Homemade Chocolate-Chip Ice Cream

I must write up my mint ice cream, but in the meantime, here is a very successful vanilla, which we (of course) spiced up by adding shaved 70% dark chocolate. Totally yum yet strangely elegant.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup thickened cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• dark chocolate

Chill the ingredients well, then pour into the ice cream maker and mix until thickened. Freeze again for 3-4 hours, then churn again and serve, topped with finely chopped or grated dark chocolate.

Yorkshire Puddings

I love Yorkshire puddings. When I was a child we always looked forward to when my mum would make them. We'd beg and beg for more of them, even above and beyond roast potatoes! Pure carby goodness. It seems the tricks to getting a well-puffed pudding are to beat the batter well to get air into it, and to heat a generous amount of oil in tin (in the oven) before you pour the  batter in -- and always less than half of the height of the tin, or they won't have room to expand. I was surprised that the Joy of Cooking said to beat the batter, since I would normally worry about toughening the gluten, but it worked very well. And luckily, they were wrong about needing to leave it to stand for an hour. (I'm impatient like that!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water plus 1tbsp
• 2 eggs
• vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Combine the salt and flour, make a well in the centre and pour in the milk and water. Stir, then beat well until very combined. Add the two eggs and continue to beat until large bubbles rise to the surface. Pour a little vegetable oil into each tin of a muffin tray and place in the hot oven; there should be enough oil that the base of each tin is easily covered. After five minutes, remove the tin from the oven and pour the batter into each cup, to about 40% of the height of the tin. Return to the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until risen and golden.

Katsudon Sushi

What better way to say goodbye to your lovely husband the night before you fly off again to yet another conference, than to make a huge plate of katsudon sushi? Unless you're feeling very patient, you'll need some leftover katsudon; cut into long strips along with some avocado, and lay out on sushi along with a thin drizzle of mayonnaise. Wrap and serve, preferably with some hot wasabi.

Nigel's Roast Pork Belly

I'm spending most of this winter travelling and working really hard, so not too many updates for the next couple of months. But here's a winter warmer we took the time to make on a rainy Sunday, and which then fed us for the rest of the week. A good recipe, although you really need to take it easy on the orange; a little zest goes a long way, when it's inside the meat and isn't evaporated off by the oven!

Wagamama Week: Yasai Korroke

At last! A successful recipe - something I might try again! Shame the ingredients list will be the longest I have ever posted :) I have given up revising their quantities in the ingredients list, and just written the ones that I used. For once the original recipe didn't make enough food, and while I'm willing to try making too much, I'm not willing to go hungry for the sake of following the recipe!

Ingredients:
Amai sauce:

• 1tbsp malt vinegar
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 2 tsp tamarind paste

Salad dressing:

• 1 tsp finely chopped shallot
• 1/2" piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 50ml vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce

Vegetable cakes:

• oil for deep-frying
• 2 large potatoes
• 1 medium sweet potato
• 50g frozen peas
• 75g tinned sweetcorn, drained
• 1 small onion
• 1 red chilli
• 3-4 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg
• 75g fine breadcrumbs

Salad:

• half a bag of mixed salad
• 1/2 red pepper
• 10g dried wakame

Microwave the vinegar, sugar and soy sauce until the sugar has dissolved, then whisk in the rest of the amai sauce ingredients and set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, whisk together the salad dressing ingredients and set aside as well.

Peel and chop the potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Boil the potatoes for 12 minutes; add the sweet potatoes after 3-4 minutes so they are done at the same time. Drain very well, and cover with a teatowel to absorb the moisture. When reasonably dry, mash roughly with a fork, then stir in the peas and sweet corn and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion, and trim and deseed the chilli (or leave the seeds in, if you like the kick). Fry in a few tbsp of vegetable oil at a low heat, until soft and fragrant. Stir into the potato mixture. Using your hands, form the mixture into small cakes, and then dip into the flour, the egg, and then the breadcrumbs, and deep-fry at 180C for 4-5 minutes until crisp and golden. If the cakes are too fragile, chill them for an hour and then fry them slightly longer.

Meanwhile, finely-slice the red pepper and rehydrate the wakame. Toss with the salad leaves and dressing, then serve the cakes on top of the salad.

