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Archive for October, 2009

Cooking SOS – Michel Roux Jr averts those kitchen disasters

Posted: 30 October '09 by Niall

Is your soup too salty? Is your sauce too lumpy? Never fear.. help is at hand!

With tips that include how to save a stale baguette (“wrap it up in a damp cloth for 20 minutes, then remove from the cloth and place in a hot oven for 2-3 minutes. This will revive the bread and give it that just cooked feel”), the MasterChef Master Chef provides some useful tips to help you avert those kitchen disasters.

And have you noticed the “Random Tip” on our own pages? With everything from getting the most juice from your lemons to making breadcrumbs from your left-over bread, Chilli and Chocolate goes where only Michel Roux Jr and a lot of other people have gone before!

More information:

You can click here to read more of Michel Roux Jr’s tips

You can also visit Michel Roux Jr’s own website

Tags: cooking tips, Michel Roux Jr

Categories: News

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How to make apple crumble with custard

Posted: 30 October '09 by Niall

Ah, school dinners..

While I’m not one for desserts, I have a deep-seated love of jam roly-poly, spotted dick, apple crumble, and the rest of those stodgy, custard-covered, rib-lining sweets.

Here’s one of our favourites – apple crumble with homemade custard. The “homemade” part is important – none of that tinned gloop or coloured cornflour here! And you can certainly taste the difference.

You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6Image 7

Ingredients:

For the crumble:

• 300g/101/2oz plain flour, sieved
• A pinch of salt
• 175g/6oz unrefined brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
• 200g/7oz unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature
• Knob of butter for greasing

For the apple filling:

• 450g/1lb apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm/1/2inch pieces
• 50g/2oz unrefined brown sugar
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 pinch of ground cinnamon

For the custard:

• 570ml/1 pint milk
• 55ml/2fl oz single cream
• 1 vanilla pod
• 4 eggs, yolks only
• 30g/1oz caster sugar
• 2 level tsp cornflour

You’ll also need a large saucepan, a whisk, a wooden spoon, and a good deep oven-proof dish.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Place the flour and the brown sugar in a large bowl and mix well. Taking a few cubes of butter at a time rub into the flour mixture. Keep rubbing until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Place the apples in a big saucepan and put a drop of water – it will help the fruit to start breaking down. Place over a low heat
4. When the fruit starts to break down, add the cinnamon and the white sugar
5. Let the apples simmer, stirring occasionally – be careful though – while you want the apples to start to break down, you don’t want a puree. You still want some nice pieces of fruit in there.
6. When you’re happy with the consistency, remove the saucepan from the heat and spoon the mixture into an oven-proof dish
7. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top, so that there is a good inch of the crust over the whole dish
8. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the crumble is browned and the fruit mixture bubbling
9. Take a knife and slice the vanilla pod down the length of the pod
10. Place the pod in a second saucepan, making sure to get all of the small black seeds from the blade of the knife in there as well
11. Add the milk and cream to the saucepan and bring the lot to simmering point over a low heat
12. Remove the vanilla pod
13. Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a bowl until well blended
14. Pour the hot milk and cream on to the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time with a balloon whisk
15. Return to the pan, and over a low heat gently stir with a wooden spoon. You’ll know when the custard is thick enough when a clear line remains when you run your finger down the back of the custard-covered spoon
16. Spoon a serving of the apple crumble into a bowl and pour some of the custard over the top – heaven!

Tags: dessert, recipe, recipes

Categories: Dessert Course > Featured Post > Recipes

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Brownies with white chocolate buttons

Posted: 28 October '09 by Ciara

I was “surfing the net” a few weeks ago looking for a brownie recipe and came across a Nigella Lawson one. I have to confess, it was the first time that I have ever tried one of her recipes and I can tell you I was delighted with the results. These have to be the nicest brownies I have tasted. The gooey centre is to die for! I tried them firstly, for myself, Cor and Sophie and must admit I ate the majority of them. 

The second time I made them was at the weekend just past, for my family in Belfast and they absolutely loved them. This time round, I added more chocolate buttons. You’d swear they’d never seen chocolate the way they went on about them.

