I went on a course on Wednesday and the description of the day said that there would be refreshments at 9am, 11am, 1pm and 3.15pm. I interpreted this as meaning that there would be constant feeding. I have been on courses before where I was served pastries, egg butties, as much tea and coffee as you like, a two course hot buffet lunch and mints. I had decided that this was going to be the same and so I didn't have breakfast just to make sure I could make the most of it. When I got there I was disappointed to find that refreshments for the most part meant tea and coffee. So I had a couple of herbal teas which kept me going. My tummy started grumbling about half an hour before lunch. We had had to pre-order our lunch from the bar and lounge menu. There was only one vegetarian option which was a club sandwich so I went for that. We had a £16 allocation and that took up only £6.50 so I went for a pudding. I chose the rhubarb and ginger tarte tatin with coffee ice cream and a fruit compote. I still had £3.55 left and the caramel shortbread from the tea menu was £3.45 so I ordered that as well, well I had missed breakfast!
The club sandwich was interesting, it had a very slim cheese layer, lettuce, it supposedly had egg mayonnaise but thankfully I couldn't taste it, it was OK. The vegetable crisps and coleslaw that were served with it were lovely. The rhubarb and ginger tarte tatin was slightly strange if I'm honest. The pastry wasn't very nice and a bit soft. The coffee ice cream didn't go with it at all. The fruit compote was lovely but didn't go with either the tatin or the ice cream. The caramel shortbread was also a desert option and someone messed up and brought me the desert version instead which involved two caramel shortbreads! I wrapped them up in a napkin and took them home for dinner.
Showing posts with label ginger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ginger. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Spring Onion and Potato Cakes, Onion Rings and Carrot-Ginger Dressing
I embraced my new cookery book a little too enthusiastically yesterday afternoon. I decided that I would make the spring onion and potato (pan)cakes and accompany them with some OMG Oven Baked Onion Rings and a salad with carrot-ginger dressing.
One of the benefits of the book is that you are supposed to be able to make these quickly after work. While that might be true for one item at a time but you can't generally eat the recipes alone. Accompaniments are suggested throughout the book. Obviously the more times you make something the quicker it will become but I spent about three hours in the kitchen yesterday making these three recipes (and some instant falafel mix).
So I started with the carrot and ginger dressing. It is really a carrot and ginger purée with a little onion, garlic, lime juice, red wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil and agave nectar. In itself I guess it doesn't take much effort or time. The only time consuming bit is the boiling of the carrots and waiting for them to cool down a bit. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of lime juice and the same of water which I think is a bit too much. My dressing was quite watery. It is a simply but tasty addition to a plain salad and also went well with the potato cakes. The slight down side is that the raw ginger and garlic tend to stay with you afterwards!
The potato cakes again in themselves were not that difficult to make. Just mashed potato mixed with some spring onions and toasted sesame oil. You are supposed to use panko breadcrumbs both in with the potato mix and also on the outside, which I have discovered are Japanese style breadcrumbs. I tried the local supermarkets but couldn't find any. My favourite 'Continental Stores' didn't have them and the local Asian supermarket had run out so I had to make do with some Warburtons in the food processor instead, I think that this may have been my downfall.
I didn't seem to have enough breadcrumbs and the ones I did have didn't stick very well. The end result was nice enough but didn't seem worth all the effort I'd been making all afternoon. I had some of the potato cakes for lunch today and they were nice. I think I'd make them again, just not at the same time as the onion rings and the dressing.
The OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings promised the earth but didn't really deliver. Once again I think that it was the breadcrumbs that were my downfall. Mine were too big despite having been in the food processor. In the book it says that the method will take a bit of time to perfect, dunking each onion ring in the paste mix and then the sprinkling with breadcrumbs. I found that the first one was fine but the rest were awful with the breadcrumbs getting covered in the paste and sticking together. I may try making breadcrumbs out of toast tomorrow, as this will make them smaller and drier, and see if that helps at all.
One of the benefits of the book is that you are supposed to be able to make these quickly after work. While that might be true for one item at a time but you can't generally eat the recipes alone. Accompaniments are suggested throughout the book. Obviously the more times you make something the quicker it will become but I spent about three hours in the kitchen yesterday making these three recipes (and some instant falafel mix).
