Cardamom shortbread for a Sikh celebration.

Vaisakhi di Lakh Lakh Vadhaiyan!

Last Sunday was Vaisakhi, probably the most important Sikh holiday of the year which occurs on the Panjabi Spring festival and commemorates the birth of the Khalsa Panth or "order of the pure ones" and the institutions of the 5 Ks and baptism by Amrit "nectar". These were created on this day in 1699 by the tenth guru Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj, who also installed the holy book Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj as the eleventh and everlasting Guru of the Sikh faith.

To celebrate the occasion, the little Kaur and I decided to create a new tradition of making Khanda cookies: shortbread discs festooned with the Khanda, the symbol of Sikhism. These had to be eggless so that they could be shared with all the members of the congregation at the Gurdwara or Sikh temple.

But how to make them special?

We decided on the fragrant flavor of elaichi or cardamom to enhance the buttery flakiness. The result was a crumbly, scented cookie that went superbly with a cup of tea.

Here's the recipe, in case you want to try to make them yourself, for Vaisakhi, or for any other reason. This will make about eighteen large cookies.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb unsalted butter (room temp)
1/2 lb lightly salted butter (room temp)
2 teaspoons strongly brewed masala chai or other tea that takes your fancy. Cooled.
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
4 tsp (preferably freshly ground) ground cardamom

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar in the large bowl of a standing mixer on medium speed. Add the tea and mix until incorporated. Add the flour, salt and cardamom. Mix on low speed until dough just pulls together. Do not over-work or you will get a tough biscuit...this is true of the whole process, so watch out!

Divide the dough between two flattened blocks and wrap in plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for about 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 250 F/120C

Retrieve from the fridge one block at a time and roll out a third at a time on a floured board and with a floured rolling pin. You may want to roll out between two pieces of parchment paper, if you find the dough sticks to the pin too much.

Act quickly so as not to let the dough get too warm and sticky.

Cut out into shapes that take your fancy or simply cut into diamonds with a sharp knife. Carefully place on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the cookies are firm and take on a sandy appearance. The cookies will not take on much color and won't spread much either.

Cool on a cooling rack and store in an airtight container at room temperature. They will stay fresh for about a week!

After a gap, a comeback.

It's been a while, so...hello!

This is Les Madeleines, a collection of recipes and writings on flavour, scent and culture. Stay tuned for the best articles you've ever tasted. 

Cupcake making insanity continues...

The beginning of November saw mad cupcake frenzy here, as I used the Hard Kaur Chocolate cake recipe with vanilla bean icing and various combinations of cinder toffee, white chocolate and royal icing (cut into bats!) to create a dozen cupcakes for a little boy's birthday, and 2 dozen to sell for the benefit of our local Sikh group. I think I need a small cupBreak from the cupCakes.

Zombie brain cupcakes: Hard Kaur Chocolate Cake Goes Halloween

Remember Hard Kaur Chocolate Cake? The delicious, moist, fudgy, VEGAN cake? Remember the eggless buttercream icing?

This is what happens when you make a vanilla buttercream icing, add a few drops of peppermint and a smidge of blue food colouring, pipe with an angled nozzle and decorate with red gel and red dyed white chocolate (which you have to melt wrongly and destroy by getting water into it in order to get the correct GUTsy texture). Delicious, chocolate mint, irresistable, Halloween Zombie Brain cupcakes.

Bake Much? Canneles, Bread and zOMBIE BRaIn CuPcAkES

A whole plethora of plentiful baking: first attempt at Cannelés, another loaf of my favourite coconut milk bread (from the wonderful book Warm Bread and Honeycake),

and then, a special invention for Halloween 2012 (and looks to be an annual favourite),
Zombie Brain Cupcakes (chocolate cupcakes from my Hard Kaur Chocolate Cake recipe) with Vanilla Mint Buttercream icing (just use my vanilla bean icing, add peppermint essence SLOWLY a TINY BIT AT A TIME to taste, and add a little bit of blue food colouring), with dyed white chocolate gore (for this, just melt the chocolate wrong...add a bit of water...and watch as it gets a consistency which would normally make you tear your hair. Then add red food colouring and blend imperfectly to give flecks of white. Absolutely disgusting. Totally tasty!)

And a big plate of pasta and turkey meatballs.

spicy sauce with broad beans and thyme-scented turkey meatballs!

