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Well, no need to guess where I have been for the last month or so.
I got some lobster yesterday for a ridiculously cheap price.
- Make a regular pizza base with flour, sugar, water, yeast and salt. Let it rest for a few hours in the fridge if possible, this makes it more “elastic” when you roll it out.
- Roll out the pizza base as thin as you like it. I like it very thin but some people like thick “bread base” pizzas.
- Top with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, garlic, chili and oregano.
- Cook in a hot oven until nearly cooked.
- Add chopped lobster (already cooked) to heat through. If you put the mobster in from the start it may cook too much and become tough.
- Enjoy!
posted at: 00:58 |[/cooking] permanent link
This pizza is inspired by Tony, the chef at Teatro in Dubai, who makes the most delicious lemon grass, chilli and gorgonzola pizzas. This takes just a few minutes to make.
- Heat the top grill in the oven.
- Blend chopped lemon grass, fresh chillies, mozzarella cheese, blue cheese and a cherry tomato in an electric mixer. It should be a paste consistency.
- Spread the paste onto tortilla wraps or any kind of flat bread.
- Cook under a hot grill until browned and bubbling.
posted at: 14:36 |[/cooking] permanent link
Fennel, Radish and Spinach salad
Fennel is a very under-estimated vegetable. It is very tasty, both cooked and raw. Here is a salad recipe which, I confess, is an adaptation of a Jamie Oliver recipe.
- Trim the dirty leaves off the outside of the fennel.
- Cut the fennel bulb into four pieces and put through the slicer of a food processor. It needs to be shredded finely but not “pulp”. You can keep the fine spidery leaves on the fennel they add flavor.
- Wash a bunch of radishes, break off the dirty outer leaves but leave the others leaves. You need fresh, crisp radishes, if they are a little soft, plunge them into iced water and soak for 30 minutes.
- Put the bunch of radishes, leaves side down, through the slicer.
- Mix together with the sliced fennel.
- Add salt, pepper, crushed garlic, olive oil and a lot of lemon juice.
I add some baby spinach shoots or a lot of parsley to add some colour.
posted at: 15:09 |[/cooking] permanent link
Very strange yesterday. We have a couple of Northern Lapwings that turned up in the garden. They came to the window and I saw them watching Dionne Warwick being interviewed on the telly. I had a memory of my encounter with Whitney Houston.
I was at the Fairmont in Dubai and coming back from a long day at the office, I went down to the pool for a swim. The sunset pool, pictured here on the right.
This beautiful girl down the other end of the pool with a little girl, no doubt her daughter, shouted very loudly “wow look at that handsome muscular man coming into the pool”.
It took a while for me to realize that she was talking about me. Obviously I had an admirer.
I sort of gently swam over in her direction, she was smiling at me invitingly.
At that point this large gorilla-like bodyguard guy arrived from no-where and looked at me as if I was swimming in the wrong direction and maybe turning around and swimming the other way would be a good idea.
And that is what I did.
“That’s Whitney Houston” someone muttered to me discretely as I dried off in the setting sun. She indeed had a concert in Dubai that same night.
Sad day today.
posted at: 17:58 |[/magick] permanent link
This is a dead easy Thai fried noodles dish and quite delicious. Contributed by the lovely Laure Martin.
You do need some special ingredients but these can all be found in most oriental food shops.
- First make some Pad Thai sauce, you can actually buy this ready-made but if you want to make it yourself just mix some tamarind paste (or lime juice if you can’t find it), crushed chilli pepper, some fresh ginger, brown sugar, Thai fish sauce, sweet soy sauce and a little lemon grass in an electric mixer (use the soft centre of the lemon grass, not the hard outer skin).
- Put some rice noodles to soak in some hot water, for 10 minutes or more, do not cook them.
- Fry some shredded chicken and chopped spring onions in a wok.
- Add some cooked baby peeled shrimp, some beansprouts, the Pad Thai sauce and the drained noodles.
