Lemon Posset Pudding

Ok, hands up, this isn't my recipe. I've stolen it from another brilliant food blog called Recipe Rifle. What drew me in at first was the name Posset. Because to me Posset was the milky sick babies bring up after a feed and I wondered who on earth would make a pudding out of baby sick. I won't lie, I was a tad disappointed to find that this is a non sick based pudding - I would have been so very impressed if some eco earth mother type had decided that all that baby sick was a waste and something could be done with it. Turns out that there are many milk based foodstuffs called Posset dating back to medieval times and that baby sick got its name from them. I found one called Sack Posset which seems to be basically a boozy custard, expect to see it here soon!

Anyway back to Lemon Posset. It's dead easy to make, quick and utterly delicious. It's perfect for a dinner party as you can make it well in advance and jazz it up with biscuits and coulis (posh fruit purée). I served mine in little pudding and sherry glasses that I picked up from charity shops. I think it would also be lovely served in shabby chic style mismatched teacups for added twee-ness. I advise doing a test run with half the amount of ingredients as lemon based treats can be divisive, some will prefer it to be tart and some will like it very sweet, it will also depends on the size of your lemons! My grandma swanned off to Sorrento and kindly consented to bring me back some of their famous fruits, I found I only need 1 large Sorrento lemon as Asda's don't pack the same citrus punch.

Ingredients

500ml Double Cream (Don't use a low fat alternative such as Elmlea as for whatever reason it won't set as well.)

100g Caster Sugar

2 Lemons - zest and juice of both


Method

Juice and zest your lemons - I used a herb chopper, or a mezzeluna for Nigella fans, to get my zest super fine and set aside.
Pop your cream in a saucepan and simmer gently for 3 mins then add your lemon juice, zest and sugar and whisk until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour into your chosen receptacles and chill for 3 hours.

I like to serve with butter biscuits or shortbread and maybe a raspberry coulis if I'm feeling dead posh.

Oh I just had a thought if you really, really wanted to impress you could decorate with edible flowers like viola's - I noticed the ever reliable Waitrose was selling little pots of them by the salad stuff this summer and they look amazing on cakes and such.

Thai Style Noodle Soup - Now with a Free Rant!

This is one of my favourite dinners, even Rear Admiral Fuss-Pants the Third (Husband, 29 years old and yet he still looks at lumps of tomato in a sauce the same way a 3 year old looks at sprouts or cat poo) and The Boy love it. The Boy sadly is a culinary racist. After a controversial choking incident in Yo Sushi he has sworn off Asian food for life. I have lied as to where in the world Thailand resides in order to persuade him to eat this. Anything vaguely "noodly" is now from Thailand...

I was genuinely excited to share this and started planning out the recipe as a great deal of my cooking is a very inexact, off the top my head affair. I was going through it with an acquaintance, who shall remain nameless when I mentioned Thai Green Curry paste. Said "friend" accused me of cheating! "But if your writing a cooking blog shouldn't you be making everything yourself?" Excuse me? Make a Thai green curry paste, from scratch, just for a bowl of fucking soup?! Jog on jogger. I mean sure, if you were doing some fancy schmancy dinner party and wanted to float about in a satin nightgown, erotically pounding at your pestle and mortar for 2 hours thinking yourself très Nigella, then go for it. By all means source all the different and authentic ingredients (do you even know where you'd get Thai basil?! Neither Waitrose, bastion of all things foodie and middle class and the Chinese supermarket didn't have it!) and pound it all together. Just don't squinny to me that your soup had lumps and gritty bits in it. It really, really pisses me off that using pre-made ingredients is called cheating. Buying a cake, ready decorated from Waitrose (seriously, they are beautiful!) and passing it off as your own is cheating. Ordering a Domino's and claiming the recipe was handed down by a distant Aunt in Naples is cheating. By the logic of the cooking pedants then surely a tin of chopped tomatoes is off the list, or butter not squeezed directly from the teat of a cow by your own fair hand is cheating. Bloody Delia made a whole series, a book and a range of products out of trying to legitimise people's fear that they are "cheating". What really sticks in my craw is that the people usually accusing you of cheating are the self same people that eat ready meals or jars of pasta sauce on microwaved pouches of fusilli and WATCH a lot of cooking programmes whilst doing so. Grrrrr. DO NOT BOW DOWN TO THEM. Buy the Thai green curry paste, I buy Asda's own brand and its pretty darn tasty. Oh and you'll need a big, big saucepan for this, I use what I believe is called a stock pot - about £8 to buy new, and again I got mine from Asda.

Ok it's a long list but it's worth it...

Ingredients
(I'm lucky as where I live has a Waitrose and a Thai shop nearby, I'll give easy alternatives for any hard to find, i.e not in Asda, ingredients.)