And the family loved it. :)

Bon Appetit Vanilla Cloverleaf Bun Session

These were delicious for breakfast and tea...the vanilla interestingly developed a grassy flavour...really special, pandan-like, and special. Having tried this recipe with Swedish pearl sugar I must admit that I prefer the effect of a sugar crust created by spooning on caster sugar or golden caster sugar.

You can find the recipe here. The only change I made was to use golden caster sugar. I also added a bit of self raising flour (about a half a cup from the total amount) and found that that led to an even softer consistency. It is a *beautiful* elastic, fragrant dough, and one to be savoured in the using and the eating!

Bakery Hit List 2012/13

At the Hot Cross meet & greet today we discussed our ambitions for the coming year. I have quite a few, and as I'm on maternity I have a *little* bit of time to make them happen. My hit list is below, so if anybody knows how to make any of these please let me know...I would love your tips! Most of these are pretty complicated so we may not want to do all of them in the club, but I will be pursuing them in my own time, and I will keep everyone posted of my experiments (and results!); so if anybody wants to join me in having a go, just let me know!

1. Macarons (left)
2. Brioche (my favourite!)
3. Madeleines
4. Cannelés (below)
5. Financiers
6. Choux pastries
7. Some Viennoiseries.
and last but not at all least, I am going to begin the big project of making:
8. my own sourdough bread including cultivating my own sourdough starter.

I'd like to get a bit creative with sugarpaste too...I tend to do buttercream icings because they are tasty and I'm lazy.

I would like to inject cream into something: a pastry, a cupcake...I want to create something with a creamy filling! yum yum!

The bun has landed, and in fact, she's over 3 months old now, and keeping us very busy.

Blogosphere, meet Léontine Ishwar June-Ting Giet!

re cap/bun in the oven

Weird things have happened to blogger's format since I put in a post, and lots of things have happened to me, I must say. I haven't been writing much here because after arriving in Oxford I set up a baking group for students of my college St. Cross...you can see that here: http://hotcrossoxford.blogspot.com/ so all my baking energies have gone to that. As if that weren't exciting enough...I got pregnant right after I started my PhD...now, in under 4 weeks I will be a Mama. So at 35 weeks pregnant I'm not doing much cooking...but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Mahlab Shortbread

Fragrant.
Eggless.
Easy.



Amazing.

The key ingredient is Mahlab, sometimes spelled Mahleb, or Mahlepi; According to Wikipedia "it is an aromatic spice made from the seeds of the St Lucie Cherry (Prunus mahaleb). The cherry stones are cracked to extract the seed kernel, which is about 5 mm diameter, soft and chewy on extraction, but ground to a powder before use. The flavour is similar to a combination of bitter almond and cherry."

It does have a dried cherry resonance and an almondy doughy scent...and is frankly different from anything else, and quite extraordinary. I've been dying to try it for ages and finally got a great recipe and the mahlab to go with it.

I got the recipe from Zamouri Spices (www.zamourispices.com)...one of my favourite online spice emporia when I was living in the US and a good place to get your Mahlab from if you live in the USA. If you are in the UK, you can order from http://www.maroque.co.uk/, or check out your local Turkish or Middle Eastern grocery...I was pleasantly suprised to find Mahlab readily available in several shops in the Cowley area of Oxford, so you'll definitely see more food adventures and photos up here soon.

The recipe couldn't be easier, and it's really quick. Note that it calls for SALTED butter.

6 Tbsp Salted butter
1 C Flour, sifted
2 tsp Mahleb (ground)
1/4 C Sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
Confectioners'/powdered sugar

Melt the butter and cool until lukewarm. Mix the flour with the mahleb and sugar. Add the butter and vanilla and mix to a crumbly dough. Roll rounded teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place on baking sheets lined w/ parchment paper.



Bake at 300 F/ 150C for 30 minutes. Take out of the oven and let them stand about 30 seconds so they can firm up. While hot, roll in confectioners' sugar (be careful as they are still crumbly), and return to oven for 1 minute. Cool a few minutes on the sheets then transfer them to a wire rack with a spatula to finish cooling.

The perfect accompaniment to this tasty tea time treat, as far as I can see, is a cup of Mariage Freres Sakura scented Green Tea.



