For duck´s sake!

Of all the oriental cuisines, Japanese food is my favorite. I love oriental food, I just keep telling myself how healthy and good for me is, and the truth is that some dishes are more fattening that one of "those" burgers. Chinese take away ranks second here in the UK, Indian food being the first.

But definitely, if there's something you can't blame to Chinese is their ability to get involved in the market. They try everything! For instance, in Barcelona, some years ago, when you wanted to get Japanese food you used to go to a Japanese restaurant, you wanted Chinese, Chinese restaurant. Now, there's a new thing going on..the Wok restaurant. It sounds good, it can look OK, but wait. You get inside and you are surrounded by Chinese staff, and then you start getting confused. Wait a minute, there's a sign outside that said: "Japanese restaurant". From the little Japanese I know I can tell these people are shouting in mandarin! The drawings on the walls depict mount Fuji and Japanese motifs. You sit on the table and you get grilled seafood and the belt keeps on bringing sushi and oriental salads and appetizers, even fresh oysters and on top of all that, a Chinese bread. And all of these for just 10 euros. As I already said, I love Japanese food, but these places make me feel like I am in the wrong place. Yes I leave with a full stomach but my gastro-brain says something is not right. But to be honest, I know that if these places exist is because people are happy to eat there. It's like that question without an answer: Why do the tourist shops in Las Ramblas (Barcelona) sell Mexican hats?
So, with this post I want to celebrate the incredible success (???) of the Wok restaurants. I give you a Chinese but a modern post, an oriental recipe but with a European touch, an Asian dish but from an Australian book...Enough! I'm getting more confused!

Peking duck crepes are one of the most popular in the Chinese restaurants, but today, this is a special recipe where the crepes are made with egg. The post has three steps, the crepes, the filling and the rolling. They are very pretty, not very rich and much more easier that it looks to make. If you cannot bother roasting the duck, you can buy a ready made one.

Ingredients

For the crepes:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg lightly beaten
2 cups milk
200 g chives

Method:
Combine flour and salt in medium bowl; gradually whisk in combined egg and milk until mixture is smooth. Strain mixture into large jug.Finely chop enough chives to make 1/4 cup chopped chives. Reserve remaining chives.Stir chopped chives into batter. Cover and refrigerate one hour.

Remove from the fridge and heat a non stick frying pan with a little bit of oil. Pour 1/4 of he mixture into heated oil, and cook crepe until browned on both sides. Repeat with remaining bater. Using an 8 cm cutter, cut three rounds from each crepe. Cover with cling film and reserve.

For the duck:
1 duck
5 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons Chinese five spice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
20g grated fresh ginger

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Place the duck in an oven tray and mix the rest of the ingredients. Spread all the mixture in the cavity and outside the duck. Bake for two hours basting the bird with the fat from the tray every 15 minutes, this will make the skin crispy.

The filling of the crepes:

1 cucumber thinly sliced
5 spring onions thinly sliced
Hoi sin sauce
Plum sauce

Spread each small crepe with an equal amount of combined sauces. Top with duck, cucumber and spring onion. Remove bones from the duck and slice meat and skin very thinly.Place remaining chives into a heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water. Stand until chives are wilted and drain. Fold in edge of crepes, roll to enclose filling. Tie a chive around each crepe to secure, trim ends. Serve with the sauce on the side.

My cassata is your cassata

Time flies. And it seems that from post to post many things happens, and a lot of time passes by, but the time is always the same, we are the ones who change. And in between, from post to post, there have been more trips to BCN (I'm back in some days), another visit to gorgeous Lisbon (I will have a whole post on this matter later on) and more time to spend with family and friends, which is always welcome.

And to carrying on with the blog, it's time now to publish a sweet post, and this is, a very flavloursome one. A sicilian cassata cake.

It's a sponge cake with a wonderful filling, a ricotta cream, softened with a little liquor and mixed with candied fruit and dark chocolate pieces. And because it's an italian dessert, I guess you can be sure it will be very tasty. The filling is quite similar to the delicious "cannoli". The term "Cassata" is refered also to another type of sweets and ice cream, but in this case I'll stick to the sponge version.

