Untitled

[justmigrate]

Hi,

I just moved my posts from Posterous! Do go though my blog for all the new posts.

Its easy to migrate try JustMigrate

3Crumbs app - Are you the local thrifter we all have been looking for? 

[justmigrate]

Hi,

I just moved my posts from Posterous! Do go though my blog for all the new posts.

Its easy to migrate try JustMigrate

3Crumbs app - Are you the local thrifter we all have been looking for? 

[ellypear]

Hello. So, Posterous is soon to die out and I need a new space to share stuff. I think Tumblr may suit me well. Let's go.

[ellypear]

The Basement at The Runcible Spoon, Bristol August 9th - 12th 2012

Check out our new website for all the latest from The Basement... http://thebasementbristol.blogspot.co.uk/

We have muchos important and very exciting news.

The Basement is taking over an actual restaurant. That's right, your ears do not deceive you!

On Thursday 9th, Friday 10th, Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th August we will be 'borrowing' The Runcible Spoon in Bristol's Stokes Croft, while they all have a well deserved holiday.

It's going to work like this...

Thursday 9th - Friday 10th August - Evenings We will be open in the evening only from 7pm. We'll be taking bookings for both these nights via email only (So please do not contact the Runcible Spoon directly). We will also be leaving some tables unreserved for people who want to come down on the night.

Oh, and we won't be serving up our regular style tasting menu, but instead will be offering the following menu a la carte (oooh posh) with every dish priced individually, so you want double portions of our rarebit? We say, go for it. 

Here's what we'll be serving over both nights; Starters

Oat Crusted Cornish Mackerel with Piccalilli Salad - £5.50

Homewood Ewe's Curd and Hot Pickled Vegetable Salad - £5.50

Pea and Mint Soup with Keen's Cheddar Toast - £4.50

Mains

Slow Roast Shoulder of Free Range Pork with Mash and Green Sauce - £11.00

Roast Fennel, Sauteed Potatoes, Poached Egg and Shallot Puree - £10.00

Pudding

Lemon and Rosemary Posset Crumble with Italian Meringue - £5.00

Chocolate and Stout Mousse with Salted Caramel Crumbs - £4.50

Savoury

Gorwydd Caerphilly, Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout and Bertinet Sourdough Rarebit -  £4.00

************************************************

Important - We won't be offering a BYO option as usual. For a change, we can actually offer a drinks menu. Wine, Beer, Cider and Soft Drinks will all be available at very reasonable prices.

Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th - All Day Menu We'll be open from 11am till early evening, serving an all day menu, think proper Bacon Sandwiches, our take on the Momofuku Volcano, Small Plates, Brunch dishes and Elly's famous Butterscotch and Chocolate Brownies. Basically we'll be cooking stuff we like, and hopefully you will too. We'll be taking bookings at lunchtime on both days, but we will also be leaving some tables unreserved for people who want to come down throughout the weekend.

In order to book on any of the days, please email us ([email protected])with the following information:-

How many people you'd like to book for. The day and the time you'd like to come. A Contact Telephone Number.

We'll then contact you to confirm .

Mwah Mwah Dan & Elly

[ellypear]

Spain - A Porky Minefield

Dan explains what you actually get if you order 'Aubergine in Manzanilla' in Sanlucar...

Download Video:

[ellypear]

Kitchenaid v Magimix and The Best Chocolate Icing In The World

I'm writing this recipe up quickly before I forget. This really is the most delicious chocolate icing I've ever tasted.

I found the original recipe on this blog* while I was looking for a spiced chocolate cake recipe for a job. I was going to be making four different kinds of cake and had already picked out three buttercream recipes for the other cakes. I thought this cream cheese (and butter!) based icing would be great for the fourth cake.

After surviving without any sort of mixer at home or at the cafe for years and doing everything by hand, I now have a Magimix at home which has just been joined by a KitchenAid that Dan bought last week. It's mixer madness. I'd made all four batches of cake in the Kitchenaid during the morning but was unsure which bit of kit would be best for the buttercreams. I turned to Twitter for advice, as I so often do. Within minutes I'd got replies, including a very specific and useful answer from @TuHwntirBont (any guesses on the pronunciation of that one?? Or the town where they are - Llanrwst?!) who are are an award winning tearoom in North Wales. They helpfully told me;

'I use a Kitchenaid for all my buttercreams except the cream cheese frosting which is much better done in the Magimix'

There was a bit of a false start where I forgot what I was doing for a moment (I'd been baking for hours, gimme a break!) and started the icing off in the Kitchenaid. It went lumpy, full of unblended chunks of butter. Not good enough. I followed @TuHwntirBont's advice and ended up tipping the whole lot into the Magimix. I blitzed it for a minute or so with the blade attachment fitted and ended up with the silkiest, most amazing icing I've ever made. 

