Olive oil chocolate cake from Meemalee's Kitchen

I spotted this recipe for a chocolate cake made with olive oil on one of my favourite blogs Meemalee's Kitchen a few weeks ago. It appealed to me, as with its lack of flour and relatively small amount of sugar, it looked like quite a healthy cake option. And it also seemed to be quite a simple recipe. In fact it is a very simple recipe, but I turned making this cake into a very stressful experience by firstly not being able to locate the motor for my hand-held electric mixer; and then resorting to using the mixer attachment for the food processor but with only the single beater that I could find in the drawer. I do not recommend this methodology. It leads to mid-recipe washing up, swearing, and going red in the face a lot.

However, this cake was totally worth the (self-inflicted) stress. It was densely chocolate-y, but also mousse-like so still very light. Basically it was bloody delicious, and I was very tempted to make it again the next day. I used vanilla as an extra flavouring, rather than the original orange, but I suspect it would work well with a range of others such as cardamon, pistachio or cinnamon.

Recipe (adapted from Meemalee's Kitchen from an original recipe by Jose Pizarro)
Enough for around 6 decent slices, depending on greed

125g very dark chocolate (I used 100g of 90% and 25g of 85% cocoa solids chocolate)
125ml standard olive oil (not extra virgin)
4 large eggs (yolks and whites separated)
50g caster sugar
2 tsp good quality vanilla extract

Firstly put the oven on to pre-heat at gas mark 4. Break the chocolate into pieces and melt it along with the olive oil in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. When fully liquid and melted, set aside to cool. In the meantime cream together the egg yolks and sugar, until they look pale and light. An electric whisk is ideal for this. Once the chocolate mixture has cooled, slowly add it into the eggs and sugar together with the vanilla extract. In a separate clean bowl, whisk up the egg whites until they form stiff peaks and you can do that classic trick of holding the bowl upside down without the contents falling out. An electric whisk is also ideal for this. Gently mix the egg white into the rest of the cake mix, and pour into a 28cm cake tin that has been lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in the middle of the oven for at least 15minutes. Mine was still quite liquid in the centre after this time though, so I gave it an extra 10minutes. Wait until the cake has cooled before taking it out of the tin.
Serve with a splodge of clotted cream, fresh strawberries, or both.

NB The above is how it's supposed to work. In my stressed state I managed to balls things up by adding all the chocolate to the eggs and sugar in one go. Or maybe it hadn't cooled enough. But basically I ended up with one giant lump of sticky chocolate sitting in a pool of pale brown 'water'. I managed to 'rescue' this by slowing adding the egg white to the mix and doing a lot of stirring. It did eventually come back together, but I suspect I knocked most of the air out of the cake mix, so it didn't rise much. But the texture and taste remained fab.

Bill's Cafe and Restaurant, Cambridge, UK

The opening of Bill's Cafe and Restaurant in Cambridge has caused quite a bit of excitement amongst those of us here with a passing interest in food. Bill's is a small chain which started off with locations in Sussex and has now expanded to London, and most recently Green Street in the centre of Cambridge.

While Bill himself remains elusive, his cafes have gone for the Jamie Oliver-esque concept of also being 'stores' where you can buy Bill's jams, chutneys, and books (as well as lots of other stuff). The shelves full of interesting things cover the walls of the cafe, which means the interior looks quite relaxed and funky. And they actually manage to pull off the combo of faux driftwood wall panels with industrial ducting across the ceiling too.

Bill's do quite a wide range of cafe style food from breakfast through to dinner, and when I popped in for lunch with the Male Companion Person the other day we thought we'd try a selection of starters. I had the gazpacho, the MCP had an avocado and bacon salad, and between us we shared the mezze board and some calamari.

Both the salad and the gazpacho were very generously sized for starters. My soup had a great fresh balance of tomato, pepper and cucumber, with just a little onion kick. I suspect some might have preferred a smoother texture but I quite liked the fact that it hadn't been processed to death. This would be perfect to have on a hot and sunny summer's day, but was still pretty fine on a cloudy and overcast summer's day.

The calamari were light and crispy, as described on the menu, and the garlic mayo was particularly good as well.

The mezze board came with lots of little bowls of vegetarian goodness, including an outstanding red pepper hummous with pumpkin seeds, which (I think) was spiced with some cumin as well. The baba ganoush didn't really taste of smokey aubergine though. The strongest flavour was that of citrus, but it was still very tasty. As were the other bowls of roast vegetables, olives and guacamole.

