Blueberry and lemon muffins

It's blog confession time- I am not a baker. I have made loaves which could probably have been used as offensive weapons such was their weight, and pizza bases which somehow remained raw in the middle despite hours of cooking. I think this is probably because baking is quite a precise art and I am not a natural recipe follower.
However one of the few baked things that I can usually manage reasonably well is cakes (phew). This muffin recipe is from 500 Cupcakes and Muffins by Fergal Connolly, and the reason for their somewhat non-muffin like appearance is due to the fact that I cooked them in a cupcake tray and nothing to do with the recipe itself.

Recipe for one dozen large muffins (or a lot of cupcakes):

125g caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon zest
265g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 beaten eggs
225ml milk
115g unsalted butter, melted
225g blueberries

Beat the melted butter (make sure it's cooled a bit), milk and eggs together until smooth, add the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in the blueberries and then spoon the batter into cases. Bake in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6 for around twenty minutes or until golden on top.
I used half the above recipe to make around 15 cupcakes, and used up some blueberries that had been hanging about in the fridge for a little to long. The combination of berries and lemon kept things tasting nice and fruity and vaguely like something that might be consumed at breakfast. And surely cake for breakfast can only be a good thing?

Memories of summer- tomato tarts

So with the nights drawing in, the last of the summer's crop of tomatoes are becoming a bit of a distant memory. I only actually made these simple individual tomato tarts about six weeks ago, but it somehow seems a lot longer than that. These rosada tomatoes were homegrown and quite small but incredibly sweet, and will definitely be grown again. They were halved, mixed with a generous amount of feta cheese (for some reason I'd drawn a blank on what to put with them so thanks to MangoCheeks at Allotment2Kitchen for inspiration) and some torn basil leaves, and piled into some puff pastry 'cases'.
I used ready-rolled Jus Rol puff pastry which has never let me down over several episodes of tart making. Due to a lack of pastry cutter a medium sized bowl served as a template for each round tart, and then a smaller plate to lightly score an inner circle leaving an edge of around half an inch. I pricked this inner area several times with a fork (to stop it rising too much) and then baked the pastry circles for around 10minutes in a medium oven until they were slightly coloured. I'm not sure if this is strictly necessary, but there's nothing worse than raw pastry and as the filling for these tarts didn't really require much cooking, I thought I'd give the cases a head start. Once the pastry had cooled enough to handle I spooned in as much of the filling as I could fit in and returned the tarts to a hot oven for around 15minutes, until the pastry turned golden and the contents were starting to brown on top.
Warming the tomatoes through in the oven seemed to increase their sweetness, and thus the contrast with the salty feta cheese, and with a bit of salad this was a perfect summer dish. I think this could easily work in more autumnal conditions too (as long as you're not a stickler for seasonality) with some steamed vegetables and boiled potatoes. Serving on a retro 1960's plate not essential.

Jus Rol chilled puff pastry sheet
I rate it 9/10
Cost: Around £1.55 for 375g

Beans on toast

So I've always thought I didn't like broad beans. As a child my parents would cook them whole, pods and all, as an approximation of the Indian vegetable sheem. They would chew through them and then just delicately spit out the really indigestible, fibrous bits. As with their chomping through fish bones, this was just something that I could never manage to do, and therefore broad beans in an Bengali-stylee were pretty much off the menu for me.
However even when the beans had been podded I found these tough, grey bullet-like objects rather off-putting. It's only quite recently that I've come across the revelatory knowledge that post-cooking the unappealing grey skin of the broad bean can be removed to leave a tender, bright green bean. This might seem a bit of a pain but it is so worth it. This recipe for crushed broad beans on toasted ciabatta is based on how I'd normally serve any whole beans or peas, but converted into a more spreadable form. It works well at room temperature or slightly warm, and would also make a nice side dish for fish. If you're having it on toast, a grating of cheese adds a little salty tang to the sweet crushed beans.

