Leiths easy tomato & basil salsa

I came home from the Knife Skills course at Leiths today and the first thing that I did was cut myself on my food processor...there's a lesson in there somewhere!

But anyway, the course was great and we made a few tasty things along the way as by-products from our precise slicing and dicing.

Tomato & basil salsa

2 tomatoes
A bunch of basil
1 shallot

1. Chiffonade the basil
2. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon, then flatten out the pieces on the board and cut into small dice by first cutting into strips and then cutting across. This would be a tomato concasse if you also skinned the tomatoes.
3. Dice the shallot
4. Mix the diced veges, loosening with a splash of olive oil and/or red wine vinegar if you like.

I ate mine with roasted fish, but I also think it would go well with a juicy steak.

Please take one final opportunity to view my tiny dicing in close up!

Let them eat Chicken (and mango, and cauliflower)

Kate Coldrick over at A Merrier World is running a blogging event to publicise the very worthy cause of chicken welfare, so I thought I must join in. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Out campaign really hit home to me, and I now always buy free range chicken. It really does pay off in terms of taste and texture, so the foodie in me is satisfied too.

I used free range chicken breasts from Tesco. They were lovely big, plump breasts (ooh-er!) and stayed tender and moist after cooking too.

Thai Green Chicken & Mango Curry with Spiced Cauliflower (serves 2)

Thai Chicken

2 free range chicken breast, cut into chunks
1 ripe mango, diced
1 tin coconut milk
1 onion
1 large garlic clove
1 green chilli
2 tbsps green Thai curry paste (I use Thai Taste, and freeze the rest in an ice cube tray)
Fish sauce
2 kaffir lime leaves
Vegetable oil


Spiced cauliflower

1/2 a head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chilli flakes
Olive oil
1 knob butter

Preheat the oven to 180c (fan assisted)

1. Whizz the onion, garlic and green chilli to a paste in the food processor.
2. Heat the vegetable oil and soften the onion, garlic and chilli in the pan with the curry paste.
3. Add the chicken pieces and brown all over.
4. Meanwhile, blanch or steam the cauliflower for a few minutes (I steamed mine in a microwave steamer).
5. Mix the cauliflower spices and chilli with a good pinch of salt.
6. Toss the cauliflower with the knob of butter and splash of olive oil, then with the spices.
7. Pop the cauliflower into the oven in a baking dish for 15 minutes .
8. Add the mango pieces to the browned chicken mixture.
9. Add the coconut milk to the chicken and mango mixture. Add the lime leaves and a splash of fish sauce. Simmer for 15 mins
10. Enjoy! Serve the curry with steamed jasmine rice if you like...

Luscious lamb with red wine lentils

Yes, it's been a while. I've been spending the last six months buying a new house (with a fab kitchen naturally!), moving jobs, travelling the Baltics and losing weight on the South Beach diet.

So, to celebrate my return, I offer you this slow cooked fabulousness...

Serves 2-4 depending on appetite

Luscious lamb

600g lamb shoulder
1 sprig fresh rosemary or a hefty pinch of dried (I use Seasoned Pioneers)
Half a head of garlic, split into cloves (no need to peel)
300ml red wine

Red wine lentils

1 tin of lentils
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, finely chopped
A good glug of red wine
A good pinch of Herbes de Provence

1. Pre heat the oven to 120c
2. Put a roasting tin on the hob and brown the lamb shoulder all over
3. Sprinkle the lamb all over with rosemary, salt and pepper
4. Add the garlic cloves and wine to the tin, cover with foil and put into the oven. This takes a minimum of 4 hours to cook, but it is perfectly happy to be left for a further 3 hours so is perfect if you don't know when your guests are showing up.
5. Amuse yourself for 4.5 hours....
6. Fry the onion and garlic in some oil until softened
7. Add the Herbes de Provence and fry for 30 seconds more, until fragrant
8. Add the lentils and wine
9. Simmer gently for 20 minutes
10. Serve the lamb on a bed of the lentils. The lamb will be buttery soft and melt in the mouth.

Enjoy!

PS the left over juices form a fabulous lamb stock if you refrigerate and siphon off the fat...

2008 Michelin stars & bibs

Well done to the Westerly!

Jon and Cynthia have done Reigate proud by achieving a Bib Gourmand in the 2008 Michelin Guide for their fab modern bistro, The Westerly.