Ingredients:

For the sponge

240gms plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
180gms softened butter
3extra spoonfulls melted butter
180gms sugar
4 or 5 eggs
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
splash of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. In a big bowl or food processor mix the butter with the sugar until it becomes a pale mixture, add the eggs, one at a time, the lemon juice and the vanilla. Sieve the flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture. Pour the mixture in a greased cake tin (24cms). Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until a skewer comes away clean.

350 g of fresh ricotta
100 g icing sugar
vanilla powdered flavour (not essence)
50 g of dark chocolate chips
80 g of candied citrus peel
200 g of sponge cake
sweet liqueur, I used Grand Marnier, my favorite
For the icing:
150g icing sugar
2 or 3 tablespoons water

To prepare the filling: mix ricotta with icing sugar until it turns into a smooth cream. Add a drop of any white sweet liqueur (optional). Add chocolate chips and candied citrus peel. When the sponge is cold cut it in half and fill it with the ricotta mix, and top with the other layer of sponge cake to seal.

Ice the cake by mixing the ingredients and decorate with thin slices of the candied fruit. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

A Mexican hearthrob, my help up in the skies, and a light savoury flan

So, I arrived OK at my destination, my beloved Barcelona. No more snow, no more problems. The flight back was another story. To be honest, I HATE flying (it started some years ago, I used to love it) The thing is that I always try to look for a way of distracting myself, and a portable DVD or a laptop loaded with my Mexican soap opera really does the trick. So, I'm up there, enjoying my soap opera (by my favorite "telenovela" actor heartthrob Fernando Colunga) when that bloody turbulence started, and I was OK at the start, but the turbulence carried on, and it were stronger than ever! Then, the pilot made an announcement, and that scared me the most, everything was OK until I heard his voice, I was more or less OK, but when I heard his voice my mind just panicked, even though the poor man was trying to calm everybody down. "We are surrounded by what it's called "clear air turbulence" and unfortunately it's going to continue like this until we get to London" (and we were only over Nantes!) "If any of the passengers has any trouble (that would be ME!) please, don't worry, this happens all the time and blah, blah, blah..." Why did he have to speak? The man beside me started rocking back and forth, maybe praying? I couldn't calm him down, how could I possibly do that? who was going to calm ME down? I grabbed the seat with my nails, I looked at the screen (why aren't you helping Fernando?) when suddenly, and after ten horrible minutes everything went smooth (thank you, thank you!) until we got to London. When my feet touched the ground, I did what I always do: congratulate myself for being so brave (what a lie!) This is a personal trick to give me the strength I need to get on the next plane, because I know that very soon, Fernando Colunga and I will be back up there...





And now I am back to normal life, to the cold weather and to the blog, and with a light starter, for starting the year, for keeping everything a little bit low, after the holidays. Is great coming back home (I mean your parent's) you find the same faces, the same atmosphere, the same traditions, and the worst of all is when you have to come back and leave those loved ones behind, and you are back to the other faces, the other atmosphere, the other traditions. "The blank space" is what I call the morning after I come back, because you can't help but thinking about your parents, about the fact that they are there, on their own, and you are not there for helping them. So, I always get a little sad. I guess that happens to everyone who lives far from their families. The good thing is that with all that, I start thinking and planning a new date for my next visit and I already have a couple in the very near future. I'm so happy I live so close to Spain, and hour and forty five minutes and I'm there, in my beloved BCN...

This is a light starter, a tomato and Parmesan flan, with a very delicate and intense flavour. It's an excellent starter which can be part of a three course meal or a main course for a light lunch or dinner. Sauté the tomatoes first, and it will give them a caramelized touch, before adding them to the savory custard.




Ingredients:




1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups whole milk
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons slivered fresh basil

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180. Butter six ramekins and line the bottom with baking paper. Butter the paper.

In a frying pan, warm the olive oil and add the tomatoes until they are soften and the liquid is reduced, about six minutes. Stir in the chopped basil and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the tomato mixture evenly among the ramekins.

In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the milk, and the egg yolk. Pass it through a sieve. Add the parmesan and fill the ramekins with the custard.


