each roughly then blitz them
(until chopped only, NOT too much, use "Pulse" setting) in batches in a food processor.

1. From there, put the chopped/processed vegetables in a large pot with the olive oil.
2. Heat and stir until they smell really good (approximately 10 minutes) then
3. Add all of the rest of the ingredients.
4. Once it's bubbling nicely, turn the heat down to medium and let it bubble gently, covered for at least an hour.

If you want to spice it up a bit more, you can add some cooked meat (beef, chicken, chicken frankfurter etc.) Serves 4 as a meal, with bread and a simple salad.

When I got home, the house was smelling wonderful. Steve was relaxing on the sofa and dinner was just about ready. It turned out to be better than I'd thought it would be. We enjoyed it so much, as an easy, inexpensive and simple meal to prepare that we made it again yesterday!

Hope you try it too - it's easy to make and so satisfying!
Bon Apetit!

Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry

Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Ah, Saturday! After a very lazy morning, we spent the day food shopping on Mill Road at Cho Mee, Seoul Plaza and Al Amin for things like Chinese vegetables & soy sauce, kimchee, tofu and laver and meat for a barbecue on Sunday (weather permitting!) After several (many!) games of "Ticket to Ride - Europe" (more on that later) we turned our hands to dinner.
As usual, I asked Steve to make the sauce and, this time, it was Teriyaki sauce. He did a beautiful job of this while I scrounged around in the fridge for stray vegetables to put in the stir fry. What a wonderful way of using up those odds and ends that skulk around in the far reaches of the fridge! In this case I found 1 large Pak Choi (which I ended up using only half of), a red chilli, some mange tout (snow peas) and a handful of Green Giant canned corn. This all went in the wok, along with the chicken strips (which had, by the time I'd gathered everything, been marinating in the Teriyaki sauce and sliced chilli for some time...), a large handful of bean sprouts and slices of red onion. I couldn't resist throwing in a handful of fresh, washed baby spinach at the very end. In the end. In the end, the dish we produced was wonderful but resembled the original Wagamama recipe very little!
I cooked quite a bit of extra rice so that I could make fried rice the following day. More to come, I guess!

Suzuki Amiyaki Soba

Suzuki Amiyaki Soba-2
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Another Saturday night... We shopped on Mill Road - which is becoming a routine thing in our household. First we went to Cho Mee and, Lo!, they had fresh fish! Fantastic. Immediately our minds began to whir. What can we do with a fish? Who cares? Buy the fish - we'll figure it out later... so we did. We also bought a bunch of different Chinese vegetables (Kow Choi, sprouting broccoli) and soba and somen noodles.

Next, we went to Al Amin, the Mediterranean shop, and bought some meat from the Halal butcher there. We got a chicken, a couple of lamb neck steaks, some lamb kidneys and a half dozen Mergaz sausages. There was a mixed grill barbecue in our future... Our last stop was the Korean shop, Seoul Plaza to replenish our supply of Ramen noodles, imported Korean mushrooms, Korean pancake mix, Kimchee and seaweed laver. Nice.

We decided, after a flick through the Wagamama cookbook, to make Suzuki Amniyaki Soba. We started cooking before realising that we'd have to make a teriyaki sauce before we could make the Yaki Soba sauce. No matter. My personal 'saussier' Steve, attended to that duty with his usual finesse.

So, sauce made, it only remained to quickly fry the fish, briefly cook the noodles, sauté the vegetables and, voilá! Dinner, at last!

Bon appetit!

Korean Feast

Korean Seasoned Tofu
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Wow! A new cuisine (for me)! Saturday evening we had Clemente and his wife Myunghee over to our house for a Korean meal. Increasingly these days we've been inviting people over to dinner to cook with us. Myunghee and Clemente were really keen to cook a Korean meal for us - and we were more than happy to comply! We arranged to meet them at the Korean Supermarket, Seoul Plaza in Mill Road, to shop for the meal. While choosing the various ingredients that we would need for the meal Myunghee introduced us to many of the exotic foods that I'd only wondered at in previous visits to the shop.

Korean Cucumber Kimchee
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Koreans seem to find uses for more parts of the plants they use for cooking than usual - they eat the stems, leaves, bark and fruit, in many cases. As it happens, Clemente and Myunghee are vegetarians so we had, I think, an opportunity to have a few more dishes on our table than would be the case were we having a 'meat-centric' meal.

Korean Bibimbab - Zucchini and Aubergine
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

We cooked more dishes than I thought we'd be able to do justice to - stirred rice (with aubergine, zucchini, beansprouts and sweet potato stem) and seaweed laver, Korean cabbage kimche, kimchee seasoned pancakes, cucumber kimchee and seasoned tofu. It was all so deliciously different and fresh-tasting. 

I hope to post some of Myunghee's recipes in the near future - with her permission, of course!

Happy cooking!

kai sen udon

kai sen udon
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Another 'noodle post'. This one is a (very) quick and easy dish that we prepared yesterday (Friday) evening. While cycling past Cho Mee, the Chinese Supermarket in Mill Road on my way home, a quick glance told me that they had taken delivery on some fish earlier in the day. Whee! This was exciting news because Cho Mee is one of the few places we can easily get really fresh fish here in Cambridge - at a reasonable price. I popped in and bought a very fresh sea bass and a handful of great-looking tiger prawns. While I was shopping, I tried to justify buying a bunch of razor clams too but failed - and left them where they were.  Maybe next week... Anyway, when we got home I looked in my Wagamama Cookbook (I was in the mood for noodles...) for a suitable recipe. I found this one. As it happens, we didn't have all of the ingredients called for but we were able to improvise with things like Chinese fish balls and spring onions. Remarkably, just few minutes of working together in the kitchen yielded this very tasty and satisfying dish.  I would have been eager to work far harder to achieve this result!  I heartily recommend this recipe (and the book!) to my noodle-loving friends!

