#40 | Slowing things down with wholemeal crusty bread

Life's been a bit of a whirlwind recently.

I've worked and worked and worked, and I'm three months into this new job and loving it but it's busy. It's new and exciting and makes me want to get up in the morning, but also keeps me up at night. On the weekends I become busy with the housework I neglige Monday to Friday, and the friends I don't have time to see.

This week was even madder than usual, what with London Cocktail Week requiring me to be all over town. On Friday evening, after a week that included a punch pong tournament, hugs with a lizard, concrete-percolated cognac, a rainforest, several burgers, a whole day of rum university and the bashing of a giant piñata in the rain, I came home exhausted and knocked myself out with a giant bowl of chilli.

This weekend is one for taking things slow, at last. So naturally, bread happened.





What I love and find relaxing about cooking and baking is that it's a precise science, but one of imagination. There's a million real chemistry rules about what works with what and how things react. Oil, eggs, heat, yeast, and the miracle of gluten. But it's also all about putting these things together in ways always new and seeing what happens.



This time I wanted stability, so I kept to a simple crusty bread. One for the science. Water, yeast, flour, salt, and that miracle of gluten I still don't understand (nor really manage to make happen – someone tell me how to get those air bubbles to join the party).

Bread gets things slowing down. Put your yeast to work. Wait. Make a rough dough. Wait. Knead, and knead, and knead. Wait. Pop in the oven. Wait and wait and wait.

I always feel like taking a step back come the colder months. The days get shorter and all I want is to cuddle up in bed, sip on hot chocolates, put Angus and Julia Stone on, light candles and get sewing. It brings with it a bittersweetness of things ending and ended. It's that feeling when you stare into your closet trying to find your favourite, warmest, thickest winter jumper and think about everything's that's changed since you last put it on.

In turn I encourage you to take things slow: put work, and friends, and life on pause. Find your jumper and light the candles. Breathe in, breathe out. And eat warm bread spread with blackberry jam.



Recipe found here.

SC#38 | Tomato and mustard tart

Summer, yum.

This week I had some old friends stay over. The day started as one of the warmest we'd had recently so I got very eager for a welcoming and hearty summer dish, but it needed to be quite free of time constraints. My friends were coming back from a year living in Mexico (as you do) and I wasn't expecting them to be exactly on time... They were three hours late.



This is a long-time classic of mine (and probably the whole of Southern France). It's so easy and so tasty. All you really need is a sharp knife.

Well, and a few other things:
- one pack puff pastry
- 4-6 large tomatoes, nice and ripe
- 2-3 tbsp Dijon mustard
- some fresh basil
- salt and pepper

Method:
- First, preheat your oven to 180°C. Then plan what you will be serving your tart on. The size of the dish/tray will help you determine the size you should roll your pastry out. (I rolled mine way too big.) Then on a floured surface, roll out the puff pastry and transfer it to a baking-proof tray.
- Spread the mustard on the pastry, making sure you get right to the border. Add more or less depending how mustardey you like your food.
- Slice the tomatoes and arrange them on the pastry, leaving 1-2 cm on the sides. Then roll the sides in as to create a nice crust.
- Chop the basil and sprinkle on the tart, with some rock salt and freshly ground pepper.
- Cook for 40 minutes or until the crust is golden.



Serve it warm or cold, and accompany with some salad if you wish. Bon appétit !

Restaurant review | Nizuni

I recently made a (mental) list of things I should do a little better with this blog to update it more frequently. At the top of the list was bringing a camera whenever I go out. I eat out quite a bit (especially recently, lots to celebrate!) and I love sharing my favourite spots. So here's another review! This time we're off to Nizuni, a Japanese restaurant just off Goodge Street.

This one was a little bit of a risk, actually. I had been dying for sushi recently, so when a special anniversary came up (!) I suggested it to the man... who said yes... despite having never had sushi. A real risk taker. I was a little bit terrified he'd hate it, and would hate me for picking a place quite a few £££ up from our usual burger hangouts. It could end really badly.

But he loved it!

(So much so that I got a sushi kit for my birthday. I get it, I'll make you sushi.)

And who wouldn't have? Look at that incredible platter. After a little starter (I had the yakitori which were nicely flavoured with a lovely sweet glaze, he had the chicken gyoza which were the perfect balance of crisp at the bottom and soft on the sides!), we shared a Nizuni Selection 38.

There were such lush pieces in there. Bottom left are sakekawa maki, with grilled salmon skin inside and topped with a spicy mayo. They were the absolute showstoppers and I'd go back just for them. To be honest, all the makis were quite incredible (which is great because they're my favourite). The quality of the fish was really up there though and there wasn't one disappointment.

