Monday 25 April 2016

A recovery supper of squid

Having been beavering away in the background continuing to cook my way through Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries Vol III, I have failed miserably for various reasons to blog my efforts.  This in particular took me out of action for a bit (another one of my bake offs):




If I ever see another Love Heart again...Anyways, back to all things Nigel.  For me, a much more relaxed place than the world of cake baking! 

Now, on to 'A Little Stir Fry of Squid and Pepper'.  Which in Nigel's book was cooked on March 25 (this was cooked on 31 March) and the recipe is on pages 98 - 101 and includes the following picture:


I was in recovery at this point and the first time I made it down for dinner and my lovely sous chef (aka husband) did a lot of the leg work, in particular preparing the squid:


So, on to the squid.  I managed to get from a very large supermarket a bag of freshly prepared squid which had been frozen by the fishmonger as soon as it was prepared.  Accordingly, it was super fresh, meant I could keep it in the freezer until I was well enough to use it and actually required very little further work by us.  It was very well trimmed and very clean.   

The rest of the ingredients were very much store cupboard/fridge basics.  I bought my szechuan peppercorns from Amazon (other online retailers available) but annoyingly found them in another larger supermarket when looking for another spice recently.  


Nigel, does not have any carbs with his dish.  I do not need carbs every night, but whilst weak from recovery, I needed my energy so we boiled some noodles alongside making this quick and easy stir fry:


Once the spices are all prepared, it is a classic stir fry...bung it all in on a high heat and voila! Or whatever the mandarin equivalent is! 


Ours looks very different from Nigel's for a few reasons, one the noodles make it lighter, we discarded the tentacles (I was very fragile still) and I have an absolute fear of over cooking squid so just waited till it went opaque.

The dish was delicious.  A nice kick to it, which was very warming and the soft noodles and squid with the crunchy peppers and noodles.  Not quite the restorative supper I needed but a tasty one nonetheless.

JanieCooksNigel

25/4/16


Wednesday 6 April 2016

Nigel to the rescue

As everyone is now aware I have been ill with the Flu.  I have never had Flu before.  It confined me to my bed and my son to nursery.  It made me miserable and to top it off, I got tonsillitis.  I needed to eat but needed something warm, restorative, a hug in a bowl if you like.  I skipped ahead a recipe and found a wonderfully simple recipe for "A Spring Soup of Young Leeks and Miso" that ticked all the boxes.

The recipe is on pages 102 - 104 of Nigel's book and there is no picture.  In his accompanying diary entry Nigel provides a comprehensive lesson on Miso, which for me is the main feature of this recipe.  I bought mine in the Japanese Centre (as previously cited) but you can buy it local supermarkets.  Nigel even supports the use of the instant variety.  To be honest using the paste is just as easy and as Nigel says, once you dissolve in stock you can control the flavour level you want.  Here is my miso:


Nigel also advises that, once opened it will keep sealed in a container in the fridge for weeks. Which I am delighted about.

The soup was easy, and in my frail condition thank goodness!  Essentially adding vegetables according to their cooking time to the pot of stock and miso:


I served it in a plan white bowl and ladled the hot soup down which soothed my sore throat, warmed my tummy and tickled what tastebuds I had left:


It was delightful and after tweeting the above picture, Nigel sent me a get well tweet which gave me another pick me up.  Thank you Nigel!

JanieCooksNigel
6/4/16

The couple that Gyoza together stay together...

Still playing catch up on writing this blog after that horrendous flu bug that seems to be doing the rounds at the moment, more on that another time.  

I recently put my blog on Facebook and have been overwhelmed with the positive response from all my Facebook friends who have read and shared my blog and those who have contacted me personally as well. I realised when I shared I did not explain very well about what I am actually doing.  So, a quarter of the way through this project I thought it would be a good time for a reminder!  

Essentially I am cooking my way through this, now very dog eared looking, copy of Nigel Slater's, A Year of Good Eating, The Kitchen Diaries Volume III:



One of my closest and dearest friends bought me a signed copy for Christmas and in the year I gave up full time work as a lawyer, I am cooking my way through every recipe in this book and blogging about it.  Cooking has always been a passion of mine and I am loving every moment of the opportunity to indulge in this hobby.  Link to the book here:


Anyways, enough about me and on to business.  So, like Nigel, on March 23 I cooked Nigel's Gyoza with Pork and Lemongrass with an accompanying dip.  The recipes are on pages 94 - 96 and there is a picture:



I was excited and scared about this one.  Excited as I love Gyoza, scared because it looks like some sort of origami! 

The Gyoza wrappers came from the Japanese Centre which I have previously used to source some of the ingredients.   Everything else in this recipe you can get from the supermarket.  


You start by cooking the filling for the gyoza, with the main ingredients being minced pork and spinach.  I *think* I may have spotted an error in this recipe.  Nigel talks of wilting the spinach at the beginning and then putting in a mixing bowl and then does not mention it again.  I think it is meant to be added to the pork mixture like this:


Next comes the bit I was dreading.  Actually making the Gyoza.  It was easier than I thought but much more time consuming than I could have imagined so had to draft my husband in.  We actually ended up making nearly 30 Gyoza rather than the 20 Nigel advises.  I am not sure if were under filled but I was more concerned about over filling and it bursting out.   Here are some action shots of our evening of Gyoza Origami, it was actually a lovely way to spend time together, who would have thought it!:




They are a thing of beauty when made.  Like little sea shells.  Now to cook them!  You basically shallow pan fry then, then add a little water to allow them to steam.  What you are aiming for is crisp bottoms and soft tops.  No soggy bottoms here please! I think the best pan to do this in would be a frying pan with a lid but I don't have one so, once again I use my trusty pan:


Another challenge, was how to serve these as a midweek dinner for two.  So, I made a really quick stir fry of some vegetables I had in the fridge.  