Place the ramekins in a shallow baking tray and fill with hot water halfway of the ramekins. Bake until set, around 35 minutes. Carefully tranfer the ramekins to a wire rack and cool slightly.

To unmold, run a knife around the edge of the ramekins, place a serving plate on top and invert. Lift off and peel off the parchment paper. Scatter tomatoes and slivered basil leaves on top of each flan and serve warm.

To fly or not to fly

Every year is the same. I say to myself: "This year you are going to start the Christmas shopping early, in October, or at least star planning what to buy, to who, where, when and were to fly from for spending Christmas in Spain. At the end, everything falls into pieces, my and my plan is ruined because there is always something else, and I rely on the "Mañana, mañana". And, as always, every year, I´m in a hurry, rushing in the shops, sliding in the shopping centres, gasping for air in between (unless I do it all online) and swearing myself that I will NEVER be back to Oxford St on a Saturday in Christmas time (and going back to Oxford St on a saturday in Christmas time) To be honest, I get carried away when I see the Christmas decoration already in early October and I let myself go...At the end, I panic, and everybody ends up with gift vouchers.

So, I have almost everything ready, presents and vouchers, my packed edible Christmas presents ready to pack and the luggage almost almost done. And suddenly we get an incredible, inconvenient and heavy snowfall, and all our plans are on standby. And we are lucky, thousands had their flights canceled and there is chaos everywhere (transport wise) People end up sleeping on the floor of the terminal at Heathrow, the queue at St Pancras station is huge, even the tube has troubles, so, I´m not going out and I keep my fingers crossed for my flight next week, maybe the snow will melt by then. And all this introduction is because I am presenting today my Christmas post. Its a gingerbread cake with cranberries, of course, perfect if you are sick and tired of the traditional Christmas pudding. This gingerbread is not very sweet,and is quite light actually. The icing is sweet enough...I would like to take this opportunity to show off my new dish, which I got as a present over the last days, thank you Girls!

It´s a variation on Dan Lepard´s ginger cake. He really is amazing and we all can enjoy his talent in his lovely books. A well known baker and a food writer for The Guardian (this recipe comes from there) and I have adapted it to become a little more festive. The treacle is an important ingredient but you can use golden syrup, or honey instead. I used fondant icing sugar for the icing, because is a mix that has solid glucose in it and it becomes shiny and spreadable very easily. You can use normal icing sugar if you cant find it. I want to thank everybody who steps here and post their comments, and I wish you all a lovely Christmas, and and may the new year is full of smiles for everyone. Merry Christmas!

50g unsalted butter
100g black treacle
75g muscovado sugar
2 medium eggs
25ml sunflower oil
75ml blended or single malt whisky
50g fresh cranberries
175g plain flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground ginger
3¼ tsp mixed spice
6 tablespoons apricot glaze

Icing:
225g fondant icing sugar
6 or 7 tablespoons water

For the candied cranberrries:
1 egg white
10 fresh cranberrries
100g caster sugar


Line the base and sides of a 17cm loaf tin or similar with nonstick paper, and heat the oven to 180C (160C fan-assisted)/350F/gas mark 4. Melt the butter, remove from the heat and stir in the treacle and sugar until any lumps soften. Beat in the eggs until mixed through evenly, then do the same with the oil and whisky.

Sift into the mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and three teaspoons each of ground ginger and mixed spice, and beat in well. Add the cranberries, mix well and spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted pulls out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin.

For the candied cranberries, lightly beat the egg white and soak the cranberries in it, remove the excess and coat them in the sugar. Leave to dry a bit.

For the icing, first heat the apricot glaze in the microwave and spread the surface of the cold cake with it, then, mix the fondant icing sugar with the water until it becomes spreadable, and quickly spread this over the cake. Decorate with the candied cranberries and some holly leaves. For a nice looking serving plate, sprinkle with mixed spice. Enjoy the evocative smell!