It's fragrant floral and cherry taste compliments the chewy moist biscuits beautifully...you can order online and there are a few other outlets that do sell Mariage Freres (although not a tenth of the selection available in that Emporium of French style scented teas with multiple Parisian outlets), and it is worth the trouble, trust me.

Enjoy!

On the move!

So it's August. 5 months ago, nearly to the day, I looked like this


Now, however, we're moving, and so I look like this:



I'm starting my DPhil at the Oriental Institute of Oxford University in October, so we're moving to a new house up there. And though I am sad to say good bye to the wonderful Turkish groceries and Chinese supermarkets, not to mention Borough Market, I have two things, apart from the excitement of beginning of my impending course, to console me: firstly, it only takes a little over an hour on the train direct to London from Oxford, and it will be even easier for me to go to Southall to attend Gurdwara as well as shop and eat than it was from my home in Rotherhithe, and secondly, there are some fantastic markets in Oxford! Plus Oxford is a small city with lots of great countryside locations for produce etc nearby. So I predict that Liam and I will be out and about quite a lot.

In other words...though actually I didn't do it justice with adequate posts etc, London is an amazing place to shop and eat, Oxford will give me an opportunity to bring you a snippet of a different facet of British culinary life, as well as giving me still enough chance to get some more London into these pages. So stay tuned!

the secret weapon: (peanut butter) cream cheese icing

Summertime, sort of perversely is always high gear baking time for me because my brother, my husband, my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law all have birthdays between May and September. So lately I've been making a lot of developments in my celebration cake making. This year was especially important because my sister-in-law graduated from Medical School ON her birthday (the cake, with marzipan diploma, is pictured here)! In any case, when my brother's birthday rolled around, I didn't just want to make him the dark chocolate cake with cream cheese icing that is his favourite, I wanted to do something a bit special. And it then it came to me. Peanut butter.

At first I wasn't sure whether it was a good idea. Having made my cream cheese icing, I took a bit and added some peanut butter as an experiment. What I created was so extraordinarily good that I woke my husband up to taste it. And now you can make it too. Below is the recipe for cream cheese icing and then the method of how to make it into peanut butter cream cheese icing. On my brother's cake I iced with the plain cream cheese and used the peanut butter cream cheese icing as a filling between the two layers of dark chocolate cake (for the recipe, see my Hard Kaur Chocolate Cake). This worked extremely well. I wouldn't recommend icing and filling a cake with peanut butter icing unless you are a real fan, but it would be an extremely good icing to top a chocolate, banana or snickerdoodle cup cake with!

INGREDIENTS

1 cup Milk
¼ cup all purpose flour
8 oz. Unsalted butter
1 cup superfine granulated sugar
pinch salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
200g Philadelphia cream cheese
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 large jar smooth, no sugar-added, natural peanut butter (adding method below...don't worry...you don't add the whole thing...unless you want to.)

METHOD

1. Quickly whisk together 4 tbsps of the milk with the flour. The slurry will be somewhat thick so whisk thoroughly to make it smooth. Press out any lumps with a flexible spatula, if necessary.
2. Whisk in the rest of the milk and transfer the mixture to a 2 quart heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer for about 30 seconds over medium heat, whisking the whole time.
3. Remove the pan from the stove and place plastic wrap directly against the milk’s surface. (This is the best method to prevent a skin from forming). Cool to room temperature.
4. Combine the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix at a medium to high speed for 5 minutes.
5. Pour the cooled milk-and-flour mixture into the bowl and beat for another 5 minutes, or longer, as needed to achieve a spreadable consistency.
6. Add the cream cheese 100g at a time and blend into the mixture thoroughly.
7. Add the lemon juice. This will give the cream cheese icing a lighter, zestier taste.

You can stop here, if what you want is cream cheese icing, and this is a non-traditional recipe for cream cheese icing that is essentially a buttercream with cream cheese added. This means that it is much much more stable than your average cream cheese icing which has a tendency to melt if you so much as think a warm thought.

If you are making a layer cake, take one third of the icing you have made aside to make the peanut butter cream cheese filling. If you are making cupcakes and want to make the entire batch of icing into peanut butter cream cheese icing, follow the method with the whole lot of icing.

Transfer your desired quantity of icing into a new bowl and for every 7 tbsp generous tbsp of cream cheese icing, add 2 tbsp of peanut butter. Of course if you find this too rich or too light you can adjust accordingly, but that's the ratio that I recommend.