I will post the recipe at a later date so 'stay tuned'!

Happy 'slurping'!

Pizza with Cheese and Anchovy

Pizza with Cheese and Anchovy
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

I had a lazy weekend, punctuated, now and then, with bursts of activity. The activity was pizza-making - my first pizzas in a long, long time. Between working at my new job and my new-found love of bread baking, there has been little time to indulge in pizza-making. Today I managed to do it! It certainly helped that I made our bread on Saturday, leaving today free for pizza. The recipe was very simple and only the mozzarella was bought especially for this purpose. Everything else was in the store cupboard. (Hooray! My tendency to 'hoard' food pays off, once again!)  The bottoms of the pizzas, with the exception of the one pictured above, were not cooked as much as I would have liked. They really needed another couple of minutes to be more crisp. I plan to solve that fairly soon by getting myself a stone to cook my pizzas on. I'll be sure to post when I get one!

I made 3 pizzas - plain packaged mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and anchovy and mozzarella and goat's cheese. They were all good and each of the steps involved were gentle and easy to execute. There was *way* too much pizza, though, in the end. We'll be having pizza tomorrow!

Happy baking!

Dorade with Fennel and Orange

Dorade with Fennel and Orange
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

I been away too long - but that doesn't mean that I haven't been cooking! Today Steve and I went in search of fish - and we found it. Earlier in the week we'd received our weekly box of local, organic vegetables, which included fennel. What to do with fennel?? Well, Googling around provided the answer, as usual. This recipe is courtesy of Beyond Salmon. Thanks, Helen! It was very tasty, indeed.

More to come - I am a bit behind in my blogging! x

Choucroute Garnie

Choucroute Garnie
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

This is one of the first dishes I cooked after getting back from France earlier this year. My mother first introduced me to this dish when I called her asking what to do with kielbasa sausage other than treating it like an overgrown frankfurter. She suggested this traditional Alsace dish of sauerkraut flavoured with juniper berries and 'garnished' with sausages. It was with much expectation, then, that I ordered this dish in an Alsatian restaurant. I was really impressed at the variety of the meats that were in this dish - an effect I tried to duplicate here. The 'authentic' dish also has pork and thick bacon in it. Next time I'll try adding more meats. All in all, it's a simple repast; easy to prepare, satisfying and warming. Not much to look at on the plate, though!

Bertinet Bread

Bertinet Bread
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

This evening I baked some rolls using a recipe from Richard Bertinet's book Dough which I bought last week. This is a book that promises to provide countless hours of entertainment!

I started with this, one of the simplest recipes in the book. The tricky part of cooking from this book is that the author asks you to believe that, however wet you think the dough might be, it WILL turn into a 'proper' dough and make a wonderful bread. He's not wrong, of course, but it IS very difficult, indeed, to stay the course. My dough was very wet and sticky but, after about 4 minutes of 'working' it, a transformation took place and I had in my hands some of the most amazingly elastic, pliable dough I have ever touched in my hands. Amazing!

Bertinet Crumb
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Upon opening the oven I saw (before my eyes) the most beautiful buns I have ever made. The crust was golden and tight, the bread itself felt springy and light and, cutting it open after it cooled revealed a beautiful, even crumb. I really enjoyed working this dough and making this bread. I recommend this book very highly!

Happy baking!

Double Happiness Wonton Soup

Wonton Soup
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

It was Saturday night. We were tired after a long, hard week at work and doubly tired from walking all over Cambridge earlier in the day. We were cranky. I wanted to make wonton soup for the first time. We were hungry. At first it was very quiet in our kitchen while we struggled with trying to wrap the filling in the wrappers - that was after the disagreement over how to interpret the instructive photos in the cook book. Then we fell into a rhythm and started talking again. Not long after that we were beaming at our accomplishment and fretting over whether they'd all stay together in the pot of boiling water. They did. Then we made the simple broth to go with them.

At the end of the meal, we were both stuffed full of wontons, chatting merrily away; our troubles all but forgotten. For this reason I'll call this dish 'Double Happiness Wonton Soup'!

P.S. - If you want to double your happiness, the recipe can be found here...

Big Saturday Loaf

Big Saturday Loaf
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg

Now that we've gotten used to making (blasé, even!) our weekly bread for our lunch boxes, I thought it would be interesting to have a different sort of bread for the weekend. I wanted to try a large loaf from which we could hack slices as and when we needed to. So, this is it - funnily enough, the yeast wasn't super fresh so I gave it a longer time to prove. This resulted in a slightly sour, dense-ish loaf that was delightful to eat and kept well into the week.

Now I'm really feeling adventurous...