So I started with the carrot and ginger dressing. It is really a carrot and ginger purée with a little onion, garlic, lime juice, red wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil and agave nectar. In itself I guess it doesn't take much effort or time. The only time consuming bit is the boiling of the carrots and waiting for them to cool down a bit. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of lime juice and the same of water which I think is a bit too much. My dressing was quite watery. It is a simply but tasty addition to a plain salad and also went well with the potato cakes. The slight down side is that the raw ginger and garlic tend to stay with you afterwards!
The potato cakes again in themselves were not that difficult to make. Just mashed potato mixed with some spring onions and toasted sesame oil. You are supposed to use panko breadcrumbs both in with the potato mix and also on the outside, which I have discovered are Japanese style breadcrumbs. I tried the local supermarkets but couldn't find any. My favourite 'Continental Stores' didn't have them and the local Asian supermarket had run out so I had to make do with some Warburtons in the food processor instead, I think that this may have been my downfall.
I didn't seem to have enough breadcrumbs and the ones I did have didn't stick very well. The end result was nice enough but didn't seem worth all the effort I'd been making all afternoon. I had some of the potato cakes for lunch today and they were nice. I think I'd make them again, just not at the same time as the onion rings and the dressing.
The OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings promised the earth but didn't really deliver. Once again I think that it was the breadcrumbs that were my downfall. Mine were too big despite having been in the food processor. In the book it says that the method will take a bit of time to perfect, dunking each onion ring in the paste mix and then the sprinkling with breadcrumbs. I found that the first one was fine but the rest were awful with the breadcrumbs getting covered in the paste and sticking together. I may try making breadcrumbs out of toast tomorrow, as this will make them smaller and drier, and see if that helps at all.
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| You can see the difference in the onion rings here. One breadcrumbed , many not! |
As far as the taste is concerned the onion rings were nice but not fantastic, mainly due to the covering being quite sporadic. I certainly didn't get them to 'OMG' level but I will try them again.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Rhubarb Cake
My Mum made this rhubarb cake ages ago, May 2008 to be precise. It was delicious and I asked her to email me the recipe and that is how I know (I'm not THAT obsessed with food!). I haven't made it since then. Rhubarb is in season and they had large bunches on the market stall this week for £1 each. I love rhubarb and especially rhubarb crumble but I thought I'd like to do something slightly different and something portable so that I could take it to the picnic.
So you need:
For the base
300g Rhubarb
Juice of half a lemon
165g self-raising flour
175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
for the topping
25g butter
2 tbsp self-raising flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1. Set the oven at 180 degrees C (160 for fan ovens)
2. Grease a cake tin or in my case a lasagne dish!
3. Chop the rhubarb into 3cm lengths and mix with lemon juice
4. Cream together butter and sugar, mix in flour, eggs and vanilla extract.
The recipe says whisk together the ingredients in 4. but I tried that and the butter just went into little lumps. It didn't make any difference to the overall taste though.
5. Fold half the rhubarb into the batter mix and spoon it into the tin. Scatter the remaining rhubarb over the top.
6. Make the topping by rubbing the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and ginger and sprinkle over the cake.
Bake for 50 minutes and then leave to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.
The result is a really moist sponge with a subtle gingery topping and lovely chunks of rhubarb throughout. Mr VST and I had to try it before serving it to my family of course so we had some with ice cream. It was equally delicious cold and eaten as a cake today.
So you need:
300g Rhubarb
Juice of half a lemon
165g self-raising flour
175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
for the topping
25g butter
2 tbsp self-raising flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1. Set the oven at 180 degrees C (160 for fan ovens)
2. Grease a cake tin or in my case a lasagne dish!
3. Chop the rhubarb into 3cm lengths and mix with lemon juice
4. Cream together butter and sugar, mix in flour, eggs and vanilla extract.
The recipe says whisk together the ingredients in 4. but I tried that and the butter just went into little lumps. It didn't make any difference to the overall taste though.
5. Fold half the rhubarb into the batter mix and spoon it into the tin. Scatter the remaining rhubarb over the top.
6. Make the topping by rubbing the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and ginger and sprinkle over the cake.
Bake for 50 minutes and then leave to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.
The result is a really moist sponge with a subtle gingery topping and lovely chunks of rhubarb throughout. Mr VST and I had to try it before serving it to my family of course so we had some with ice cream. It was equally delicious cold and eaten as a cake today.
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