This weekend my old friend ben frost visited me at the GF en route from reykjavik to adelaide – first time we’d seen each other in years… so exciting!
london graced us with a spectacularly sunny and warm day, so we walked over to primrose hill. i somehow managed to get us lost but it was to our fortune – as we accidentally stumbled across l’absinthe, a cute little french bistro on chalcot street. it was lovely from the get-go. we sat at a little table out on the pavement in the shade, our waitress was cute and friendly and the host-chef guy was endearing.
We had the goats cheese and walnut salad to start, then the duck confit with potato gratin for the main, and espresso chocolate mousse for sweet. it was all delicious, huge servings, and the service was warm and non-intrusive. i have walked past this place so many times but never eaten there, but now i think now they’ve won themselves a new regular. i want to try so much on their menu… all the classics: french onion soup (4.75), steak frites (14.95), apple tarte tatin (4.65) – or just go there to hang out and enjoy some cheese and wine. so beware to those visiting me in london soon, I will be taking you there for brunch/lunch/dinner!
and the picture above? ben’s new album ‘by the throat’ will come out in just over a month on the bedroom community label.
yet another gf bbq has been and gone and as usual – was good times! on the cooking side, i’d wrestled with the idea of making a pavlova for aages but was always afraid something would go wrong… it somehow seems too easy to mess it up. but, i’d been eating lovely peaches for a few weeks (they’re in season and super sweet!) and i saw a recipe for a peach melba pav and decided. it was time. check out the photo – it was gorgeous!
Peach melba pavlova
GF BBQ peeps
And finally, i just wanted to share this recipe that’s been on high rotation lately. i love it because it takes about 10 minutes to prepare, it makes you feel good ‘cos it’s healthy, and even my little brother liked it (after saying it would taste better with meat).
Chickpea curry
Chickpea curry
ingredients
- chana masala spice mix (buy from asian supermarket)
- 1 brown onion
- 1 can chickpeas
- 1 clove garlic
- green beans
- mushrooms
- shallots
- red chilli
- cous cous
directions
this is assembled in three parts – the chickpea curry, the side of beans and the cous cous. chickpea curry
- chop onion roughly, brown in butter in a medium saucepan
- once soft and brown, take out half of the onion and put aside for the cous cous
- add the can of chickpeas to the pan along with one and a bit cans of water
- let chickpea mixture come to the boil, lower heat and add spice mix (to taste, usually 1-2 tablespoons)
- simmer for anything between 30 mins to a few hours – however long you’ve got – stir occasionally and mash some of the chickpeas to thicken sauce
green beans
- slice 2 shallots, one red chilli & the garlic clove
- add to frying pan with butter or oil
- add green beans roughly chopped into thirds
- toss about on a medium heat until brown, the lower heat and let brown for about 10mins
- slice mushrooms thickly – about the same width as the green beans, leave whole or halved if small ones
- when about 10 mins away from finish, add mushrooms to beans along with some more butter if needed
cous cous
- if feeding 2 people, it’s about 150g couscous to 300ml water
- boil kettle
- add 1/2 tablespoon of oil to boiling water in a glass pyrex bowl
- add couscous, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 5 minutes
- take off plastic wrap, fluff with a fork and mix in the cooked onion from before
serve in a bowl – cous cous in the middle, curry on one side and beans & mushrooms on the other
here’s a similar recipe if you want to make on your own.
Over pretty much anything these days… except maybe gardening. There’s also more than a few conversations where I’ve tried to describe my weekend and when ‘baking’ and ‘pruning’ get more of a mention than ‘gig’ and ‘pub/club/bar’ and I get a really strange feeling that I sound OLD. But that’s alright. I’m enjoying it too much to care, and when the baking is for a garden full of guests at our GF BBQ’s, it’s always worthwhile.
SO this weekend I made brownies, the recipe of which I’d clipped out of last weekend’s FT magazine. They were surprisingly easy to make, and were delicious – gooey on the inside and nice and flaky/crispy on the outside. Lots of compliments for these ones, which I served with jersey cream and fresh blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and raspberries.
FT Brownies
Oven at 180c, 8x4in cake tin, buttered and lined
Slowly melt together 185g dark chocolate (Lindt 70%), 185g butter (Lurpak unsalted)
Mix in 200g sugar (100g brown, 100g white caster), plus 1tsp vanilla essence
Beat in 3 large eggs
Mix in 125g of plain flour
Mix in one small bag of nuts (about 3/4-1 cup, I used walnut)
Pour into tin and bake 20-25 minutes
Too easy!
I also made meringues a few tipsy hours later, but that’s a story for another day! Right now I’m going to get back to rainy hungover Sunday activities, like recipe searches (next up: Brown sugar apple cheesecake), eBay purchases, newspaper reading and bad TV. The Perfect Sunday.
This recipe from Geoff Lawrance was featured in The Times magazine last weekend and I’m going to make it for a pot luck brunch tomorrow. Looks really really easy to make, and who doesn’t love apples and lemons… and then apples AND lemons put together?? Sometimes it’s the simple things that are the best.
Apple and lemon tart
Ingredients
250g Bramley apples
1 large lemon
1 large egg 75g granulated sugar
Sufficient short pastry to line a 20cm pie plate (about 250g)
10g butter
Method
1 Pre-heat oven to 190C/374F/gas 5.
2 Peel, core and coarsely grate or chop the apple. Add the juice and finely grated zest of the lemon, the beaten egg and the sugar. Mix thoroughly.
3 Line the pie plate with the pastry. Fill with the fruit mixture and dot with butter.
4 Bake for about 35 minutes until you can see that the filling is just beginning to caramelise.
5 Serve hot or cold with cream.
Ok, so, I made this and it was delicious!
I was going to be lazy and buy a premade flan case, but there weren’t any decent ones at my local supermarket so I made the pastry instead. I used this pastry recipe and I highly recommend it – it was easy to make and delicious. Don’t forget to blind bake it before adding the apple mix though!
Spring has truly sprung in London. There are daffodils everywhere. It’s still light when I finish work. I’ve walked through Regents Park to work and I’m sweating when I get there. I’m starting to regret all those dark chocolate digestives I’ve been eating lately… not going to look good if I rock the short-shorts this summer! Spring also means a whole new outlook on food, after all those months of soup!
Last weekend I tried out a recipe from my Ottolenghi cookbook, the cherry tomato and fennel gratin. It was delicious and so so easy to make. The vine cherry tomatoes go on top about 15 minutes before you finish baking, so when you eat them they’re these little red bombs of warm tomato pulp… I had to change my blouse after squirting tomato all over! I’m cooking for a dinner party next week and have picked two new recipes from the same book- the turkey meatballs and asparagus, artichoke and haloumi salad. Can’t wait, yum! I highly recommend it for super easy fresh recipes.
I have also had the pleasure of visiting the Baigel Bake hot salt beef bagel place in Brick Lane. It was Saturday night, quite late, and for under a quid you can get a freshly baked bagel with cream cheese.. delicious! I know this place is an institution, but it’s worth the mention nonetheless.. bagels are a gift from god, whichever one you choose to believe in.