So, there you go. How to make awesome icing. Half in the Kitchenaid, half in the Magimix! Or, just in the Magimix. Or, like I managed for 30 years, by hand (although you won't get that silky quality, it will still taste fantastic).

*I have Anglicized the ingredients, converted all the quantities into metric and upped the vanilla quota.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing (enough to ice 24 cupcakes generously)

225g butter, softened

450g cream cheese

2 tsp vanilla essence

Seeds of 1 vanilla pod (stick the empty pod skin in a jar of sugar to make homemade vanilla sugar)

750g Icing sugar

120g cocoa powder

Blend the cream cheese with the butter until well blended and smooth. Add the vanilla essence and seeds. Mix. Add the icing sugar and cocoa powder and mix well until smooth.

[ellypear]

My cookery demo at Love Food Fest

I wrote a massive long post, with all the recipes from the demo and everything, and I lost it all. So, for now, here's some pics and the rest will follow.

Oh, and if anybody else says I should have saved it, I'll scream. Ta.

Thanks to Dan for all the help and the pics x

[ellypear]

A taste of Istanbul - Kaymak

I first became aware of kaymak while doing a bit (a lot) of research before we left for Istanbul. I was trawling the Istanbul Eats website and found an article about a traditional Turkish dish that was written with such passion and desire, I was sure this was something I couldn't miss. They descibe Kaymak as a 'delicious Turkish version of clotted cream' and go on to say that it 'is the only food served in heaven, where angels in white robes dish out plate after plate of the cloudlike stuff to the dearly departed, who no longer have to worry about cholesterol counts and visits to the cardiologist.' How could I resist?

Before our trip, I looked up some of the places Istanbul Eats listed as their favourite spots to try this sublime creation. The comments under their post made me think that Istanbul's winding streets, partnered with my horrendous sense of direction would mean I had no chance at all of finding either of these addresses. How could I get so near but so far? I couldn't possibly come to Istanbul and miss out on trying the classic Turkish combo of kaymak served with honey and crusty white bread. As soon as I knew this dish existed I had to find a way of sampling what they described as 'one of the finest breakfasts anywhere'.

We had arranged to join the Istanbul Eats walking and eating tour on the second day of our holiday. A wonderful seven hours full of sampling many, many delights started with one of the most memorable breakfasts of my life.

Hardly without us noticing, our tour guide Angelis gathered bits and pieces from various market and street stalls as he lead us round, chatting and describing as he walked, the five of us following behind him like devoted fans, hanging off his every word, mouths slightly open and ready to recieve any tidbits he handed out. A bag of olives here, some cheese there. A bag of simit (Turkish sesame 'bagels'), his bag was filling up and we didn't even know it.

We'd been told to arrive hungry and we soon discovered why. Angelis led us down an alleyway and into a 'han' - the large warehouse / storage spaces that form a part of the markets of Istanbul. Here we arrived at a desk papered with a newspaper tablecloth and surrounded by stools. We were invited to sit and soon the cay man arrived and we were offered tea or coffee. Angelis started to unpack his stash and lay it out in the table. Bags were ripped open and dotted around. A plate was then placed in the middle of the table, a pool of honey cascading over the creamy contours of the kaymak. Everything else blurred into nothing as I realised I was going to be able to try this fabled stuff at last. 

I tore a chunk from the sesame simit and dragged it through the kaymak and honey. The toasted, nutty taste of the bread with the thick, creamy, sweet mixture was incredible. Utter joy mixed with mild panic when I realised this was like nothing I'd ever tasted before and was sure to be hard to find away from Turkey.  

We ate it a few more times during our stay and as we neared the end of our holiday I started to wonder whether I could get hold of it back in England. A quick Google and I came across details of a shop that apparently stocks it - The Turkish Food Centre in east London. I promised myself I would seek it out as soon as possible. I also started looking into how easy it would be to make. Kaymak, like so many of the good things in life, is wonderfully simple. It is made from milk (or some recipes list milk and cream) – preferably from domesticated water buffaloes, known as “manda” in Turkish – which is slowly boiled (we're talking all day - about eight hours). After chilling, a thick layer of very rich, pure white cream forms at the top and this is the kaymak. I can only describe it's consistency as similar to clotted cream, but a little more liquid. Perhaps like Greek yogurt mixed with clotted cream? It's also not as rich or sweet as clotted cream, but it's definitely not salty. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water, but it's very hard to describe. Will it be as hard to produce? I intend to find out. Stay tuned!