Caponata Charlotte for you, for me, but not for "Him"

OK, I admit it. Cooking for a vegetarian can be a little tricky sometimes, and it can become sort of a challenge, a quest. I don't know about the rest of the vegetarians, but "mine" is a bit special when it comes to vegetables. so, sometimes the challenge becomes an odyssey. I must confess that I totally used to rely on mushrooms to feed him, but that has changed as well, so, no more mushrooms from now on. Because of this, every time I find a lovely mouthwatering vegetarian recipe I try it, I observe and make up my mind. This is: I try it by cooking it for him, I observe him whilst eating it and depending on his reaction when tasting it, I make up my mind, so the recipe can be made again and again, or otherwise it's sent to the recycle bin. My post today is one of those mouthwatering ones, a caponata Charlotte with goats cheese, the star ingredient is the lovely aubergine, which is the reason why I never thought of cooking it for "Him", but when I saw the skilled Paul Gayler cooking it on tv, it was love at first sight. I had to cook this, even when I knew that my vegetarian wouldn't even smell it!                                                                                                                                                                                          

So, that's life! My post today is the ideal main course for a vegetarian, but not for mine. It's full of flavour with a huge mix of ingredients. Aubergine is the main one, for sure, but the goats cheese combines everything so elegantly that you can tell it comes from a 5 star restaurant, like the one that Paul Gayler is the head chef, the Lanesborough in Hyde Park, from where he has worked hard to become one of the most talented chefs in the UK. His gastronomic delicacies are an inspiration for every food lover, vegetarian or non vegetarian. And if you don't believe me, have a look at any of his amazing books.

Ingredients:

2 medium aubergines
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
1 yellow pepper, finely chopped
1 celery stick, finely chopped
1 small courgette, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
3 or 4 slices dried apple, chopped
6 dried apricots, chopped
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
50 g sultanas
Rum
50g toasted pine nuts
Fresh thyme
2 tomatoes
4 individual goats cheeses
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Soak the sultanas in the rum for a while, set aside. Turn the oven on and set the temperature to 180. Wash and cut an aubergine and a half, reserve the other half for the filling and slice the rest with the skin on, cut it in half and again into thin slices, lay them in a baking tray and brush them with olive oil, season with salt and pepper an bake for 10 minutes. Grease 4 individual ramekins.

For the caponata:

Crush one garlic clove and puree it with some salt with the back of the knife. Fry the onion and garlic in olive oil and cook for 2 minutes, add the rest of the vegetables and cook for 5 minutes. Add the dried fruit, cook for 2 more minutes. Add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup, and finally the sultanas and the pine nuts.

 
For the sauce:

Cut the tomato and blend it, place it in a saucepan and add the garlic clove and some fresh thyme and cook for five minutes, drain it and add some olive oil.

Line the ramekins with the slices of the aubergine making sure that they overlap. This prevents the filling to ooze out and the final presentation is beautiful. Place a couple of spoonfuls of the caponata and place them in the base of the ramekin, add the slice of cheese, (you can use mozzarella if goats cheese is not your cup of tea), and then top with more caponata, pushing down all the time. Fold over the aubergine and secure the filling. Push down again, and place the ramekins in the oven for 10-12 minutes. To serve, demold it and place on a plate, drizzle the dressing around it and decorate with tomato cubes and deep fried aubergine skin.

Rice pudding from the land of smiles

Rice pudding, I love it. Anyway, any version, from any country. It takes me back to when I was young (er), and it's definitely a flavour from my childhood, so it has became one of my favorite puddings, for good. Later on, while growing, I started discovering new cuisines from around the world and my palate discovered the Thai version of rice pudding. With coconut cream and fresh mango! I remember the first time I ever tried Thai cuisine, it wasn't in Thailand, it was here in London, when i was being "wooed" (by the one who is now my husband, "the vegetarian") and it was a total discovery, so you can imagine what I felt, and how much did I ate when I finally went to Thailand. I didn't miss a thing, the colours of all the variety of foods being sold at the street stalls, the smell of the stir fries, the lovely fruits, and for someone who loves coconut, like me, I felt in paradise.