Recipe (enough for two):
Broad beans from approximately twenty pods
1 fat clove of garlic (or increase according to taste)
Enough olive to create a loose-ish paste
Plenty of salt and pepper
Grana padano cheese, grated

Cook the podded broad beans in boiling water for around eight minutes or until tender. Drain and then while still hot, peel off the outer grey skins. Combine the beans and the rest of the ingredients in a mini-processor, or crush by hand, until they are as coarse or fine as you like. Serve on toasted ciabatta (or crackers or anything else you'd like), and top with some of the grated cheese.
You can also use rapeseed oil instead of olive oil, and moderate the amount of garlic depending on taste and possibly how much company you have.

Cooking a la Levi Roots

I have pretty much zilch experience of Jamaican or Caribbean food, so was recently rather chuffed to win a copy of Levi Roots' new cookery book (thanks @Octopus_Books) which ties-in with his BBC tv show. There's something about Levi Roots that's very likable. Despite the risk of coming across like a parody of a Jamaican person with his blinged up style, frequent proclamations of 'respec' and calling food 'deliciosious', he is in fact a very articulate champion of Caribbean cooking, a pretty astute businessman and a natural television presenter.
The book begins with an introduction to basic Caribbean ingredients, most of which I'd heard of even if I wasn't sure what they actually were. The rest of the book covers both classic dishes from a number of the Caribbean islands, as well as recipes which are not traditional but give a Jamaican twist to familiar ingredients.
I decided to give the lime, chilli and coriander butter with salmon and lobster a go. Levi describes it as one of his favourite creations and it certainly sounded good.

Ingredients:
75g butter, slightly softened
1 1/2 tbsp finely chopped, fresh coriander
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
zest and juice of 1/2 lime
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
salt and pepper

(Levi's recipe serves the above with 4 salmon steaks, and I've found it makes more than enough for 1 lobster, two small salmon fillets, and six large prawns).

The recipe actually recommends the butter be served with a barbecued lobster, but due to the lack of barbecue and indeed a raw lobster, I used a cooked one instead. This was split and once I'd made up the butter, I daubed it generously over the lobster and the salmon fillets. I also included about half a dozen large, shell-on raw prawns which were de-veined and also had butter stuffed in them. The whole lot went into a really hot oven for around 10mins, or until the prawns and fish had cooked (which was enough time for the lobster to warm through).
I also cooked a couple of side dishes which were inspired by reading the book and watching the tv show, rather than specific recipes. I roasted some sweet potato wedges in the oven with lots of thyme, plenty of seasoning and little oil. I also cooked some spinach as a callaloo substitute. I started by gently frying some crushed garlic, and after a few minutes I added a chilli that I'd pierced a couple of times with the tip of a knife (to add flavour without too much heat). After another minute or so, about 250g of chopped fresh spinach leaves went in. This was all cooked down with a bit of seasoning until all the liquid from the spinach had evaporated. Having (in retrospect perhaps wrongly!) decided that this would not be enough food, I also made some aromatic rice. This is something I'd usually have with Indian food, but as Caribbean food has been influenced by the Indian diaspora that settled there, I thought it might work here too. So into a saucepan went a knob of butter with a bay leaf and a stick of cinnamon. Once these were sizzling I dropped in a cup of rinsed basmati rice, after a couple of quick stirs to coat the grains in the butter, I added double the quantity of water. When the rice had come up to the boil, I reduced the heat to the lowest possible, covered the pan and left the rice to absorb all the liquid. And so all of the above resulted in all of the below.

Although myself and the male companion person feared we had cooked way too much food, it was so lovely that we managed to devour most of it. I was slightly concerned that all the different herbs and spices might clash with each other, but in fact this was not the case at all. The simple side dishes were a great accompaniment to the rich seafood. The butter mellowed the strong flavours of coriander and chilli, and the lime added a hint of freshness. We got stuck in pulling the prawns and lobster apart, and using the rice and potato to mop up the lovely buttery juices.
This was definitely one of the nicest (and most extravagent) meals I have cooked recently, and confirms my view that Levi Roots rocks!