You can see more photos hereImage 1

Ingredients:

• 375g dark chocolate -  I use Green & Blacks as they are made with 70% cocoa solids
• 375g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 6 eggs
• 350g caster sugar
• 225g plain flour
• 250g white chocolate buttons
• brownie tin

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4/350F
2. Line brownie tin base and sides
3. Melt butter and chocolate together in a bowl over a pot of boiling water
4. In another bowl, beat eggs with sugar and vanilla extract
5. Sift the flour into another bowl with salt
6. When chocolate mixture has melted let it cool before beating in the eggs and sugar, then the flour
7. Fold in white chocolate buttons, then beat slightly and scrape unto brownie tin
8. Bake for 25 minutes until the top is dried to a paler brown and the centre is dark and gooey

Enjoy

Tags: biscuits, cakes and biscuits, Chocolate, nigella lawson, recipe, recipes

Categories: Biscuits and Cakes > Dessert Course > Featured Post > Recipes

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Vegetarians, look away now: Our steak pie recipe

Posted: 28 October '09 by Niall

With the rain lashing down and a gale blowing outside our front door, we huddled around the fire. As gloomy as this sounds, I wasn’t too down-hearted.. Winter is coming – and this means “goodbye” to salads and “hello” to more substantial dishes. I like that.

A quick trip to Forestside (McGee’s butchers, to be exact) and we were ready to go – Steak Pie was on the cards! Steak pie (but especially steak and kidney pie) is one of those meals-from-childhood that I will always remember with fondness and hanker after: tender pieces of meaty steak, rich gravy, and light, buttery pastry. What could be better..

You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5

Ingredients:

• 900g/2lb stewing steak, cut into cubes
• plain flour, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, for dusting
• Beef dripping
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 7.5ml/1/2tbsp tomato purée
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 570ml/1 pint hot beef stock
• 500g of puff pastry (I bought JusRol Puff Pastry 1Kg block and used half – because I love pastry)
• 1 free-range egg, beaten
• Worcestershire sauce

Method:

1. Put a good three or four tablespoons of beef dripping into a large saucepan and place on a low heat
2. When the dripping has melted, add your onions and cook for 2 or 3 minutes, until the onions become slightly translucent
3. Add your cubed stewing steak to the saucepan and cook until the meat has started to colour
4. Add 3 or 4 tablespoons of the seasoned flour and stir in thoroughly, and allow the mixture to heat through for a minute or two
5. Add the beef stock to the saucepan, increase the heat slightly, and stir until the liquid has become a bubbling, thick sauce
6. Reduce the heat so that there is only a slight bubbling of the liquid and allow it to simmer gently for an hour and a half
7. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5
8. Taste the sauce at this point (chef’s prerogative!) and add a few splashes of worcestershire sauce and the tomato puree (the worcestershire sauce will really help those meaty flavours along, as does the tomato) – taste again and add more if necessary
9. Transfer the filling mixture to an ovenproof dish
10. Take some flour and dust your work area and rolling pin – with your block of pastry on the work-area, roll out the pastry so that it is slightly bigger than the area of the casserole dish, and about 1 centimetre thick
11. Drape the pastry over the meat filling
12. Beat an egg in a bowl and brush the surface of the pastry with the beatebn egg – it’ll give the finished crust a really nice golden colour
13. Place your pie in the oven cook for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the pastry has puffed up and is golden-brown

To my mind, you have to serve your steak pie with creamed potatoes to make the most of that gravy – and a glass of claret is a great addition too.

Other information:

You could use olive oil rather than beef dripping – but the dripping is so much tastier. Go on, spoil yourself and use the dripping.

Add 280g of chopped ox or lamb kidney to the stewing steak kidney for a delicious steak and kidney pie.

Tags: recipe, recipes, winter food

Categories: Beef > English Food > Featured Post > Main Course > Recipes

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Sydney Harbour Bridge welcomes 6000 picnickers for Breakfast on the Bridge

Posted: 26 October '09 by Kelly

Sydney Harbour Bridge was closed yesterday morning and the eight lanes of tarmac given a temporary make-over – with 10,000 metres of turf, and a small herd of cows.

As part of “Crave Sydney”, an event to celebrate Sydney’s unmatched way of life with 31 days of food, outdoor art and fun during the month of October and raise the Australian city’s profile among tourists, 6000 lucky winners were selected from a ballot of 45,000 hopefuls to enjoy a Sunday morning picnic on the bridge. And all for free.

The carnival atmosphere was helped by live music – and cows wandering around the happy picnickers!

The event – dubbed “Breakfast on the Bridge” – was such a great success and so well received that it’s likely to become an annual event.

So come on Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board – get your thinking caps on – why can’t Belfast compete with Sydney?!

Other information:

You can click here to read more about the picnic on Sydney Harbour Bridge

Tags: australia, events, sydney

Categories: News > Things to do

3 Comments