An Easter Egg for Grown-ups with Good Taste

Do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Well it doesn’t matter with Hotel Chocolat's Signature Egg, as you get the best of both worlds with half the shell being dark and the other half milk.

You may recall my previous post about Hotel Chocolat. Having already tried this delicious chocolate I couldn't wait to try their Signature Egg. And they didn't disappoint. The shell is made from exceptionally thick chocolate, and as with all their products, this is real chocolate; the dark chocolate is 72% and the milk 40%.

When you open up the egg the sweet, deep chocolate smell is intoxicating. Close your eyes and breathe it in and you’re in chocolate heaven. Inside are fabulous little eggs that are so pretty and beautifully hand decorated it seems a shame to bite into them. But of course that thought leaves my head almost as soon as it enters it. The chocolate eggs are filled with smooth and creamy champagne and liqueur truffles such as kir royale, bellini and rum. And wow, those are some generously boozy chocolates!

This really is a special egg; perfect for that special someone this Easter.

Something So Good

Sometimes you're serving something so fresh and so full of flavour that all you need with it are some salad leaves, simply boiled new potatoes, a squeeze of lemon and a garnish of fresh herbs. Here, that something is sea bass.

UK Food Blogger's Association Launch

I communicate with a number of fabulous food bloggers based in the UK via email and comments on our blogs, and this got me thinking about how we might all be able to get together in one place.

I wanted to create a forum for the UK food blogging community where we could get to know each other a little better and help each other go from strength to strength. So, that's what I did and here it is!

If you'd like to join send an email to ukfoodbloggingassociation@yahoo.co.uk

Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Pancetta, Red Pepper and Rosemary

Ingredients
Boned leg of lamb
50g Pancetta
1 or 2 sprigs of Rosemary
1 red Pepper

Slice the pepper and fry with the pancetta for a few minutes. Put these in the middle of your lamb with the leaves from a few sprigs of rosemary. You may not need all of the pepper and pancetta, any leftover can go into the roasting tray with the lamb. Now roll the lamb up and secure with butchers string.

Put the lamb into a roasting tray, season and drizzle over some olive oil. Roast at 200c for 15 minutes per 500g plus 15 minutes.

I served this with steamed purple sprouting broccoli and cubed roast potatoes, cooked in with the lamb.

A Classic French Dish Adapted for the British Kitchen

For an authentic Coq Au Vin you should use a cockerel as this gives deeper, richer flavour. However, in the UK it can be difficult to get hold of one so most often a chicken is used. In fact, I hear that this is often the case in France too. Your chicken should be a free range one; animal welfare aside (but still of the utmost importance) this will give a better flavour. Using a chicken cuts the cooking time down as a cockerel needs longer, slower cooking.

For true authenticity you should use a French wine, preferably a Burgundy Pinot Noir, but any good full bodied red that you would happily drink will be fine. Take note of the last part of that sentence ‘…that you would happily drink’. Please don’t use any old wine that would strip wallpaper in your cooking; this will impair the flavour of your food. The wine you use doesn’t have to be expensive but it does have to be drinkable.

Coq Au Vin

Serves 4

Ingredients
1 jointed chicken
12 shallots
2 garlic cloves
2 or 3 thick rashes of bacon
1 bottle of red wine
A few sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
Mushrooms (optional)
Plain flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Season some plain flour and coat the chicken pieces in it. Fry these until golden in a deep casserole dish with a little olive oil and a knob of butter, and then remove them.

Add in the shallots, peeled and left whole, and brown them, adding a little more oil if needed. Add two crushed garlic cloves and the bacon, chopped. Fry for a few minutes longer then pour in the red wine. Next add in the thyme and bay leaves. Bring up to a simmer then put a lid on and cook gently for about an hour. You can add in some mushrooms towards the end of the cooking time if you like. Check the seasoning and remove the bay leaves and thyme stalks before serving.

Like most stews and casseroles this is even better re-heated the next day.

Let's Get Baking!

Pat a cake pat a cake baker’s man
Bake me a cake as fast as you can!

May I proudly present to you my first food blogging event; 'Easter Cake Bake'. For those of you who don’t know, these are themed events hosted by bloggers for bloggers around the world take part in and write a post about.

As Easter is coming up I thought it would be fun for us all to get baking and see what fabulous Easter themed cakes we can make in our kitchens.

Entry Details

All you need to do is bake a cake with an Easter theme then post about it on your blog, including a link to this post so that people know what the event is about and where it came from. Feel free to use the logo too.

Once you've baked your cake and posted about it send an email with ‘Easter Cake Bake’ in the subject line to asliceofcherrypie@yahoo.co.uk by Monday 9th April with the following information:

• your name
• your location
• the name of your blog and its URL
• a link to your post
• a picture

I’ll post a round up of all entries by Friday, 13th April at the latest and announce the winner, judged by my good self. Happy baking!