You will love it. :)

Cantucci: the little biscuits that love you back

Cantucci are the ultimate foodie friend: traditionally to be eaten as an accompaniment to a glass of Vin Santo , a delicious Italian desert wine from Tuscany, these biscotti-like almond cookies, though petite, are also big enough to serve well with a cup of tea or coffee, biscotti style. They are very easy to make...even if you do not have any electrical kitchen equipment at all you can mix them up by hand with a spoon or fork without difficulty, and their flavour is spectacular. I sometimes add a touch of orange flower water for a more exotic, fragrant element that goes very well with tea. And one more bonus: no added fat!

This recipe is one I adapted from an Italian site when I was making these as thank you gifts for people who helped at our wedding. Vin Santo and cantucci have a particular story attached to them in our love story, so it kind of made sense. In the end we had so many left that my husband ended up taking them with him to Italy as a sweetener for his colleagues in the Milan office. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about giving Italian cookies I had made to Italians, but these more than passed the test. In fact the boss there made him an honorary Italian! If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is!

Ingredients
500g bread flour
300g sugar
250g unpeeled almonds, crushed. (I suggest pounding the whole almonds in a mortar and pestle to give a variety of sizes, some whole, some broken some totally crushed...it adds to the texture and flavour of the cantucci. Alternatively you can use a food processor but be careful to only break them up, not pulverise them! If you wish you can swap out 50g of the almonds for pistachios or hazelnuts but I wouldn't recommend swapping out more as you will lose that cantucci flavour)
50g Pine nuts
5 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
grated peel of one lemon
cookie sheet
baking parchment

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (360 F)
2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
3. Add the nuts and blend through.
4. Add the grated lemon zest and eggs and mix until you achieve a ball of golden dough. I recommend using your hands to knead everything together in the last stage.
5. On a clean, flour dusted surface, turn out the dough and shape into a 3cm wide roll as long as your baking sheet. You may need to make two rolls of 3cm each in order to fit everything on the sheet.
6. cover cookie sheet with parchment and put the roll(s) on the sheet. Flatten the rolls lightly with your hand.
7. Bake for 30 mins, then remove from oven.
8. slice the roll into 1cm slices, cutting diagonally.
9. Spread the slices out on their sides on the cookie sheet. You are unlikely to have much space between them but try to separate them a little if you can. Bake in oven at 150 C (300 F) for a further 15 mins, then turn the slices over and bake for another 15 minutes.

Store in an air-tight jar to keep them moisture-free and ready for dunking.

Italian Love Cake

Why is it an Italian Love Cake? Something about musky rosemary, itself a symbol of love, combined with the dark sweetness of italian forest honey and crowned with a seemingly innocent cover of vanilla bean buttercream make this a decidedly romantic, but not sticky bite. This is not a trashy love affair. It's a satisfying kiss.

Italian Love Cake

Yield: one 9 inch layer cake (three cakes and filling…or 2 larger layers and filling)

INGREDIENTS

For the filling:
1 oz. All-purpose flour
1/2 cup Milk
4 oz. unsalted butter
1 tsp Vanilla extract
¼ cup Marscapone cheese
3/4 cup superfine sugar
2 tbsp dark Italian forest honey or chestnut honey
2 tsp dark rum

Whipped cream:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
¼ cup superfine granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract.

For the cake:
1 ¾ cups All-purpose flour
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 eggs separated
2 cups superfine granulated sugar, divided
8 oz unsalted butter
2 sprigs rosemary

METHOD:

1. To make the filling, quickly whisk together 4 tbsps of the milk with the flour. The slurry will be somewhat thick, so whisk thoroughly to make it smooth. Press out any lumps with a flexible spatula if necessary.
2. Whisk in the rest of the milk and transfer to a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium hear, whisking constantly. Once bubbles that burp steam form, remove the pot from the heat and continue to stir for another 30 seconds.
3. Cover the milk mixture with plastic wrap pressed directly against the surface. Cool for 15 to 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile combine the ingredients for the whipped cream in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a wire whip attachment and whip on medium to high speed and soft peak. The whipped cream can be made in advance if you prefer.
5. At the same time, combine the butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on high for up to 5 mins.
6. Add the milk mixture and continue to beat on high speed until the filling is smooth, another 5 mins. Beat in the marscapone 1 tbsp at a time and add the honey and rum. Add the whipped cream 1 tbsp at a time until you reach a consistency you like. Some people like fluffier fillings…some people like them denser!
7. Preheat the oven to 335F and place the rack in the middle position. Line the bottoms of three 9 inch round pans with parchment.
8. Measure the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt into one bowl, and the milk and vanilla into a separate bowl. Whisk each to combine.
9. In the standing mixer fitted with the wire whip attachment, beat the egg whites on high speed to a stiff peak. Drizzle in 1 cup of sugar while the mixer is running. Scoop the meringue into a large bowl and set aside.
10. Lightly wipe the mixer bowl and replace the wire whip with the paddle attachment Cream the butter with the remaining 1 cup of sugar on low speed.
11. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl all the way to the bottom using a flexible spatula and mix on low speed until the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Tear off the rosemary leaves, rip and add to the batter.
12. Alternatively add the dry and wet ingredients about a quarter at a time without pausing between additions.
13. Stop the mixer and gently fold the meringue into the batter with a flexible spatula. Pour the mixture evenly into the prepared pans and bake for 27 to 30 minutes, or until the cake bounces back when lightly pressed and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
14. Cool the cakes for 2 minutes, then run an offset spatula around the edges and invert the cakes onto a flat surface. They will be very fragile so handle with care.
15. Once the cakes have cooled, assemble the cake filling between each layer.

Then ice with the recipe below.

Old-Fashioned Vanilla Bean Buttercream

INGREDIENTS

1 cup Milk
¼ cup all purpose flour
8 oz. Unsalted butter
1 cup superfine granulated sugar
pinch salt
2 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean

METHOD

1. Quickly whisk together 4 tbsps of the milk with the flour. The slurry will be somewhat thick so whisk thoroughly to make it smooth. Press out any lumps with a flexible spatula, if necessary.
2. Whisk in the rest of the milk and transfer the mixture to a 2 quart heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer for about 30 seconds over medium heat, whisking the whole time.
3. Remove the pan from the stove and place plastic wrap directly against the milk’s surface. (This is the best method to prevent a skin from forming). Cool to room temperature.
4. Combine the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix at a medium to high speed for 5 minutes. Scrape the contents of the vanilla bean into the mixture.
5. Pour the cooled milk-and-flour mixture into the bowl and beat for another 5 minutes, or longer, as needed to achieve a spreadable consistency.

Then ice the cake!! Decorate with sprigs of rosemary.

Smoky/Salty/Sweet Salad

A great salad when you want something crispy, salty and sweet in with your leaves but don't want a tonne of heavy stuff. Keeping it light and healthy, I spiced up some gorgeous greens with a little crisp fried prosciutto and grilled red onions, (the amazing)smoked salt and a dusting of coriander leaves. You could add some green peas or beans to make it really spring-y but I didn't have any to hand!

The salad makes a great compliment to the Mushroom sandwich a la Giet. :)



If you eat meat, you can't argue with it.

If you don't, I suggest using shavings of salty pecorino to compliment the sweet red onions.

Ingredients:
Red and green salad leaves (e.g. romaine, gem, lollo rosso, oakleaf)
Watercress
Coriander (Cilantro) leaves
One medium red onion
100 to 150g thinly sliced prosciutto (don't use really great prosciutto...it'd be a waste. Storebrand packets are ideal)
Olive oil
Danish Smoked Salt (available in Whole Foods and other similar shops)
Black Pepper
Lemon juice

Method
Turn the grill on and slice the onion thinly while it's heating up. Put the onion on some foil, sprinkle with smoked salt and drizzle with olive oil, then place in the oven to grill. The idea here is to end up with sweet soft onions with crispy bits, so just check on them every 5 minutes or so.

Put your washed leaves in a large bowl and set aside.

Put 1 tbsp of olive oil into a frying pan and heat. Roughly tear the prosciutto and put into the pan to fry. Fry on medium to high heat until the prosciutto is just browning and crisping up. The pan may smoke so put the oven fan on or open a window.

Remove from the heat when ready.

Roughly chop the coriander. Once the onions are ready put these, still warm, over the salad leaves, then adding the prosciutto and the pan juices. Sprinkle over the coriander leaves, and add a squeeze of lemon and twist of black pepper. No need to add any more oil!