Thai Chicken and Galangal Soup

Thai Chicken and Galangal Soup
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Mmmmm... getting carried away here with the East. The Far East, that is! I love making this soup almost as much as I love eating it. It's a favourite of mine at Sala Thong restaurant in Cambridge. This bowl of rich soup, crammed with chicken and mushrooms steeped in coconut milk which has been infused with galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime (rind and juice, in the absence of leaves...) is heaven on the tongue. The restaurant serves it with Thai sticky rice (and I do too, when I can!) but it's just as good with Thai fragrant rice. The tricky bit, I think, is getting the consistency right - you need to remember that the mushrooms don't require more than about 5 minutes in the soup AND they give off a lot of liquid in cooking. I always fumble with that but I've never been disappointed with the results!


Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup
250 gms chicken breast, slice
2 cups coconut milk
6 thin slices young galangal
15-20 closed-cup white mushrooms, quartered
2 stalks lemongrass, lower portion, cut into 1-inch lengths and crushed
5 fresh kaffir lime leaves, torn in half (or 3-4 strips of kaffir lime + juice)
4 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
2 teaspoons sugar (...or honey)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
Garnish with a handful of coriander leaves, torn and the remainder of the sliced red chilli.

Method:
1. Combine half the coconut milk and half the sliced chilli with the galangal, lemongrass and lime leaves (or juice and rind) in a saucepan. Heat to boiling.
2. Add the chicken, fish sauce salt, sugar and white pepper. Simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked, and then add the remaining coconut milk.
3. Heat just to boiling. Place the lime juice and fried chilli paste in a serving bowl and pour the soup over them.
4. Garnish with coriander leaves and sliced red chillies.

Serve with steamed fragrant or sticky rice. Serves 4, with accompaniments.

Udon noodle bowl with Chinese chives, bamboo shoots and roast duck

Udon noodle bowl
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

After that scrumptious feast of a meal we had the evening before, my appetite was still hungry for more of the same the next day! We had a considerable selection of leftovers which meant "playtime" for me and my cupboard. It took very little time to come up with this - a noodle bowl with a delicate soup, soy sauce, mirin, Chinese chives and leftover roast duck. I served this sort of "semi-wet" - the ratio of noodles to broth was quite a bit higher than I normally do for a bowl, but it worked just fine. I have to repeat this dish before I can post a recipe but you have the basic ingredients list here should you want to try it:

Ingredients for Udon Noodle Bowl

Cooked duck meat, picked from the bone (about a cup)
3 packs Udon noodles (the soft, pre-cooked type work well)
a good handful of Chinese chives, cut into 3cm lengths (or any Chinese greens, roughly chopped
1 small can bamboo shoots
grated fresh ginger and grated fresh garlic (about 1-2 tsp each)
soy sauce (about 2-3 tbsps)
mirin (or honey or sugar) 1 tsp
rice wine vinegar, 1 tbsp
2 cups good-quality chicken broth
ground white pepper
salt

Optional:
small handful of mushrooms, sliced

This can also be made vegetarian by substituting some nice mushrooms (shitake or oyster, for example) for the duck.

Enjoy!

Hot and Sour Soup

Hot and Sour Soup
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Last weekend we had a few Chinese friends over for a kind of informal 'dumpling dinner party'. It was great fun hosting a party with people cooking all around us and being at their beck and call to provide everything they needed in the way of utensils, pots and ingredients. The result was a sumptuous meal of delicious pork dumplings, sautéed vegetables, hot and sour soup and a roast duck. The spread was enormous - a bit like Thanksgiving Day in January; the company convivial and appreciative. A good time was had by all - especially by us. I'll post more pictures very soon, I hope!

Coconut Fish Curry; Kerala, South India

South Indian Fish Curry
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

This is the first time I've tried cooking a fish curry. In truth, I've only ever twice had a fish curry - both times at The Rice Boat, a restaurant in Cambridge specialising in the cuisine of Kerala, South India. I'd never tasted anything like it before. On later perusal of our favourite Indian cookbook, Indian Essence (Atul Kochhar, Quadrille Publishing, London) I discovered a recipe that promised to be every bit as sumptuous. Had I not experienced the subtle tastes of fish and Eastern spices at the Rice Boat, I doubt I would have tried this recipe myself. The ingredients are relatively simple but the resulting dish is something not to be missed. I hope you agree.

For the fish, I used frozen Kingfish steaks, available from any good Asian market. I would say that, in my humble opinion, 'curry leaves' are essential to the full appreciation of this dish. Although they can be hard to find, being available only in specialist Asian food stores, they freeze well and keep for months.

Coconut Fish Curry

Ingredients
4 sea bass fillets, each about 150g (I used Kingfish steaks instead)
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1-1/2 tsp ground turmeric
2 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil
2 medium onions, finely sliced
6 green chillies, slit lengthways
3 garlic cloves, sliced into thin strips
25-30 curry leaves
2.5 cm ginger shredded
400 ml coconut milk
2 tbsp lime juice
coriander sprigs, to garnish

Method
First, mix 1/2 tsp salt with 1 tsp turmeric and gently rub into the fish steaks.

Then, heat the coconut oil in a wide pan and add the onions, chillies, ginger and garlic.  Sauté for a few minutes then add the curry leaves and keep cooking until the onion is translucent.  Take out half of the curry leaves and set aside for the garnish.

Next, add the rest of the turmeric and salt to the pan,  Pour in the coconut milk and heat through, then add the fish steaks and simmer very gently for 3-4 minutes until just cooked. 

Serve immediately, garnished with the reserved curry leaves and coriander.

