Bouillabaisse with seasonal new potatoes

I always try to make an effort to eat ingredients that are in season. You have the satisfaction of knowing that they haven't been transported across continents and they taste better. New potatoes are at their best right now, sweet and firm and delicious. Here is my recipe (inspired by several traditional recipes for the dish) for a Bouillabaisse or a French fish soup using new potatoes.

Ingredients
Olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
4 sticks of celery, chopped
1 large white onion, chopped
1 tbsp of plain flour
3 fresh bay leaves
A sprig of fresh thyme
A pinch of saffron (optional)
A splash of white wine
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
1 litre of fish stock
500g of firm white fish, haddock, cod or monkfish (I used cod)
8 small scallops
A packet of large, raw king prawns
A medium bag of new potatoes, halved or quartered into bite size chunks
salt and pepper
fresh chives

First of all, add your potatoes to a pot of boiling water and put on a medium heat to cook until tender.

Meanwhile, heat your olive oil in a large, lidded saucepan and fry your celery and onions for ten minutes on a low heat until softened. Add the tablespoon of plain flour, and all your herbs and stir before adding your chopped tomatoes. Throw in the white wine and stir well before bringing the boil. Bring the heat down to just below medium and simmer for 15 minutes until your sauce begins to thicken. You can add in more flour if you want a thicker sauce but I would say no more than 2 tablespoons should do the trick.

Add your white fish. I chopped my cod steaks in two and added them whole. As they cook and you stir the sauce they break up into lovely bite-size, flaky chunks. After about five minutes add your prawns and scallops, stirring them in and coating everything in the sauce.

Just before stirring toss in some freshly chopped chives and add your now cooked new potatoes and stir everything together.

It's a really lovely fresh yet comforting dish, ideal for a slightly chilly Spring day. It also freezes really well so you can batch up some for later.

Edible souvenirs from Bologna

First of all, apologies for the radio silence from the Kitchen over the last few weeks. Firstly, work has been crazily busy and secondly I haven't had much time to mooch about in my kitchen experimenting as Mr G and I have been working on a new project. More of this later!

Today I am going to indulge in a celebration of one of my favourite things - food souvenirs! When I visit a place, there is nothing better than leaving with a little edible treat to indulge in later. I have a little pot of dried herbs from a market seller and a bottle of Commandaria communion wine (ideal for adding to sauces as it tastes like a richer sherry) from our holiday to Cyprus last year. I have a jar of Lingonberry jam ready for my next batch of pancakes from my flying visit to Stockholm in February. I love food and for me, it makes the best souvenir even though it doesn't last forever. 

For the last six years I have visited the beautiful town of Bologna in Italy in March as part of my job (yeah, it's tough work). I nearly always return with a healthy chunk of parmesan in my suitcase and some pasta. This year was no different. Italian cuisine is pretty much universally loved. It's focus on fresh ingredients is what has always appealed to me as well as the indulgent use of tomatoes, herbs and cheese. Bologna cuisine is particularly known for it's use of meats and I have enjoyed some of the best meals in memory in that place. 

I treated myself to a packet of taglietelle, a bottle of extra virgin olive oil (too good to cook with), the obligatory hunk of parmesan and a packet of Peperaglio. 

The day after my return Mr G and I headed to the Cotswolds where the M clan were gathering for the wedding of my cousin G. After a raucous and brilliant day, bathed in beautiful sunshine we headed home again on Saturday, but not before we paid a visit to the venue's farm shop. More food souvenirs. I  grabbed myself some fresh Italian parsley, a packet of steak mince and some fresh tomatoes.

I had plans and they involved meatballs!

Serves 4:
Ingredients:
600g of steak mince
A handful of fresh parsley
3-4 garlic cloves
2 slices of white bread (stale)
1 egg
6-7 fresh tomatoes
200ml of vegetable stock
A glass of red wine, Madeira or Sherry according to taste
Salt and pepper
Pasta (any kind you prefer)

Back at Mrs Gold's kitchen and work began in earnest to recreate my magical Bologna meals. First I used one of my favourite gadgets, my herb chopper  from Joseph Joseph  to roughly chop my herbs.

