Bill Granger's caramel salmon

I'm sure it can't just be my family now can it, that doesn't get enough oily fish into it's weekly diet?
I love salmon, but one of my daughter's wants it 'pimped' up before she'll eat it.
This Bill Granger recipe is great. It's sweet, savoury and delicious.

It's moreish.

Can salmon be moreish? I think so.

And it's great for a quick mid-week meal, when there's not much time. That's something I'm increasingly finding now that I'm working more hours. (One of the perks of being self-employed, if there's no staff.....)

Bill Granger's Caramel Salmon


Serves 4. A tad optimistic I feel.

1 tbsp. veg. oil
800g skin-on salmon, cut into cubes
1 red onion, sliced (I used white onion as that's all I had at home)
3 cloves garlic, sliced
3 tbsp dark soy sauce
115g brown sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce (I used mirin here as we don't like fish sauce!)
1 tbsp. lime juice.

1. Fry the cubes of salmon in the oil quickly, until golden brown. Remove from pan.

2. Fry the onion and garlic for 3 minutes, then add the sugar, fish sauce (if using) and soy.

3. Return salmon to the pan and cook for a further minute or until the sauce is thick and syrupy. add lime juice.

4. Serve with steamed rice and lime wedges.

Adapted from Bill Granger's book 'Every Day'.

Marks out of ten?     10.

Would I make it again?   Hell, yeah!

How to make a Christening Cake

How to make a christening cake for a beautiful little boy.

Lucas is my best friend's grand-son, so it was an absolute joy and honour for me to be asked to make the christening cake.

People have such faith in me, that they would entrust me with such an important job and I really don't want to let them down in any way, but can I admit to not feeling quite as positive about the whole thing as they are? Maybe even feeling a little nervous that I'd only ever made one other tiered cake before?

 (You can see it here)

But this little boy is SO worth it. How could I let him down?

Here's the finished christening cake, along with the requested train cake topper and baby blocks...

It's not perfect. but made with much love.

1. I started off about five days before the christening by making the train cake topper, I bought some gumpaste powder from Hobbycraft to make it, gum paste is for modelling and it sets harder than fondant does.
I googled 'train cake topper' and ended up at this great blog, which co-incidentally I already had on my google reader list! The instructions and photographs made the job of making the train nice and simple. After it was finished, I just covered it with a clean tea-towel and put it to one side to dry off.

2. The second job which needed completing were the baby blocks. Now I really had to get my thinking cap on for these, should I make them from cake then cover them with buttercream before the fondant? Hmmm, well, being as there were still quite a few days before the christening I was a bit worried about the keeping qualities if the blocks were made in that way.
I did a bit more googling and read somewhere, I forget where, about someone making baby blocks from rice crispie squares! It occurred to me that if I bought the ready-made crispie squares, halved them, them put one on top of the other, they should be a 'cube' shape, just right for the baby blocks!

Rather than buttercream, I covered them with marzipan, then fondant.

First of all I tried moulding the fondant round the cube, but the sides were not definite enough, not sharp enough, so I used the rice-crispie square as a template and cut out each side individually.
five squares, six sides each = 30 squares of fondant. Phew.
The 'LUCAS' letters were cut-out from the remaining gum-paste which was used to make the train, left to dry for a few hours and stuck onto the blocks with edible glue.

I made up a little royal icing for the piping on the squares, coloured blue. It dried nice and hard very quickly.
Cover and put to one side.

3. For the actual cake, I used two square cake pans, one 9 inch, the other 7 inch and a couple of days before the christening made a simple madeira cake. I used a madeira cake recipe because I wanted the cake to be dense and moist and flavourful.
The cakes were split and filled with strawberry jam and buttercream.

4. I used the remaining buttercream to cover both cakes with a thin layer (what is commonly known as a crumbcoat) The smaller cake was sat on a thin cake board the same size as the cake (I had to cut it with a stanley knife so that it didn't show.
The larger cake was sat on a cake board.
I covered the larger cake with white fondant, edged in a pretty ribbon (secured with dressmaking pins, the ones with large pearl heads) Just make sure you remove the pins before the cake is cut!!

5. To support the top tier, cut 4 lengths of dowelling rods just a smidge taller than the bottom cake, they should  just  show. Place them in a square shape (smaller than the top cake) in the bottom cake. Place the top tier in place, after it has been covered with fondant (I coloured the top tier blue with gel colouring)
Edge again with a pretty ribbon and secure with pins.
Use the ribbon to edge the cake board too, we did this with double-sided sticky tape.

6. Place the cake topper and blocks in place.

There you go, now don't you feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride even?
It was so worth it.

What do you get when you mix up Mary Berry and the Hummingbird bakery?

You get my family's favourite brownies! that's what.

You may like to skip past this post if you like your brownies very fudgy, bitter and made with lots of extravagantly priced chocolate.

This is not that kind of recipe.

Think of a family-friendly brownie that both children and adults alike will enjoy, made with cocoa powder and chocolate chips, covered with a tangy, creamy chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Heavenly.

Mary Berry's chocolate chip brownies:


275g softened butter
375g caster sugar
4 large eggs
75g cocoa powder
100g self-raising flour
100g plain chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 180deg. C or 160 deg. C if you have a fan oven.

Grease and line a 12x9inch tray with baking parchment or foil.

Measure all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat until blended.

Spoon mixture into the prepared tin, levelling the top.

Bake for 40-45 minutes. cover with foil if browning too much towards the end of the cooking time.

Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and cut into 24 squares. (I never, ever get 24 squares, LOL!)


Hummingbird bakery's chocolate cream cheese frosting:


200g icing sugar, sifted
75g unsalted butter at room temperature
30g cocoa powder, sifted
150g cream cheese, cold.

