String Bean Thoren

The Fiesta has cooked this many times, sometimes to accompany her famous curries (example shown), more often to appease the demands of hungry housemates who quite frankly think it is awesome.

Aromatic, subtly spicy, and fresh, the Thoren is a great example of Keralan cuisine.  I am reliably informed of this by The Fiesta herself, who is allegedly half-indian.

Green beans, cooked to a perfect bite, are always a favourite of mine, and combining this with crunchy mustard seeds and soft coconut works wonders.  The recipe is below; my only suggestion would be to use stock instead of water, omitting the salt.

• 1.5 tbsp sunflower oil
• 0.5 tsp black mustard seeds
• 0.75 tsp chopped ginger
• 1 tbsp chopped green chillies
• 4 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 cup string beans, chopped into lengths of about 2cm
• 0.25 tsp turmeric powder
• 0.75 tsp salt
• 5 tbsp water
• 10 curry leaves
• 0.25 cups grated coconut

1. Fry mustard seeds in sunflower oil until crackling
2. Add ginger, chillies and onion, continue to fry for about 3 minutes
3. Add string beans, turmeric powder, and salt, fry for about 1 minute
4. Add water
5. Cover pan and cook for 3 minutes until the water has evaporated
6. Add curry leaves and coconut, heat through and serve.

Tesco Finest Swiss Milk Chocolate with Caramel Pieces

Aha.  This is where the Swiss thing starts to look up: the introduction of cows and more to the point, milk, to the equation.  This chocolate is a winner.  My only reservation is that it should be approached thinking 'sweet tasty treat involving chocolate' rather than thinking 'this will be chocolate bliss'.  Chocolate plays an accompanying part here, rather than being a stand-alone star.  Indeed, the star of the show is the caramel, first glimpsed in jaggedy shards when the  the chocolate breaks in a slightly crumbling way.

The taste is super-sweet, and actually reminded me of a good egg custard more than anything else.  There is a definite presence of chocolate there so it passes the "if I shut my eyes would I know this was chocolate" test.  This is the kind of delectation where I say "one piece is enough, any more would be far too sickly."  Then I proceed to take my chances with the sickliness.  Enjoyed with restraint, (which The Diver is more capable of doing than I am), it's the childhood joy of too much sugar tweaked to a- slightly- more adult palate.  Rated 8/10.

Tesco Finest 72% Plain Chocolate

The packaging reflects the 'Finest' pedigree due to the silver colour that always reminds me of the scratch-off stuff on scratchcards, but somehow manages to look classy in this context.  The foil around the chocolate is easily torn with a fingernail, a la old kit-kat tv ad, revealing a dark and shiny bar that breaks with a satisfying snap.  It melts smoothly on the tongue, releasing an earthy cocoa flavour that strikes the balance perfectly between acidity, bitterness, and sweetness. Even The Fiesta and The Diver, not normally fans of chocolate this dark came back for seconds of this.

Now this is interesting: the first time I tried this chocolate I thought it would be a contender for at least 9/10.  I bought some more, and it just wasn't as good as I remembered.  What I had thought was perfectly balanced flavours turned out to be actually quite boring.  I'd like to be non-PC here; this chocolate is the gastronomic equivalent of stereotypical Switzerland- efficiently meeting all that it promises to but lacking something in the personality department. Rated 7/10.

MoD Rice

Today: something totally you-can't-buy-this-in-the-shops exclusive.  The lesser spotted Ministry of Defence 'MoD Cooked Rice.'  This was sourced for me by The Adventurer, who spends much of his free time yomping across remote parts of the world in green splodgy clothes, dining quite well it turns out.

He suggested I might like to try it after I complained to him the limitations of my temporary accommodation kitchen which consisted of 1 microwave and 0 other stuff.

The dull label "MoD Cooked Rice" did not deceive me as I could spy some yellow rice mixed with spice within.  The label said boil in the bag- note well people, microwaving in the bag is not be be recommended unless you want a scale model of The Hindenburg in your microwave.  Fortunately I rescued it just in time to prevent an action replay of what happened to the actual Hindenburg.  The better option turned out to be emptying the rice into a bowl, adding a couple of tbsp water, and heating.

The end result is highly impressive: if I was served this in a curry house I would not be disappointed.  The rice is the perfect consistency, none of that strange bite that pre-cooked-pre-packed rice has.  The label states Basmati Rice, maybe that's why the grains stay perfectly separate.  It also contains onion, sunflower oil, salt, ginger puree, some E numbers (which I will gloss over....) and, to add an air of mystery, "spices."

