Wednesday 28 November 2018

How to cook sushi rice



I’m about to throw an empty packet away, and with it the instructions that I’ve been using to cook sushi rice. What is this blog, I asked myself, but an online kitchen scrapbook and thus the perfect place to make a note of it all. Thus:

Step 1. Weight out 100g rice. This is enough for two people as long as they’re pretending to be ok with WW’s idea of a portion.

Step 2. Cover the rice in cold water and swirl it around a bit. The water will go quite cloudy. Drain into a sieve. Consider repeating the process three or four times as instructed but instead decide to run cold water over the rice in the sieve, stirring lightly with your hand. After a minute or so of this, the water should run clear.

Step 3: Tip rice into saucepan and pour over 130 ml cold water. Bring to a simmer then cover and cook for 10 mins. Turn the heat off and leave for a further 25 mins. Do not remove the lid during this time.

Step 4: Meanwhile, combine a tbsp rice wine vinegar with 2 tsp sugar and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Step 5: When the time is up, remove the lid and stir through the vinegar-sugar combo and a tiny pinch of salt (the salt is not specified on the packet but I find it wakes up the sweet sourness of the other additions).

Step 6: Serve - topped with whatever your little heart desires.

Monday 26 November 2018

MPM: 26th November 2018

I’ve had to switch my WW membership to online only for the time being. I’ve missed a number of meetings due to other commitments and was using this as an excuse to avoid the scales and not follow the plan properly. That ends now. I was following WW online when I first started this blog and did manage to lose weight successfully over a sustained period so there’s no reason why it can’t work again. I’ll see how I go between now and Christmas and then if I need to recommit to meetings in the New Year then I will, albeit might have to have a rethink as to which meeting I attend. There’s a local one on a Saturday morning which could be a possibility.

Meal plan - couple of bumps from last week and a takeaway on Friday, requested by D. Not particularly WW friendly (actually not WW friendly at all) so I’ll just have to make up for it elsewhere. Sigh.

Monday: starting the week nice and light with a comforting bowl of soup.

Tuesday: leftover roast chicken and black bean wraps.

Wednesday: salmon yakitori with sushi rice. Possibly some sort of cucumber side dish?

Thursday: Ottolenghi’s ultimate winter couscous.

Friday: fish and chips.

Saturday: Szechuan red braised pork belly - bumped from last week.

Sunday: a Diana Henry recipe - chicken and sweet potatoes with miso, ginger and spring onions.

Have a fabulous week all!

Sunday 25 November 2018

Foodie abroad: Il Ridotto, Venice



For D's 50th birthday we hoped that we would find somewhere pretty special to eat, but given that we were in an unknown city we had to choose somewhere on spec and hope for the best.  Fortunately, Il Ridotto turned out to be one of the most memorable meals that we've ever had, numbering right up there with our experiences at Eleven Madison Park in New York and Five Senses in Barcelona.

It is not, however, a restaurant that I would recommend unreservedly to everyone and in trying to explain why I will probably come across as unbearably patronising.  But the thing is, different people want different things when they eat out, especially when they are paying several hundred pounds to do so.  Some of the dishes at Il Ridotto were extremely challenging - if straightforward, classically executed deliciousness is your bag then I might tentatively suggest you go elsewhere.

Perhaps if I describe a couple of the more out there dishes, you'll see what I mean.  The first thing that was brought out to us, for example.  A smoked mussel served in its shell with...creme brulee.  Not some sort of savoury take on a creme brulee but an actually, vanilla flecked custard with a crispy layer of sugar.  When it arrived, I laughed rather nervously.  When I had eaten it the laugh was one of genuine delight.  It was smoky and sweet and salty and strange.  I have never had anything like it.


Or there was the first dessert which was topped off with black truffle cream.  Not a subtle waft of truffle either but a full on, thwack you around the face, black truffle ice cream.  It sounds odd.  It tasted odd.  The first mouthful was confusing.  But gradually, as all the flavours came together the earthy funk of the truffle just worked with the sweetness of candied pumpkin and fire of ginger ice cream.


Some combinations were less controversial and just beautiful food done well.  A tangle of raw slivers of sea bass, lightly dressed with a touch of black garlic and studded with tiny caper berries (pictured). A risotto, again flavored with garlic but this time more vibrant, rendered a vivid green by the inclusion of sea vegetables then topped with a great flurry of black truffle. A perfectly cooked piece of hare.


As with many of the other great restaurants we have been lucky enough to visit, Il Ridotto is very strongly rooted in local traditions and dishes and much of what was served was a nod to the Venetian food heritage.  It was emphatically not classical though.  It was provocative and interesting and, sometimes, I was unsure whether I actually liked what I was eating (before deciding that I probably did).  We loved it and would not hesitate to return but, as I said, not for everyone and that's perfectly OK.  I must admit, if I could only ever visit one restaurant for the rest of my life, it's probably not the one that I would choose because, for me, challenging is great but traditional is what I crave in my quieter moments.  D might well think otherwise.

It was, though, a really wonderful place to celebrate such a special birthday and certainly a meal that we will not soon forget.

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Foodie abroad: Venice (part 2)

I think the best thing to do in Venice is just to wander the streets and soak up the atmosphere. It’s a bit like being on a film set; at times it doesn’t feel real.


On the Wednesday, we struck out with the intention of tracking down Venice’s best cicchetti. Cicchetti is the Venetian answer to tapas: small dishes designed to be eaten with a drink. In the majority of cases we found this tended to be something-on-toast.


Our favourite was a simple whipped salt cod on toasted brown bread which we enjoyed with glasses of Soave seated next to one of Venice’s many canals (pictured top right). It’s not elaborate food, I don’t think that it is supposed to be.

