Sunday Lunch at Stoke Place - 23rd of January 2011

We decided to drive out to Stoke Place on Sunday to have a look around since they were having an open house for Weddings.. and since we are planning ours we thought it would be fun to take a little peek.. We also decided to have lunch there since the food is pretty good.. and good value for money, £15 for 2 courses - not bad at all.

I went for a layered terrine of smoked salmon and anchovy butter with marinated cucumber and a citrus dressing, served with brown toast. I really loved the dish, so simple but really nice.. i will have to experiment with some sliced smoked salmon at home i think!

Karim went for a chicken mousse terrine served with a chutney, beautifully presented and very tasty i'm told.

For main i had a pan fried bream with borlotti beans and sauce vierge. Tasted lovely and fresh.

Karim went for the roasted sirloin of beef, roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding (surprise surprise) :-)

We did not have space for dessert but they did look very tempting too. :-)

At Home (away from home) - 21st of January 2011

We are currently living in an apartment hotel since we are having repair work done to our flat.. i have only really heated up soups until now.. but on Friday i thought, Let's Cook!
It is a fully fitted kitchen in the apartment but i am of course missing some of my favorite tools.. never mind - time to improvise!
I decided on making a dish i saw in Metro newspaper one morning.. with a few tweaks.. it was YUMMY.. so here we go:

Chorizo, Butternut and Sweet potato bake
(2 people)

- 400 gr,  ready cubed mix of butternut squash and sweet potatoes ( or you can of course cut them yourself)
- (about 300 gr or 5 small) cooking chorizo's
- 1 red onion
- bag of rocket salad
- 1 tub of feta cheese
- handful of pine nuts (toasted in a hot frying pan)
- chopped red chili
- Olive oil, salt, pepper

Put the butternut squash and the sweet potatoes in a lined oven tray with the red onion (quartered) and the chopped chili. drizzle about a tbps of oil or less over, grind some salt and pepper and mix with your hands. cut the chorizo length ways and add to the tray.
Put in the oven for about 25 min on 200 degrees C, turn a couple of times for it to cook evenly.

Scoop on to plates, crumble the feta over, then add the pine nuts and top with the rocket salad. Lovely!

Swedish Knäck & Lusse bullar - 19 December

There is no Christmas without home made Swedish "knäck" (similar to toffee) and Swedish "Lussebullar" (sweet saffron bread). I made the knäck a few weeks ago already and it is the easiest thing in the world.

Swedish knäck (makes about 50)
- 2 dl double cream
- 2 dl golden syrup
- 2 dl caster sugar
Boil in a pan for about 45 min to an hour (you can test it to see if it is ready by pouring a teaspoon of the toffee into a glass of ice cold water. It is ready if it hardens and can be rolled into a ball inbetween your fingers)

Add 1 dl of chopped almonds and 1 tbsp of butter and take of the heat.
Spoon into little paper cups and keep in the fridge. Yummy!

Now onto making Lussebullar... You need the following:

Lussebullar (gives your around 45 - 50)

50 gr of fresh yeast

1 gram of saffron

15 dl of plain flour

3 dl of caster sugar

5 dl full fat milk

250 gr of youghurt

pinch of salt

100 grams of unsalted butter

1.5 dl of raisins

Melt the butter in a pan and add the milk, let it come to blood temperature, 37 degrees C

Break up the yeast in a big bowl, add 1 dl or raisins and the saffron. Pour over the butter / milk mixture and stir well until all the yeast has dissolved. add 14 dl of the flour, sugar, pinch of salt and the youghurt and combine well.

Add more flour if need be but not too much.

Knead the dough of a floured surface until elastic and shiny. Put it back in a bowl and cover with a towel and leave for 45 min.

Knead again and roll out the dough into the traditional "S" shape ( i did half the dough this way) and put them on a baking tray, cover with a towel and let them rise for 30 min. The rest of the dough i made into a swiss roll shape and filled with grated marsipan mixed with butter, rolled it up and cut into slices and put into paper cases.

Let them rise under a towel for 30 min then brush with egg (push some extra raisins into the "S" shaped buns and spinkle some sugar pearls over the marsipan filled rolls) and bake in the oven at 225 degrees C for about 8 - 10 min.

They are best when straight out of the oven or you can freeze them and heat them in the micro wave when needed and they will taste like just baked.

Enjoy!!

Team breakfast at Dishoom - 7th of December

The Admin team had kindly been offered a free taster breakfast at Dishoom, an indian restaurant that just opened around the corner here in Covent Garden. http://dishoom.com/ 

Free is always good so we met up at 9am anticipating some interesting food.
Being an indian restaurant there is of course an indian twist to the breakfast menu. I had some sweet chai tea and a bacon naan with some sweet chili jam. Very tasty and the naan was freshly baked. They have an extensive menu for breakfast with something for everybody and a nice atmosphere, free wifi and newspapers.
I would go again (probably have to pay next time though ;-))

First Floor restaurant - 4th of December

My lovely old friend Anna came to London last week and we went out for lunch at First Floor restaurant on Portobello.. i had fond memories of this place but after our experience there on Saturday i will never go back. I have already written a lengthy review on London eating (http://www.london-eating.co.uk/28633.htm) so feel free to read it there. All i can say is that i will never go back again.

Lunch at Adam Street club - 3rd of December

I went to a members club called The Adam Street club just off the Strand with my boss for lunch the other day. I had a very tasty open lasagna with vegetables and a curry cream sauce which was very tasty. Made me realise that you can easily use supermarket lasagna sheets and recreate it at home.. perhaps change it and serve with crumbled goats cheese and oven dried tomatoes.. loovely.. might just do that!

Cake buffet in Gothenburg - 27th of November

My uncle Michael knows how to celebrate in style over 2 days for his 50th birthday bash in Gothenburg. Most of my family travelled to Gothenburg for his 50th including myself. I missed the dinner on the Friday night but arrived in good time for his lavish cake buffet which consisted of 8 different cakes buffet style.. with coffee and prosecco :-) The hardest part was deciding which cakes to eat.. they all looked great. See a selection of the choice below. Yum.