Other new Bib Gourmand entries in England were...

AROUND ENGLAND
The Pipe & Glass Inn, Beverley/South Dalton, East Riding
Pascal’s, Birmingham, West Midlands
The Royal Oak, Bray-on-Thames, Berkshire
Ginger Pig, Brighton & Hove, West Sussex
The Masons Arms, Chipping Norton, Oxon
St. Clements, Hastings & St Leonards, East Sussex
Restaurant 65, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
The Gin Trap Inn, Hunstanton/Ringstead, Norfolk
The Druid Inn, Matlock/Birchover, Derbyshire
The View, Millbrook/Freathy, Cornwall
The Talkhouse, Oxford/ Stanton St John, Oxon
The White Bull, Ribchester, Lancashire
Oscar’s, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
The Leaping Hare, Stanton, Suffolk
The Three Horseshoes Inn, Stokenchurch/Radnage, Buckinghamshire
Malbec, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Hitchcock’s, Sudbury, Suffolk

LONDON
Upstairs, Brixton, Lambeth
The Brown Dog, Barnes, Richmond-upon-Thames
Ma Cuisine, Barnes, Richmond-upon-Thames
The Narrow, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets
Kastoori, Tooting, Wandsworth
Trenta, Bayswater & Maida Vale, City of Westminster
Galvin, Regent’s Park & Marylebone, City of Westminster
Benja, St James’s, City of Westminster
Great Queen Street, Strand & Covent Garden, City of Westminster

And on the fine dining front we have the following new entries (all one star)...

AROUND ENGLAND
The Goose, Britwell Salome, Oxon
West Stoke House, Chichester/West Stoke, West Sussex
Apicius, Cranbrook, Kent
Nathan Outlaw, Fowey, Cornwall
Tean, Scilly Isle/St Martin’s, Cornwall
The Sportsman, Whitstable/Seasalter, Kent

LONDON
La Trompette, Chiswick
Rhodes W1, Regent’s Park & Marylebone
Quilon, Victoria
Hibiscus, Mayfair
Wild Honey, Mayfair

Sadly no second star yet for Tom Aikens although he was on the rising stars list with Hibiscus as a prospective future two star holder.

Say it's not so!

Word on the street is that the fiendish McDonalds is setting up shop in my lovely, sleepy market town of Reigate. I could cope with Starbucks, but not this. I thought Reigate was supposed to be the New Wimbledon? Thank goodness we still have a fantastic greengrocer, butcher and lovely restaurants!

Tiramisu with tea - Tea-ramisu?

If, like me, you're not a coffee lover but you've always been tempted by the creamy delights of tiramisu, then here is an alternative version using Earl Grey tea and zingy limoncello. This has all the calorific overindulgence but none of the coffee flavour of the traditional Italian dessert.

Serves 4

Ingredients

150ml double cream
250ml marscapone
2 tblsps limoncello
1 tblsps vanilla extract
100ml brewed earl grey tea
24 sponge finger biscuits
Chocolate to decorate

Method

1 Beat the double cream, marscapone, limoncello and vanilla until combined and forming soft peaks
2 Soak the sponge fingers in warm tea and arrange in a glass (I used martini glasses)
3 Swirl the cream mixture over the sponge fingers
4 Grate some chocolate over the top, or alternatively sprinkle with cocoa powder or grated Crunchie (Gordon Ramsay's favourite trick!)
5 Refrigerate for 1 hour to set the cream

Variations

You could also try this with green tea, mint or fruit teas and an appropriate spirit to replace the limoncello. Or just go for the traditional version with coffee and Tia Maria.

Good Food Show favourites

I had an absolute blast at the BBC Good Food Show on Saturday, Gordon Ramsay was on form (despite being hung over from birthday celebrations the night before), the stalls were fab and I really enjoyed watching the participants in the Gordon Ramsay Scholar - definitely some future stars in the making.

My absolute favourite treat (after many, many tastings!) was from the Snowdonia Cheese Company - they make some deliciously creamy cheddars like you've never tasted before. My personal favourite was the Green Thunder (Mature Cheddar with Garlic & Garden Herbs) although the BF was in rapture over the Amber Mist (Mature Cheddar with Whisky). They're stocked in delis across the country and come in distinctive colourful wax truckles, so look out for them!