The ginger and onion work well, and some detective work- i.e. eating them- revealed the spices to be cumin seeds and turmeric.  Delicious!

I also have to hand it to the MoD: if they can make yummy food that will last 3 years or more in the pack and still get 7/10, I am sure they can engineer some shit-hot technology to defend the realm.

Asda Milk Chocolate Flavoured Cake Covering

This is rank.  Having purchased it with the intention of using it to coat biscuits I am making for a young friends birthday, I decided to sample a square, in the interests of, er, let's be honest here, it was calling to me.
 I crumbled off a bit, put it in my mouth and eeeew icky ick! My mouth was filled with gritty greasy vaguely chocolate-flavoured (hey, it does what it says on the tin) slime, which after I had forced myself to swallow it, left a very synthetic aftertaste.  In the interests of gaining a full description for you, dear reader, I forced myself to attempt a second square and I actually had to spit it in the bin, it was so bad.  Yes me, spit chocolate, in the bin. I want to save anyone else from a similar fate, or from defacing their beautiful homemade cake with this travesty.

Looking at the information on the back I can see it contains sugar, fat, and a whole 6% of it is reduced fat (yeah good one when you've used that amount of fat already) cocoa powder.

I will keep you posted about the biscuits and which chocolate I end up using.  I predict awesomeness.

The Ship Inn, Lymington

At the end of a long day, and a too-long time, at the dayjob, what greater pleasure could there be than meeting up with a friend for dinner?  That is exactly what The Smiler and I did a couple of weeks ago.

I've been The Ship Inn before, and was keen to return for a second
visit.  Although it was empty when we arrived- yes, 6pm is the end of a long day if you start it early enough!- it did not feel soulless like some places can.  It would be classed as a gastropub but somehow manages to avoid the cliches; it has the feel of a very laid back restaurant, and despite the obvious nautical theming, pulls it off without resorting to kitschness or ending up plain tacky.

The menus are always fun to read and agony to chose from- everything from fresh seafood to steaks and pubgrub.

The Smiler decided that the homemade tortillas accompanying the Chili Con Carne were too good to resist, and they did not disappoint.  Her choice made me hanker after autumnal foods, and because I had resolved to order seafood in a coastal town, after lots of deliberation I chose the smoked haddock risotto.  This came with a poached egg and shaved parmesan on top and was wonderful.

I'll let you into a secret: I'm not a huge egg fan, spent 10 years of my life avoiding them, and only now am I beginning to start to appreciate them.  So the fact that this dish was a hit with me even when topped with a poached egg shows just how good it was.

Risotto and smoked haddock are both wonderful comfort foods, in fact poached smoked haddock is such a comfort food that it has been known to cure a hangover for me.  On this occasion however there was no hangover, just succulent chunks of haddock amidst creamy risotto.  The poached egg yolk poured out adding richness to the rice and adding a subtle flavour to the rice base.

Overall it was gorgeous; one I will be trying at home, and although the portion seemed small, like all risotto it was perfectly filling.

                                                                               http://www.theshiplymington.co.uk/

           

Pizza a la Bond and Jones

Last Wednesday I was invited to dinner with Bond and Jones.  Jones has been a workmate of mine for the last 8 weeks, and although the nature of the dayjob means I am now off to pastures new, I will be staying in touch with Jones.  Not least because she can turn out an amazingly good homemade pizza.  Bond is her fiance, and it was lovely to meet him after hearing so much about him.

I will be asking for the recipe and posting it on here in due course.  Even better for the tall tales of provenance, I believe the recipe is actually from Jones' mother.

It involves handmade dough, which is briefly cooked in the oven before toppings are added.  Bond and Jones assures me this gives a crispier finish, although this could also be down to the special pizza pan it was cooked in... I will know once I have tried to bake it in the absence of a special pan.

I helped out with assembling the topping.  We put on tomatoes, pepperoni, basil, feta and cheddar, then baked it.

We ate it with Wairau Cove Sauvignon Blanc which I have already written about- I'm pleased to say that it met with the approval of the hostess and host.

The verdict? 8/10.  I need the extra 2 points for when I start playing around with topping combos.  It came out of the oven crisp (as promised), but the base retained some chewy stodginess (in a great way, believe me).  The toppings were good, and the way the cheddar made a browned crust over the softened feta was quite something.  The feta also stopped the cheddar/meat fat fest from becoming too overpowering.  I don't think it took much longer to do than a packaged pizza, and assuming a well-stocked store cupboard, it would make a great store cupboard meal.  I'll update on my own attempts at this one!

