Come dine with mallowstreet!

In the spirit of healthy colleague competitiveness a few of us in the office embarked upon the ultimate office challenge of doing our own version of Come Dine with Me. Over the weeks leading up to it there was a lot of fighting talk and worried faces, possibly because you know that at some point soon your colleagues are coming to your house and you might have to actually clean your bedroom.

The bar was raised very high for the first installment, where 4 of us nervously trekked out to Wanstead (an area our Director had previously had no knowledge of) to be greeted by our colleague's immaculate and very grown up house. I was terrified, her garden actually had grass and it had been mowed. This is before we even entered. I have to admit that cooking is kind of my thing, aside from tapestry and knitting but I'm not actually that good at those, it is what I do to relax and I love it. So I have to admit to a certain level of jealousy as Jules brought out her delicious 3 courses with home grown salad. How could I compete?!

So last night I stuck to my favourite foods, resisted attempts to pretend I was Heston, and did things that I could cook well in advance and I knew tasted yummy. In doing this I think I finally hit my dinner party stride. I managed to avoid my usual error of having a main that you have to concentrate for, as usually by that point I'm at least 3 glasses of wine in and just want to chat. Last night I didn't have to really think about a thing. It paid off. My favourite food critic was there, our Cuban events coordinator, and when she said my started "erupted" I knew something had gone well.

More than anything though it was just wonderful to sit round in the garden, in late September no less, eat food and drink plenty of wine with fun people. Oh, and they loved the bunting... or had at least been forewarned to comment upon it. Well done them!

I said I would share some of my recipes for them so this may be a slightly long post. All feed 4 people at least.

Starter - Squid and Chorizo Stew

2 large squid, cleaned with tentacles, cut into rings
1 large chorizo sausage (I get mine at Continental Delicatessan in Brixton) cut into 1/2cm slices
1 medium Spanish Onion
2 cloves garlic
1 Red Pepper
6 ripe large tomatoes
1/3 bottle rioja
Turmeric
Chilli flakes
Marjoram
Sage

1. In heavy cast iron casserole (or big pan) fry off the onions and garlic for 3 minutes over a medium/high heat. Add chorizo and fry for a further 5 minutes on medium heat, add the chopped red pepper half way through.
2. Add 1 heaped tsp turmeric mix it around so it coats everything then pour in the wine. Leave to simmer softly as you add all the squid.
3. Chop the tomatoes up roughly, place in a seive with some salt to get rid off excess liquid and then add to the pan with a couple of pinches of dried chilli, depending on how spicy you like it.
4. Cover with a lid and turn the heat to low, after 1 hr add the marjoram and sage and season with salt and pepper. Cook for a further 30 minutes on a very low heat.

Serve with crostini or fresh bread.

Main - Duck with Mummy's beans and fennel

For the duck see earlier post - Duck Delicious Duck!

Mummy's beans -
300g dried cannelini beans (soaked overnight)
1/2 bottle dry white wine
3 cloves garlic
2 eschallions roughly chopped
150g lardons/pancetta cubes
1 medium tomato
vegetable bouillion stuck 1 1/2 pints
Olive oil
juice of one lemon
Sage
Thyme

1. In a large pan fry off the onion, lardons and 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped.
2. Drain the beans and put them in the pan with the white wine, simmer for 15 minutes, add the stock.
3. Leave to cook, simmering on a low heat with the lid on for 2 hours, check every now and then that you have enough liquid.
4. Once the beans are soft and tender give them a glug of olive oil, pour over the lemon juice, the herbs and the last clove of garlic (crushed). Mix it all together and take if off the heat. after 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper and serve.
It is also delicious cold as a salad the next day.

Pudding - White Chocolate and Pomergranate Panna Cotta

5 leaves gelatine

300ml whole milk

300ml double cream

50g caster sugar

2 vanilla pod (split lengthways)

170g white chocolate

200ml coconut milk

1.       1. Soak gelatine in ice cold water for 10 mins

2.       2. Place milk, cream sugar canilla pod and seeds into saucepan and heat gently until simmering. Remove from heat when sugar dissolved

3.       3. Put chocolate and coconut milk into a bowl over pan of simmering water then sieve other mixture into this bowl and stir until smooth

4.       4. Squeeze excess water from gelatine at to mixture and whisk until complete smooth.

5.       5. Put on mould and leave in fridge to set, after 15 minutes scatter the pommergranate seeds on top. Leave to set for another few hours.

SeServe with poached pear and raspberry and black pepper sauce

4 4 medium pears peeled

1 bottle robust and fruity red wine

75g caster sugar

2 Star Anise

1 stick cinnamon

8 cloves

5 Allspice berries

100g raspberries

1. put the wine and spices in a pan with the sugar and bring to a boil.