P.S. Don't worry if you haven't got a blog, you can still enter by sending me an email with your name, location and picture.

Delectable Posts

Here’s a roundup of some mouth-watering posts that have caught my eye from the food blogs I’ve been reading recently. If you enjoy this I’ll make it a regular feature – let me know!

A Fine Spring Day from Nordljus
An Experimental Meal With Poussin from Living to Eat!
Bake Fest Friday & My Mum from Cherry's English Kitchen
Congratulations to Steven, Masterchef 2007! from Hannah's Country Kitchen
Pizza & Baked Alaska from Writing at the Kitchen Table
The Baskets of Lalbenque from Chez Pim

A Frittata for Lunch!

Since I discovered duck eggs I’ve been buying them almost every week. For lunch today I decided to make a frittata with a couple of the eggs and the courgette sitting in the fridge.

A frittata is an Italian thick omelette-style dish which is cooked in a pan and then put under a grill to finish off the top. It’s served unfolded, often cold. You can make it with any number of vegetables and other ingredients, such as herbs and cheeses, just like you would an omelette.

You could of course make this with hen eggs but I love the richness of the duck eggs.



Duck Egg & Courgette Frittata

Serves 1.

Ingredients
2 duck eggs
1 courgette
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A little butter and olive oil for frying
Grated parmesan cheese

Slice a courgette and fry it in a non-stick pan with a little butter and olive oil until softened and starting to turn golden.

Beat two duck eggs together and season them, then pour the eggs over the courgette slices in the pan. Cook on a low heat until the frittata is firmed up and almost set on top. Then generously grate over some parmesan cheese and pop the pan under the grill for a few minutes until the top is set and golden.

You can increase the quantities of eggs and courgettes if you want to make this in a larger pan for more people – to serve it cut it into wedges.

In Need of Warmth

What happened to spring ??? It is freezing in London and Kent right now. Bitterly, bitterly cold with snow flurries, sleet and a strong biting wind that goes right through you. My walk home this evening was a shock to the system. The first thing I did when I shut the door against the wind was to put the kettle on and make a mug of tea for me to wrap my hands around for warmth.

Time for comfort food, time for home made roasted onion and thyme gravy. Delicious with mash, delicious with chicken, delicious with beef - delicious, delicious, delicious!



Roasted Onion and Thyme Gravy

Halve 2 fairly large onions (either red or white onions are good for this) and cut each half into wedges, then put them into a flame proof roasting tray with a sprinkling of fresh thyme. Drizzle over some olive oil then put the tray in the oven for 40 minutes at 200c.

Once the onions are browned remove the roasting tray from the oven and put it on the hob. Add a tablespoon of flour and stir well so that you get a gooey mess in the tray (this is good, you want goo!). Next stir in 500ml of beef stock, bring to the boil then simmer until the gravy is a good consistency.

Makes approximately 500ml. Double the recipe for double the quantity.

Whipping up a Cake for Mum

I've been busy baking this morning for Mother's Day. Two Victoria Sponge cakes with fresh cream, one with raspberry conserve and one with blueberry. One cake for Mum, one cake for Mum-in-law and a lick of the spoon for me.

Happy Mother's Day Mum x

Hearty Irish Fare

Today is St. Patrick’s Day; the national holiday of Ireland. I have a little Irish in me from my Mother’s side but sadly am not very familiar with Irish cooking, so I did a little research and asked an Irish colleague what I should cook in celebration of this day. ‘Coddle’ came his immediate reply (a hearty dish of potato and pork, mainly associated with Dublin).

Wanting to be as authentic and true to this dish as possible I searched on the internet for recipes. There was some variation; but this is the one I went for and it was absolutely delicious. The liquid turned into a fabulous stock fully flavoured with the bacon, sausages and onion and that in turn seeped through into the potatoes. I can see why it's so popular.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

This beautiful vegetable has a much more delicate flavour than standard broccoli and it’s in season right now. It just needs light cooking and is delicious simply steamed, boiled or even stir-fried. The leaves, heads and stalks are all edible but you may want to trim the stalk to avoid toughness and take off a few of the outer leaves.

Simply Cooked Scallops, Fresh from the Sea

We had another gorgeous weekend and another trip to Whitstable, where I bought some scallops. For some reason it didn’t occur to me to ask for them to be prepared so they were still in their tightly closed shells. ‘No problem’, I figured, ‘I can rise to this challenge’ (with a little help from Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay). Out came their books and instructions.

Once I got going it was actually easier than I thought it would be. The first thing you need to do is wash the shells to clean them. Next comes the opening, which is easier if you hold the shell rounded side down in your hand, with the flatter shell up most. Then carefully slide a sharp knife into the shell and cut through the ligament at the top of the shell which is attaching the scallop. Once you’ve cut through this the shell will open, then rip the top flat shell off of the bottom one, so you’re left with the scallop in the rounded shell. If you know what the white scallop and coral looks like then it’s easy to see that you need to get rid of any other gunk surrounding it. Importantly you need to remove the black stomach and outer frilly piece surrounding the scallop. Then wash them well.