- Cook through tossing the wok constantly.
- Serve decorated with crushed peanuts and fresh coriander.
There are many variations of this dish, adding whole large shrimps and tofu to the stir fry is the most frequently seen version. You can also add some eggs to the wok to make some scrambled eggs before adding the noodles and the beansroouts.
posted at: 18:14 |[/cooking] permanent link
I cooked this variation of a classic English dish in my woodstove.
- Fry some chopped onions
- Add some bite-sized chunks of stewing beef and some chopped kidneys (clean them first).
- When brown add some cinnamon, mild paprika (or black pepper) and a little flour.
- Add tomato paste and red wine and keep stirring until the sauce starts to thicken.
- Put into a casserole dish and add more red wine or stock to nearly cover the meat. Cover and cook in a medium oven for an hour and a half or more.
- Mix some flour, butter and a little grated blue cheese until you get a crumbly mixture.
- Remove the casserole dish from the oven. Mix in some chopped mushrooms and cover with the crumble mixture.
- Put back into the oven (this time without the lid) for about 30 minutes until the crumble is brown.
posted at: 17:40 |[/cooking] permanent link
I went up to the top of the Pyrenees to a most beautiful region called Cerdagne. This trip back down in deep snow (we had snow chains on the car fortunately) was scary but beautiful.
I discovered this Catalan meatball recipe which I adapted with my Stuffed Cabbage recipe below. If you want to do the original Catalan recipe, just leave out the cabbage.
- Boil some cabbage leaves just for a few minutes (“blanching”)
- Choose the biggest leaves to be stuffed.
- Mix together some sausage meat and minced beef (50/50), parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs, chili pepper, and two eggs.
- Put some flour on your hands and make some golfball sized meatballs.
- Fry the meatballs until brown on all sides.
- Stuff two cabbage leaves with the sausage meat mixture and roll up into little packets, if you’re doing my version, if not just place the fried meatballs in an ovenproof dish.
- place in an ovenproof dish and set aside.
- Fry an onion and a few chopped carrots. Season well and add some chopped tomatoes or some tomato paste, and plenty of stock.
- Pour the sauce over the meatballs (or cabbage packets) until nearly covered.
- Add some olives
- cook for 45 minutes or more (check carrots are cooked through) in a moderate oven
- Serve with a baked potato.
posted at: 12:58 |[/cooking] permanent link
This is so easy and quite delicious.
- Boil some cabbage leaves just for a few minutes (“blanching”)
- Choose the biggest leaves to be stuffed and chop the remainder.
- Mix together some sausage meat, the chopped cabbage, and two eggs.
- Add some flavoring, I use garlic and a lot of sage but you can use your imagination, ginger and chili works well, mustard too.
- stuff two cabbage leaves with the sausage meat mixture
- roll up into little packets
- place in an ovenproof dish and half fill with white wine or stock
- cook for 30 minutes in a moderate oven
posted at: 10:16 |[/cooking] permanent link
You can cook almost anything with this method, it’s rather fun.
- Baste some chicken breasts in a mixture of lemon juice, honey, soy sauce, chilli pepper and olive oil. Leave to marinate for a while.
- Line the bottom of a heavy wok with a double layer of aluminum foil.
- Place a mixture of tea leaves, rice, sugar, mixed whole chinese spice, a cinnamon stick and place on the heat. Because of the smoke, it’s best to do this recipe outside if possible, otherwise make sure you put the kitchen fan on. Place a grill in the wok over the dry ingredients and cover.
- When the wok starts smoking, place the chicken breasts on the grill, cover and leave for 30 minutes. If there is too much smoke, lower the heat.
- Serve hot or cold with a salad.
