Saturday, 14 January 2012

Crispy Lemon Sole with Potted Shrimps and Cucumber - Heston Blumenthal at Home

 



Heston is at me again, with another mind fuzzing, mouth watering, luscious, scrumptious, delicious recipe: (posh voice) Crispy Lemon Sole with Potted Shrimps and Cucumber, yes oh so fine... Anyway this recipe is a great one because it is very quick and easy. Now when I say easy, I mean it, when I say quick, I mean it, when I say... nevermind. 

CRISPY Lemon Sole with POTTED Shrimps and CUCUMBER

SERVES 4

Ingredients

4 Slices of white bread
Salt and black pepper
4 Lemon or Dover sole fillets, skinned
2tbsp of Groundnut oil
250g of Potted Shrimps, can be bought from the shops
5g of Dill
1/2 a Cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and sliced

1. Preheat oven to 110°C

2. Cut off the crusts of your white bread and between 2 sheets of clingfilm, and using a rolling pin, roll to a thickness of 2mm. Remove the clingfilm and season the bread.

3. Place the fillets of fish on the bread and trim the fish and bread to ensure that they are both the same size. You will have 4 pieces ready to go...!

4. Heat the oil in your frying pan over a medium-high heat, then place the fillets bread-side down in the pan and saute them until golden-brown and crispy. (approx. 3mins)

5. Remove from the pan and place the fillets, fish-side down, on a tray lined with baking parchment/paper. Place in the oven. (5 mins approx.)

6. Put the potted shrimps in a small saucepan and warm them gently over a low heat until the butter is completely melted. Finely chop the dill and add it to the shrimps with the cucumber. Season.

7. Place the Potted shrimps in the middle of the plate, put the lemon sole, fish-side down on top of your shrimps. Drizzle the remaining shrimp butter around the plates. YOU'RE DONE!
PLEASE comment if you made this, and how hard you found it!

THANKS FOR READING!

Friday, 13 January 2012

Triple Cooked Chips - Heston Blumenthal at Home

Well here we are again, in 2012, with good news. Heston stopped by with his new book: Heston Blumenthal at Home!


Yes I know, you're sweating with excitement, and yes I know it says it in the title, and yes again I know that you're getting bored of the 'yes I know thing', its supposed to be funny...

Ok... on another note lets get started on the post. Which as you read in the title is chips, good TRIPLE COOKED CHIPS, from the renowned chef: Heston Blumenthal, as it says in the title, from his book: 'Heston Blumenthal at Home',as it says in the title.
YES OK NO MORE ABOUT THE TITLE!!!
Right, let us start: 

TRIPLE COOKED CHIP

Sorry for the rubbish photo... Took it with Mums phone!
Serves 6

Ingredients: 

1kg of Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into chips (approx. 2 x 2 x 6cm)
Groundnut or grapeseed oil
Sea salt

Method:

1. Place the chips in a bowl under running water for a couple of minutes to wash the starch off.

2. Place 2kg cold tap water in a large saucepan and add the chips. Put the saucepan on a medium heat and simmer until the chips are almost the edge of collapsing (approx. 25-30 mins depending on the potatoes)

3. Remove the chips with care because they will fall apart VERY easily, I learnt that the hard way, and leave to dry on a cooling rack. Place in freezer for at least an hour to remove the moisture.

4. Heat your deep-fat fryer with it half-full with your oil (10cm) to 130°C. Fry the chips in small batches until a light crust forms or the edge of the chips are turning a golden-brown colour, remove from the oil and leave to drain on kitchen paper.

5. Put the potatoes on a cooling rack and place in the freezer for 1 hour, if you dont want to serve them immediately keep them in the freezer, for a day or two.

6.Heat the oil in the deep-fat fryer to 180°C and fry until they are completely golden. (approx. 7 mins)            
Drain and sprinkle with sea salt.

This may seem like a massive hassle, but it's really easy, and the end result is stunning!

PLEASE comment if you tried this at home!
HAPPY COOKING!

Thursday, 10 November 2011

Great British Bake Off - Victoria Sandwich

My pic of the finished result
This is the classic Victoria Sandwich!