Photo credit: Liam C Giet

Portabello Mushroom Sandwich a la Giet!

Remembering the fantastic roast vegetable wraps I used to have as my regular lunch at Harvard's Dudley House, I had an ambition of making a grilled mushroom sandwich, as an alternative to our lovely tomato sandwich staple. But I never seemed to get around to it, until today! The result was a crisp goat's cheese toast topped with meaty, juicy portabello mushrooms, herbs and a basil dressing. We had it with the smoky/salty/sweet salad, and felt like royalty.

It's called "a la Giet" because it combines all of my fiance Liam's favourite things in one place...mushrooms (particularly since they are fried in butter), cheese, fried sage and my home made pesto too (recipe for that forthcoming). They aren't the most waist conscious of dinner plans, but they are vegetarian, and very tasty. If you want to make a lower fat version, grill the mushrooms instead of frying and drizzle with olive oil when they are done: as long as the mushrooms are fresh they will be juicy and fabulous.

I used a walnut bread from Pain Quotidien, which was a great compliment to the slightly smoky sweetness of the portabello, but you could experiment with rye or raisin or whatever you have to hand!

Ingredients:
4 Portabello Mushroom caps
Tarragon leaves (roughly chopped)
Sage leaves, one bunch.
Good quality unsalted butter
Soft, light goat's cheese.
Fleur de Sel or Malden Salt
4 slices of robust bread.
Pesto sauce (home-made is best)
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil
Black pepper.

Method

Turn the oven on grill and allow to heat while you wash the mushrooms and herbs and slice the bread.

Put a large frying pan onto a medium heat, and put the bread in to the dry frying pan when hot. I still believe that this method makes the best toast because you have a lot more control. When the bread is just becoming brown, take it off the heat and put to one side. Now put a pat of butter into the frying pan, and allow to foam. Add a small handful of sage leaves and fry in the butter until crispy. Put aside, with the butter they were cooked in, in a small bowl.

Spread the toasts generously with the soft goat's cheese. Put the toasts into the oven under the grill.




Put another pat of butter into the frying pan over a medium heat, and allowing the butter to foam, add the portabellos, placing them on their backs (the rounded side). Sprinkle with salt and half of the chopped tarragon. Once one side of the mushrooms have gotten cooked and soft, turn them over. It's possible you may need to add a little more butter at this point.





Check the toasts. Once the cheese is just bubbling and getting brown remove from the oven and put on a large plate.

Once the mushrooms are cooked, place one on each cheesy toast...I'm not sure whether cap up or down is better...you be the judge! Don't forget to pour the juices over too. :)

Put 1 1/2 tbsp of pesto into a small bowl, and add the juice of one lemon, and a tbsp or two of boiling water. Blend to make a sauce, then drizzle over the mushroom toasts.





Sprinkle the rest of the tarragon, a pinch of fleur de sel and some black pepper on, and garnish with the fried sage.



Then eat with wild abandon.

Photo Credit: Liam C. Giet

London...is the place for me!

I've been back in London for about 9 months: now splitting my time between a position as Development Manager at Illuminate Productions and International Beauty Editor at Derek Loves Shopping.com,plus I've been writing more on Perfume outside of DLS at Perfume Critic.com

I've rediscovered recipes I haven't used in 6 years or more, now that I'm back in their native soil, and I am coming up with new ones! And I have a great partner in crime through it all, and lots of reason to improve: I'm getting married next year!

Returning from living in Singapore has been a bit of a shock to the system in some ways. I miss my Kopi-C, idli, cendol, bbq stingray... and of course...kuei kuei...

But London is where I grew up and I love it here...the joys of kent strawberries, milk delivery (we just organised ours), cheese(!) from Neal's Yard and coffee from Monmouth Coffee, french pastries and AN OVEN(!!!) plus: you can get anything in London, and while I miss those bits and pieces (though I have found decent te and kopi c and otah otah), being able to get Middle-eastern, Greek, Moroccan, Italian and other european groceries plus a bigger variety of fresh ingredients (although sadly minus the dragon fruit, mangosteen, jackfruit and all...) is wonderful. I get my Indian food in the best place possible: Gurdwara. Good solid vegetarian punjabi food filled with the Guru's grace and the sangat's love. I still need to find a place for idli though...

Quick Spring Beetroot Salad

A great salad for these spring days in London: a little sweet, a little salty, fragrant and just plain tasty.