Verdict:
Ahh, this was a breath of fresh air. Crisp, delicate vegetable cakes that were surprisingly light and more complex than the sum of their parts. A salad dressing that looked thoroughly unappetising and unbalanced, but shined when combined with the crisp red pepper and earthy seaweed. I couldn't keep track of the quantities I adjusted this time: they suggested 50g of dried wakame go into the salad... that would be like one of the serving bowls entirely filled with wakame. And while this recipe nestles happily in the middle of the vegetarian main meal section, where the recipes seem balanced for 3-4 people despite being advertised for two, the original would only just have fed one. Strange book; it's like they went into the kitchens and tried to guess what quantities of raw ingredients went into each meal, rather than asking one of the chefs.

Wagamama Week: Marinated Vegetable Ramen

This was an interesting recipe, using a cooking method I'd never seen before: marinating the vegetables *after* they'd been cooked. I would write it out but... I'll skip straight to the verdict. It's a waste of time. Don't. If you're going to marinade things, marinade them before you cook them. ESPECIALLY if the marinade consists of raw garlic and chilli. These are ingredients that LIVE to be cooked. Once again the quantities were absurd: we had more than enough for lunch the next day, even though neither of us were keen on the idea. And the lovely fragrant ramen noodles, so yummy when cheekily tested for doneness straight from the pot, were completely buried under the raw marinade, which even overwhelmed a fairly tasty vegetable stock.

Even the photo was bad!

Wagamama Week: Pumpkin Curry

I am a big fan of pumpkin curry; the sweet, earthy, melting flesh works amazing well with warming spices, and somehow becomes even more flavoursome when cooked nearly to destruction, unlike, say, the potato. I have two pumpkin curries I commonly cook, along with 101 other pumpkin-related recipes. So I was certainly willing to road-test the Wagamama version, which they claim was a one-off special that became so popular, it was added to the main menu.

Ingredients (Quantities in brackets are my revised suggestions):

• 100g brown rice
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2" piece of ginger root
• 1/2" piece of galangal root
• 2 lemongrass sticks
• 300ml hot water
• 1/4 tsp salt (1 1/2 tsp)
• 1 tsp sugar (3 tsp)
• 100g canned coconut milk (140g)
• 1 small pumpkin (1/5th of a Japanese pumpkin - about 400g)
• 2 courgettes (1)
• 6 button mushrooms (12 or 0)
• 4 baby sweetcorn
• handful of sugarsnap peas
• 4 x 1" cubes of tofu (don't bother)
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach (don't bother)
• handful of chopped coriander

Set the brown rice cooking according to its packet instructions.

Peel and grate or finely dice the garlic, ginger, galangal and lemongrass, or whiz in a little blender until a fine paste (you'll probably have to double or triple the quantity to get enough friction for a blender to work). Fry in a good glug of vegetable oil over a moderate heat for 6-8 minutes, stirring until softened and fragrant but not coloured. Add the hot water, bring to the boil, then add the salt and sugar; simmer for 20 minutes until reduced by half (I had to cover mine, as it reduced much more quickly than that.)

Meanwhile, peel and deseed the pumpkin, and cut into bite-size chunks. Scoop the seeds out of the middle of the courgette and cut into bite-size chunks. Halve the mushrooms and sweet corn. Stir fry the vegetables for 2 minutes -- I let mine rest occasionally so they picked up a bit of colour. Stir the coconut milk into the reduced sauce and then pour over the vegetables, add the tofu if using, then simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender. Serve the curry with the drained rice, sprinkled with the chopped coriander.

Verdict:
Not bad. Nowhere near as good as either of the two curries I already know, but ok. The quantities they suggested were distressingly large for two people; I couldn't help but scale back the quantity of pumpkin (from a whole one to 1/5th of one!) and we still had enough left over for lunch the next day. The tofu didn't stand up to the treatment it was given; I definitely prefer mine fried to give it some bounce and crunch. I don't know what the spinach was for... looking pretty in their photo? And having all of those different vegetables in there made the curry lack focus; it was a bit too much of a jumble. I'd say either up the mushrooms, or take them out altogether. The sauce was extremely under-seasoned. I would add half a red chilli if you like a bit of spice, and the sugar and salt quantities given were insufficient by a factor of 2-3. I'm glad I used the full tin of coconut milk; their suggested quantity wasn't coconut-y enough. It also felt weird to eat a curry that had no spices in it.