Cauliflower fried rice

I am a big fan of the cauliflower, but up until recently I had generally only used it in traditional Indian dishes or in cauliflower cheese. Things like cauliflower purée, seemed unnecessarily complex and a bit odd. However, I have now fully recanted these previously held views and opinions. Cauliflowers are flipping amazing when puréed (making a handy alternative to mashed potatoes) and for all manner of other things. I have documented the cauliflower crust pizza and cottage pie here and here, and last weekend prompted by a post on the Domestic Sluttery blog, I made cauliflower fried 'rice'.

This basically involves grating the cauliflower into small grain-like pieces, which is a lot easier if you have a food processor with a grating blade. I'd say a  medium cauliflower for two people would be more than enough. Most recipes suggest you throw it straight into a wok with the rest of of your fried rice ingredients, but I decided to cook mine in boiling water first and then allowed it cool (this might be completely unnecessary but does mean you can prepare stuff in advance). So when it came to eat, it was just a matter of slicing up some red pepper, mushrooms, green beans, spring onions, and garlic, and stir frying for a few minutes until tender. And then adding the cooked cauliflower, seasoning with black pepper and soy sauce, and keeping the wok moving until everything was heated through. I also added some prawns, but this wasn't essential. The end result is a slightly lighter, vegetable-packed, fried rice that was thoroughly delicious as the cauliflower maintains its separate 'grains' and absorbs flavours in a similar way to white rice. I served this with some tofu and black beans, and extra vegetables, and was very full up shortly afterwards.

Prune and brandy ice cream

So I made this rather brilliant ice cream last month. And even though the sunny weather that was ideal for its consumption seems to have disappeared, I thought it was still worth writing about. The recipe is from the also rather brilliant Food Stories blog, and I followed it to the letter apart from the substitution of cognac for brandy. This was the first time I've made a proper custard-based ice cream, but it was surprisingly simple. I also lack an ice cream maker so had to hand churn at regular intervals. This was probably not ideal, as the texture of the ice cream was not quite as smooth as I'd hoped for (though still acceptable) and the prunes got a bit mushed. So although the end product was still delicious, I am beginning to think that it might be worth investing in a proper ice cream maker now.

Anyway, even sans ice cream maker I will definitely be making this again and am adding it to my list of why prunes are great!

The Three Horseshoes, Madingley, Cambridge

So I went out for a rather nice dinner the other week. The Three Horseshoes in Madingley is one of those restaurants that is based in a ye olde country pub but has quite a sophisticated, modern menu. I'd only heard of it quite recently, but (as per their website) it's been going for the past twenty years. And I'm rather glad I've finally caught up.

The building is chocolate box cute from the outside, but has a contemporary gastropub type feel inside with lots of bleached wood around the place. It was a bit smaller than expected when we arrived on a Friday evening, but was quite busy, and actually I think they had more tables available in their conservatory area. As it was the Male Companion Person's birthday, we were primed to launch into a three course meal.

I started off with a pasta dish of agnolotti stuffed with smoked aubergine, and tomato, basil and ricotta. I'm not sure I could  have picked the filling as aubergine, as it didn't have a particularly strong  flavour, but overall the pasta worked well with the rest of this delicate dish, which was light and summery. I nabbed a bit of the MCP's crab starter too, which was delicious. The combination of crab and hazelnuts is not one I've come across before (but might shortly be stealing).

We both went for fish for our main course. I had pan-fried monkfish and scallops with romesco sauce, which was fantastic. I don't think I've eaten monkfish before, but these dense little pieces of fish were excellently cooked with a bit of colour on the outside but still soft and tender within. I would pretty much have been happy to eat the fish and scallops on their own, but the romesco was a brilliant accompaniment. Again, I have a feeling that romesco sauce is something that I've heard of but not eaten before, but the soft, rich sauce worked really well with the fish and the red pepper was not at all overwhelming. The MCP chose the turbot, and this was also declared to be excellent.

Moving onto puddings, I plumped for the crack pie (presumably a tribute to the version created by the Momofuku Milk Bar in New York, which can also be added to the unexpectedly long list of things I've heard of but not tried). This was basically a variation on a treacle tart, and so was very sweet but also very moreish. I had intended to just nibble a bit of it but ended up scoffing the whole thing, with the creme fraiche helping to cut through the sweetness (a little). The blueberries were pretty superfluous though; they were perfectly nice but if there was one thing this dish didn't need it was more sweetness.

The MCP had the blackcurrant jelly with madeleines and cream, which all looked rather pretty on the plate. I didn't get to try any, but the verdict was that the jelly was very intense but the combination of all the elements together produced a well-balanced dessert.