  Thanks to @EssexEating for the first two photos

[ellypear]

The çay sellers of Istanbul

No disposable paper cups with plastic lids here... Small glasses of tea are distributed from small kiosks dotted throughout the souks and delivered to stall holders in the markets of Istanbul by men carrying large, handled metal trays.

[ellypear]

Banana and Oat Bars

These bars are wheat free, vegan and sugar free but amazingly, still taste fantastic. Weird, huh?

I've added toasted hazelnuts, dried cranberries and chunks of chocolate to the mix in the past. All worked very well. Have a play about...

  200g Jumbo oats

60g Ground almonds

30g  Desiccated coconut

Half tsp Fine sea salt

75g Raisins

100ml Apple juice

4 Very ripe bananas

Half tsp vanilla extract

6 tbsp Olive Oil

  Preheat the oven to 180C.

Grease a 20cm square, 5cm deep tin with a little oil. 

Put the raisins in a small bowl and pour the apple juice over. Set aside to soak up the juice.

Mix the oats with the ground almonds, coconut and salt.

In food processor or using a stick blender, mix the bananas, vanilla and olive oil into a smoothish paste, leaving some small chunks of banana.

Combine the oat mix with the banana mix and add the juice soaked raisins, along with the juice itself.

Mix well.

Pour into the tin, level the surface and bake for about 25 minutes until firm and light brown. Cover with foil for the last ten minutes  if it's getting too brown.

Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes then leave to cool completely on a wire rack. 

Cut into 12 slices (2 x 6)

  This keeps very well in an airtight tin for up to five days.

[ellypear]

New Pop Up Bakery in Bristol!

Open 8am til 2pm, Monday to Friday in the old Sofa Riot building (junction of Stokes Croft and Nine Tree Hill)

[ellypear]

Saturday brunch at The Runcible Spoon

After an absolutely perfect Sunday lunch at The 'Spoon a fortnight ago, we woke up on Saturday morning and the first thing Dan said to me was "I want to go for breakfast at The Runcible Spoon today". I had to agree.

The All day, every Saturday breakfast is a thing of beauty. Two options (meat or veggie), both include a pot of tea or coffee and are ridiculously good value at £6.50 for the meat and £5.50 for the veggie.

Dan's breakfast consisted of fried egg, homemade sourdough toast, tomato, black pudding, sausage, homemade baked beans, bacon, mushrooms and fried potatoes. Instead of the three meaty components, I got sautéed kale and a pumpkin mash (and a £1 reduction!). I'd never considered kale or pumpkin to have a rightful place on a breakfast plate but as 'breakfast' at The Spoon doesn't serve til 1200, it's really brunch (or even lunch?) and anyhow, they were both delicious so I don't care.

Every element was spot on. Not a single point of complaint from either of us. Dan's eternal struggle with being given a leek and pork sausage at breakfast (and I quote "there's no place for a leek sausage at breakfast. It is not a breakfast sausage") enjoyed a beautiful respite, thank goodness. I've seen entire days wrecked after someone's placed the Wrong Sausage on his plate. It was, therefore, as much of a relief for me as him when the banger on Saturday was mercifully leek free.

We had a pot of Extract coffee and a pot of peppermint tea, a big dollop of homemade ketchup and a leisurely hour flicking through the cookbooks on the shelf (they've got some we haven't! Shock!). I feel very lucky to have such a great place so close to home. It really is wonderful. They never lets us down and at breakfast, lunch and supper, The Runcible Spoon keeps proving how bloody well they can cook.

[ellypear]

Their spelling may be a bit off, but their Sunday lunch is SPOT ON

Oh, The Runcible Spoon, how we love you.

