SALTED CARAMEL PEANUT BROWNIES- by Andy Bates

If you read my blog, you'll know I was sent Andy Bates new cook book to review, and try some recipes from. I literally have hardly been able to put the book down, and have already cooked several recipes from it. The chorizo sausage rolls are incredible, and the belly of pork with creamed beans is pretty good too, but so far, my favorite recipe is this one. I do like a good brownie, and these are almost better than my boozy prune brownies - http://alittlelusciousness.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/chocolate-rum-brownies.html !!

I doubled the mixture stated in the book, as I knew they wouldn't last long, but this is the recipe with Andy's quantities. I was also lucky enough to have been given a jar of real, proper French dulce de leche just before I made these, but if you can't find dulce de leche, a tin of condensed milk will become dulce de leche (caramel) if you cover it with water and boil for 3 hours. Make sure you allow to cool before opening!

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FOOD FOR/AFTER A TUMMY BUG - BROTH AND COCO WATER

There's a horrible tummy bug going round, as there normally is at this time of year, and my boyfriend was struck down with said bug at about 1am on Monday. A visit to the doctors on Monday morning was pretty unhelpful - the doctor said "It's ok, the human body can survive without food for a month" - seeing as I think it's up to a month, and then you die, not very helpful info, doc! 

Dioralyte was the only thing he could recommend, but the ingredients list of Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Glucose and Disodium Hydrogen Citrate didn't sound too appealing. So after an afternoon's sleep, I knew he would need something to replace all the salts and sugars he'd lost over the last 18 hours.

In order to get the potassium (brilliant for getting the body over dehydration) and sugars back into him that he needed to rehydrate, I picked up a (pint) can of coconut water. This went down a treat, drunk in small sips.

Next thing needed was the salts he'd lost. I read a bit on the internet about cures for tummy problems, and fennel tea, and ginger were often mentioned. Chicken soup has always been used to encourage a speedier recovery from these kind of things, so I decided to make a clear broth, incorporating all the stomach healing ingredients I'd read about. Here's what I made:

CHICKEN BROTH WITH FENNEL, LEMON AND GINGER

Serves 3

1 litre of chicken stock (I had some of my own stock frozen so used this)
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger
1 clove of garlic
Juice & peel of 1 lemon (try to peel this off in wide strips, like how you'd peel an apple)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 nest of egg noodle per person
1 spring onion

Put the chicken stock, fennel seeds, grated ginger, a small bit of grated garlic (I used a third of a clove) and lemon peel into a saucepan and bring up to a slow simmer. Add the soy sauce. Taste and adjust quantities of any of the ingredients, but you want a nice broth, not a strong overpowering flavour of anything.

Whilst the broth is simmering, boil a kettle and pour the boiling water over the noodle nests and cook as per packet instructions (mine were to boil the noodles for 3 minutes).

Remove the cooked noodles and drain the water. Place a small amount of noodles in each bowl. Once the broth has simmered for around 10 minutes, squeeze in a small amount of the lemon juice, remove from the heat, and sieve onto the bowls of noodles. Add a small amount of finely chopped spring onion and serve.

You can omit the noodles, depending on how well the patient feels! Mine needed a bit of energy so I served it with noodles, and it went down very well. He's now very much on the road to recovery!

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ANDY BATES - WIN HIS NEW COOKBOOK!

I have recently been sent a couple of copies of Andy Bates’ (AKA The Pie Man) new cook book – Modern Twists on Classic Dishes. One is for me, to cook up some of the super tasty recipes, and tell you all about them, and I have another copy to send to one of you!

Andy Bates has been busy recently – he is of Pie Man fame, known for the pastries, pies and scotch eggs he makes and sells at Whitecross Street Market in London but has also written a fantastic cook book and is starring in a series documenting the street food scene across America - Andy Bates American Street Feasts. This is a great show, and Andy is a wonderfully charismatic presenter. You can see he has a real, genuine interest in what he presents. The shows are split between him visiting popular street food vendors and cooking up recipes inspired by what he has seen and tasted. The shows aired every weekday on the Food Network channel and you can watch them on catch up at http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/tv-shows/andy-bates-american-street-feasts.html. As well as previous episodes, there is an interactive street food map on the website where you can look for places to eat, or tell others about street food vendors you have discovered in the UK

Recipes from some of the shows feature in Andy's cook book, including Salted peanut chocolate brownies (blog testing this recipe to follow soon), Braised Pork Belly and Walforf Salad Pretzel, Chicken and Mussels in Cider with Baby Gem lettuce, Black Pudding Scotch Egg, Honey Cheesecake and much, much more. The book is a lovely mixture of inspiring recipes, and short stories about Andy’s love of particular foods, and history of where the recipes came from. Modern Twists on Classic dishes is available from WH Smith, Waterstones, Amazon and independent book stores throughout the UK.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning your free copy from me, is leave a comment below, telling me about your favorite place for Street Food in the UK.