So overall, a very nice meal indeed. Service was generally also good, apart from a couple of mildly frustrating blips (no one asked if we'd like to order drinks while we looked at the menu leading to a slightly parched state, and conspicuous card waving failed to attract attention when trying to pay the bill- I eventually got up and paid at the bar), but nothing terminal, and the actual bringing of food and drink when required was efficient and friendly. For the standard of food it offers, I'd also say that The Three Horseshoes is very reasonably priced, and our three course dinner with a couple of glasses of wine, worked out somewhere in the region of £50 per head.

The Three Horseshoes is only a short drive from Cambridge, and can easily be combined with cooing over quaint cottages in Madingley village. I really liked its smart, un-fussy but interesting food, and the casual atmosphere, and if the meal we had is anything to go by, it's certainly worth the effort to get there.


The Three Horseshoes
High Street
Madingley
Cambridge CB23 8AB

A couple of summer salads

Huzzah, summer is still here! So inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigella, I've tried to come up with a few salad recipes that can be served warm or at room temperature, and don't require loads of standing around in a hot kitchen. And the results of this have been an aubergine, feta cheese, tomato, and basil salad, and a green bean, spring onion, and almond salad. The aubergine salad just requires the aubergine to be fried in olive oil, and when cooled a bit mixed with the cheese, chopped tomatoes, and basil, and seasoned with a (little salt) and pepper. The oiliness of the aubergines means that no further dressing is required, but the salty cheese cuts through some of this richness.

For the green beans, I just steamed these in the microwave and softened the sliced spring onions in olive oil. Once the onions were almost done, I added in some flaked almonds and carried on cooking until they took on a bit of colour. The onions and nuts were then tipped over the cooked beans, with any extra oil acting as a dressing, and the whole lot seasoned well. I served both these salads with an Ottolenghi mushroom dish I've written about before, to make an excellent summer vegetarian meal that also avoided overheating in the kitchen.

Iced coffee

I am not a huge coffee drinker, but my consumption usually rises in the summer when iced coffee starts appearing on the menu of the cafe mega-chains that are so handily placed around our train stations and places of work. Milky coffee poured over ice doesn't sound too complex an item to replicate at home, but there seems to be lots of debate over how to make the coffee element with advocates for instant coffee, cold brewing, and just chucking an espresso over ice.

Anyway, as summer in the UK has finally kicked in over the past few weeks, I thought it must be a sign when I saw this recipe for iced coffee on the Beautiful Mess blog. This basically involves steeping ground coffee overnight in the fridge, filtering, and that's pretty much it. I halved the quantities used, so for 2.8 litres of water I added around 2.5oz of ground coffee (apologies for the mixed measurements resulting from trying to scale down a US recipe), which still makes a lot of iced coffee. I did also try adding a teaspoon of cinnamon, but that wasn't really enough to have any impact on flavour. So I'd either leave this out altogether, or bite the bullet and add the proportions recommended in the original recipe. I like my coffee milky in all circumstances, so for my final drink I filled a glass with ice cubes and poured in about two thirds coffee, a third milk, and a little cream for extra richness. This resulted in an icy cold drink that was also rich and smooth. But obviously making iced coffee at home means you can have it however you want, and add whatever flavourings or syrups you fancy too.

Apparently, the cold brewed coffee should be fine in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks. And so far I've found that the inconvenience of having a large glass jar occupying a big chunk of the fridge, has been well worth the delight of having iced coffee available at all times.

Gog Magog Hills Cafe, Cambridge, UK

Things seem to have gone a little quiet on the blogging front here. To be honest, the unexpectedly hot weather over the summer means that I've mainly been sticking to dinners that require minimal cooking, tending to avoid the kitchen unless essential, and eating ice cream at every opportunity.

But the nice weather has also resulted in a couple of visits to the rather lovely Gogmag Hills cafe a.k.a. the Canteen, and I realised that I have not written about it here before.The site consists of a butchers, farm shop, and excellent dedicated cheese shop, as well as the cafe. And with excellent timing, there is also an extended outside seating area too. So it feels a bit like being out in the country, despite only being five minutes from the Addenbrooke's mega-biomedical campus. The cafe does a range of savoury stuff for lunch, including some fab looking scotch eggs and sausage rolls for meat-eaters, and loads of cakes, scones and traybakes.

On my recent visits I sampled a fantastic lemon victoria sponge cake that was light, moist, and lemony without being lip-puckeringly so. And a cheese scone with butter made for an excellent lunch. Service at the cafe is always cheery, even when they are busy, and as a notorious tray-wobbler I really value the fact that they bring your order to your table (even if you're sat quite far away outside). As an extra bonus, there is at least one very friendly, non-barky farm dog who politely brings you a ball to throw for her.

To be honest, there's very little not to like about this place and you could easily spend a couple of hours sitting outside admiring the view (and eating cake). I plan to return again while the sun lasts, and probably even if it doesn't.


Gog Magog Hills Farm Shop and Cafe
Heath Farm, Shelford Bottom
Cambridge CB22 3AD

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