Aldeburgh Food Festival

I was slightly apprehensive about asking the male companion person to accompany me to the Aldeburgh Food Festival on Saturday. I had recently persuaded him to join me and other friends at Jimmy's Harvest Festival, which was allegedly a festival of food and music. My comments on that can be found on my regular blog if you're interested, but let's just say that 'disappointing' was the major theme of the day. However any fears of a repeat experience at the Aldeburgh Food Festival were completed unfounded, even with me accidentally adopting a somewhat, ahem, scenic B-road route to get us there.
Despite the name, the festival actually takes place in Snape, which is a few miles from Aldeburgh. The Maltings by the River Alde is a lovely setting, with lots of things to look at in addition to the festival activities. A large marquee housed the cookery theatre and most of the local and independent producers showcasing their wares. Luckily for visitors 'showcasing' means having lots of samples available to try, a marketing strategy heartily endorsed by the male companion person. There was a good variety of meat and fish-based products, as well as cakes, juices, beer, oils and some fruit and veg. I did notice that there did seem to be an awful lot of 'preserved' foods like jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles but in fact these also came in a micro-range of sweet, savoury and spicy options. I was a little surprised there weren't more cheese producers there (I only spotted one stall) but you can't have everything.

The courtyard area housed more independent retailers (including lots of very friendly fishmongers), another demonstration stage, most of the stalls selling hot food (we bought a plate of freshly cooked scallops from one), an Adnans bar, and importantly the ChocStar van. I have been reading Petra ChocStar's blog for a while and had an occasional Twitter exchange but have never actually manged to sample any of her amazing sounding chocolate creations. This was corrected on Saturday when I not only scoffed her most decadent sounding offering- the chocolate brownie fudge sundae, but also had a little chat with the lady herself. Suffice to say that Petra is lovely, and the sundae was fantastic. The balance of dense brownie, rich ice cream and a sauce that tasted like pure melted chocolate was perfect, and importantly not at all sickly sweet. I really hope to sample more ChocStar delights in the future.



I didn't really plan ahead enough to see any specific cookery demonstrations (although Fergus Henderson was doing something meat-related when I passed through), but it was very nice to see Thomasina Miers, Mark Hix, Tom Parker Bowles and Tom Aitkens wandering around the place and queuing up for things along with everyone else (if cookery really is the new rock and roll these people need to seriously increase their entourages).


The weather on the day was also lovely, which obviously helped a lot. But this was just a really well organised event which meant that although there were lots of people on the site, nothing was too crowded, there were lots of places to sit down for a break and eat, and nowhere had horrendous queues. Even little details like placing the cookery stages in areas where you didn't have to be sitting right at the front to see what was going on, but could just wander around or stand at the back for a bit, indicated how well thought-out this weekend had been.
And seeing as all this was for the bargain price of £5 a ticket (which also got you a programme and canvas bag too), Aldeburgh seemed to have set a really high standard, and as a food festival novice I'd be interested to see how others compare.


As it was such a nice day we decided to continue on to the coast proper and Aldeburgh itself. Having visited Southwold recently, I would say that Aldeburgh had a less immediate seaside-y feel too it and was more like a town that just happened to be by the sea. It was still lovely though, with lots of quirky cottages and a wide shingle beach housing many little huts selling fresh fish (though by the time we arrived they were all closing up).

I had heard much internet talk of Aldeburgh's Fish and Chip Shop, where people were prepared to queue for hours to get their portions of deep fried goodness. Even though we were both pretty stuffed from our festival indulgences, it seemed inappropriate to come this far and not make an attempt to sample some of this famed fish and chips too. So after a bracing walk along the sea-front, we joined a queue that did snake out of the shop a bit, but wasn't immensely long (I guess late September is not peak holiday season though).


After a fifteen minute wait we came out clutching our open bags of plaice and chips. So the verdict- ummm, well they were quite nice but if I'd had to wait an hour and a half for them I think I would have been rather disappointed. My fish was fine but slightly overcooked and the batter was verging on becoming a bit flabby. The chips were adequate but nothing special, although on the positive side everything was pleasantly oil free, piping hot, and quite reasonably priced for somewhere that is so popular.

Perhaps they were having and off day but I definitely preferred the fish and chips I sampled recently in Southwold, where the plaice was really moist and had been coated in a light but super crispy shell. However the Aldeburgh version was still perfectly edible, and to be honest there is something about fish and chips at the seaside that make it hard to go to far wrong.
So all in all a lovely day, and I can't believe it took me so long to discover the Suffolk coast.