Wairau Cove

Exciting times!  The first 9/10 on the blog.

A gorgeous Sauvignon Blanc that The Cyclist brought over for dinner with myself and The Fiesta.  Wairau Cove Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough New Zealand, 2008.  "Incredibly vibrant" says the label. I say quite sweet for the genre but gorgoeus tropical fruit flavours, maybe some lychee in there too.  Less of the almost metallic taste that can characterise Sauvignon Blancs, and the extra sweetness adds a bit more oopmh that means this wine has a bit more scope for pairing with autumnal food.  We had Cottage Pie; not a planned combination, nor even a great one, but it worked, and to be honest we'd enjoyed a lot of the bottle before eating!

I later discovered it was on offer at Tesco (The Cyclist is an intelligent one too!) and stocked up.  I took a bottle for dinner with Bond and Jones, more details about that in a later post.

Prego Rolls and lemon peel in steak marinade

The Diver prepared some Prego Rolls for a recent lunch. 

I will track down and post the exact recipe, but the marinade for the steak involved garlic, red chilli, lemon juice and lemon peel.  The steak is fried then removed from the pan and kept warm while the the bits from the marinade are fried.

The roll is then composed as shown in the old-school cross section diagram below, plus a photo of the sad view that results when greed overcomes the needs of this blog.

Ciabatta Roll

Black Pepper

Rocket

Vine Tomato

Peppadew Pepper

Gravy

Fried bits of marinade

Steak

Butter

Ciabatta Roll

So, basically a steak sandwich, but what elevated it to bloggability was the genius of the marinade.  The combination of garlic and chilli is always a winner; it was the lemon that surprised me with how much it added to the taste. 

Within the roll there are two types of flavours: the warmth of the steak/garlic/chilli/tomato/pepper/gravy flavours, and the summer time freshness of the rocket, tomato, and fresh bread.  The success of mixing these two flavour groups while still being able to taste each one independently lay in the use of lemon peel. The oils in the lemon peel helped the lemon flavour to meld with the butter, which drew the lemon freshness and summer flavours into the richness of the butter and the warmer flavours.  It has to be tried to understand just how good this is.

It rates 8/10, had the ciabatta been heated it would be an easy 9/10.

I'd like to try this marinade with lime peel and juice instead of lemon; I think it would add a more oriental flavour, the best bread and salad ingredients for this one will take some thought.

The Chocolate Apothecary

Last weekend The Diver and I decided to do some exploraration on the Isle of Wight. A failure on both of our parts to grasp the finer principles of using a bus service led to an unexpected visit to Ryde.

Here we discovered 'The Chocolate Apothecary', a very promising looking wood panelled cavern lined with chocolate displays and a sign proclaiming "I'd give up chocolate but I'm no quitter."



http://www.chocolateapothecary.co.uk/index.html

Although the cafe looked a good place for hot chocolates etc we were ultimately in search of a lunch destination, so we settled for some chocolates to take away.


Here is what we got and the verdicts:

Salted Caramel- too fragile and gooey to go in a bad, these cups of golden goo had to eaten straight away (of course this was a hardship!) A nibble on the beautiful dark and white chocolate cup revealed the distressing cardboardy taste of inferior chocolate. The caramel itself tasted exactly like manjar- this is a Chilean version of the Argentine favourite Dulce de leche, also known as banoffee toffee. While this was tasty, it was too sickly and did not have the subtlety of flavours I would expect from caramel.

43% Ghanian Chocolate truffles- The filling hit a good balance between sweetness and cocoa depth, was was marred again by the chocolate cup it came in; the excellent quality of the filling only highlighted the disappointment of the cup.

Hazelnut Praline Cups- the praline was very liquid, actually more like a thick syrup, and more translucent than would be expected from a classic praline. This meant the texture did not have that smooth crumble-richness I love so much, while the taste was something like a suary nutella. It also came in a chocolate cup which I have discussed above.

In summary, it rates at 5/10. The idea and shop front are great, but with the prices they charge they should definitely consider either enclosing chocolates in a thicker cup of better quality chocolate, or in paper cases. The possible small drop in aesthetic value would be far outweighed by allowing their fillings to shine, especially if that salted caramel is made more grown up.