Tom Kerridge's London Particular (Pea and bacon soup recipe)

This is not a soup. This is a bedtime story. 
A recipe with a history, like I love them so.
A dish that takes you to another time, another life. It's like a good book, but that you can savour with a spoon....

A the end of the XIXth and the beginning of the XXth centuries, most big British cities and London were often covered in a yellow-green dense fog, mixing the fog coming up from the Thames and the city's chimneys' fumes. 
This fog, often qualified of a "pea-soup fog" was called The London Fog, or The London Particular. 
It's this fog that gave its name to this thick yellow-green pea and bacon soup. 

Tom Kerridge's London Particular

Pea, bacon and mint soup

This soup is delicious. 
The bacon, the vegetables reduced in malt vinegar and sugar and the mint give it a real depth of flavour and so many layers of aromas.

Ingredients

50g butter
250g bacon lardons
1 onion, diced
2 sticks celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
50g caster sugar
100ml malt vinegar
200g dry split peas
1.25-1.5 litres chicken/ham stock
1 bunch rosemary tied together
2 bay leaves
2 handfuls mint leaves, save some to garnish
2 tbsp creme fraiche
Croutons, to garnish

Method

1/ Heat up a large saucepan and melt the butter. Add the bacon and fry until browned and crispy, then remove from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.

2/ Add the diced vegetables to the saucepan and cook in the bacon fat and butter until soft. Add the caster sugar, then the malt vinegar. Bring to the boil and reduce until the vinegar has completely evaporated.

3/ Add the split peas, then cover with the ham or chicken stock. Bring to the boil. Turn it down to a simmer, then add the rosemary and bay leaves. Cook gently for 45-50 minutes, until the peas are soft and cooked. Remove from the heat and take out the rosemary and bay leaves.

4/ Blend the soup in a jug blender with the mint leaves and creme fraiche until smooth. Season and pass through a fine sieve. Serve with the crispy bacon, croutons and a few mint leaves. 

Recipe adapted from Tom Kerridge's London Particular

The Outrageous Chocolate Cake: chocolate & meringue mousse, brownies

Superfood, raw food, GI rating, detox...I' m not going to talk to you about any of these today. 
This recipe is one of these which ambition is to break all the rules of reason, and pack as much indulgence and flavour as possible in one single cake. 
To all chocolate lovers in the world, I want to say : this one is a winner. 
It's naughty. Worse, it's outrageous.

But my dear, it's so good.

My ultimate Chocolate Cake: 

A chocolate & meringue mousse on top of a brownie base

Chocolate brownie base

Ingredients

250g good quality cocoa chocolate (I used Valrhona)
250g unsalted butter
300g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs, plus 1 extra egg yolk, lightly beaten
60g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
60g good quality cocoa powder 

Method: 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180deg C, and line the bottom of a loose base cake tin with baking parchment and butter up the parchment and tin.

2. Set a bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add 200g of the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat immediately.

3. Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, and break the rest of the chocolate into chips.

4. With the mixer still running, gradually add the eggs, beating well between each addition to ensure it's thoroughly incorporated before pouring in any more. Leave mixing on a high speed for five minutes until the batter has a silky sheen, and has increased in volume.

5. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and gently fold in the melted chocolate and chocolate chips with a metal spoon, followed by the sifted flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder.

6. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer; it should come out sticky, but not coated with raw mixture. If it does, put it back into the oven for another 3 minutes, then test again.

7. When the brownies are ready, remove the tin from the oven and place it in a cool place (I put mine out in the garden) to cool completely. Once cold, cover the sides left free of the tin with a large string of cling film all around (optional, but it will prevent the mousse from sticking to the sides of the tin)

Chocolate and meringue mousse

Ingredients

250g good quality cocoa chocolate 

6 eggs

1 or 2 supermarket bought meringue nests (optional), broken into coarse pieces + 1 for decoration

a pinch of salt

Method: 

1/ Set a medium bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat. Leave to cool while you do the next step.

2/ Separate the eggs and place the whites and a pinch of salt in a big bowl (or in the clean bowl of a baking mixer). With an electric whisk,  whisk the white until firm. 

3/ Add the egg yolks to the melted chocolate one at a time and mix well between each addition with a wooden spoon.

4/ Fold very gently and carefully the whisked egg whites a little at a time in the chocolate mixture, making sure you don't break the white not to loose the air within the whites and get a light mousse texture. Once all the whites have been folded, fold in the meringue pieces carefully. Pour and level the mousse over the cooled down brownie base, and transfer to the fridge to set for at least 3 hours. 

5/ Loosen the cake tin sides and bottom, carefully peel the cling film from the sides. Loosen the brownie from the cake tin base with a pallet knife and transfer to a cake stand.