A stumble out of our flat, into your warm and cosy basement. Free (gin) bloody marys. The papers. A brilliant and mercifully short menu. Perfect food. 3 courses for £16. A short stumble home to snooze on the sofa. Lush. @runciblespoon1 www.the-runcible-spoon.com 0117 3297645 3 Nine Tree Hill Stokes Croft Bristol BS1

[ellypear]

Beetroot and Yogurt dip and Thyme crackers

I'm loathe to admit it, but despite the 100s of cookbooks we have at home, often when I have an idea about something I want to make, I tend to Google it and see if it's been done before. This is not due to some ridiculous aspiration to produce solely original recipes, it's so I can see if someone I respect has cooked it and to see how they've approached the idea. This process usually repeats about four or five times until I shut my laptop, process and amalgamate everything I've read and set to it. The resulting dish will be a mix of all these ideas, and my own.

  There are certain web pages I'll ignore (very often message boards with no quality control) and also certain chefs and sites who I trust. I find myself drawn to http://www.taste.com.au regularly (Their 'How to' pages are excellent but don't forget their seasons in Oz are opposite to ours, so their 'what's in season in October?' page is full of spring produce!) and I always look out for recipes by those chefs who I know really know what they're talking about.

  This weekend, we'd decided to make a creamy beetroot dip (my own recipe) and thought a thyme flavoured cracker would work well. When I came across a Martha Stewart recipe, I put all thoughts of Martha banged up in jail to one side and deemed her trustworthy enough to use her recipe. It was brilliant, delicious and simple to make, so here it is (I have Anglicized the recipe and changed the technique for cutting the crackers after making three messy batches and one perfect one!)

  Thyme Crackers (makes about 70)

130g plain flour, plus more for work surface

3 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh thyme, plus small sprigs for garnish

Maldon salt

1 teaspoon caster sugar

45g cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

240ml double cream

1 large egg white, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 190C. Pulse the flour, thyme, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and sugar in a food processor until combined. Add butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. With machine running, add cream; process until dough forms.

On a lightly floured surface, briefly knead dough. Divide into 4 pieces; shape into rectangles. Wrap each in clingfilm; refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out 1 piece of dough into a very thin rectangle (you want it as thin as if you were making pasta, i.e about 1 to 2mm thick). Transfer to a (ungreased) baking sheet. Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry in half and then into inch wide strips. Go all the way through to the baking sheet but do not move/separate the strips out. Brush with egg white, and sprinkle with salt. Garnish each diamond with a thyme sprig. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bake until golden brown and crisp, about 15 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Serve. You can keep in an airtight container for a day or so, but I think they're best fresh and crisp.

  Beetroot and Yoghurt Dip (makes about 6 ramekins full)

2 x 250g packs of cooked vac-pac beetroot (not in vinegar!), drained over the sink

250g Greek style yoghurt

4 drops Tabasco

2 large pinches smoked Maldon salt

Lots of black pepper

Juice of half a lemon

To serve - thyme leaves, good olive oil, smoked salt

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blitz for quite a while until really, really smooth. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, pepper, Tabasco or lemon juice as needed.

Pour into ramekins, cover and put in fridge intil you're ready to serve.

Remove a little while before serving and dribble some really good, fruity olive oil onto the surface of the dip, along with some thyme leaves and a little more smoked salt.

Serve (any left over should keep for 3 days in the fridge from the day you opened the yogurt)

[ellypear]

Dan made a Basement scrapbook! - 'Essex Eating: Best of 'The Basement''

via essexeating.blogspot.com

Dan's just posted this....

[ellypear]

This week's veg box from @gardenercox

Late summer/early autumn veg is so beautiful. All those rich colours. I think it's my favourite time of year for veg.

This week's box included...

Yellow and green courgettes Rainbow carrots Funny long German radishes that look like carrots Romanesco cabbage Redbor kale Flat leaf parsley Figs Fennel Onions Pears Runner beans Potatoes Beetroot

[ellypear]

The perfect lunch menu?

This post could have a few alternative titles; 'How to write the perfect restaurant lunch menu'. 'What every high street needs' or perhaps, most fittingly - 'How The Potted Pig gets it so bloody right'.

The Potted Pig is in Cardiff. It is in a former bank vault (underneath Zizzis) in the centre of the shopping area on the High Street, 100m from both Cardiff Castle and The Millennium Stadium. It opened in June this year and we visited for the first time yesterday.

The food was very, very good, but that's not actually what I want to write about. It's their perfectly crafted lunch menu that had me waxing lyrical throughout our time there and for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. As we made our way home back to Bristol, I occasionally let out little bursts of hmmm, how would I describe it? Impressed delight? Yes. That.