What was particularly impressive, apart from the quality of the food, was the very reasonable pricing. We had a lot of food for two people, but all of the above along with some non-alcoholic drinks, cost just over £31.00 (including service).

So good food, nice atmosphere, reasonable prices- there's very little not to like about Bill's. I'd recommend going before the rest of Cambridge finds out about it.

Bill's Cafe, Restaurant and Store
34-35 Green Street
Cambridge CB2 3JX

Crust-less mini quiches

A quick post on these super-simple mini quiches which are perfect for a summer picnic, afternoon tea or a general snack. As they lack any pastry they are also suitable for people on a gluten-free diet, or for those who can't be bothered to make pastry.

I used the same filling as I've previously written about, caramelised red onion and mushroom, which was divided between 12 cupcake cases lined with grease-proof paper (I was worried about sticking issues but it probably would have been fine without the double layer). The liquid part of the filling was again what I'd use in a regular quiche- 300ml of double cream, 2 eggs, 2 handfuls of emmental cheese, a little salt and a generous grind of black pepper. This was ladled into the cases, and the tray placed into the middle of an oven pre-heated to gas mark 6. The quiches take around 20minutes to cook, and should be golden on top and set, but still have a little bit of a wibble. They also look very light and puffy initially, but will collapse back down as they cool.

Eat hot or cold while being quite surprised that pastry is not absolutely essential for a quiche.

Jerk trout

I have very little experience of Caribbean food. I own a book by Levi Roots and have heard about the classics like jerk chicken and rice and peas, but have never tried them. I don't eat meat so jerk chicken is unlikely to make an appearance on my table any time soon, but I liked the principle of something spicy and grilled. And when a couple of local supermarkets introduced small Afro-Caribbean sections in their ethnic food aisles, I enthusiastically bought some jerk seasoning mix by Dunn's River. Unfortunately this then sat in the cupboard for about six months before I got round to doing something with it.

But eventually I remembered it was there, and decided that jerk trout was the way forward. It's a pretty robust fish that can take strong flavours and is also relatively cheap (always a bonus). So for my jerk marinade I made a paste with one medium onion, a couple of fat cloves of garlic, about a tablespoon of thyme leaves and around two and half generous tablespoons of the jerk seasoning powder. I used a bit of oil to bind everything together too. This was then rubbed onto two whole cleaned trout, that I made some slashes in, and left to marinate for about 45minutes. If I'd planned better I would have left it for longer and maybe overnight. The trout were then drizzled with a little more oil and cooked under a hot grill, until the skin was crisp and beginning to char a little. So around seven or eight minutes on each side (or until cooked through).

And I have to say that I was really impressed with the outcome. I generally don't favour ready made spice mixes, but having no idea what should go in it, this jerk seasoning was a really convenient option and very tasty. Looking at the ingredients it contained coriander, chilli, pepper, pimento, cinnamon, marjoram, bay, and nutmeg, as well as salt and sugar. And I don't think it need any extra spices adding to it at all (unlike with many pre-mixed spice mixes). On a side note- it was quite salty though, so there's no need to add extra salt to this dish. The saltiness on the surface evened out when combined with eating the actual fish though, but if you're sensitive about that sort of thing then maybe use less of the mix than I did.

I served my jerk trout with some steamed broccoli and greens, and as we had one whole fish per person, that was more than enough. The fish was spicy with chilli heat but also had other flavours that I would have been pushed to identify. It was a very different type of spiciness to the Indian food I'm used to, but equally as good. So a definite thumbs up for jerk from me!

Have a look at the Food Stories blog for more information on all things jerk from a true enthusiast.

Dunn's River Jerk Seasoning
I rate it 8/10
Cost: Around £1.40 for a 100g tub

Anita's dill and mint raitha crisps

So in the search for further snack innovation I stumbled across these crisps by Anita's a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if there really is a little ethnic auntie (Anita) behind it all as claimed, or whether this is just clever marketing, but the unique feature of this brand is its range of Indian flavours.
Their offerings are made up of chicken tikka, mango and lime chutney, achaari paneer, and a dill and mint raitha variety which I tried recently. And I have to say I was very impressed. A bit like the Hairy Bikers coconut prawn crisps, this is a flavour that sounds a bit wrong to combine with fried potatoes but actually works. The herb flavours are not too strong, but still distinguishable, and the yoghurt element of the raitha comes through too. Overall this leads to quite a fresh tasting crisp, with the raitha flavour cutting through any oiliness from the potato.

I'm looking forward to sampling some of the other flavours (all of them except the chicken tikka variety are vegetarian). And though I still a remain a stout (in all senses) advocate of the plain salted crisp, I think I will be adding these to my list of acceptable alternatives.