Decorate the top of the cake with broken meringue nest pieces.

Chocolate brownie recipe from Felicity Cloake

Beef and Guinness Stew

When I was a kid, my family nicknamed me "Miss Catastrophe" because I was so clumsy and broke pretty much everything that came into my hands.
I was tiny (my other nickname was "half-pint") but still I found it hard to fit my body and its movements into my surroundings and I would continuously bump into things, trip and fall over, and generally mess everything around.
Growing up, I became over-cautious and managed to almost hide that side of me.
Almost.

Picture me on a Sunday night, proud of my delicious smelling Beef and Guinness stew served with lovely dumplings and green peas.

A plate in each hand, I crossed the flat to joint The Man in the lounge and tripped on the stairs. From there everything moved in slow motion. The plates broken in a million pieces, tomato juice splattered up to 1m high over the wall, green peas everywhere (we still found some hidden in the room next door a week later), and the stew and dumplings widely spread over The Man's beautiful antique Persian carpet.
 
Miss Catastrophe always comes back for more trouble!

Beef and Guinness Stew

I adapted this recipe from Jamie Oliver and I like it very much before it is delicious and even easier to make than most beef stew. It doesn't call for browning the meat first, which (although it is very easy to do) I usually can't be asked to do. 

You do have to gently fry the vegs first though, but that's totally fuss free. 

Compared to Jamie's, my recipe calls for more stock and a longer cooking time, to make the beef even tenderer and the stew even better. 

It needs to cook for a long time, but it literally takes 15min to prepare. It also reheat great, so you can make it the day before if you prefer. 

 

Ingredients, for 4 people

500 g quality diced stewing beef
A pint of Guinness
A pint of beef or vegetable stock
400 g tinned chopped tomatoes
2 sticks of celery
1 medium onion
2 carrots
3 fresh or dried bay leaves
Olive oil
1 heaped tablespoon plain flour
Salt and pepper 

Method: 
If using the oven to cook your stew, preheat it to 160ºC.

1/ Trim the ends off your celery and chop the sticks. Peel and chop the onions. Peel the carrots, chop into small sticks

2/ Put a casserole pan on a medium heat. Put all the vegetables and the bay leaves into the pan with 2 tbsp olive oil and gently fry for 10 minutes.

3/ Add the meat and flour. Pour in the Guinness, tinned tomatoes. Give it a good stir, then season salt and pepper

4/ Bring to the boil, put the lid on and either simmer slowly on the hob or cook in an oven for 5 hours, adding a little bit of the stock every now and then as the sauce reduce until you’ve used it all and the sauce has reduced to the desired consistency. The longer your cook the stew, the tenderer the meat will become, so it’s worth the wait.

5/ Remove the bay leaves before serving, and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper if need be. You can eat your stew as it is, or add dumplings to it.

Recipe adapted from Jamie Oliver's beef and ale stew

Seville orange and ginger curd

It's the Seville orange season!
Run to your local fruit and veg merchant or supermarket because the Seville orange season only lasts for a few weeks.
These lovely aromatic Spanish oranges are not great eaten raw (they're bitter) but are perfect for making marmalade, baking cakes or making curd!

Seville orange and ginger curd

I found a Seville orange curd recipe in the latest edition of Tesco magazine and couldn't resist adding ginger to it. Ginger and orange work wonders together and this curd makes a lovely new take on our traditional lemon curd. 
It's delicious with yogurt, spread on toasts or pancakes,...or just eaten on its own!

Ingredients (for 2 to 3 medium sized jam jars)

125ml Seville orange juice, freshly squeezed (that's around 4 or 5 oranges depending on their size), with or without the pulp depending on the texture you prefer (there is no pulp in mine)
3 eggs
125g unsalted butter cut into cubes
200g caster sugar
1 large thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, very finely grated (I grated it with a zester)

Method

Before making your curd, wash jam jars with hot soapy water and dry them for an hour in the oven at 150deg C, to sterilise them, 

1/In a small pan, whisk (with a hand whisk) the eggs, sugar, juice and ginger. On low heat, whisk for 5 minutes or until hot, and add gradually the butter until completely melted

2/ Cook on low heat, whisking continuously until the curd is glossy and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

3/ Pour the curd into sterilised jars and seal. Leave to cool and keep in the fridge. Eat within 2 to 3 weeks.

Poached pears and spiced chocolate sauce

You may have to choose between cheese and dessert when you go to a restaurant, but at home, it's always cheese and dessert.
Nothing surprising here, really. We're not a land of cheese and baguette makers to then just leave them to go to waste and get stale on the counter. 
Christmas will feature the usual cheese platter of local delicacies such as Cancoillotte, Morbier, Comté and Munster, but it's for dessert that we go all out.