Ingredients:

3 small boiled beetroot, peeled
(you can buy these in lovely vacuum packs with nothing added in for about 70p from Waitrose and other supermarkets)

Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 or 3 sprigs of mint, roughly chopped
2 spring onions
drizzle of Olive oil
pinch of Fleur de Sel

Simply chop the beetroot into bite sized pieces, slice the spring onions diagonally into strips and combine in a bowl with the mint. Squeeze the lemon over the top, add a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of fleur de sel or Maldon Salt.

(photo credit: Liam Giet)

Sweet Fire Pasta Sauce: Roast Sweet Pepper, Garlic and Oregano Arrabiata with Chinese Chilli

Sometimes I just need something hot.



If you don't like spicy food you shouldn't read any further. For those who have a little fire in their belly, this is the pasta sauce for you. You may have tried Arrabiatta sauces in restaurants but trust me, they're not a patch on this one which makes the most of the long, pointed, sweet, red Roma peppers we have been getting in Waitrose lately. With that sweetness, plus the soft caramel of roast garlic, sprigs of fresh oregano and some black chilli oil from Chinatown or See Woo...a standard spicy tomato sauce become a work of art waiting to smother your rotellini (or whichever pasta you choose). Just hot enough and with lots of flavour. It's great for these invigorating early spring days.

Ingredients::

4 Roma red peppers, washed and de-seeded (normal red bell peppers can be used)
2 cans peeled plum tomatoes
1/3 tube tomato paste
olive oil
bunch of fresh oregano
one head of garlic
red wine (see bottom of recipe for non-alcoholic alternatives)
black pepper
good quality salt
1/2 tsp of la jiao you (chinese chilli oil: see picture)

Parmigiano cheese to grate.

Coats pasta for 3 or 2 very hungry people who really like pasta sauce.

Method:

Turn the oven on full blast grill.

Split the peppers so that they lay flat, skin side up, and place on foil. Along side you can put your head of garlic, having lopped off it's very top spiky bits. You can put it right side up or upside down...if it gets too toasty just turn it over.

Place the peppers and garlic in the oven, and roughly chop the oregano, open the tomatoes and cut them (you can just put a knife in the can and cut them while they are still in there.). Go off and read a book or listen to the radio or watch Rome for 10 minutes or until the peppers have gently blackened, blistered tops, turning the garlic over in the meantime if it begins to burn. Don't panic if it does...it's still in its papery skin so it's protected.

Once blackened, retrieve the peppers and garlic and carefully peel the skin of the peppers: it should come off easily, putting the flesh to one side, and chop into rough strips. Squeeze the soft, roasted garlic out of 3 to 4 cloves.



Put about 3 tbsp of olive oil into a deep frying pan (preferably non-stick). Once moderately hot, put about 1 tbsp of the tomato paste into the oil: this is an Italian tomato sauce secret. Fry the past for a few seconds until it is blended with the oil. Then add the peppers, half of the chopped oregano, and the garlic. Fry gently on a medium heat for about a minute, then add a splash or two of red wine. Blend together with a wooden spoon and after about a couple of minutes, add the canned tomato. blending the pepper mixture together with it thoroughly as you heat. Add more red wine, salt and pepper to taste.

(now is a good time to put the pasta into boiling water)

Simmer for 10 minutes: if the sauce looks dry add a bit of red wine (to taste), water or vegetable stock.





Finally add the chilli. Start with a bit less than half a tsp and add to taste. We typically have 1/2 to 1 tsp.

Remove from the heat and blend with your pasta. Tip: I generally put the pasta back in the pot it was boiled in after it has been strained and rinsed, then adding the sauce over it bit by bit until I am happy with the sauce-to-pasta-ratio.

Serve with generous grated parmigiano and sprinkle with the remaining oregano.

and of course...enjoy!



(photo credit: Liam Giet...except for the one below which was taken by me)





Note on vegetarian dishes:

You may have noticed that a lot of my recipes don't contain any meat: this is because I am a veggie fan and rarely eat meat...as a Sikh I try to avoid it. This recipe is vegetarian too; for those who don't eat eggs, there aren't any, and you can replace the red wine with a little balsamic vinegar, some stock and a pinch of sugar if you like, but any alcohol in the wine is cooked off completely in the process of making the dish, hence even I eat it.