The place in itself was lovely. The decoration is all wood and soft light, with beautiful homemade plates and pots which just added to the experience. The waiters are very present and helpful, which personally creeps me out a little but shows they're a very serious place. I would really recommend it if you've got a little bit of something to celebrate (or have a wallet larger than a student's), you'll love it. xo

Nizuni. 22 Charlote Street W1T 2NB.

Study snacks

I've been spending quite a lot of time in the library recently. I'm on the very last stretch to finishing my degree. I won't expand on this, because I can go on for hours about how fast this all has gone and how scared/excited I am about what comes next. What I'll expand on is... food. How surprising.

Spending hours/days/weeks in the library requires real motivation. Distractions are everywhere; even with SelfControl turned on I can easily doze off for fifteen minutes just thinking about dinner. Essays do have to be written though, and since they can't write themselves, it's up to me to find some deeply hidden motivation.

So, naturally, snacks.

I'm sure it works the same for everyone. It's the principle of the carrot — or at least that's how we call it in France, if anyone cares to let me know whether the phrase works in Britain... — like a horse walking dutifully towards its beloved carrot, people work towards a reward. One paragraph written gets you a raisin, a thousand words on the page gets you a chocolate square, etc.

Except raisins and carrot sticks are for already motivated people. Raisins and carrot sticks are for the first week, when I still aspire to continue eating healthily and even proudly follow my library days by gym sessions. Raisins and carrot sticks are for the last days before panic kicks in.

Then by week two, dried fruits disappear to be replaced by homemade muffins.

By week three, all reason is out the window. Ohhh, week three. Week three is for happy snacks.

What are your favourite happy snacks? Would love to expand my collection over the two weeks I have left. Not that I don't love happy hippos — man, I love happy hippos. But this is probably my last ever excuse to feed myself on tiny chocolate hippos, and definitely my only ever chance to get Pizza Hut to deliver to the library.

Back to writing words to get snacks, then, because this time around, ten thousand words gets me on the Eurostar for the first time in months! xo

Restaurant review | Bone Daddies

Earlier this week me and fellow foodie and great mate Claudia headed to Bone Daddies for a catch up/well deserved mid essay-month treat. Deciding where to go took us a good few hours but we'd both heard too much good about Bone Daddies in the past few months to be able to avoid it any longer.

I really loved the atmosphere in the restaurant — well, it's a ramen bar and it feels like that. There are long communal tables and seats at a counter by the window. We got to sit there and people-watch as we ate. Another great thing, as seen on the photo above, is all the little add-ons you get: chilli jam, garlic, chilli flakes, but also hair ties and bibs for those afraid of noodle soups :) (CANNOT recommend them enough. Didn't spot the bibs until the end, which the shirt I was wearing really regrets.)

Bone Daddies have a large ramen menu with options to cater for everyone: chicken, beef, pork, fish and veggie ramen bowls, with some spicy ones and a lengthy list of specials. We didn't try the sides, but it looked like there was enough for a full meal, so you can even bring ramen haters! The real plus? THE COCKTAILS. I had the painappuru parku (I think? I'm pretty sure), a fantastic pineapple number that the piña colada lover I am could not stop sipping on.

Ramen wise, I asked the waitress for her advice. She asked if I like spicy food. I said yes. That might have been my one mistake of the night. I went for the tantanmen ramen, which was excellent. Really warm and spicy, with crunchy peanuts, luscious eggs and perfect chicken. But ramen, me and Claudia found out, is incredibly rich. It's not just a bowl o' soup. The quantity and richness of the ramen combined with the spice was a bit too much for me, and I felt like I'd eaten about five meals by the end. Not a pleasant sensation at all.

Still, Bone Daddies was an excellent experience and I would love trying it again — on a starved stomach and staying away from the chilli. The prices are reasonable for how full you'll feel, and the experience in itself is quite fun. Make sure you go down to the loo, you'll be able to peek in the kitchens and give your compliments to the cooks! I'm now eager to try Bone Daddies' sister restaurant, Flesh & Buns...

Bone Daddies Ramen Bar. 31 Peter St, Soho, W1F 0AR.

Kitchen pantry essentials

The best part about cooking is being able to make it up as you go. I like deciding I'm going to have fish. "Fish" isn't much if you just have it by itself. Or it can, just grilled with a little bit of salt and lemon juice. Or marinated in honey and soy sauce. Or cut in chunks and roasted with cajun spice. Or blackened with paprika and cayenne pepper. Or raw with soy sauce.