I whizzed two slices of white bread with the crusts removed in my food processor to create breadcrumbs and added these to about half of the chopped herbs. Then I finely chopped and crushed about four cloves of garlic and finally added the steak mince and one egg. There is only one way to make meatballs in my book and that's with your hands.

When my meatballs were lined up and ready to go I whizzed my fresh tomatoes in my food processor and worked the whole mixture through a sieve to remove the pips.

In one pan, I put my tomato mixture and around 200 ml of vegetable stock. Bring it to the boil and then gently simmer until the mixture starts to thicken. You can add some red wine at this stage, I added a glass of Madeira (not very Italian but it adds a lovely sweetness). When you're sauce is almost ready add the rest of the fresh parsley and season with salt and pepper.

The meatballs need to be gently browned in a separate pan before being added to the tomato mixture. Meanwhile, your pasta should be in boiling water.

For the pasta I added some of the Peperaglio, a glorious mixture of dried herbs and chillis that you combine with some olive oil to make a tasty mixture that coats your pasta and makes it a lovely meal in itself. Added to my meatball mixture it was divine, melding the fresh sweet sauce with the spice and piquancy of the chilli and herbs in the pasta.

All that is missing is the freshly grated parmesan. A little taste of Italy in South London.

To accompany the meal, we had something, not from my travels but from the supermarket. Jacob's Creek Cool Harvest is a new series of wines that use grapes gathered by moonlight for a fresher taste. The wine was certainly fresh, lightly sparkling and paler in colour than the usual white. It would be great on a summer afternoon and apparently they also produce a rosé version. 

Buon appetito! 

My Prawn and Chorizo rice pot

There are few things in life that are not improved by the addition of melted cheese or chorizo sausage. As the dark days of winter start to fade away and Spring begins to burst into colour, I get the urge to cook something that brings memories of sunny days, green trees and a summer breeze. I get the urge for something with a taste of the Mediterranean. So today I whipped up a super-easy dish, ideal for bringing a little sunshine to a Monday evening - my prawn and chorizo rice pot.

Serves 2  generously (double ingredients for a bigger meal)

Half a chorizo sausage sliced, and then cut the slices into halves or quarters
1 packet of raw king sized prawns, peeled
6 or 7 spring onions (you can use white onion if you prefer)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 cup of rice
1 cup of chicken stock
1 glass of sherry
A pinch of parsley, fresh if you have it but dried will be fine
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
A glug of olive oil
Salt and pepper

Put the rice into a saucepan and add the chicken stock. Top up with boiling water if you need to. Place on a high heat and boil until cooked, mixing the tasty stock well with the flakes of rice.

Meanwhile heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the garlic and the chorizo over a medium heat for around 3 minutes. Add the spring onions and stir for another minute or so.

Add the tin of chopped tomatoes, the raw prawns and the glass of sherry. Mix well until your prawns turn pink.

Add the pinch of parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, drain your rice and add this to your pan with the rest of the ingredients. Stir everything together until your rice is coated with the sauce and you are ready to serve.

The dish is lovely and piquant with the prawns soaking up the flavours from the chorizo and the glug of sherry. To make it a little bit more special you can add a pinch of saffron to the mix when you add the parsley. A taste of summer on a Monday in March. Delicious.

Fancy a lab-grown burger?

One of the news stories that caught my eye this week was this

Lab grown burger to be served up in October 

In a laboratory in the Netherlands, scientists are growing a burger. Yes, using stem cells from cows, a team of scientists are putting together an entirely lab-grown burger patty which they hope will be cooked by Heston Blumethal for the lucky punter who gets first taste.

My first reaction to this is distaste. My second reaction is distrust. I have seen enough horror and sci-fi films to know that no good can come from playing god in a lab with animals or food. In my head, this cannot end well.

But the scientists' aims are pure, they say. Rather than attempting to unleash an army of killer-burgers on an unsuspecting world, the mysterious funder of this project aims to slash the number of cattle farmed for food and in doing so reduce greenhouse emissions. A good cause if ever I heard one.

Whilst I would not queue up for a burger made in a petri-dish, this article raises an important point and one that as a lover of burgers and meat in general I am well aware of. Meat is currently a staple of most people's diets and something we, in the Western World take for granted. It comes ready packaged in abundance into our supermarkets so it is easy to forget the full story of how the food came to land in your kitchen and on your plate. With a growing world population and growing demand for meat, the price is certain to rise but more alarming is the impact on the environment of meat production.