Chicken and Vegetable Couscous

Chicken and Vegetable Couscous 3
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

This was the 'second generation' of a meal we served when a couple of friends came over for dinner one night. One of them was a life-long vegetarian and I was looking for something that would be tasty, filling and warming to eat (it's January, after all!). Having cooked this for myself and Steve years ago, I trotted out the old recipe and tried it out on our friends. The result was so surprisingly good that I made it again, the following week - but this time with the addition of chicken pieces (jointed and skinned wings with bones). This, too, was very pleasant to eat.

Chettinad Chicken Curry

Chettinad Chicken Curry
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

This is an example of 'Midweek Madness' wherein Steve and Lisa get the urge to cook up a storm. We were, of course, both exhausted from a good day's work but were unable to resist the temptation of cooking a big Indian meal. We cooked this Chettinad Chicken Curry, Aubergine in Yoghurt (both from Indian Cooking Made Easy, my newest cookbook) and I made a tarka daal to go with these. We had this with plain white basmati rice. It all tasted as good as it looks...

"Refridgerator Suey"

"Refridgerator Suey"
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

What to eat after Christmas over-indulgence when you're stuffed full of rich food, meats, cheeses and wine?  Well, I looked through the fridge this evening and came up with a treasure-trove of vegetables to play with.  What better foil for vegetables after troughing at the horn-of-plenty?  I came up with this - noodles with shrimp, snow peas, spring onions, wakame seaweed, bamboo shoots, red (bell) pepper, leek and mushrooms.  It's a good idea, I think, to have a well-balanced larder!  Yin and Yang.  Moderation.  It makes sense, doesn't it?

However,  I managed to get a lot of other stuff in my wok....

Like onion, garlic, soy sauce (light and dark), ginger, white pepper, Chinese cooking wine, ground white pepper, Japanese mirin, and...... lots o' luv! :) It wasn't too bad...

Happy 'Post New Year's day' ;)

xx

Happy New Year!

Brunch, New Year 2008
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Happy New Year, everyone!

This is our traditional New Year Brunch - and Christmas Brunch and Birthday Brunch and... We started our New Year celibrations with a dinner of quail and polenta. After dinner I called my good friend Mary-from-the-Bronx whom I haven't spoken to in quite a long time. just before midnight GMT, Steve opened the Prosecco and we raised our glasses all together. We sipped to Big Ben ringing in the 2008 on the radio. Hope your celebration was fun and we both wish you a healthy and happy New Year.

All the best for 2008!

New Year's Eve

Quail and Polenta
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

As the title suggests, we had quail and polenta for dinner on New Year's Eve. Two quail each was probably more than we really needed (is it just me or are quail really getting bigger???) but that just means it was twice as good!  Steve made the polenta with butter and parmesan (and he made the beans, too) and I roasted the quail, coated with sage, salt and freshly ground black pepper.  The result was an uncomplicated meal that was relatively easy to make and simply delicious.

I probably will blog a lot less, now that the vacation is over - I'll be busy at work! See you soon!

A Provençal Daube

A Provençal Daube
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

For the penultimate meal of 2007 Steve prepared this exquisite dish of beef and vegetables with Provençal herbs and seasonings. The original recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittenstall's 'Meat' cookbook and was altered slightly at the suggestion of a good friend who has retired to the South of France.

The recipe, in its adapted form, can be found here. The result was one of the best beef stews I have ever tasted! Chapeau, Steve!

Cloister ruins, Bury St. Edmunds

Cloister ruins, Bury St. Edmunds
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Yesterday, Steve and I visited Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, E central England - about 45 minutes from Cambridge by train. It was a dreary day but we enjoyed the afternoon shopping and visiting the ruins of the old Abbey of the cathedral of St Edmunds Bury. 

The town has a rich (and long!) history: In 903 the remains of King Edmund were interred here in a monastery, founded c.630, which later became a famous shrine and Benedictine abbey founded by Canute. In 1214, English barons struggling against King John took an oath in the abbey to compel him to accept their demands. The result was the Magna Carta (1215). Among the buildings of historical interest in the town are a Norman gate, ruins of St. James Cathedral, and a 15th-century church. Moyses Hall, a Norman residence, has been made into a museum.

We spent a while walking among the ruins and, I, marvelling at how such an historical structure could simply be part of the town, in a park amongst swings and slides and other playthings. The ruins were extensive, too, and we could have spent a lot more time there were in not for a noxious-smelling stench coming from what looked like smoke nearby. If a smell can be "spooky", this one was - it was acrid and unidentifiable. Most mysterious was the fact that although Steve and I were made very uncomfortable by it, others at the site didn't seem to notice it. Hmmmm...

Phalaenopsis ("Moth Orchid")

Phalaenopsis ("Moth Orchid")
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

It's all happening here; I'm posting something that isn't food related - a somewhat remarkable occurrence - prompted by the "birth" of my first orchid blooms! It's very cool, indeed. Granted, these beasts are not all that difficult to keep but if you are not an orchid hobbiest having this small success is brilliant! 

I've had this plant for almost 2 years now and after flaunting its blooms for over two months, when they finally fell off they showed no signs of flowering again. One evening last Spring, Steve and I went to dinner at some colleagues' of his and what did they have sitting in their windowsill (and under a skylight, which I'll admit, seemed an insurmountable obstacle) but a gorgeous Phalaenopsis in full bloom. I asked what their secret was and the answer surprised me: weekly submersion of the pot in water - that was it! 

