Leynos no Daibouken

Recipé time again. This is a synthesis of a number of different recipés for this dish I found dotted around the web. I've tried it several times and it works really well (as I'm sure Ruth will happilly testify). Especially if one is feeling under the weather.

Soupe à L'oignon

Serves 2, Preparation time: 60 mins (approx)

Equipment

• Two saucepans (one with a lid)
  
• Knives
  
• Measuring jug
  

Ingredients

• 1 kg of medium sized onions
  
• 2 OXO cubes disolved in 1/2 litre of hot water
  
• 1/4 litre of white wine
  
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• 15g butter (approx)
  
• 2 tbl spoons olive oil
  
• salt
  
• pepper
  
• brandy/cognac
  
• Accompanyment:
  
  
  • Two part-bake rolls
    
  • Grated emental cheese
    
  • Worcestershire sauce
    
  
  

Method

1. Peel and cut the onions in half, then cut the halves into strips roughly 8mm wide
   
2. In one of the sauce pans, heat the olive oil and butter until melted
   
3. Add the onions to the oil, season with salt & pepper and cover.
   
4. In the other saucepan, bring the stock and white wine to the boil along with the garlic and bay leaf
   
5. Add around 35 ml of brandy to each pan
   
6. Turn the hob under the stock down to low, but keep the other one on medium/high.
   
7. Stir the onions thoroughly every 5 mins, re-covering afterwords. Add a little water if they start to stick, but not too much. The aim here is to part fry, part steam the onions.
   
8. When the onions have clarifed and browned slightly, add the contents of the other saucepan.
   
9. Turn off the heat, re-cover and let the flavours combine for a few minutes.
   
10. Heat the part-bake rolls according to instructions.
    
11. When they are ready, split them in half and cover the open halves with emental, seasoned with a few drops of Worcestershire sauce.
    
12. Return these to the oven until the cheese has melted.
    
13. Serve.
    

Ruth had some guests over yesterday whom we owed dinner, so I got to try out some of my cooking experiments on them (mwahahah). Since one of the guests is vegetarian, we figured it would be easier just to cook one dish instead of two. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to attempt making pasta from scratch. So of course, I turned to Google which yielded this suggestion. Sounds easy enough I thought. Of course, I would also need some vegetarian pasta dough, and a sauce of some kind to go with it. I suggested carrot and orange soup as a starter, which everyone liked the sound of.

The shitake mushrooms came from Thai@Haymarket, but pretty much any Chinese/south east Asian supermarket will have them. The rest of the vegetables came from Tattie Shaws, undoubtedly the best green grocers in Edinburgh. A helpful gentleman had recommended Valvona & Crolla's double zero pasta flour but, sadly, they were out, so I had to make do with Allinsons Very Strong bread flour. Valvona & Crolla were also a bit limited in their selection of vegetarian cheese (no romano), so I went with a light Scottish dairy cheese for the sauce instead.

For making ravioli, I picked up a ravioli press from Lakeland.

I try to avoid kitchen gadgets to begin with, as I like to learn how things are done by hand first, but in this instance, I was grateful for the speed afforded by an electric whisk for kneading the dough, as it took me a few goes to get the ravioli out of the press correctly. By the third try, the press was turning out perfect little pasta parcels. It seems the answer is to cover the thing in flour. Actually, it can't be stressed strongly enough how essential a flour duster is for this task.

As a quantity guide, the linked pasta dough recipe makes enough for one ravioli tray and one tray does two people.

This was also my first experience of using a food processor—Ruth had a Braun stick blender in her cupboard that had seemingly gone unused, but worked perfectly. I'm now sold on the value of these things, so I will look into obtaining one for myself.

I served the pasta with steamed asparagus (again, mad propz to Tattie Shaws). Everyone was pleased with the meal, a huge relief as my estimate of preparation time was way off. One of Ruth's guests had brought her signature lemon drizzle cake, which I'd heard a lot about and definitely didn't disappoint.

Now that I know I can make pasta, it feels that another one of life's little mysteries has fallen by the wayside. The whole experience was definitely a little exhausting though. Next time, I think I will split the preparation over two days if possible.

gominokouhai and stormsearch confirm that this recipe does indeed work:

http://www.stv.tv/tv/thefivethirtyshow/exclusives/recipes/530_chocolate_fondant_20080702

Although when they say "serves 4-6", surely they mean "serves 8-12." Unless you have an inhuman appetite for chocolate. (And when I say inhuman, I mean it. This is coming from a card carrying member of chocoholics anonymous).

Well, the last time I tried making duck with ginger and spring onions, the duck didn't really seem to take on any of the flavour from the other ingredients, so... This time, I'm marinating the duck breast overnight with sake, spring onions and grated ginger. I've also got me some pak choi to add to the finished product. Let's see how it goes.

What can I say, I had chocolate cravings, and I couldn't be bothered walking to the 24 hour garage.

http://www.cacaoweb.net/brownies3.html

I can happily confirm that they are indeed both really easy and extremely delicious. They also have that crispy surface and gooey texture.

By some strange co-incidence, I also had exactly 70g of Green & Black's cocoa powder left.

I will take one to my doctor tomorrow and tell him it's a coping mechanism.

He kidnaps people and subjects them to his cruel bizarre cooking experiments.