We've adopted the Provence originated tradition of the Christmas's 13 desserts. Yes, 13 desserts (although we don't stick to the list of 13 "official" desserts)
Amongst them, the inevitable chocolate mousse (my dad and grandpa's favourite and a Christmas tradition that goes back to generations in my family), têtes de chocolat (chocolate heads) and Billiotte biscuits from Montbeliard's Christmas market, some muffins, several homemade cakes and tarts, one or two British specialties (this year it will be a magnificent Dundee cake from our local bakery in Nunhead), and a fruit salad or poached pears.

Speaking of poached pears, they are a perfect addition to a Christmas dessert table and will accompany any cake or chocolate dessert to perfection.

Poached pears 

and spiced chocolate sauce

These lovely poached pears taste like Christmas, spice and all things nice.
I didn't want the delicious spiced syrup made to poach the pears to go to waste, so I incorporated it in the chocolate sauce (optional if the pears are an accompaniment rather that the main dessert). 
The spiced syrup gives the chocolate a lovely twist, and the end result is magnificent.

Ingredients (for 2 poached pears)

For the pears poached in spiced syrup:
2 pears, ripe but firm
300 ml water
200g caster sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon (or a cinnamon stick)
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3 whole cloves
1 dried fig (optional)

For the chocolate sauce:
150 to 200g good quality cooking chocolate (I used Valrhona chocolate)

Method

1/ In a medium sized casserole, add all the syrup ingredients, mix well, and bring slowly to a boil. In the meantime, peal the pears whole, leaving the stems on (which will make them easy to handle and also look pretty)

2/ Dip the pears into the syrup, and simmer for approx 25 min, turning them around delicately from time to time if they are not totally immersed, to make sure they cook evenly. Once cooked, take them out of the syrup and transfer to a plate to cool. (If you're making them in advance, cover the plate with cling film once cold and keep them in the refrigerator. Take them out 20min before serving to slowly bring them at room temperature)


3/ Bring the syrup back to the boil and let reduce and thicken for a further 10 to 15 mins. Take the fig out (and either eat it or cut it in quarters to serve as a decoration with the pears)

4/ Before serving, place the chocolate bracken into pieces into a small glass bowl set over a small pan of simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water or the chocolate will burn). Leave to melt and mix with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add 3 to 4 tablespoons of the spiced syrup (adapt the quantity depending of how thick you would like your chocolate sauce to be). Pour the sauce into a saucer, and bring it to the table so your guests can pour it on their poached pear as desired.

This recipe is dedicated to Christine, who every year puts so much effort, time and love in welcoming us to a fantastic Christmas feast.

Mango and Lemon Cake

My to do list to be ready for Christmas:
- drink mulled wine
- see the local Christmas lights
- listen to Magic fm until feeling sick of Wham, Band Aid, Mariah and all the others
- go to a free concert of Christmas carols
- have a chocolate from the Advent calendar

I've done all of this and I still don't feel ready for Christmas. 
So, there's only one option left: an intensive Christmas Spirit mission. 
When I land in Basel airport on the morning of the 24th, I'll drive straight to our local Christmas market in Montbéliard (one of the cutest Christmas markets in France); meet my family there, buy myself a tartine de raclette; drink a hot chocolate from Ragot (the best in the universe); and freeze my feet off wandering around the market for a couple of hours before heading home. 
Then, I'll be ready to celebrate Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone!

Mango and Lemon Cake

I found canned mango pulp at my local Coop and wanted to experiment with it.
So I adapted my pumpkin and orange cake's recipe, and here was the result!

It's a lovely cake off the beaten track. Super easy to make, super moist, a real crowd pleaser!

Ingredients
225g self-raising flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground ginger + a good pinch of cinnamon

110g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs (beaten)

200 ml sunflower oil

210g mango pulp, mashed (fresh or canned)

Zest of 1 lemon and juice of 1/2 lemon

Method
1/ Preheat the oven to 180deg C (160deg C fan oven). Grease and base line a medium sized cake tin.

2/ Sift together the flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl, stir in the sugar. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, oil, vanilla extract, rind and juice of lemon then stir until smooth. Add the mango pulp and stir in well.

3/ Spoon the batter into the cake tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 40-50 minutes until a metal skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake.  Leave to cool for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

4/ Lightly dust the top of the cake with icing sugar.

On the Top of the Shard, a game with a view

I was recently invited to the launch of the new Monopoly installation at The View From The Shard, on the 69th of the highest building in Western Europe, which offers a 360 degre view over London.
I had never been on top of the Shard, so I was bursting with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the weather was not great but the view was no less then impressive. From there, one can see most of London's trademarks : London Eye, The Tower of London, The Gerkin, HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge, etc.
The giant Monopoly installation is a nice additional feature to what's already an amazing experience!