So I tried it... I got very regular about the watering and, wouldn't you know it, before long an new spike was asserting itself. It took many months for the spike to begin to show buds (around 8 months, in fact) and then another couple of months for the buds to open, one at a time, at a rate of about 1 bloom every 7-10 days. The whole process was a joy to behold - the plant seemed to 'spend' so much time and energy that it would have been heart-breaking had anything prevented the flowers from opening.  Ahhhh... gorgeous!

Quail Risotto

Quail Risotto
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Mmmmmm! Boxing day. We went for a long walk in the Fens and finished up with a pint at the Blue Lion. As soon as we got home we started this... The recipe is from my new cook book, Francesco's Kitchen by Francesco da Mosto, a Christmas present from Steve. Very simple, very elegant, and very delicious.  It was lovely.

Tomorrow, duck with a prune and chestnut stuffing - and a day trip to Bury-St-Edmunds... And, maybe, rye bread! More later...
xx

Merry Christmas!

Yeast bread, Christmas Day -2
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Today I baked bread (it was 'baking day'...) to have with Christmas dinner. It looked so attractive I had to photograph it before we tucked in! Finally, I've solved my problem with bread - I simply don't like to eat bread that's more than a day or two old (there are exceptions to that, of course!) and so now, rather than having to figure out how to get to a store with a decent bakery, I make my own. This bread here, for instance will probably last us a couple of days - some will be had tonight with our snails and garlic butter starter. Tomorrow's breakfast and lunch will account for the rest (unless we are more restrained than usual...)
Hope you had a happy Christmas!

Greek Style Octopus Stew

Octopus Stew
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Steve bought an octopus from the Cambridge Market fishmonger on Friday. I have cooked this beast before but wasn't really happy with the results. This time I decided to try something based on a delicious dish I once had at the Eraina Taverna on Free School Lane, off Bene't Street in Cambridge. As is my custom, I looked in several cook books and Googled around until I found what I thought would be the perfect recipe. Using a combination of two main recipes, one for the tenderising technique and the other for the actual ingredients, I was able to produce a very tasty dish very close to my memory of the dish I had in the taverna. We had it with white rice and broccoli although it might have benefitted from a big bowl of Greek salad which would have been more in keeping with its cultural and culinary aspirations!

Feta cheese sandwiches -2

Feta cheese sandwiches -2
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Today I made more bread (!) and more Greek Salad sandwiches. I took some photos to try and illustrate how they are constructed but no picture can describe how delicious they are! This is not an original idea - where I work there comes each day a sandwich van, filled with lovely, creative (and sometimes strange!) sandwiches, rolls and baguettes. The Greek Salad ones are a real favourite of mine as are the hummus and falafel baguettes. The Greek salad sandwich allows the bread to be really appreciated while being satisfying and full of goodness - it's the perfect foil for my homemade bread. As I described in a previous post the sandwich consists of slices of feta cheese, tomato and black olives with lettuce, good olive oil & vinegar, salt, pepper and oregano. Try it soon - you won't be disappointed.

I B Baking!

Baps
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

This morning I baked baps for the first time for my lunch. I've been so impressed with the baking exploits of my colleague Barney that I just had to try his recipe for the Scottish morning roll called baps. Although it required a few simple steps the night before (I used the 'overnight' version of the two recipes provided) and me getting up before dawn (well, it is almost winter here and the sun is as lazy as I am about getting up!) to finish up and bake the baps, the smell alone is worth the effort!
I'm going to make my sandwiches now...
Hope you have a great day!

Post-lunch update: The bread is wonderful! I made mine with 3 parts strong white bread flour to 1 part flour with 'kibbled bits'. Yum! For my lunch today I made some of my favourite sandwiches - Greek Salad sandwiches containing chunks of feta cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and black olives. I left out the usual slices of red onion in deference to my co-workers! (Although I am not always so kind...). The sandwiches are 'finished' with a slug of extra virgin olive oil, a dash of red wine vinegar, freshly ground black pepper and salt. For those of you who want to try this bread, visit Barney's blog now (click here to get to the post 'A simple Bread') and give it a whirl. One caveat, though - try not to panic at the consistency of this dough when you begin to work it - it really is very, very wet (and it is best to work it with a spoon...)! Stick it out, though,  and you will not be disappointed.

Poached Guinea Fowl

Poached Guinea Fowl
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

It's Sunday. The nights continue to draw in. It's cold. I'm in the mood for something warming... but light at the same time. I flicked through a half dozen cookbooks before finding exactly what I was looking for. This recipe comes from Rick Stein's 'Food Heroes' cookbook - one which we haven't used much in the past. It involved poaching (and skinning) a guinea fowl, poaching vegetables (leeks, fennel and carrots) in the resultant stock, preparing a salsa verde from fresh mint, parsley, anchovies, capers and olive oil and preparing a batch of puy lentils. I must be in the mood for this sort of cooking because I had good fun with the recipe! Steve and I enjoyed the results, too, with a bottle of 2001 Rioja Reserve.
Good food + good company + good wine = a great evening in!

Breakfast

P1030790.jpg
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Ummm... well, maybe it was brunch! Eggs and tomatoes and cheese cooked in a pan and thrust under the grill for a minute or two. Mmmm. Just be sure to have fresh eggs, and butter or olive oil and add every good thing you can think of (in moderation!) to the pan as the eggs start to set. Cheese is always a good thing to add at the end, on top to create a kind of crust. Bon Appétit!

