Je Goûterai - I will taste

This evening’s dinner :) Soy Noodles with pak choi and spring onions, attempted seasoned egg and leek dumplings. I usually make my own dumplings but I’m trying out some of the frozen ones from a korean shop down the road. yumyumyum

11.2.13 My lunch: Salad Nicoise

Trying to be a little healthier these days and one of the best ways of doing this is with packed lunches. I was shifting through my cookbooks and came across this little salad. The original called for a gorgeous char grilled tuna steak with a zingy vinaigrette. However… I had a tin of tuna steak….. So mine went a little like this:

1 Boiled Egg quartered
a small handful of Green Beans
a handful of lettuce leaves
2 anchovies, roughly chopped
Half a tin of tuna steak in spring water, drained
3 small new potatoes, boiled and diced.
1 small tomato quartered

Hold the olives, no thank you sir, I do not want those in my salad!

This was a pretty massive salad, the photo, awful as it is, is after I’d eaten half of it. There was loads of different flavours and textures within the dish which kept it exciting. The only problem is, is that I had no dressing. I don’t like putting it on in the morning because my salad goes all limp. So I was going to get some mayonnaise from uni… but got to the canteen so late they’d put it all away. Oh well! It was a good salad none the less :)

Breakfast :)

Just some malt wheaties, soy milk and half a chopped banana with 2 poached eggs and some winter fruit squash :) yumyumyum!

No. 68: Eggs Baked in Tomatoes – 14.10.12

As most people know, I love Nigel Slater. Every single time I try one of his recipes, I fall in love even further. They are divine. Anyway, in the summer I stumbled across across a copy of his “Real Fast Food”for a quid in a charity shop so snatched it up and took it home with me. I haven’t really had a chance to look through it but last night I wanted something very very simple. I was not in the mood for thinking but needed to try a new recipe and this was perfect. So simple, you defiantly want to get the best quality ingredients for it!

I have no idea how many this serves, I’m going to say 2 baked eggs per person for a nice filling meal. There were no specific quantities so this serves 1

Preheat the oven to 180oC

2 large and I mean LARGE Tomatoes
2 eggs
1 clove of garlic, crushed or minced
Salt and Pepper
2 tbsp double cream
Pinches of any chopped herb of your choice
Sprinkle of Parmesan cheese

• Slice the tomatoes in half horizontally and scoop out the seeds. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and a bit of the crushed garlic.

• Break an egg very carefully into each egg, not letting too much of the egg white into the tomato and season with salt and pepper.

• Spoon over a tablespoon of double cream over each egg, season again with salt and pepper and add a few chopped herbs of your choice! Finish off with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and bake in the preheated over for 15-20minutes until the egg has just set. Serve with a croûton of bread fried till golden in olive oil (optional)

And that, as they say, was that! I say you NEED large tomatoes because I got small/medium ones (there were no large ones in the shop I was in…) and they were disastrous! They fell over, spilled out and bahhhhh it was so annoying! One stayed standing which was fine! I really liked the textures and flavours in this, the sweet soft tomato, the creamy egg (especially from the double cream), the subtle flavours of the herbs, garlic and the sharp salty cheese. I used thyme as I thought it would work nicely with the egg and some basil for the tomato which was delicious! Quick, simple and you can play around with the different herbs you place in it :)

Today’s Lunch! 30.6.12

Poached Egg on a bed of Asparagus omnomnom!

Poached Egg on an English Muffin with my Homemade Hollandaise Sauce

No. 15: Hollandaise Sauce – 4.2.12

Trying to stick with basics here! I know Hollandaise sauce might not seem ‘basic’ but I feel, if you have a decent enough base for your meal as in a sauce or stock, it can change the most boring and plainest of things into the most delicious and divine meal.
I’m always so worried about making sauces which use egg yolks in them as I’m so worried I will over cook it and scramble the eggs or add in the oil or butter in too quickly so it splits. However I keep reminding myself that you need to be fearless in the kitchen so I try my best! This is from “Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic”

Serves 4

For the reduction
1 shallot, peeled and finely chopped
6 tbsp of White wine Vinegar
3 Black Peppercorns
1 Bay Leaf
2 Blades of Mace (I have no idea what this is and had no idea where to get it so I left it out!)

For the Sauce
4 free range egg yolks
a pinch of sea salt
225g hot melted butter
a squeeze of lemon juice

• To make the Reduction! Place all the ingredients for this in a small pan and bring to the boil. Keep boiling and reduce until you have 2 table spoons of liquid left. Strain into a cold bowl! (I put a glass bowl into the fridge whilst making this to keep it cold ).

• In a food processor or a bowl for the majority of us who don’t own a food processor, whiz/whisk the egg yolks together with the salt and pour in half of the reduction.

• If you are using a food processor: Add the hot melted butter in very slowly, 1 teaspoon at a time making sure you whisk well after every addition until half has been used. Your sauce will be pretty thick and creamy looking at this point! Pour the rest in, in a thin stream until it is all combined. If you’re worried about pouring it in too quickly, simply carry on adding the melted butter in 1 teaspoon at a time. :)

• If you are using a bowl and hand balloon whisk: Do the exact same however have your bowl on top of a simmering pan of water, (not a lot of water as we don’t want it to touch the bowl or any water to get into the mixture), just like how you melt chocolate. This is called a Bain-Marie!

• Season with salt, pepper, the remaining reduction if needed and a little lemon juice.

I had to read through the recipe about 10 times before I was confident enough to start! I was so worried it was going to go wrong as at the beginning of this week my Beurre Blanc went tits up!! But luckily it went fine and I made a luscious creamy sauce for my Poached Egg on an English Muffin. I did however, add too much lemon juice at the end which unfortunately, I feel ruined my sauce! I balanced it out a bit with the remaining reduction and it tasted fine! It’s all down to personal taste the seasoning at the end to be honest, but I was very happy with it and it taste gorgeous with the egg I had!

Gizzi Erskine’s Perfect Boiled Eggs

No. 11: Boiled Eggs – 26.1.12

The last of the eggs in ‘Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic’! I haven’t had a boiled egg with soldiers in ages! I always make them for salads but I’ve never made them with a recipe so always end up boiling them for about 10 minutes and getting this horrible black ring around the yolk after cooling it. So this is the last of the basic egg recipes!!

Firstly I brought a pan of salted water to the boil. Yes, you’re probably thinking the same as me and have never boiled an egg in salted water before either but supposedly eggs shells are quite porous so the salt water will season the egg whilst cooking. When it reaches the boil slowly slip the eggs in using a spoon and make sure they are fully submerged in water. It says to use 2 eggs per person. Then boil them for no more and no less than 4 minutes if you want a runny yolk. If you are going to serve them in an egg cup, serve them with the round bottom of the egg facing upwards, this is where the yolk is!

I under cooked my white a little bit which I think was due to the fact my eggs weren’t fully submerged in water….. but the yolks were absolutely delicious. They were so creamy and I ate them with a small slice of plain toast soldiers and a small slice of soldiers with garlic and herb cream cheese. I think Yolks and this cream cheese became best friends today. It was amazing.