Beat together the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter in a mixer fitted with a paddle attatchment on medium-low until mixture has come together.
Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until completely incorporated.
Turn mixer up to medium high, continue beating until frosting is light and fluffy, at least five minutes.

When the brownies are cold, spread the gorgeous frosting over the top.
Scrummy and yummy and gorgeous!

...and carrying on with the Asian theme...

.......Nigella's 'Korean keema'.

Perfect for those days when you need a quick family meal, that fills tummies, but is tasty and a little spicy.
We enjoyed this, but I'd definitely add more Gochujang next time.

Korean Keema:


Serves 2, generously.

150g Basmati rice
250g turkey mince
6 thin, or 3 fat spring onions, chopped
125g frozen peas
1 tsp veg. oil
2 tbsp rice wine
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

for the sauce:
2 tbsp Gochujang (red pepper paste)
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp rice wine
2 tbsp soy sauce

Cook yer rice as you would normally do!

Whisk together the sauce ingredients and stir in the minced turkey, leave to steep for about 5 mins.

Heat a wok. While it's heating up, pour boiling water over the peas which are in a colander (to defrost them)

When the wok is hot add the oil then the peas and spring onions and stir-fry for 3-4 mins.

Add the turkey mince and sauce and stir-fry for 4-5 mins until cooked.

Add the rice wine along with 4 tbsp water to swill out the residue sauce from the meat-steeping bowl, pour into the pan and fry for a further 30 seconds until everything is piping hot.

Serve over the rice sprinkled with fresh coriander.


Marks out of ten?        8

Would I make it again?     Yes.

Would I do anything differently?   I'd add more of the spicy pepper paste - we like spicy in this family!

China Modern

Do you ever go through phases with your cooking?
I do.
I may go through a Greek cooking phase (natch!)
An American South phase (regularly)
And sometimes, an Asian food phase.
What got me into my Chinese cooking phase was a cookery challenge on another food blog  'Belleau Kitchen', where a book and recipe are randomly chosen off one's bookshelves.
 In order to make sure that I didn't cheat in any way, shape or form I asked my daughter to choose a book with her eyes closed, then open the book randomly, put her hand on a page and I would cook the recipe on that page.
The book she chose was Ching-He Huang's 'China Modern'.
And the recipe? Well, you'll have to wait another day for that.
But that's how I got into the Chinese cooking phase....luckily Birmingham has a thriving Chinese community, near to the town centre, there are numerous Chinese supermarkets within walking distance, so off I went clutching my pennies, with a vague idea of what I wanted and walked out with spring roll wrappers, wanton wrappers, Chinkiang black vinegar, yellow bean paste, panko breadcrumbs, glutinous rice flour, noodles and a pretty bowl....
Yup, a good haul!

Maybe one or two of these will be used in the monthly challenge....maybe.....:-))

But here's what I made this time- my first attempt at anything vaguely sushi-ish.

Duck Nigiri:

Which were a huge hit in my house, I have orders to make them again! I even had one daughter search in the fridge for them the day after 'Mom, are there any more of those sushi duck things?'

Fat chance.

All gone.

Here's the recipe....

Peking Duck Nigiri Sushi


1 large duck breast fillet, skin on (I used 2 smaller ones)

For the marinade:
half a teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
1 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp hoi sin sauce
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp dark soy sauce

For the Sushi rice:
150g shortgrain sushi rice, washed until water runs clear
240 ml water
half a teaspoon salt
2 tbsp mirin
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp hot water

12 fine slices cucumber
12 fine slices spring onion.

Mix marinade ingredients in a bowl, place duck in bowl and leave to marinate for as long as possible, ideally overnight. Unfortunately I left mine in the marinade for all of ten minutes, but it was fine.

Drain the marinade into a pan and bring to a boil, this makes an amazing dipping sauce for the duck, yum, yum!

Preheat your oven to 220 deg. C.
Place duck, skin side down in a wok or grill, cook for 1 minute on both sides until golden-brown. Place on a roasting tray and cook for about 15 minutes.
I let mine cook for 20 minutes as I have an extremely anti-pink-meat husband!

Put the rice and measured water in a pan with a tight-fitting lid, boil the rice until only a little water remains, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes until water is completely absorbed.
Remove from the pan and let it cool down for about 10 minutes, mix the seasoning ingredients in a bowl and pour into the rice, mix with a flat wooden spoon or spatula.

Take a tbsp of the sushi rice and shape into an oval mound (the rice is extremely sticky, so try wetting your hands beforehand, place a cucumber slice on top.

Slice the duck into lovely pieces, place on top of the rice mounds, shove a few into your mouth while no-one's looking.

Yep, you read right. Oh my Gosh! Are they GOOD!!

Place slices of spring onion on top.

Serve with that yummy dipping sauce.

Serves one. Erm, sorry, serves 4.



Zheijiang Mein:


An uncomplicated and tasty noodle and minced beef dish.

For the sauce:
250ml chicken stock
3 tbsp hoi sin sauce
2 tbsp Shaosing rice wine or dry sherry
1 tbsp chilli bean sauce

1 tbsp groundnut oil, or other flavourless oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
350g minced beef
200g dried vermicelli rice noodles (I used ordinary wheat noodles)

To garnish:
1 spring onion, finely chopped
small handful coriander leaves, finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely sliced into matchsticks.

Combine sauce ingredients in a bowl.
Heat a wok over high heat, fry garlic for less than a minute, add beef and fry until browned.

Pour in sauce, bring to a boil and cook for about 4 minutes.

Cook the noodles, drain then divide between 2 bowls, sprinkle over meat sauce, then garnish with spring onion, coriander and carrot sticks.
(I mixed the noodles and meat sauce together)

Serves 2.

Both recipes adapted from 'China Modern' by Ching-He Huang.