In my opinion, Thai cuisine is the door to Asia, gastronomically speaking, like a welcoming window overlooking a country of delights. The flavours are delicate, the ingredients offer array of endless possibilities and the final result is aromatic and elegant. Thai food is, like its people, kind and warm, and it tastes as good as it looks. Apart from the flavour, the plates, the china and the golden cutlery (they hardly use chopsticks) are so characteristic and appropriate, that a Thai dinner or lunch becomes a party for all our senses. 

Rice pudding with coconut cream and fresh mango or Khao niao mamuang is a delicacy that surprises and everybody likes (or almost everyone). Glutinous or sticky rice should be used for this recipe, the favorite in the north of Thailand and it's extremely important to soak it overnight or 3 hours before cooking, this wil make its consistency to mix wonderfully well with the coconut cream. The fresh mango give the dish a lovely twist keeping the balance between the two strong flavours. Hope you like it. Kob khun kaa...

Khao niao mamuang

Ingredients:

225g sticky rice
300ml coconut cream
100g palm sugar (or caster sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
3 big ripe mangoes

Method for the rice

Soak the rice overnight in cold water or in hot water for three hours. Wrap it in muslin and place it in the steamer, cook for 30 minutes. While the rice is cooking, heat the coconut cream with the sugar and salt. When the rice is done and still warm, pour half of the warm coconut cream over the rice and let it sit until it's cold. Add more sugar according to taste. Peel and ct the mango in thin slices.

To serve, place the rice in a bowl, and lay the mango slices on top, or cut it in shapes with a biscuit cutter. Serve with the remaining coconut cream.

Chicken meatloaf and the clouds of London

        
I love cold meats, they are ideal for a light lunch or dinner, served with slices of good bread and in good company, who can ask for anything more? And if you are in a picnic, enjoying the sun, surrounded by your friends ans sharing some laughs, then it couldn't get better, could it? But again, here in London, you can think that a picnic, or organizing a picnic can be an intrepid challenge. I love picnics but, as I said, it can be a bit tricky trying to organize one for your friends, and I can honestly say that I have only been to four picnics because of the sun.                   

You can never EVER rely on the weather if you live here in London, but I guess it can always be worse, I could live further north, or even in a Nordic country where you can hardly see the sun light. But then again, I remember when I first moved from Spain, and you can imagine, coming from a Mediterranean country where the sun is up in the sky almost always, and moving here, it was quite a change. But as the weather changed and now temperatures are not so cold anymore, it doesn't rain that much, and we have quite "mild" winters. I remember my first winter here, when my ears for frozen while I was walking through the park and I could hardly feel my feet! But one learns with everything, and now, I ALWAYS carry an extra jacket, you never know! And yes, even in summer, because I firmly believe in the old English saying. "If you don't like the weather, wait for five minutes"                                                               

                           
So, I started talking about cold meats, and here I am now babbling about English weather. Let's go back to some gorgeous food, and a chicken meatloaf that you and your guests will love. It comes from one of Australian Women's weekly, and you can use mince turkey or pork instead of chicken, and the salsa verde can be served with fish as well. 

Ingredients:
900g mince chicken
100g drained semidried tomatoes in oil, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 egg
25g stale breadcrumbs
40g roasted pine nuts
40g chopped chives

Salsa Verde
1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1/4 chopped chives
1 tablespoon drained capers, chopped coarsely
80ml olive oil
60ml lemon juice
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
1 clove garlic crushed

Oven dried tomatoes
Ingredients:
500g cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped thyme
2 tablespoons sugar
salt and pepper
Patience

Method:
Cut the tomatoes in half and place them on a metal rack on a baking tray, season with the salt and pepper, and sprinkle the thyme all over. Bake at 100 degrees for three hours. If you lucky enough to live in a hot country you can skip the oven step and just place them on a tray under the sun until they are dried. If you are not going to use them right away, keep them in a glass jar covered with olive oil.

Method:
Preheat oven to 180. Grease a medium loaf pan.
Make salsa verde and reserve.
Combine chicken, tomato, garlic, egg, breadcrumbs, nuts. and chives in large bowl. Press meatloaf mixture into pan.
Bake 20 minutes.
Serve meatloaves, top side up, with the salsa verde and slices of bread.