Just a few points from Veg Mondays

It takes over ten times more fossil fuel to make one calorie of animal protein as it does to make one calorie of plant protein.

Livestock are responsible for 60% of ammonia emissions which contribute to acid rain and the acidification of ecosystems.

It takes 5 times more water to yield 1000 kcal of meat as it does to yield 1000kcal of fruit or vegetables.

As you may have gathered from my blog I am a passionate carnivore. But I make a special effort to eat vegetarian one day a week. I love vegetarian food and I love experimenting with it. But what this article cements for me is how precious meat is and how it is important, as a cook to treat it as such. Perhaps then we will all stop taking meat for granted? Perhaps then we will learn that not every meal has to be the classic meat and two veg, It can be just as delicious and just as filling if it is three veg.

Treating meat with respect is about preparation as well. Fast food joints, cheap processed and questionably produced meat all make me gag. As my quest for the perfect burger shows, I even think that this staple of convenience food should be treated with respect, time and adoration as it deserves. If you can't cook it right you shouldn't be eating it.

Remember what has been sacrificed for every morsel of that joint of beef or breast of chicken. It will taste so much better. 

Burgers I have known: Saracen's Head in Southwell

Last weekend we took a little road trip around Nottinghamshire. It was a pilgrimage I had longed to make. Being a bit of a Lord Byron groupie, I was desperate to see Newstead Abbey, the ancestral home of the poet. We stayed at The Saracen's Head Hotel  in Southwell.

The Saracen's Head Hotel, Southwell

Byron lived in Burgage House with his mother during his holidays from university. He described being "oppressed with ennui" in this little village and of having "no society but old parsons and old maids".  But I think we can all remember being stifled by our family life upon return from the brand new world of university and I found the place quite charming.

Burgage House, Southwell

Southwell Minister

Plus, the Saracen's Head, as well as being home to the high end Lord Byron Restaurant had a bar menu featuring a burger. Score.

And the verdict this time? The burger was homemade and really nicely cooked. A lovely mild cheddar was melted over the top. The bun was toasted and the right level of consistency to hold the package together. The crispy green salad was on the side so you could add what you wanted. The crowning glory was the most fantastic onion chutney which was sweet, slightly crunchy and delicious. Served with a little tower of six chunky chips and a bowl of onion rings to die for...

I am really pleased to give this a score of 8 out of 10. A superb and satisfying burger. Good job!

Roast Chicken, Chicken Soup and why your way is sometimes the best way

I love watching Heston Blumenthal. He combines two of my favourite things - food and geekery. His recipes are hard work to say the least, and the man clearly has a controlling interest in a dry-ice company but you can take some really great tips and techniques from him and use them in your own simpler versions of the dishes. So I watched with interest when he demonstrated how to cook the perfect roast chicken on his latest show.

I yell at my television a lot but this left me speechless. Because Heston's oven was heated to just 90 degrees or gas mark 1/4... and when ready, his chicken had an internal temperature of just 60 degrees. Images of pink meat and food poisoning abound. What is he thinking?

I didn't try Heston's recipe. Because for these kind of classics I think everybody has their tried and tested methods and sometimes your way is the best way.

For me, my perfect roast chicken is followed by a chicken soup. And my soup recipe comes from my Mum.  I can remember the scent of chicken stock filling our kitchen on a Sunday evening as a child. It's brilliant and I have never had the urge to change it. Here it is:

First, the roast chicken. These are the flavours of my roasted bird. Lemon, a whole bulb of garlic and a generous helping of fresh thyme. Some people like rosemary but I find it sometimes overpowers the meat.

Remove the leaves from around half of the thyme leaves, retaining the stalks. The stalks can rejoin the rest of the thyme and this goes into the cavity with the lemon, halved and the garlic cloves (no need to peel these). I love to use butter on the skin but with an eye on my heart and waistline, I find a good glug of olive oil and a generous scattering of sea salt and pepper all over the skin does the trick just as well.

Heston can mess about with low and slow but for me the oven needs to be 180 degrees. My chicken goes in and I set my timer for 30 mins. For me, basting is of utmost importance. The bird must be basted every thirty minutes. I usually roast a medium sized bird for at least an hour and a half. Then, another little trick. When I know the meat is cooked all the way through I turn the whole bird on it's breast and cover with tin foil. This allows all those juices to sluice down into the breast meat.