The dipping sauce was classic Nigel.  Bung it all in a pan and voila!:


So, bringing together the above trio, we have dinner:


It was fantastic.  The Gyoza were delicious, fantastically tasty, fresh, with crisp bottoms and soft tops.  The dipping sauce really complimented the Gyoza.  It made a great little midweek supper, even though Gyoza is traditionally an appetiser.  

With my left over Gyoza, I froze them before I cooked the whole Gyoza.  I then throughly defrosted them and cooked them on Easter Sunday as an appetiser.  In the end we all get to fulfil our destiny....

JanieCooksNigel
6/4/16

Saturday 2 April 2016

A labour of love

So, this is one I have kind of been dreading.  Pork Bone Soup.  It sounds like something you would feed the dog, sorry Nigel! The recipe is 89 - 93 and includes a picture:


There are very few ingredients for this and the finished product you are looking for this is a bone broth, to which you can add pretty much anything you like.  Think of those big hot bowls of steaming noodles served with wooden ladles in that chain restaurant we all know and love.  Think, meat, veg, noodles, chilli, etc...

So, on to making that all important broth... You need pork bones, my butcher did not have enough pork bones that are required by this recipe, so she made the rest up with some pork ribs.  Whilst a more expensive option (bones largely free) this has some great rewards, which I will come onto at the end of this post.

You basically roast a load of bones:


 In the meantime making some stock assisted by some shiitake mushrooms:



You also boil and then roast some chicken wings.  You need to start early with this recipe, which is good as this is not a recipe to cook with a glass of wine in hand.  There is a lot of taking things out of one dish, in another, out again, moving around and with a toddler at my ankles I lost track a couple of times.  

The bones come out like this:



The boiled chicken wings came out looking anaemic with sagging skin (a bit like me after a heavy night).  My husband has at least 20 bottles of hot and spicy sauces from all over the country and the world.  So, to reward myself for all this handwork so far I threw half a bottle of hot sauce over the anaemic wings, a generous sprinkle of sea salt and shoved them in the oven.  Delicious...


Anyways, back to the bone broth, more adding of ingredients and simmering and waiting.  Drum roll please.  What you end up with is this (get ready to feel underwhelmed)...


...and the leftovers...


I know, I know, it still looks like a dogs dinner, literally.  But, the next night I managed to use all of the above and the Shiitake mushrooms to create the following:



This bit was all rather simple.  As Nigel explains in the book, once you have built up all the layers of flavours of your stock, it is just a case of adding what you fancy, or on this particular night, what you have.  Think of a pizza base and picking your toppings.

In my broth I added spinach (of course green veg), the shiitake mushrooms, noodles, some onions, ginger and garlic.  I kept it simple fresh and vegetarian due to the accompanying meat feast.  I reheated the left over wings, which were even hotter second time around.  The ribs (oh the shame of this) I smothered in barbecue sauce and roasted them in the oven until sticky and falling off the bone.  I love barbecue sauce, not even the fancy kinds.

So, this was a labour of love but it provided us with a great great feast.  One of our favourites.  The soup was beyond flavoursome.  Rich but fresh, spicy, refreshing and just so damn tasty.  The meat accompaniments were equally delicious.  The meat had so much flavour from the roasting, the boiling, the sauces, etc.  It was a real tuck in with your fingers and who cares about the white napkins.

JanieCooksNigel

2/4/16

















A young carrot with a Sake chaser

This recipe demands Sake, it is one of the main ingredients.  I have never bought Sake before.  A very good friend of my husband bought us a fantastic Sake set with mini bottles of Sake from Japan.  We still love and treasure the set, but I am not sure what happened to those bottles of Sake...

This recipe, Braised Steak, Sake and Shallots on page 88 of Nigel Slater Kitchen Diaries Vol III (no picture) was to be cooked on March 17, and as you can see by the use by date on the veg below I was not far of this date when I cooked it.  I had a bit of a nightmare with the ingredients.  The very large supermarket I went too had hardly any of the very few ingredients that this recipe requires.  Not even Pak Choi, so I had buy this, which at least contains some Pak Choi:


The selection of Sake was also very poor.  My husband when he found out about this dish, exclaimed his love of Sake (starting to see where those missing bottles went) and charged me to buy the finest I could. As it turns out there was only one brand in this supermarket and it was cheap, thankfully Nigel's recipe calls for a 'cheap brand of sake' so that was at least one thing I got right off the list!

This is a great one pot dish using cheap braising steak.  It also requires young carrots.  I wondered if Nigel meant chantery carrots (the supermarket also out of those).  So I asked a bunch of carrots how old there were, apparently a cardinal sin, never ask a carrot it's age.  I thought these looked young (?!?!) so into the pot they went:


The pot is starting to look a little like this:


You add the Pak Choi near the end, as it obviously does not take that long to cook.  However, my mixed box of stir fry veg included some mange tout and baby corn so I added these as well (just before the Pak Choi):


I then opened a bottle of this.  A fantastic wine which said supermarket often does half price and £7.50 for this is a fantastic value:


So the final dish we served with some just plain steamed egg noodles:


As you can see my husband could not wait to tuck in as the smell was fantastic.  This was a fantastically simple yet tasty dish to cook and was throughly enjoyed by us both.  Now for pudding...that Sake chaser...

JanieCooksNigel
2/4/16