Anita's Dill and Mint Raitha Crisps
I rate them 8/10
Cost: Around £1.70 for a 150g bag

Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu

London restaurateur and general veggie behemoth Yotam Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu recipe rapidly seems to have become a modern classic. It's appeared in the Guardian, on Masterchef, and has also been widely blogged (which is where I came across it some time ago). It's taken me the best part of a year to get round to making it, but the discovery of bags of ready-fried tofu in a local Chinese supermarket prompted me to finally give it a go.

The original Guardian recipe serves four and has a huge amount of chilli and black pepper in it. I have to admit that while I halved the amount of tofu, I more than halved the seasoning as I am a wuss. I also omitted the sugar in the Ottolenghi recipe and only used the one type of soy sauce, so in case you want my amended version here it is.

Recipe (easily enough for two):

350-400g ready-fried tofu
75g butter
6 shallots (finely sliced)
2 hot red chillies (seeds left in, and finely chopped)
Around 1.5tblsp ginger (crushed to a paste)
6 cloves of garlic (crushed)
Around 2 tblsp black peppercorns (crushed)
Around 5 tblsp good quality soy sauce (such as Kikkoman)
8 spring onions (each chopped into about 3 or 4 pieces)

Melt the butter in a wok or deep frying pan over a medium heat, and then add in the shallots, garlic, ginger and chilli. Once these are soft and a bit golden (around 10 to 15 minutes) add in the fried tofu, black pepper and soy sauce and stir everything around to heat up the tofu. Finally put in the bits of spring onion, stir and cook until these are just soft, and you're done.
I served this with some steamed green vegetables, dressed with a little sesame oil, but plain boiled rice would also be fab.

Do note that even with my slightly reduced amounts of pepper and chilli, this is still a bloody fiery recipe. It's incredibly tasty but my lips were tingling a good thirty minutes after we'd finished eating. But I think most of the heat is from the pepper rather than the chilli, so you do get a lot of flavour too, rather than just chilli burn. And that's what makes this such a top dish.
So a great quick dinner recipe (especially if using ready-fried tofu) and one that definitely combats the tofu is dull and boring brigade.

Intense chocolate and cardamom pots

I do like a nice bit of cake, chocolate, biscuit or indeed a combo of all three. But having embarked down the path towards acquiring the dimensions of a Christmas pudding on legs, I thought I should probably reign in my sugar consumption.
However I wasn't keen on completely abandoning all puddings, and thought a good quality, high-cocoa content chocolate might well lend itself to a dessert which didn't need any sugar adding to it. These chocolate pots are adapted from a Nigella Express recipe for an instant chocolate mousse that doesn't use any raw eggs either. This is my version, which makes enough for four decent sized servings.

Recipe:
100g good quality dark chocolate with 85% cocoa solids (I used Green & Blacks), broken into chunks
2 tsp soft butter
2 tblsp hot water
130 ml double cream
2 tsp good quality vanilla extract
8 green cardamom pods

Split the cardamom pods and take out the black seeds. Grind these as finely as possible, and add to around 30 ml of the double cream. Put the cream in a small pan over a very low heat and let the cardamom infuse into it for about 15 minutes. The cream will reduce, but make sure it doesn't catch on the pan or burn. In the meantime melt the chocolate and butter together by placing them in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once melted add in the hot water and the cardamom cream (this will have reduced to around two or three tablespoons). I should probably have strained my cream to get rid of the bits of seed, but if your grinding skills are better than mine you should be fine leaving them in. Leave the chocolate mix to cool down, and while you're waiting whip up the rest of the double cream with the vanilla extract. You want the cream to form light peaks and not be too thick. Once the chocolate has cooled to room temperature, mix in the whipped cream, put the mousse into individual pots and chill in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

The main difference between my mousse and Nigella's is that she uses marshmallows which provide a source of sugar, whereas I don't (actually I wouldn't use them anyway as they usually have gelatine in them). Instead the high-cocoa content chocolate provides a really intense pure chocolate flavour and the cardamom somehow softens the bitterness. This is still very much an adult dessert though, which is best in small-ish quantities. I liked it served on its own, or with a few strawberries or raspberries. As a side note- I left some of the mixture overnight in the fridge and it firmed up a lot, to the point where it could be cut with a knife. It softened up again after about 30 minutes at room temperature but was still quite dense. So I think these chocolate pots are best served after a brief bit of chilling rather than being prepared way in advance. Also, if you don't have concerns about being rotund, do feel free to chuck a bit of icing sugar into this dessert to sweeten it up.