Try smoking fish in this way, or sliced dick breast. Use just tea leaves and sugar to make the smoke if you want a more delicate flavor.
posted at: 13:03 |[/cooking] permanent link
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| Fry some scallops | Add some pastis | Set fire to the pan | Add a little cream, decorate with parsley | Serve with rice |
posted at: 12:04 |[/cooking] permanent link
- fry some chopped smokey bacon or lardons
- add some chopped onions and carrots
- add a little red wine and some crushed tomatoes
- add a tin or two of cooked beans (depending on how many people you are cooking for)
- add some sage, rosemary and parsley, season and simmer for ten minutes
- place everything in an ovenproof dish and add sausages and some chunks of bread (diced)
- cook in the oven (200 degrees C) for an hour
- remove from oven and add spinach shoots, mix well before serving, the spinach gets cooked with the heat from the bean dish
posted at: 19:10 |[/cooking] permanent link
Very successful New Year’s Dinner, here’s the menu:
 Pims number one cocktail with cucumber and strawberries |
 Oysters with lemon and grilled with garlic, a drop of white wine, breadcrumbs and parsley |
 Home-made foie gras mi-cuit with pain d’épices and fresh pear chutney |
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 Pork fillet stuffed with apples and black horn of plenty mushrooms served with a sweet potato and broccoli flan, roast potatoes and cranberry/madeira sauce |
 Trilogy of Desserts: chocolate mousse, lime sorbet and meringue nests with raspberries and cream |
posted at: 23:25 |[/cooking] permanent link
I’m surprised I haven’t already posted this recipe, it’s one of my favorite left over Christmas turkey dishes.
- Fry some chopped almonds in some butter and oil until they start to brown
- Add some flour and cook for a few minutes stirring all the time
- Add some milk and water and cook until the sauce starts to thicken
- Add some grated cheese and keep stirring until it has melted
- Pour the almond cheese sauce over the turkey and cook in the oven until brown
posted at: 19:35 |[/cooking] permanent link
I’ve been cooking brussel sprouts like this for years and I was shocked to see Jamie Oliver cooking them in a similar way, as shown on his recent Christmas Special on British television. I wonder now where this recipe actually came from.
To be fair to Jamie, our recipes do differ slightly - he adds an enormous amount of Worcestershire sauce at the end, where I added Chili and Mango hot sauce from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (or cream for a milder dish - see 3rd November 2011 post). Otherwise the recipes are identical and it is an ideal way to cook sprouts without going to the bother of trimming them and making a cross in the stem so they cook through properly when boiled or steamed in the traditional way.
- Clean the sprouts and take off the dirty outer leaves
- Shred in a kitchen robot machine or slice very finely
- Fry some chopped smoky bacon in a little olive oil and butter until crispy
- Add chopped sprouts and a little water and cover for 5 minutes
- Add some hot sauce (or in Jamie’s version a lot of Worcestershire sauce and some chopped herbs, especially sage if available). No need for salt as the seasoning comes from the bacon.
posted at: 18:33 |[/cooking] permanent link
This worked out as a very light starter for our Christmas lunch
From left to right clockwise:
- Pea soup
you can see the recipe here on 27th November post. Add a few cooked peas for decoration
- Prawns in satay sauce
make a “quick” satay sauce in the blender with crunchy peanut butter, soy sauce, a crushed chilli pepper (or two), lemon juice and honey, pour over some cooked prawns and heat in hot oven for a few minutes until bubbling
- Smoked salmon verrine
Grate some cucumber, add salt and dry with kitchen roll to extract as much of their water as possible. Grate some radishes. Mix smoked salmon, fromage blanc and a little horseradish in the blender. Put a layer of each in a small glass, decorate with a ribbon of salmon.
- Foie Gras
- Pear chutney
Cook some chopped pear with sugar, vinegar and spices (star aniseed, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg). Boil on a high heat until thick and syrupy like jam. Allow to cool. Serve with Foie Gras
- Tomato and mozzarella sticks
There are endless combinations of little cocktail stick brochettes like this. I used cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and a dried apricots. Drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
posted at: 11:55 |[/cooking] permanent link
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