2. add the pears and make sure they are covered, simmer on a low heat for 2 hours or so until tender.

3. remove the pears and reduce the remaining liquid, add the fresh berries and 2 turns of black pepper, mix until the berries fall apart and then serve.

Duck Delicious Duck!

I love love love eating duck. Yes it is not the healthiest of meats but it is truly delicious and is such a warming treat that it can't be too wrong. I'm in an office surrounded by very healthy, low fat, Dukan dieting girls and I am truly jealous of their ability to resist the temptations of beautiful crisp duck fat, if only I could. Last night I made a "spare" duck leg incase the Scot came home and in the end just ate the skin and fat off it as well as my own. Terrible gluttony but each time I looked at it I couldn't resist, it was just sat there, tempting me.

Anyway I thought I would share my recipe for a cheat's confit-tasting duck with Szechuan pepper and lime, truly tasty I think.

For 4 - takes just over an hour

Ingredients:
4 duck legs
tablespoon of Szechuan peppercorns
plenty of Rock Salt (very important it isn't sea salt)
Fresh Rosemary sprig
1 garlic clove
pinch chilli flakes
1 tsp grated lime zest

For the sauce:
500ml chicken stock
2 limes, juice and zest
2 chopped and seeded chilli
ground szechuan pepper
1 tbsp pommergranate seeds
50g butter
2 large fresh sage leaves

Instructions:

Pre heat oven to 190 degrees C / Gas mark 5

1. Get the Salt, Szechuan Pepper, rosemary, garlic, chilli flakes and lime zest and bash them all together in a pestle and mortar. Rub this into the flesh side of the duck leg and sprinkle over the skin.

2. Get frying pan with a little Olive Oil to a high heat and sear the duck legs. 2 minutes on the fleshy side and 2 minutes on the skin. Push then leg around so all the skin gets lightly seared. Remove from the pan and then place, skin side up, on a wire rack in a roasting tray. Tip: I just use the grill tray and put foil underneath as it then is so much easier to clean..

3. Put legs in the oven for about 40 minutes. Just check to see how the skin is crisping up. For the last 15 minutes or so I just put the heat up to 220 degrees/ Gas Mark 7. You'll know it is done when the skin is lovely and golden crisp.

4. As you turn the heat up start making the sauce. Chop the chilli and flash fry with the szechuan pepper. Then add the chicken stock and simmer for about 10 minutes until reduced slightly (lose around 1/2 liquid. Then add the lime juice and zest and stir in. After than add the butter in little chunks and stir in with a whisk. Tear up the sage and add, turn down the heat to a slow simmer until your duck is ready. At the last moment stir in the pommergranate for a bit of oomph.

Then just pop the duck on the plate and drizzle the sauce over. Last night I found this went really well with sticky rice, just remember to soak the glutinous rice in advance and start to steam it for 20 minutes just before you make the sauce.

Enjoy!

Musings on bunting

This seems a somewhat random way to start a blog, I'm fairly certain the average person has not spent considerable time thinking about bunting. At least, if they have, they should be slightly worried about themselves; unless they run some sort of bunting company. Sadly in our household bunting has become something of a matter of pride and competition.

On moving into our new and rather glorious flat with its wonderous luxury of a garden, a great deal of debate was held between my best friend/housemate (currently to be referred to as "the Scot") and I about what type of bunting should go up in our garden to make it seem fun and festive. Also to detract that aside from being named a garden it is mainly a big space of concrete slabs, but to us it is heaven. Sadly this is the kind of thing two girls think about, more than "do we have a dishwasher", or debating whether our bedrooms are fairly sized, no, the correct bunting was what we spent our time researching. Looking back this seems ever so slightly irresponsible. However, it turns out that this is incredibly important as we have competition in the form of our upstairs neightbour who has some rather envious floral fabric bunting mocking us from her balcony. We were not to be outdone, instead we spent valuable hours, the Scot in particular, looking into the matter. I have to say we've come up trumps and have the perfect balance of floral whimsy without it becoming a cacophony of colour and clashing.

All in all I am quite proud and regularly take friends on tours of the garden and not only make them admire my wonderful (if slightly dead) herbs and lavender pots and floral tablecloth (all-weather) but to gaze in awe and respect of our seriously superior bunting. As I sat in the Trinity Arms in Brixton yesterday enjoying the sunshine the Scot and I looked around at their plain white bunting with a sense of superiority and pride at our own efforts in our garden. What are best friends for if not shared interests after all?

To many this may seem to be truly ridiculous but for those 5 minutes as we sat with a nice cold glass of cider we were proud.