Roast chicken is great but what I really love about cooking this dish is that it goes so far. Your carcass is so full of flavour and strings of meat, it's a crime to throw it out. Instead follow this brilliant recipe courtesy of my mum and make a hearty and delicious chicken soup.

Put your remaining chicken, bones, any leftover meat in a large pan. Make sure you take out the ingredients you put in the cavity. You don't want a boiled lemon. Cover the whole mixture with water and put on the hob. Add salt, pepper and some bay leaves for more flavour and bring the mixture to the boil.

When your mixture begins to boil, turn down the heat so it continues to simmer. Leave the water bubbling away for at least three hours. You can top up the water if you need to. Leave the mixture to cool off. 

Meanwhile you can prepare your vegetables. You can pretty much add anything you fancy to the soup. I like carrots, parsnips and celery although leek and white onion is also a tasty addition. You can even add potatoes for a really hearty soup. I like to add a handful of rice to beef up my soups. 

Go back to your soup pan and remove the carcass from the pan using a slotted spoon. I like to place the carcass and the bones into a pyrex dish and make sure I remove all the meat. This goes straight back into the pan. Don't forget to remove your bay leaves too. 

Add your vegetables to the soup and put it back on the heat. You want your vegetables to cook in the soup so they soak up the flavour. 

It wouldn't be the same without some crusty white bread. I had some homemade olive bread leftover from our weekend 

When your vegetables are softened, your rice or potatoes cooked through - your soup is ready to serve.

Not only is this delicious but you can be extra smug at getting two meals out of one bird and the satisfaction of knowing that you have used every part of the bird. The soup freezes really well and if you want to jazz it up, you can give it an Asian flavour with some soy sauce, chilli and a splash of rice wine. 

Indulgent Sunday Breakfast: Hot smoked salmon, scrambled egg and caviar on toasted homemade bread

We woke up to Winter this morning. 

London inevitably grinds to a stuttering halt when snow starts to fall, so any plans for today have been abandoned in favour of curling up in the house with some good food.

Yesterday I made olive bread so we indulged in my all-time favourite breakfast on this chilly morning. Hot smoked salmon, with scrambled eggs on lightly toasted bread with a scattering of caviar.

What can I say, I have expensive tastes. I always treat myself to a tiny jar of caviar when I find myself at an International airport on my way home and I happened to have some from my last visit to Amsterdam before Christmas. Yum.

I love baking bread. It makes me feel worthy and hungry all at the same time. Being a beginner to the world of bread-making and unable to squeeze an electric breadmaker into my tiny kitchen, I am always on the look-out for new recipes to try. This one, I discovered in a magazine about a year ago and it is so remarkably easy that I use it quite regularly. You will need...

7g sachet of dried yeast (or you can use fresh if you are lucky enough to have some)
500g of strong white bread flour (I used a Canadian flour)
2 tsp of salt
2 tbsp of olive oil

Tip the flour into a mixing bowl and mix together with the dried yeast. Meanwhile boil the kettle.

Pour 100ml of boiling water into a measuring jug and top up to 300ml from the cold tap. The water should be hand-hot. Add the oil.

Make a well in the middle of flour and pour in the liquid. Mix together quickly using your hands until the mixture forms a dough. It will be slightly sticky.

On a floured work surface, knead your dough. This is an art which I have yet to master entirely. The temptation is to pound your dough with your fists but kneading is more about stretching and folding. With the heel of your palm push the edge of the dough away from you, then fold it in half towards you. Turn the dough a quarter turn and repeat. I kneaded my dough for about ten minutes.

Place your dough back into the mixing bowl and cover over. Leave it for one hour for the yeast to do its job. After an hour you should find that your little ball of dough has more than doubled in size.

Heat your oven to 240 degrees or around 220 for a fan assisted oven.

Give the dough another knead before shaping it into a round (or whatever shape you want - go crazy!). I used a knife to slash the top four times.

Brush a baking tray with olive oil and place your loaf on this in the top shelf of the oven. The bread should take just 30 minutes to bake through, but keep an eye on the loaf so it doesn't burn.

Easy peasy.