Veggie chilli and salsa a.k.a. the tomato fest dinner

So the male companion person and top tomato fan has been harvesting a generous crop of several varieties of home-grown tomatoes every few days for the past month of so. Although he is happy to consume dozens (of the cherry sized ones) raw as a snack, even he hasn't managed to keep pace with the amount of fruit produced from his fifteen or so plants. So I decided to use up a fair chunk of the tomato backlog by making a veggie chilli and a tomato salsa.
As a non-meat eater I use Quorn products quite a lot, and used Quorn mince in this chilli. I think the key thing to remember with Quorn is that it is basically a protein substitute, and those fungal mycelium are not going to replicate the flavour or fat content that meat adds to food. So you need to make sure that whatever recipe you're using it in has plenty of other strong flavours that are sufficient to carry the dish, i.e. that you'd be happy to eat it without any actual Quorn in it.
Due to some uncertainty about what spices were present in the kitchen of the male companion person, I opted to use a sachet of Old El Paso chilli spice mix in this meal. It proved to be a perfectly adequate combination of paprika, cumin, etc, but was majorly lacking in heat- and this is coming from a chilli-wuss. However the addition of a few fresh chillis solved this problem quite easily.
The tomato salsa was essentially a selection of chopped up tomatoes, red onion and chopped basil which was a cooling contrast to the (actually not too spicy) chilli. I have started using basil rather than fresh corriander in salsas as I really like the almost astringent taste it has, and in this context I decided not to add any chopped chilli either.
Full recipes below, but tinned tomatoes can be substituted for fresh when not enjoying a tomato glut and freshly ground spices can be used if preferred. And obviously if you eat meat you can use this instead of Quorn.

Veggie chilli (enough for two with sufficient left over for lunch the next day)

350g Quorn mince
1 large white onion, chopped
4 big cloves of garlic, crushed
1 sachet Old El Paso chilli spice mix
2 tblsp tomato puree
About 500g fresh tomatoes, chopped
1-2 fresh chillis, finely chopped (depending on how hot you like your chilli)
1 yellow (or any other colour) pepper, chopped
1 tin cooked kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Generous amount of olive oil
Small glass of water, or enough to create appropriate chilli consistency
Salt and pepper to season (if needed)

Tomato salsa

As many tomatoes as you want, chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
Small handful of basil, torn
Lime juice and olive oil to dress
Salt and pepper to season

To make the chilli sweat down the onion in plenty of olive oil, then add the crushed garlic and cook gently without colouring. Drop in the chopped pepper, chillis and spice mix and fry gently for a few minutes. Add the Quorn mince, stir in and continue to cook slowly. Next add in the chopped tomatoes, the tomato puree and a little water. The tomatoes will release their juices as they cook down, and you can leave the pan on a low heat, stirring occasionally, as they do this. Add more water if the chilli looks too dry. I'd cook this for around 20mins on a low heat or until the tomatoes form a sauce for the mince, then add the kidney beans and continue to cook for another five minutes or so.
The ingredients for the salsa just need to be mixed together.
Serve the chilli with a handful of grated cheese on top, and the salsa and corn tortillas on the side.

Homegrown tomatoes
I rate them 10/10
Cost: Yet to be calculated

Old El Paso chilli spice mix
I rate it 6.5/10
Cost: Around £0.65

Al fresco Pizza Express, Cambridge, UK

So while the dregs of summer remain (just), here's a quick post about Pizza Express in Cambridge. This chain may be in danger of becoming ubiquitous but at least it's a freshly prepared and quite tasty sort of ubiquitous.
The branch on Regent Street is hardly a big secret as it's on one of the main roads into the centre of the city, but what you may not immediately realise is that it has a really nice first floor roof terrace. They don't actually seem to keep the terrace a secret on purpose but it's definitely not obvious that it's up there. And on a nice sunny day it's a lovely little escape from the noise and clatter of the open kitchen and frenetic service downstairs as well as avoiding passers-by peering at your food (often a risk with al fresco street eating). You also get to enjoy great views over Downing College while waiting for your pizza.
I may be wrong, but I still think of it as a little local secret (though backed by a national chain), and a good spot for coffe and cake while soaking up the last few photons of summer.

Pizza Express
Regent Street
Cambridge CB2 1DB