1/2 a small jar of Thai Green Curry paste (or more for a spicier flavour)
1 finely diced Red Onion
4 Large cloves of Garlic - crushed, finely diced or grated on a micro grater
3 Chicken breasts - diced or sliced
2 Sweet Peppers - I like a mix of Orange & Yellow & Red - sliced or diced
1 bag of Bean Sprouts
2 Limes - juiced and zested
1 Bunch of Coriander - around 80g, use the stalks as well for real authenticity
2 stalks of Lemon Grass (You can omit this if you can't find it.)
Noodle's of choice - I like fresh rice noodles
1 litre of chicken stock made with 3 stock cubes (I like Knorr)
1 Tin of Coconut Milk
Light Soy Sauce
Palm Sugar or Brown Sugar
Sesame Oil or any oil you have
If you have it/can find it Nam Pla which is a Thai Fish Sauce (Asda has it)

Method

Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil (or whatever oil you have, I've used coconut oil in the past and it is delicious) in your pan and add the onion, garlic, peppers and fry for a few minutes until they start to soften.

Now add the curry paste and bean sprouts and give it a good stir, after a couple of minutes more pop in the chicken. Cook for 3 minutes and the pour over the chicken stock. Gently simmer until all the chicken is white, you don't want to over cook the chicken so don't worry about it being pink, if you slice it nice and thin it will cook very quickly.

Pop in the noodles (pre cooked if using dried) and coconut milk and give everything a good stir. Now we add our seasonings. A good slug of soy sauce and about 1tsp of the Nam Pla, it is quite strong, and about 1 limes worth of juice. Give the soup a little taste, you want it a little tart and creamy. Don't forget the coriander will be quite strong flavour so add it before adding any more lime. If not tart enough add more lime and the lime zest and balance out with the palm sugar/brown sugar if you want. I normally add all the lime juice, all the coriander and about a tsp of sugar. Bash your lemon grass stalks with something heavy like a glass bottle and then pop them in and simmer the soup very gently until ready to serve.

This soup started off light and delicate but over the years I've wanted a stronger flavour and so pop in half a block of creamed coconut as well as a tin of milk and now The Boy has a higher spice tolerance a whole jar of paste. Thai food should be a balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours so play around with the seasoning to find your own taste.

(The Husband has a better camera on his phone then me and has swanned off mountain biking so I'll put up a picture later.)

Southsea Style Chilli :D

We watch a lot of Man v Food at my house, if you've never seen it the host Adam, travels across America looking for the best "pig out spots" and occasionally indulges in eating challenges. I love it. The Husband loves it, even The Boy loves it. Its great, take 30mins go watch it and then come back, you'll understand, you'll know. The biggest problem I have with MvF is that it leaves me a sobbing heap of despair that I will never be able to eat the glorious creations on offer, seemingly all over America. Where are our BBQ joints? Where could I go to get grits? Or pancakes that are bigger then my head?! I've tried my hand at Pulled Pork, and Pulled Beef Brisket but neither were as juicy or flavourful as the meat of dreams my telly box showed me. But did I give up?! Did I throw a hissy fit and refuse to ever try any thing again!? Yes, yes I did but there's a silver lining to this cloud of tantrum. I decided "I'm British,so scale it down a bit." Tonight we'll be eating Chilli Cheeseburgers with home made Sweet Potato Fries and salad :) I'll be towering up the burgers and slopping on huge portions of chilli until, if I squint real hard, it looks as good as the food on TV. I made the burger, chilli and fries from scratch but I'm just doing the chilli recipe today - with pictures! You lucky people ;)

Sally's Southsea Chilli.

I've called this Southsea Chilli because it is nothing like authentic Mexican or Texan food! I make it reasonably mild so The Boy, who is 6, can enjoy it too. It's very easy to spice up for an all adult crowd - just add a couple more fresh chilli's and some extra chipotle paste or if you need something to please everyone pop some Tabasco or Habanero sauce on the table and let the moaners and sadists spice it up to their hearts content. I normally detest recipes that call for obscure ingredients like Essence of Kumquat or Bottled Well Water that you have to go to some boutique deli (or Waitrose) to buy, for nothing less then about £20. However I do urge you to seek out a jar of chipotle paste - its amazing stuff. I got mine from Waitrose (in my defence I have one round the corner!) but I did see that my local Asda started stocking it so I don't feel too bad about making you buy it :) Its smoky, spicy and utterly delicious and relatively inexpensive (i.e. about £2). Also feel free to chuck in kidney beans, I hate the bloody things so I traded them in for pepper's which has the advantage of making a portion of my chilli 1 of your 5 a day. DO NOT ADD SWEETCORN. Sweetcorn has no place in chilli. Ever. You monsters.