Or sometimes "all" you have is pasta, and oh no! What can you possibly have for dinner? You only have pasta! Food crisis! But everything is nice in pasta. You can have pasta with tomato sauce, pasta with tuna, pasta and garlic butter with croutons, pasta in cheesy sauce, a veg pasta bake or even nice buttered pasta with a little bit of cracked pepper.

... Well I got distracted. I think I'm hungry.

Point is: it's good to improvise when cooking, but it only works if you can rely on some kitchen pantry essentials. I know there are many guides out there. I can particularly think of Jamie Oliver and Sam Stern whom I know have one in their cookbooks, but I found them a little bit unrealistic for students. My kitchen is tiny, my personal cupboard even tinier, and I don't even have my own drawer in the freezer.

Let's be serious for a minute, guys. This is business. No jokes in my kitchen. (Mostly because I'm terrible at them.) Two levels of essentials because I don't want to scare anyone. Bam! Now cook.



Level #1
Basics: salt, ground black pepper, fleur de sel (or that kosher salt thing), chicken and vegetable stock, extra virgin olive oil, soy sauce, clear honey.
Spices: paprika, herbs (Italian, Provence or mixed), ground cinnamon, some form of chilli powder.
Baking: white flour*, caster sugar, baking powder and baking soda.
Alliums: garlic, brown onions.
Starch foods: spaghetti, basmati rice.
Tins: chopped tomatoes, tuna, baked beans.

*I also personally always keep wholemeal flour because I like cooking with it, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you like making bread or healthy baking.

Level #2
Basics: Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, replace the ground black pepper with cracked black pepper (or an actual grinder), coconut milk, oyster sauce (stir frys are the basis of my alimentation.)
Spices: cajun mix (it took all I have not to put this in the level 1; it's the BEST), chilli flakes, ground nutmeg, four spice, curry powder.
Baking: brown sugar, chocolate, rolled oats.
Alliums: red onion.
Starch foods: another type of pasta, arborio rice, couscous, egg noodles.

Fridge level
Lemon, real butter that doesn't come in a box but in paper for goodness' sake, eggs, milk.

Windowsill level
Basil, thyme, chives and coriander plants.

Also bread. People keep it in all kind of different places so it gets its own level.
BREAD LEVEL: bread.

And here you go, you're ready to cook! With level #1, there's already plenty enough to cook many a tasty dish and be sure to always have something on hand to give your food a little kick. These are my basics though, some others might pick very different flavours but these work very well for me.

Wondering what to do with some of these? I've obviously used many of these ingredients in the recipes on this blog, but I also encourage you to have a look at recipe websites with ingredient search (like here or here).


And for some more precise suggestions on how to use spices...

Fleur de sel: sprinkle on sliced tomatoes or on dark chocolate cookies.
Italian herbs: add to mushrooms, omelettes or mashed potatoes.
Soy sauce: makes a cracking fish marinade mixed with honey, or drizzle over stir frys.
Chilli powder + paprika: marinade meat or fish, add to tomato pasta sauce.
Cajun mix: roll chicken in then grill, add in bolognese.
Ground nutmeg: the thing to make your scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes 10x better.
Chilli flakes: sauté with onions as a basis for tomato or carrot soup.
Four spice: great in cakes and in curries.

Instafood round-up #5

  

 

No matter how busy I am, food always happens. I just don't always have time to get my DSLR out.

Also my local chinese does a mean steamed siu mai and maybe, maybe I have been surviving on a bit too many dumplings. Still, a little round-up for cooks looking for a quick food fix:

1. Fantastic spicy blackened salmon with mango salsa from Skinnytaste. The man was impressed.
2. Made some homemade bread, woo! I have lightyears of progress to make before it can make it on the blog, though, so you'll just meet it for now through this tartine of courgette grilled with olive oil and sea salt + parmesan.
3. Look at that fancy omelette. Spinach, mulled red cabbage, parmesan and truffle oil. Yes ma'am.
4. Last night's absolute impro: filo parcels stuffed with a salad of couscous cooked with tomato purée and spices, and mixed with tuna and feta. A confusing put surprisingly tasty mix!

SC#37 | Wholemeal English muffins

I love English muffins so bad. I tend to forget about them for months, then get an absolute craving and demolish a pack of six in 48 hours. Sliced, toasted, with a little butter and jam, they are the best. I love them even more when they're wholemeal; brown bread just tastes a little better (unless it's a Banette 1900 which is the Perfect Bread in all its white flour glory).

Anyway, long story short: I had a craving, so I made them. And I made them good:

It was my first time making something bready. I had a fun evening of covering everything in flour and sticky dough (thanks to my housemate Laura for her moral support/giggles) with many a crisis of 'they're not rising!', 'they're burnt!' or 'they're not cooking!' I'm pretty impressed they turned out alright.