Competition closes this Friday!

Good luck!

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WINTER WARMER - FIERY PUMPKIN SOUP

We are having a mini halloween/firework feast this year, and because we are doing it on a Friday I have been planning a menu that I can cook the night before, ready to heat through when I get home from work on the Friday. I definitely want to serve a soup, that everyone can help themselves to and bring outside to watch the firework display. I have tried a few different flavour combinations but this was the best, and it includes pumpkin, so I can use up the flesh carved out from our ghoulish pumpkins!

This soup is cooked for 4 hours, so be aware of this if you're thinking of just knocking it up for dinner after work - it's best made when you have some time to wait for it to cook - make lots and freeze the rest in batches. You can also do this in a slow cooker, but cook it for 6 hours on the slow setting.

Makes enough for about 8 people, or 4 batches for 2.

FOR THE SOUP
2 large, white onions
800g pumpkin flesh
1 celeriac
500g carrots
1 bunch of celery
1 head of garlic
3 red chillies
2 litres of chicken stock
4 bay leaves
Salt and pepper

TO ADD
1 slice of bresola per bowl of soup
Creme fraiche
Chives, parsley or mint
Red chilli

Preheat the oven to the lowest gas mark (around 130-140 degrees C), or if you are using a slow cooker, turn it on and set it to it's lowest temperature. Get a large casserole dish or saucepan with a lid ready.

Peel, and chop the onions, pumpkin, celeriac and carrots into large chunky pieces. Pop them all in your pan. Wash and chop the celery and add to the pan, with the peeled garlic cloves and chopped red chillies. Add the bay leaves and stock, and season. If you are using stock cubes, then do not add salt at this point. Wait until it is cooked, then taste and add salt if required.

Place the pan on the hob and heat until the stock starts to boil. Put the lid on the pan, and place the whole thing in the oven, or slow cooker. Leave to cook for 4 hours.

After 4 hours, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Once cooled, spoon the mixture into the blender and blend in batches. Return all blended soup to one bowl and mix. Taste the soup and adjust seasoning if needed.

Spoon the soup into bowls, and top each bowl with some bresola, chopped into cm slices, a dollop of creme fraiche, some chopped fresh herbs of your choice and a few rings of sliced red chilli (or some chilli sauce).

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PICANTE MEXICAN GRILL - A HIDDEN GEM

I do love a good Mexican, and there are several restaurants and street food venues in Soho that I used to frequent for a lunchtime burrito, but I recently stumbled across somewhere that tops them all. This little gem seats about 12 people (they serve many more with take away which can be pre ordered to pick up on arrival), and is hidden away somewhere between Victoria and Westminster Cathedral.

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PALE ALE ONION GRAVY

It's a pretty easy one, but onion gravy lifts a simple supper to a new level. If you've got some nice sausages and some onions and potatoes, then this meal is great way to end a long day.

This recipe really is very easy, it just takes some time to allow it to be as delicious as it should! This makes enough for about 6 people (or 4 hungry people).

3 large onions
3 cloves of garlic
Butter
Olive oil
1 500ml bottle of pale ale
Worcester sauce
1 bay leaf
150ml vegetable stock
1 tsp dijon mustard

Chop (or slice in the magimix) the onions. They need to be as thin as possible, which is why I slice them in the magimix. This also reduces eye pain whilst onion chopping! If you don't have a magimix you can slice them with a knife or use a mandoline. Crush the cloves of garlic. Heat a large, deep frying pan over a very low heat. Add a knob of butter and a small drizzle of olive oil, then all the sliced onions and crushed garlic. The onions need to cook like this for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. This may seem like a ridiculously long time, but the onions need to cook really slowly, and by doing so, they will become soft, golden and sweet.

Once the onions have turned the colour of toasted white bread, add the bottle of pale ale, a splash of Worcester sauce (I couldn't find this last time so used Mushroom ketchup which was equally as yummy) and a bay leaf to the pan. Turn the heat up to medium, and bubble the ale away so that all the alcohol burns off. Once the sauce has reduced by half, add 150ml of meat or vegetable stock, a teaspoon of dijon mustard and salt and pepper. Cook for a further 5-10 minutes until the sauce has thickened.

If the sauce has not thickened as much as you'd like, scoop out a small amount of the juice from the pan in a mug, and add a spoonful of flour to the juice in the mug. Stir until there are no lumps, and pour back into the sauce.

Serve with sausages, greens and buttery mashed potato.

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COOKING WITH JAMES MARTIN

Last week I received a very exciting invitation for a cooking event with Saturday Kitchen's very own James Martin. I'm used to my interactions with James Martin being via a TV screen whilst I am still in pyjama mode, so it was a real treat to get dressed and head over to the wonderful cooking school, Food at 52, just off Old Street in East London to meet the man himself and hopefully pick up a few tricks of the trade.