I'm not comparing The Potted Pig's menu with all restaurants, I'm comparing it to other High Street restaurants where the main clientèle during the day are shoppers and tourists. In the two cities I know best, (bar London) Bristol and Cambridge, the equivalent areas would be around Broadmead and The Market Square respectively. Every city has a similar area and indeed, every town has it's main shopping area/High Street.

The offerings from restaurants in these sort of areas so often make me sad. The homogenisation of menus so that we can have panini (or 'paninis', anyone?), jacket potatoes and 'soup of the day' everywhere from Glasgow to St Ives is depressing. High Street chains have made everywhere look the same and the remaining gaps in shopping areas are often filled by independents who are offering very similar menus. Do all shoppers and tourists really want to be faced with the same stuff every time they open a menu? I know I don't.

The Potted Pig's lunch menu (see photo) is so strong, in so many ways.

First point; the prices. They offer 2 courses for £10. The starters are all £5 and the main courses are all £7 (except the steaks, which aren't included in the offer) so if you don't want to take up the offer, you still won't be getting stiffed. Drink prices don't counteract the bargain food deal either, as so often happens when special lunch menus are offered (who mentioned Pizza Express?). The house wines are a very drinkable Chilean Sauvignon Blanc or a Merlot and are £2.75 a glass!

So - how do they offer such low prices? How do you create a menu that is interesting, delicious and cheap? Serve up the contents of a 3663 delivery truck's 'catering solutions' and microwave them? Fill the plates with cheap rubbish? No. You do what The Potted Pig does and utilise seasonal food, buy from local producers and get clever with (naturally) cheap ingredients. They prove you don't need to cut corners and use crap quality produce in order to keep prices low.

I've picked out some dishes that I think merit particular mention...

Devilled kidneys and duck heart on toast costs a matter of pence, literally. A single duck heart costs about 5p, a lamb's kidney about 40p. But, the chefs add their hard work, talent and skills to turn it into a beautiful plate of food and the £5 charged is entirely reasonable.

Cockles, lava bread and bacon on toast tick the cheap box too, while gaining a massive extra big tick for being about as Welsh as a Welsh leek and therefore (hopefully) of particular interest to tourists.

Slow cooked Somerset ham, egg and chips - This passed us on it's way to the next table and prompted us to order a side dish of chips as they looked so good (see picture). Some of the best (chunky) chips I've ever had. To make really great handmade chips doesn't cost any more than making really shit handmade chips - it just takes a little longer and a little extra care. Pick the right potatoes. Make sure the centres aren't raw. Make sure the outsides are crisp. Pile 'em up. Done. OK it involves more than that, but what I'm saying is if you're going to do ham, egg and chips - which make a great and popular option - do them like this. Buy your ham from a local farmer. Buy great, free range eggs with bright yellow yolks that cry out to be stabbed with a massive fat, perfectly cooked chip. And don't charge a fortune for it, cos it doesn't cost a fortune.

Put cheap fish like Welsh mullet on the menu, cook it simply but perfectly and serve it with a bit of samphire, some cockles and some new potatoes. All cheap, all seasonal. There's a link there, if you hadn't noticed.

What about pudding? Don't go mad - keep the choice small and great. Make the puddings yourself from simple ingredients. Lemon posset (infused with thyme and vanilla, served with some raspberries and a stick of thyme shortbread) was delicious. Smooth and generous. Best I've ever had. It had replaced the Chocolate brownie with ice cream which had sold out and I'm so glad I got to try it. Or Eton Mess - Meringue, cream and berries. In the middle of winter, the berries would be imported and expensive. But, in August they're plentiful and cheap. Whole punnets were on sale in the local market in Cardiff for a quid. So, add some cream and some broken meringue and a portion of Eton Mess could be whipped up at this time of year for about 80p.

Serve all this food quickly using friendly staff that want to be there.

Bristol needs somewhere like the Potted Pig desperately. And that comes from someone who owns a café in Bristol. My café offers take away (unless you grab one of the two stools!) and if you're shopping in Broadmead or Cabot Circus, I'm five minutes' walk away. But, if you want a leisurely three course meal (with a table and more than one other friend), I'm very sad to say I can't help...

I'd say the closest we currently have is No 1, The Harbourside where they indeed know how to fill you up, using seasonal, local food for a very reasonable price.

I have to say, I've never left a restaurant feeling so far from ripped off as I did when I walked out of the Potted Pig. And surely this is how it should always be?

What makes a perfect 'shopper's lunch' for you? What do you look for when you're out for the day in a city? I'd love to know.