Served with my mum's homemade quince jam, they were fab. Make them too. I used this recipe from Savory Simple. Worked a treat! 

I hope you enjoy a bite of these. Homemade brekkie is the best! x

La Pâtisserie des Rêves comes to London

Remember when I told you about La Pâtisserie des Rêves, almost exactly a year ago? Well here I am again, but this time I come with exciting news for my Londoner readers: the little dream cakes have crossed the Channel! The shop opened a couple weeks ago on Marylebone High Street, so I headed there on its second day to get my hands on some tasty things... 

It was my first time on Marylebone High Street and, oh my, I recommend you all go because it is truly the closest you'll come to being in Paris on this side of the Channel! It was quite incredible, so many shops were French ones, there was even a French pharmacie and a very Marais vibe to it.

The shop was exactly like the Parisian ones, which I loved. It is such an important part of the experience! Buying a cake is so much more intense when it's staring at you from the inside of a glass bubble.

I had been lucky to win a free small cake in a competition organised on the Pâtisserie's Twitter account but bought three other small ones to give the man a taster of real, fabulous, dreamy French pâtisserie. Needless to say, he was impressed.

From bottom left, clockwise: Lemon Tart, Paris-Brest, Saint-Honoré and Grand Cru Vanille.

They were obviously all incredible, but I ended up being particularly impressed by the Grand Cru Vanille (which I had initially completely left out of my selection but the salesperson highly recommended it) which was incredibly flavoursome. I had never tasted such strong vanilla in a cake, but not in an overpowering way, it was just a brilliant ode to vanilla. My other favourite was the Saint-Honoré. I have to admit it's not the easiest cake to eat (especially when you have to cut it in half first) but it was incredible, such a delicious mix of textures and the choux were to die for.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day being tomorrow, I am posting this tonight for all significant others of a sugar-loving foodie: you'll win their hearts (yet again) with these cakes. Promise!

SC#36 | Layered lemon and chocolate fudge cake

Mmmh, just typing up the title makes my mouth water. "Chocolate fudge" — there aren't many lovelier words than that. And look at this:



It was my friend Gamel's birthday the weekend before last, so I made him a cake. We used to work together, and Gamel's thing was stealing food. You would not be able to leave food unattended without it disappearing. I once brought in biscotti to prove the office I could actually bake (these were early days.) He devoured them all in about ten minutes. Long story short: he likes food.

This was also a sort of personal challenge. I've been on a massive cooking kick recently (more posts to come!) and wanted to get out of what I know. And I'd never made an iced layered cake before! So here goes.

I pretty much used this recipe from Love and Olive Oil, only cutting the icing by about half as (a) I only made two layers and (b) I had next to no butter and icing sugar left. Oopsie! I'd recommend keeping with the original proportions if you like a thick filling and icing, but half does nicely for thinner layers.

The cake was super moist and really nicely flavoured, and the icing was just the right amount of chocolate. I've always been big on chocolate + lemon (one of my favourite chocolate bar flavours) but Britain is used to orange being chocolate's citrus pairing. Well, friends, lemon is the way forward.

I unfortunately have no photos of the inside or my friends enjoying it, but the man did say it's the second best thing I've ever made (should I share no.1 soon...?), even topping my ultimate favourite cake recipe. That's one for the books... x

The (second) best care package that ever was

Man, life is busy... So for once I'll share a snippet of it almost as it's happening! I came home an hour ago to the first care package of 2014! Getting a parcel is always super exciting in my house because my housemate Meg gets one practically every other day, and the rest of us only get bank statements.

I was very excited to open it since I dropped some extremely heavy hints to my mum over Christmas about the things I would love to see delivered on my doorstep. I was a bit upset she didn't get hold of Gosling to deliver my parcel, but what was inside was still pretty good... ;)

Here's a picture of my mum to cover my French address, and a picture of Dumbledore to cover mine because of reasons. And yes, once I unwrapped the incredibly resistant protection, it was a wine box. It's always a wine box.

And here we go!! My mum is the best! Homemade chocolate chip and cranberry & walnut cookies, 48 Kinder bars, a block of cheese, a King cake kit and the basket my cousin got me for Christmas. But like, homemade cookies!!! I cannot stress how happy I am right now. Thank you so much mum! You are da bomb.

And a little bonus: if you're feeling a lil' bit hungry after staring into these babies' eyes, here is the recipe and here is Google Translate (tested it and Google did good on the translation, you're safe to bake!)