The day was arranged by the lovely people at Thomas Cook, whose in-flights meals James Martin has recently designed. The day was split into two parts, with the morning spent cooking our 3 course lunch under James' watchful eye, and the afternoon being a 6 course cooking demonstration given by James, which I unfortunately had to miss.

There were 12 of us at the event, an equal split of enthusiastic food bloggers, and Thomas Cook marketing staff. We got aproned up and took our places around a long table, with James at one end, instructing and helping us. We prepped all the ingredients for the three course lunch, which was Thai Crab Risotto, followed by smoked haddock Rarebit, and a chocolate pudding for desert. It was really good fun to get involved with all the food prep and pick up some cooking tips from James (for example, I learnt that when using tomato puree in a recipe, it should always be added at the start of cooking to give it time to cook through and reduce any bitter taste). He also talked us through how to get all the meat out of a crab for his delicious risotto.

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GOD SAVE THE CLAM

River pageants, concerts and tourists will fill London's streets, rivers and parks this weekend. But you'll find me at God Save The Clam. A rooftop pop-up event in East London hosting a very British spin-off of the traditionally American Clam Bake - bringing together two of London's most in demand food pop-ups: barbecue wonders, Pitt Cue Co, and seafood masters Rock Lobsta.

A £40 ticket, purchased in advance, will get you: a couple of drinks, a starter of Pitt Cue Links, followed by Clams, cockles, mussels, devilled crayfish & crab claws, sea beets & samphire - steamed over seaweed & charcoal, Cornish Early Potatoes in Smoked Dripping, House Sausage, BBQ leeks, BBQ Corn & Grilled Sour Sough (OH MY GOSH!), and a choice of sundaes for pudding - if you have any room left!

Tickets for the £40 meal (lunch and supper sittings running from Thursday evening until Sunday evening) are running out fast, so get yours at www.godsavetheclam.co.uk. 

And if you don't want to come for a sit down meal, it's free entry to the rooftop Shack Snack Bar, open all day from Friday, where they'll be serving cocktails, beer and wine, as well as lobster corn dogs, Po Boy sandwiches and lobster popcorn.

Follow God Save The Clam on Twitter @godsavetheclam and find them on the Rooftop of The Emigre Studios, 274 Richmond Road, E8 3QW this weekend!

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PIZZA PILGRIMS

Street food is more popular now than it's ever been. Night food street market, Street Feast, which I have yet to visit, leads the way with it's Friday night feasts off Brick Lane. But not far behind is Berwick Street, Soho, whose offerings seem to increase by the week. I'm lucky enough to work close by and have long been a fan of Freebird Burritos, who get it spot on with steak, carnitas (pulled pork), chicken and veggie burritos, however, they have now got some serious competition. Not only is there fresh Vietnamese rolls, there's a falafel stand, Mediterranean salad stall, Thai and Moroccan.

But my newest favorite lunch from Berwick Street is the pizza from Pizza Pilgrims - fresh pizzas cooked in the back of a tiny van, that I'm sure must have to be towed to the site! It's so small, it's amazing it can produce pizzas, let alone ones of such quality - it definitely cannot be roadworthy! 

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THE LAUGHING STOCK

Underbelly festival has returned to London again recently for 2 months of spectacular shows. I hadn't been before but eventually made it down there a couple of weeks ago to watch Shlomo's incredible Vocal Orchestra - an hour of aural entertainment from 7 very talented vocalist beatboxers.

Situated in an area of Jubilee Gardens, an inflatable purple cow hosts the majority of the performances, while surrounding benches, stools and mini marquees make up the Magners mushroom areas. 

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BEETROOT HORSERADISH MASH

This magic mash is fantastic. I first tried it when my boyfriend's sister in law cooked it for us when we went round for roast lunch. It tasted so good, I couldn't wait to try it again. It is so simple to make, and works wonderfully with roast chicken or beef, but equally as well cold, with oily fish, such as mackerel, for lunch.

This makes enough for 6-8 people.

5 beetroots
1 swede
1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock
2 tbsp creamed horseradish
Handful parsley

Wash and halve the beetroots. Peel the swede and chop into large chunks. Add the beetroot halves and the swede chunks to a pan of boiling vegetable stock and cook for 45-60 mins, until both the beetroot and swede feel soft when cut with a knife. Drain the vegetables, and carefully peel the beetroot. The skin should come off very easily.

Return the beetroot to the pan with the swede and stir in the creamed horseradish. Mash all of it together, add salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle with parsley, and eat with whatever you have available! It is such a vibrant colour, looks stunning on the plate, and tastes even better.

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BLUE CHEESE BURGERS with ROAST PEPPER SALSA

After a recent visit to Ealing Farmers Market, I came home laden with meat! Most of it went in the freezer, including some great steak mince from Boarstall Meats in Buckinghamshire. Ealing Farmers Market runs from 9am - 1pm every Saturday, and I like my lazy weekend mornings, so if I do make it, I pretty much always get there for the last half hour - the best time for deals - 300g of steak mince only cost £2!

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