You can bake or grill the scallops in the shell or cut them off the bottom shell and sauté them, as I did. I simply seasoned these and sautéed them in butter over a medium high heat just for 30 seconds or so each side. Then I put them back in their shells for serving. Let me tell you, their fresh, sweet meat was delicious.

Prime Meat

Our weekly trip to the farm shop to get our vegetables yesterday was pleasantly enhanced by the surprise appearance of a mobile meat stall where a farmer was selling his high quality meat directly to the public.

He had a great selection of meat including a couple of chickens that looked fantastic. These were not the artificially plumped up specimens you find in supermarkets but quality-looking chickens with all the hallmarks of birds well looked after and raised in a healthy environment. We bought one of those along with some smoked bacon, sausages and, the crème de le crème – two fillet steaks cut off in front of us from a beautiful piece of meat.

Fillet steak is the very best cut, and this piece had been well hung and had a fabulous deeply dark red colour. Steak this good deserves the very best treatment. For me that’s very simple cooking and serving with complimentary flavours to show off the meat. So I served this seasoned and seared over a high heat for just a few minutes, rested then laid on a bed of fabulous salad leaves with a dressing made up of extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little crushed garlic. Simple, good quality, fresh ingredients. Now that’s a satisfying plate of food.

A New Season

It’s been lovely and sunny the past few days and as I type I can see the rays streaming through gaps in the blinds. Daffodils are growing in abundance and it’s getting lighter and warmer day by day. According to this article there is some debate as to whether we are actually in winter still, or spring. The Met Office says 1st March is the start of spring, but according to tradition it’s the 21st March. Well nature and my instinct are telling me spring is here and I’m going with that.

Leeks have been in season for the past few months and I’ve certainly been making the most of them; they’ve been a staple in my kitchen. Their delicate, mildly onion flavour adds a wonderful base flavour to soups and casseroles. As a side dish I love them simply sautéed in butter.

Purple sprouting broccoli is plentiful and the delicious rhubarb is available now. I’m looking forward to bringing some home for an array of delicious puddings. Rhubarb crumble is the first that springs to mind, if you’ll forgive the pun.

Cod and Lemon Cream Cheese Parcels

Mmm…I love fish, I love lemon and I love cream cheese, and they combine fabulously in this simple dish. Salmon would work well instead of the cod – in fact I think I’ll try that next time.

Mix about 100grams of cream cheese with the juice of half a lemon, season well and add some chopped parsley.

Lay a sheet of filo pastry out, brush it with melted butter and lay another sheet on top. Place the fish on the pastry and top generously with the cream cheese filling. Fold the pastry over to wrap up the fish in a parcel and brush it with a beaten egg. Bake at 180c for 20 minutes.

Sunday Cake

Isn’t Sunday a good day for baking? Particularly when it’s been raining all day and you need a little cheering. I fancied baking a cake yesterday but hadn’t prepared for this so had to raid the fridge, where I found the plums and pear I’d intended for a fruit tart. I thought I’d see if they work together in a cake – and they do!

This is a deliciously moist cake with a tang of the fruit and contrasting sweetness of the honey. It’s almost a dessert more than a cake and it would be delicious with custard or a dollop of cream.


Pear and Plum Cake

140g self-raising flour
140g softened butter
140g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs
4 plums
1 pear
1 tablespoon of clear honey

Beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy then beat in the honey. Beat the eggs together and beat them into the mixture little by little. Now fold in the flour. Stone the plums and cut them into eights then halve each piece. Slice the pear thickly then chop each slice into bite sized pieces. Fold the fruit into the mixture.

Pour the cake batter into a lined cake tin (a loaf tin would work well too) and bake at 180c for 45–50 minutes.

A Melody of Flavours

Is there any recipe more versatile and adaptable than vegetable soup? So much so that it’s hardly a recipe really. You really can use any combination of vegetables you like; whatever is sitting in your fridge, so it's a great way to use up leftover vegetables. You can add herbs if you like; or not - it really is up to you.

The basic principle is:

1. Sauté chopped vegetables in olive oil or butter for a few minutes to soften and colour them slightly
2. Add stock, seasoning and any herbs you want to use
3. Bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are cooked through
4. Blend to a puree if you want a smooth soup, otherwise leave the vegetables chunky
5. Taste to check the seasoning
6. Serve

For the blending I use a hand blender directly in the saucepan but if you don’t have one you could just use a liquidiser.

The quality of the stock will make a big difference to the taste of your soup. Homemade chicken or vegetable stock would be the optimum but more often than not I use vegetable bullion powder.

For another variation you can roast the vegetables first, and roasted vegetable soup really is delicious.

Vegetable soup is great to make in advance and good for freezing too, so make up a big batch to save yourself time later.