D’s birthday meal aside (which I will get to shortly) Venetian food, in general, was characterised by its simplicity for me. We went to a lovely little wine bar cum bistro for dinner on the last evening and I had the most beautiful piece of grilled bream served with nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil and some simply cooked vegetables. It was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned and a wonderful celebration of a lovely piece of fish without any bells and whistles.


I liked Venice very much and the dinner at Il Ridotto will number as one of our best ever. But I did not find it to be a foodie destination in the same way as Paris or even Barcelona. It’s all about simple dishes served with bags of convivial charm in a location that feels slightly out of time.


Monday 19 November 2018

MPM: 19th November 2018

Gah! I can’t believe that I have got to the end of another week and STILL have two Venice posts to finish not to mention various other half done drafts sitting in my blogger feed to sort out. Hands up - life seems a little bit of a struggle at the moment. Work is challenging - good, but challenging and very full on - and I get home in the evening and weekends and am so drained that I don’t want to do anything much but lie around, stroke the cat and binge on Netflix. I wish that I was one of those people who thrive on wholesome hobbies and think my goal for next year must be to try and make my life outside of work a little bit fuller. It’s probably one of those things, like exercise, that feels overwhelming to start with, but when you get into the routine you reap the positive rewards.

Anyhoo, at the very least I can manage a meal planning post. I’m looking forward to the eats this week:

Monday: shepherds’ pie. Bumped from last week, as I write this (on Sunday evening) the mince is bubbling away in the slow cooker so all I need to do tomorrow is sort out the mash for the top and the veg for the side.

Tuesday: ham, eggs and Piperade from this lovely recipe.

Wednesday: D is out for lunch, so we’re going to keep things fairly light for tea and just have a nice pot of soup. However, I’ve been having a bit of a yen for soda bread recently, so I may knock up some to go on the side.

Thursday: a fennel gratin with an orange zest and pine nut crust, served with a fennel seed pilaf. Thank you, Nigel Slater.

Friday: a beef rendang . We’ll be making use of the slow cooker again so all we have to do on Friday evening is cook some rice to go on the side.

Saturday: D has requested a Szechuan red braised pork belly which sounds delicious.

Sunday: roast chicken with various trimmings.

Have a wonderful week everyone, and happy eating! Oooh, and Peridot, enjoy Fantastic Beasts and be sure to let me know what you think!

Monday 12 November 2018

MPM: 12th November 2018

Still deep in the post holiday blues, I didn’t get around to doing a meal planning post last week which is a real shame because it was a great week! The meal plan was jotted down while we were still away and nearly all of the dishes were inspired by stuff we ate in Venice. Oh, and on Monday we made cacio e pepe using this recipe. Cacio e pepe is Roman in origin rather than Venetian, so not quite in keeping with the theme, but it tasted so good that I don’t really care. I would definitely urge you to give this one a whirl.

This week we are lacking a theme and a couple of dishes are still to be fully realised but we will plough on regardless!

Monday: mushroom risotto with squid - a bump from last week and an homage to an extraordinary dish that we ate in Venice.

Tuesday: we’ll have duck leftover from Sunday’s roast so will be making use of that here. D has been muttering about some sort of carrot and fennel seed purée. I quite like the idea of stir-frying the meat with a touch of Chinese five spice. From these ideas, I am sure something delicious will emerge.

Wednesday: filled pasta tossed with butter, Parmesan and black pepper.

Thursday: D fancies lamb chops - not sure how these will be served yet.

Friday: we are off out to the cinema (Fantastic Beasts! Soooooo excited!) so when we get home we will be heating up the other half of the delicious Suriani chicken curry that we made the other week.

Saturday: mussel and saffron soup with some lovely homemade bread.

Sunday: shepherds pie. Or cottage pie. I don’t really care - as long as it’s a lovely, savoury mince and gravy combo topped with buttery, cheesy mash and peas on the side.

That little lot has made me hungry! Have a fabulous week all, happy eating!

Sunday 4 November 2018

Foodie abroad: Venice (part 1)

I actually wrote this post on Tuesday morning sitting outside the Doge’s palace but never got around to publishing it! Back home now and more travelling tales to follow.

It cannot be said that our introduction to Venice was an auspicious one. The night we arrived, the city was experiencing the worst flooding that it had seen in twenty years. Having made it successfully from the airport to the closest vaporetto stop to our hotel we then had to wade through several feet of water with our cases held up at waist height. For about ten minutes. In trainers. And then, once checked in, we had to wade down the road to get to a local restaurant. And sit there with water up to our ankles.

Luckily today, Tuesday, the flood waters have receded and things are back to normal but the scars, and the damp trainers, remain. So my first piece of travel advice is: if you happen to travel to Venice in a flood, be sure and pack galoshes in your hand luggage.

And my second is: if you fly from Leeds Bradford airport do NOT consider having lunch in the cafe bar there. Go and get a sandwich from somewhere else and repair to the bar for wine. Otherwise you end up paying nearly £15 for this:


The world’s most indifferent fish finger sandwich.

Luckily, dinner made up for it (wet feet aside). D went for a seafood spaghetti to start:


Delicious but not quite as delicious as my ravioli al giorno. I wish I knew what went into this - some sort of blue cheese, I think, but so light and creamy with a hint of acidity from the (presumably) beetroot dressing.


I followed this with fegato all Veneziana - Venetian liver and onions - with polenta. It seemed appropriate and it was lovely. The liver was perfectly cooked, the onions sweet and soft. I am not the biggest fan of soft polenta but it seems that it is the most traditional accompaniment so went with the flow and actually quite enjoyed it (although the Brit in me thinks mash would have been better!)


We hit a Michelin starred joint for D’s birthday meal tonight so hopefully will be back with more foodie tales soon.