Coq au Vin

Coq au Vin
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Sunday night and the evenings are chilly now. The casserole is in use every weekend now. Having cooked brisket of beef - several times - chili - another several times - and Coq au Riesling, I found myself flipping through my old faithful - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'Meat' cookbook - for inspiration. And inspired, I was. This came out beautifully and tasted even better! Mmmmm! Thanks again, Hugh!

Moussaka

Moussaka
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Winter approaches and our thoughts turn to casseroles and warming food. This is one of our favourites to do, served with simple tomato salad and hearty, wholesome brown rice.

Mid-week Rabbit Stew

Rabbit Stew-1
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

And here we have a fabulous mid-week indulgence - rabbit stew - with cream, mushrooms and mustard. It was wonderful with potatoes and vegetables... 'if we told you where we got the 'wabbit ' we'd have to kill you'...)

Rabbit with white wine and mustard cream sauce

This recipe comes from Chef Clive via the Mid North and North Coast NSW Afternoon Program:

1 fresh rabbit cut into 8 to 10 portions
25g plain flour

Salt and pepper to taste
100g butter or margarine
100g streaky bacon rashers, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
500ml white wine
1 tsp sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
225g sliced mushrooms
1 tsp dijon or seeded mustard
2 bay leaves
100ml fresh cream
1 tbs chopped parsley

Method:
Season portions of rabbit with flour, salt and pepper. 
Heat butter in a large pan, add seasoned rabbit and brown (this will take about 8 minutes). 
Add the chopped bacon and cook for 2 minutes. 
Add the chopped onions and chopped garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.  
Add sugar, stir then add the mushrooms, white wine, bay leaves and parsley.  Bring all of this to the boil and turn the heat down to simmer.
 Finally, add the mustard and cream and simmer until rabbit is cooked (20-30 mins).
 Fresh herbs can also be added, such as tarragon or chervil (but I didn't bother with that).
Serving Suggestion: Serve with boiled new potatoes,steamed carrots and fresh green beans.

Nigella's Coq au Riesling

Nigella's Coq au Riesling
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Steve gave me Nigella Lawson's new cookbook 'Nigella Express' for my birthday (among loads of other things!) and I tried this recipe a couple of weeks ago. Yum! According to Steve, it really benefits from being cooked the day before it's eaten. I wouldn't know because I didn't get any leftovers... (!!)

Coq au Riesling

2 tbsp garlic oil
150g/5¼oz bacon lardons
1 leek, finely sliced
12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 fresh bay leaves
300g/10oz oyster mushrooms, torn into strips
1 x 75cl bottle Riesling wine
salt and freshly ground black pepper
dash double cream (optional)
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh dill, to serve
buttered noodles, to serve

Method
1. Heat the oil in a large wide pan and fry the lardons until crisp.
2. Add the sliced leeks and fry for 1-2 minutes, until softened.
3. Add the chicken, bay leaves, mushrooms and wine. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover the pan and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes. Stir in the double cream for the last few minutes of cooking time if you like.
4. To serve, sprinkle with dill and serve with buttered noodles.

Paella-1

Paella-1
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

This Autumn we made a paella - it was mighty good too - chicken and ham and shrimps. It was an an ad hoc affair which rewarded our efforts by being scrumptious (as well as photogenic...) We'll do this again...

Summer!

P1030941.jpg
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

This is as close to baseball as I get these days. But it's really a great game, after all - once you understand the rules (not a trivial thing at all!). Steve and I were lucky enough to see the England team play the West Indies - and, later, India - in Test matches at Lord's in London this summer. Fantastic days out and I took way too many photos. We plan to get back to Lord's next Summer for more.  Americans find it hard to imagine a 5-day-long 'baseball game' with only 2 innings and hundreds of runs. Never mind that - think if it as a picnic (with lots of food that you bring with you...), a day at the beach (if you are really lucky, as we were, the sun will beat down on you all day long!) and a party (lots of people bring bottles of wine with them to have with their picnic food). If the weather is fine it's a whole day of watching a fascinating game while eating and drinking! A lot like baseball, then...

Rosemary-roasted cubed potatoes

Roast potatoes
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Comforting Winter food - when made with duck or goose fat they are divine (but we confess to making them with olive oil!). Utterly tasty (and photogenic, too!) The recipe is from 'Cook with Jamie Oliver'. This recipe was so well-liked by us (and easy, too!) that we often had these potatoes with our meals. Recently (November, 2007) a representative from a London-based ad agency emailed asking for permission to use this photo. I gave permission. I'll know soon whether or not this request was bogus! Fingers crossed... it would just be a 'cool thing'!

Rosemary-roasted cubed potatoes

600g waxy potatoes, peeled or scrubbed and cut into 2.5cm/1 inch cubes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
olive oil or duck or goose fat
5 cloves garlic, skin on and smashed

Method
Preheat your oven to 220˚C/425˚F/gas 7. Place your potato cubes in a large pan of cold, salted water and bring to the boil.  Drain them immediately in a colander and allow them to steam for a couple of minutes until the dry out a bit.  Bash up the rosemary leaves in a pestle and mortar. Heat some olive oil, or duck or goose fat, in a roasting tray.  Add the garlic cloves, potatoes and rosemary oil. Season and toss together until well coated.  Place in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes, shaking the try every so often, until the potatoes are golden and crispy.