Ingredients:

500g lean beef mince
1 500g carton of passata or 1 tin of tomatoes of choice
1 large onion
1 red chilli pepper (or chilli of preference)
1 large or 2 small cloves of garlic
2 peppers - Orange & Yellow are my preference
1/4 tsp - 1/2 tsp of hot chilli powder (chilli powder will loose heat over time so adjust according to the heat of your powder.)
1 tsp of ground coriander
1 tsp of smoked paprika
1/4 tsp of chipotle paste
2 OXO cubes (OXO crumbles better then other beef stock cubes but feel free to use whatever you have.)
Salt, Soy Sauce, Worcester sauce and Sugar - for seasoning

Method:

Finely dice the onion, garlic, chilli and peppers and pop the onions in a large frying pan with some olive oil or cooking fat of your choice. When they start to turn translucent add all the spices (chilli powder, coriander, smoked paprika, chipotle paste) mix well and cook on a medium heat until the onions start to soften. Now add the garlic and peppers and cook until the onions are very soft and the peppers have started to soften also. Scrape this veggie mix into a bowl, add a tiny drizzle of oil to the pan if needed, pop in your mince and put back on the heat. I use a wooden spatula to break down the mince - it takes some time but break up the mince as much as possible - it will cook much quicker and your chilli will have a much better texture. Crumble over both your beef stock cubes and slosh over a good amount of soy sauce (about a tbsp) and a good splash of Worcester sauce and mix. You mince should go a lovely deep brown colour. When you can see no more pink add the veggies back into the pan along with your tomatoes. Mix well and season if necessary. I add a flat tsp of sugar at this point to really bring out the flavour of the tomatoes and chilli. Allow to simmer gently for 30mins. The chilli gets better with time so if you can I suggest making this in the morning or the night before you plan to eat it.
We spooned chilli over the top of cheeseburgers today but I normally serve with plain white rice or taco's.

Ricotta Dumplings or Ndundari con Salsa di Pomodoro e Basilico

I like to share (for share read brag about)my culinary exploits with my friends on Facebook. I often get comments along the lines of "Oooo where's my invite?!" and "Oh I want dinner at your house!". Of course you do. I am an excellent cook and a witty and amusing host but this is beside the point. I AM NOT COOKING FOR YOU, YOU LAZY BASTARDS. Cook your own damn dinners, better yet cook ME dinner. But with my recipes, I don't trust you people to be able to feed me adequately yet. As a kind and benevolent guest I will allow to use my recipes for your own evil ends. Go ahead take the credit amongst your family and peers, just don't blame me if you find yourself smote down by an angry and vengeful God (i.e Me.) Clara Lee you no longer have any excuse to have crisps for dinner, I am here to redeem you.



Ricotta Dumplings in Tomato and Basil Sauce (Ndundari con Salsa di Pomodoro e Basilico)
From; Two Greedy Italians BBC Books

I loved the Two Greedy Italians series. Two cute, old, Italian men pottering about Italy getting as enthusiastic about cheese as I do, arguing like an old married couple and generally making me seethe with jealousy over my own English nationality. So imagine my complete and sincere joy when The Husband bought me the series book as a crimbo present from The Boy. This is the 1st recipe I have cooked from the book and it was an instant success. Even The Boy, who on hearing the word "dumplings" decided they were Chinese and therefore inedible to him, devoured them all after being bribed into trying them. The Husband ate 3 portions and started eyeing up potential leftovers on my plate. Serve with chicken or fish, green beans or salad or just with some fresh crusty bread. Dish them up at a dinner party whilst pompously waxing lyrical about the beauty of "cucina povera" and the art of Tuscan cooking.


Ingredients:

Dumplings

200g Italian "00" flour (yes it has to be this flour, if you use normal plain flour the dumplings will be claggy and vile.)
250g tub of Ricotta
3 Egg Yolks (Large is best)
25g Parmesan (NOT the dry stuff from a tub you heathen!)
A pinch of nutmeg, freshly grated if possible.
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Sauce

Tin of Plum Tomatoes (stalk end cut off and roughly chopped)
A 25g bunch of Basil
6 tbsp of Olive Oil (or less and add a large knob of butter)
3 Garlic cloves sliced, not minced or chopped.

Method:

In a large bowl mix the flour, ricotta, egg yolks, Parmesan, nutmeg and a pinch of salt and pepper together to form a soft, moist dough. Place on a floured work surface and knead for 3-5 minutes. With your hands roll the dough into a long thin sausage shape and then cut into pieces about 2cm long. Put your dumplings to one side and bring a large saucepan of sated water to the boil. Meanwhile make the sauce.

Place the tomatoes in a bowl and cut off the tough stalk end and discard this. Then roughly chop the tomatoes, chop and add the basil and season with salt and pepper. Mix roughly together. Heat the olive oil (or oil and butter) in a large frying pan and add the garlic. When the garlic begins to change colour remove from the heat and add the tomato and basil mixture. Replace on the heat and cook gently for about 4 minutes, until the mixture is bubbling.

Now the water is at a boil add the dumplings. When they have all risen to the surface lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain with a slotted spoon and add them to the tomato sauce, mix thoroughly and serve immediately with a sprinkle of Parmesan.

I served these dumplings with a griddled chicken breast wrapped in Prosciutto and green beans. My husband liked them so much that next time he wants them on their own with some fresh crusty bread to mop up the sauce :)