A pic of the cake from a different perspective

Of course, from my new book the 'Great British Bake Off'!

There was one minor mistake I made and that was... Didn't grease the tin... Now you're thinking it would mess up the appearance... In fact it came out of the tin really clean! If you want any Questions answered please ask in the comments!

Great British Bake Off Book

I have just got the great, new 'Great British Bake Off Book'  from the awesome TV series and will be doing lots of recipes from it... 
If you want to but this book please press the link here:Link to Book (on Amazon)

THANKS

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Greece - Are they Food Fanatics?

Well you'll find out...


As we came to Kos Marina the only thing in plain sight was restaurants, packed full of them, pizza, seafood, steak houses, and cafe's at every corner! Obviously the current market demanded them in numbers, because of the massive tourism in Greece. Which one to pick? This is when iPhones come in handy but because of the outrageous price for mega bits, there was no need to bring them. So after we had walked round in circles for about 15 minutes, we settled on... 'The Stadium'


The restaurant was a great success and was based on traditional Greek & Turkish food. I had fish and 'Stadiums special sauce' on skewers with stuffed peppers. Heavenly peppers, crunchy on the outside and the soft rice on the inside topped with melted cheese. The fish was red mullet and tasted very smoky and had a very chewy texture to it. The sauce was brilliant, I wanted the recipe so badly, but they kept on saying it's a 'SECRET.' But, my mum and brother had an unusual spicy bird liver, this was an exceptional dish of food, unfortunately they ate it so quickly that I only tried it once, but it was enough to make my taste buds go mental!

Anyway, we sailed another day going to a small town called Vathi in Kilimnos where we found a beautiful looking restaurant...


So we decided to eat out... As this was a little fishing town, I knew that the fish would be top-notch and they had: Sea bass/bream, Red mullet/snapper, White fish, and a small fish that I can only describe as anchovy's. We all picked the Red snapper, what a treat, we all shared this massive beast of a fish, it tasted brilliant, with quite a surprisingly small amount of bones.

Next, we went to Port Lakki where we went to an awesome restaurant where I had a pork chop, nothing else, just half a pig sitting on my plate, just look at the size of it!


My Brother had Lamb Chops...


Patmos, was definitely an adventure, we had something completely UN-Greece like... PIZZA. I had the 'Special', which included everything possible that goes on a pizza, my dad had an 'Inferno', my mum had the '4 seasons' they were pretty good, almost better than 'Pizza Express!'

On we sailed, going to a small village, and its renowned restaurant, 'Oguns Restaurant' in Turkey.

His food was good and he was quite a character! The restaurant started when he was the age of 13, it was merely his house with some chairs and a table outside... No sign. The only food he served was Chicken Goulash as the fish was to expensive. But, he was determined and so, every time a boat came in he would swim out recommending his restaurant and helping them moor up. Word spread about the boy who swims out to your boat, and, he was getting more and more customers, the restaurant next to his wasn't getting anyone! They had to close down but as the owner had friends in the military and police, he gave Ogun a hard time... They said to him he couldn't swim out to the boats, so, he built a pier for the boats to stay so he could still get customers. They said he wasn't allowed to use his own pier. But, still people came. Once he had enough money, he bought a boat, and rowed out to the boats, they took his boat off him. Still people came. By this time, Rod Heikell had recommended him in his pilot book, and he was getting hundreds of customers, one night he got a whole 2 flotillas of Russian people, as he only had Chicken Goulash he served them 120 Chicken Goulash. What a man. On the night we were there. He made a fire in a wheel-barrow, it was a success! For more: Oguns Site

But, I must talk about one last thing...
The Bakery

From Bread to Cakes, the Bakery's in Greece sold everything!

Bread


Cookies

Baguettes & Waffles

Muffins

Pies & Pizza



Little Treats
 AND that was only a small Bakery!

The other things we did on our holiday, was, visit an 1000 year old Monastery...



Visit a Volcano and a sauna using the heat of the volcano...





And, that's just about it...

Thanks for READING