Boats, Ville Franche

Boats, Ville Franche
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

We enjoyed a lovely meal in Ville Franche with our friend Perry, an ex-patriot enjoying retirement with grace and style. We sat outdoors and looked out over the port during the meal. The cuisine of the South of France is one of my favourites - simple and fresh - using seafood and fish and a selection of wonderful, sun-filled vegetables. With ingredients like these, how could you ever go wrong?

Seafront in Menton

Seafront in Menton
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

In March, we went to the South of France for a week and enjoyed the sun, food and beautiful seaside landscape that is Provence. I can't wait to get back there!

Tomatoes

Tomatoes
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Actually, I haven't been as idle as my blog would suggest... This photo was taken in March 2007 when the combination of colour, thoughts of sunshine (and vitamin C!) was irresistible to me.

Beef Udon

Beef Udon
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

A scrumptious bowl of goodness courtesy of my Wagamama cookbook. As with many of the dishes in this book, the preparation took longer than the cooking. But you learn to love preparation when cooking this way - enjoy a glass of crisp, cool white whine while chopping and changing. The rest is just a flash in the pan...

Spiced Beef Noodles

200g udon noodles
200g beef sirloin or rump, cut into strips 5mm thick
1 tablespoon cornflour
salt and white pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3cm piece of ginger root, peeled and grated
4 handfuls of baby spinach
2 spring onions, cut into 4cm lengths
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, briefly toasted in a hot, dry frying pan

Method

Cook the noodles according to the instructions on the packet, drain and refresh under cold water. Put the beef, cornflour and salt and pepper in a plastic bag and toss the meat to coat. set aside. Heat the oil in a hot wok, add the ginger and cook for 30 seconds. add the beef and stir fry for 2 minutes or until the beef is just cooked. Add the spinach, spring onions and 1 tablespoon of water and toss for 1 minute so everything is wilted. Add the soy sauce and chilli. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Add the noodles, toss to ensure that everything is combined and top with the toasted sesame oil and sesame seeds

Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and Dumplings -American Style
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Winter's here - I've had flu... Yuck! This evening - after having made it in to work (unlike some of my work-mates!)... and back home again - I decided to make a variation of what is fondly known in my NY-based African-American family as "Jewish Penicillin". Chicken soup, to you guys... We had some left-over roast chicken from the weekend, so....

I removed the chicken from the bones and added it to a pound-and-a-half or so of, skinned and jointed chicken wings, which had been boiled for about 30 minutes with some seasonings and vegetables (a couple of chopped onions, a bay leaf, 5 cloves of garlic, a leek, 3 carrots, 3 ribs of celery, a stock cube, some herbs (we're talking thyme, oregano, parsley, rosemary and sage - just a big pinch of each) and some salt and pepper. I tasted the seasonings and added a couple of tablespoons of butter to the 'soup'.

Then I consulted my Fanny Farmer cookbook for a dumpling recipe since I'd never tried making dumplings before. Fanny says:

Feather dumplings
1 cup self-rising flour (OR 1 c. flour with 2 tsp baking powder)
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs (I used a bit of a stale loaf of French bread, grated)
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg, well beaten
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/3 cup milk
1 tbsp finely minced parsley
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine the flour, bread crumbs, (and baking powder, if using) and salt in a mixing bowl, and stir to mix. In another bowl lightly beat the egg, melted butter, onion and milk together. Stir into the dry ingredients to make a stiff batter. Stir in the parsley and pepper. When the chicken has had its 30 minute simmer, drop spoonfuls of dough on top of the bubbling broth. Cover and steam for 20 minutes without lifting the cover.

Depending on the size of your spoon (!) serve 1 -3 dumplings per person.

This was a surprisingly tasty and satisfying meal. Since both Steve and I were suffering with the tail end of flu, it was just the thing - leisurely to cook and easy to eat.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
Photo by Lisa Fagg.

We celebrated the New Year with my long-time friend Joyce. It seems that Joyce had such a good time with us last year that she wanted a 'repeat perfomance' to see 2006 out! This suited us down to the ground because, having had experience trying to share New Year's Eve with several guests, we realise our limitations - we are much better with just one or two people...

Our menu was simple but festive and included escargot in garlic butter (with all the accoutrements!), pan-roasted breast of goose with roast vegetables and roast sweet potato, and home-made lemon sorbet (made by Joyce) for dessert. We enjoyed champagne from Rheims with the escargot and Côte de Rhone with our main course. All in all we three dined royally and had a splendid time together.

May 2007 bring lots of joy, friendship and fellowship to you and your loved ones!

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas!
Originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Hi, all!

Merry Christmas and a Happy and healthy New Year!

Okay, so we've been 'away' for a while - it happens. Personal and work commitments have meant that I've spent a lot less time on the computer - more time DOing and less time TALKing about doing, if you see what I mean. In the interim we have had a new cat (Robbie, - posted here - dropped, almost literally, in our laps by some neighbourhood children!), I've picked up my guitar again and Steve's been keeping us organised. We've made a trip to Shropshire for a BIG birthday (mine) and some fresh air and walking in beautiful surroundings (photos to be posted shortly on flickr...)

Hope your year's been good and I hope to be blogging about cooking, which continues unabated, in the new year. New cookbooks, received as Christmas presents require rigerous testing and I'm sure I'll be writing about some of our culinary adventures soon.

Hasta luego, for now!

