In honour of moving into my new home, I decided to cook a special first meal. Actually I found some black truffle sitting in the pantry during the move and realised I had to use them, so what better way to celebrate than chopping it up into some pasta and enjoying it with a glass of prosecco? Lavender might seem like an odd ingredient but it really adds to the recipe. I have a supply[…]
Gin & Yang
Garlic Chicken Pasta
This is a recipe I recreated from a simple pasta dish we had in Italy. Phoebe loved it so much that she demanded I make it when we got back home. My version is quick and easy to make but utterly delicious – as is all good Italian food. All you need is some chicken, pasta, garlic, butter, extra virgin olive oil and some parsley (or other herb). For the calorie conscious you can reduce[…]
Bacon, Leek & Mushroom Pasta
This must be one of the easiest recipes I can think of, nothing fancy, super quick and really tasty. It’s a perfect mid-week meal when you don’t have time for anything big, easily done in 30 minutes or less. I always make extra, because it is so easy to eat and so good, it’s hard to put the fork down. Any leftovers can be reheated the next day for lunch. Use good quality, smoked streaky bacon.[…]
Ox Cheek Confit with a Tomato Essence Air
Ox Cheek Confit with caramelised carrots, fondant potatoes and a tomato essence air. This was the first dish I put on the menu, I’ve wanted to do ox cheek for a long time and this particular recipe has been going around my head for months after I spotted a similar recipe nearly two years ago on another site. As soon as I knew I was doing a dinner party, this dish had to be part[…]
Roast Goose with Bread sauce, Walnut and Apricot stuffing and all the Christmas trimmings
Last year, I decided to forgo the usual Christmas Turkey and went with Goose. I find I have so many Christmas dinners or lunches that by the time I get to doing my own I’m thoroughly sick of turkey. Aside from that, I’ve never found turkey to be that nice for roasting, it’s dry and usually fairly tasteless. Cooked properly, it can be nice but that’s rarely the case. It’s usually dry turkey, overcooked sprouts and boiled[…]
Langoustine and Lobster Cannelloni
This was the fourth course from my tasting menu, a Langoustine and Lobster Cannelloni with a Saffron sauce, braised baby fennel and pink grapefruit pearls. Had this been at a different time of year I would have used blood orange to make the pearls but they are out of season. I wanted pearls that would look like fish roe but also provide an acidic hit to counter the seafood and saffron sauce. This was the dish[…]
The Forest Floor – Partridge Confit
The second dish from my tasting menu. “The Forest floor” is the concept for this dish which consists of confit partridge leg, partridge pate, candied rosemary, beetroot jelly, a porcini and walnut soil and a moss like side salad. I’ve added an additional bit of presentation by serving it on a banana leaf. This dish turned out to be one of the favourites of the night or at least it had one of the favourite[…]
Gluten-Free Stilton and Port Pork Pie (The Portman Pie)
I’ll be honest, I had my doubts that a proper gluten-free pork pie could be done. I don’t really do pies and I’d never used a hotwater crust so the thought of doing a gluten-free one seemed like a step too far. But I was asked to try it out and I figured the worst that could happen is that the crust ends up as little more than a fancy way to hold a pork pie filling. […]
Ribeye Steak with Straw Potatoes and Jim Beam Glaze
I return to one of my favourites, steak. You can read my previous article on how to properly cook a steak here, so I won’t cover it in much detail this time. My initial plan with this recipe was to do steak and eggs but I was reminded of the bottle of Jim Beam (white) which is so bad, I can’t even drink it with coke. It’s like that overly excited aunt or uncle you always see at[…]
Coriander Battered Prawns
I got a cookbook on coriander for my secret santa gift at work. My “santa” knew I wasn’t the biggest fan of coriander but also knew that I liked to cook and ran this site… so it was a smart choice. I’ve taken it as a challenge. I don’t hate coriander, I just find people dump large quantities of the stuff on curries or other dishes without much thought, large amounts of coriander end up tasting like[…]