Berries & Pizza Dough

Last Sunday we went cycling in what is arguably the 'hilliest' part of Cambridge - the Gog Magogs. We'd been there just the weekend before and I had spotted (on my rest break at the midpoint of one of the climbs!) some blackberry bushes lining the side of the road. Fantasic, I thought, just the thing - we can pick some and make jam! The only problem was we had nothing to collect the berries in. So we noted the spot and resolved to come back the following week. So we did. It was great fun too. We managed to pick a fair amount of berries between the two of us and got them home without too much bruising.

A shortage of jam sugar meant I had to put the berries in the freezer until we got some more! Anyway, today was the day. My first jam of the season is sitting on the counter cooling in jars. It's very dark and thick and I think it will be great in yoghurt and on toast. I'll be trying some tomorrow for breakfast!

We spent some time in the garden, tidying up a bit after several heavy rainfalls and not much gardening done. Entertaining and cycling don't leave much time for gardening - weekends need to be longer! While we were in the garden, our trusty bread machine was churning out some more pizza dough. Pizza is getting to be a regular item on our menu!

Pizza Dough
(makes 3 x 14" pizzas)

3-1/2 cups white bread flour
1 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon yeast

1. Mix the wet ingredients together in the bowl of your bread machine
2. Add the salt to the wet ingredients
3. Place the flour on top of the wet ingredients and make a small well in the flour
4. Put the yeast in the well in the flour
5. Run your bread machine on its 'dough' cycle

Once the dough is done you can either knead it a little, roll it out and use it immediately or you can knock it back and let it rise a couple of times for a more 'bready' crust.

Nice Pizza

Goat's Cheese & Red onion
Photo by Lisa Fagg.

This Saturday we invited Xavier, a post doc in the lab I work in at Cambridge, over for pizza and a movie. I proposed that we would make the pizza if he would bring a movie. Not just any movie, mind you, but Brice de Nice, an insanely funny French movie starring Jean Dujardin, about a meglomaniacal 'surfer dude' who spends his idle life waiting for his Big Wave. [For those of you who don't know Nice, there's a snowflake's chance in hell of finding a wave, big or small, on the beach in Nice!]. The idea was not entirely my own - Xavier knew that I wanted to see the movie (he'd just recently bought the DVD) and thought it would be fun to watch it together sooooo....

Panic - it'd been a long time since I'd made pizza! Quick! I needed a recipe for dough and for sauce! I flicked through my bread machine book and decided to do the simplest thing. In fact, we decided to make the dough the night before and the sauce on the day. That's what we did. We ended up making two batches of dough because I made a mistake and made one with full whole meal flour (instead of 'wholesome' wheat flour!) and I was not too sure how well that would turn out. Steve was good enough to get up in the wee hours of the morning and make some white dough.

The sauce was a simple one of tomato passata (tomato sauce, U.S.), oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, crushed garlic and chopped onion, simmered gently for about 1.5 hours and then left to cool. I prepared and assembled the ingredients for the toppings. We decided on three - goat's cheese and sliced red onion, chorizo and mozzerella and feta cheese and black olives. This is our 'trinity' of comfort pizzas; the ones we know and like the best.

By the time Xavier arrived everything was ready - dough, toppings and ice-cold Leffe and Carlsberg Export beer. Xavier offered to help assemble the pies so, with all hands on deck we stood around the kitchen, talking about food, drinking beer and making pizza. Steve whipped up a nice salad dressing and I washed some leaves (and threw in some baby leaves that I've been growing in a huge styrofoam tray out in the back garden). Minutes after that, the cooked pizzas were cut and ferried out to the dining table.

Everything was good, although I thought the crusts were a little too hard for my liking. I made a mental note to try another pizza dough recipe next time. [As it turns out, I got to try a new recipe just two days later when our friend Chiara from Naples came over for pizza chez Faggs!] Steve chose a nice Chianti from our favourite 'cellar' (the Cooperative Supermarket!) which went down very well indeed.

Part 2 of the evening was the showing of Brice de Nice. Thankfully, the film was sub-titled so Steve and I were able to understand all but the most subtle jokes. Neither Steve nor I can remember laughing so hard in a long time. Really good film.

Wheelie good fish...

Garden Salad
Photo by Lisa Fagg.

It turned out to be a lovely day today, after all! We were expecting rain and clouds and such and were pleasantly surprised by sunny (but very windy!) weather. We've spent the day on our computers and watching the Tour of Britain on TV. We were hoping to see a snippet of the Tour of Spain on Eurosport but they dropped it out of their schedule - without explanation! Grrrrr!

Hah! It's about 6 hours after I wrote that first paragraph! All of a sudden, I had to go cycling! So I cashed in my raincheck to go cycling with Steve (he asked me earlier in the day and I just didn't feel all that motivated...) and we went out for a very energetic, fast 18 mile ride around. We rode out to Fulbourne then on to Shelford, via the Gog Magogs (!), down to Trumpington and then home via Cherry Hinton. It was just great! Last week's strenuous ride up and around Stortford seems to have been good for me - I'm not as afraid of *pain* as I used to be!

After a rest and a refreshing shower, we set to preparing dinner. It was a doozy - we had a lovely sea bass, roasted in foil with fresh herbs from the garden and lemon juice drizzled with extra virgin olive oil with Chinese water spinach stir-fried in olive oil with loadsa garlic. To round things off, we had a tossed salad of salad greens we grew in the garden and our own home-grown tomatoes!

Just what we needed after a stop and go day. I really feel ready to start the week tomorrow (although I'm pretty sure I'll be out of steam by Wednesday!)...