A while ago, I kidnapped gominokouhai and stormsearch and forced them to endure my attempt at making pork stroganoff. By way of compensation, I promised to reveal to them the recipe. So here it is as prepared that fateful night:

Ingredients

• 450g pork tenderloin, diced
  
• 15g dried porcini mushrooms
  
• 6 tbsp of sherry
  
• 200g chestnut mushrooms
  
• 250g creme freche
  
• half a medium sized onion finely chopped
  
• 2 shallots finely chopped
  
• 1 tsp chopped thyme
  
• 1 tsp paprika

First of all, warm the sherry in a milkpan, then soak the porcini mushrooms in it and leave to one side.

Fry the onions and shallots until soft and starting to brown, then add the pork and fry until browned. Add the soaked mushrooms (and sherry), the chestnut mushrooms and paprika. Fry for a bit longer to let the flavours blend. Lastly, add the creme freche and the thyme.

Serve on a bed of rice or whatever else you think will go well.

---

Last night, I subjected Ho-Il to my evil chicken and fennel stir-fry. This is something I have practiced on myself a few times to get it just right (gotta love Liddl and their 35p fennel). Also gives me an excuse to abuse my super happy fun wok. It goes a little something like this:

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts cut into strips
  
• 1 bulb fennel, sliced thinly
  
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
  
• 3 spring onions, coarsely chopped
  
• 1 tbsp chinese cooking wine
  
• 1 tbsp sugar (I used light brown)
  
• 1 tsp Chinese 5 spice (might want to use a little less than that)
  
• A good dash of light soy sauce

Put the chicken into a bowl and pour in the rice wine. Mix it with the spring onions, and leave to marinate for at least 20 minutes.

Stir fry the onions and fennel until the fennel has softened up a little. Add the chicken, and stir fry some more. Now, add the sugar and soy sauce, and you guessed it, stir fry some more. Finally, add the five spice and give it all another stir for a good measure.

Serve on a bed of rice. (Sad fact: I have a 10 kg bag of rice in my kitchen).

I'd show you a picture, but it's usually eaten so fast that I don't have time to snap one.

---

I found Excel Saga volume 1 in CEX today for six squids. I hear it's quite messed up.

I followed stormsearch's recipe suggestion:



Er... That's:

• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• A handful of apricots
• A handful of dates
• A sprinkling of sultanas
• 4 chicken drumsticks
• A dusting of nutmeg
• Lots of Pinot Grigio

In the oven at 150 C for 3 hours or there-abouts.

Servers 2

It's very sweet, so I may have to tone something down next time I try, but otherwise, very tasty.

This week, I've also made lamb casserole (which just seemed to get better with each passing day) and the spaghetti bolognese of death (with spectacular spaghetti provided by scotm

I want to try making a risotto soon. (And yes, I'm still eating my dinner at my desk. Why do you think I was so insistent on a comfy office chair?)

The rest of the evening was spent reading volume 15 of Fruits Basket to Mozart piano concertos.

For anyone interested, here's the recipe for the cheesecake I baked for the party:

http://www.femail.com.au/traditional-baked-cheesecake.htm

I used digestives for the base and mascarpone for the cream cheese. Pretty much all of the ingredients were sourced from Lidl, with the exception of the vanilla extract.

Anyway, once again, thanks to everyone for coming along. It was cool getting to watch someone else playing Rez for once, too.

Hmmm... That'll teach me not to show up at a viewing without having first checked ahead.



Ahem. Anyway, I've lost the bidding on another two flats. The most recent one went for £102,000. That's a ridiculous 47% above the asking price. And that was without any carpets and in dire need of a new kitchen. A quick check of my budget spreadsheet tells me that I can't afford to spend £102,000. Let alone spend that and the £20k or so it would have cost me to get it into ship shape condition.

The second flat I viewed on Thursday was identical structurally, and in the same area, but fully decorated. The prospective buyer wouldn't have had to do anything to the place what so-ever. In other words, I haven't a hope in hell of getting it. Oh well.

Earlier, I also missed a similar flat on a fixed price sale. I put my offer in at 8:45am, the day after it was listed. And it had already gone. This business is insane.

Call me mad, but I'm going to view a couple of flats in the Hailes tomorrow. I liked living in Sighthill. Honest. I only ever got threatened with physical violence once. And it's just across the road from the local Lidl.

--

My experiment for today was to see if using mince from the local butcher would yield a better tasting chili than on one made using frozen mince. I also added a level teaspoon of cumin seeds.

The results from the first night seem to suggest that, yes, it does make quite a bit of difference. Three quid's difference? Well, since it does three meals, it's not so bad when you average it out.

Also, I somehow never seem to manage to spend less than ten quid when I visit Sommerfield. The bottle of 1664 Premiere and the trip to the olive bar didn't help I guess. Tasty though.

--

Fruits Basket volume 13 is out of the way now. Must find volume 14. The suspense is killing me. Will something happen between Kyo and Tohru? And will Ou-chan's crush get a sodding clue?

--

I just found out that Club Noir is on in Edinburgh this month (24th March). And it's at Calton Studios this time. I must go.

Boring bog standard chili (works for me) (details provided for spudtater). Most of the unique details come from my sister. Although my habit of adding peppers and sweetcorn to my chilies was inherited from my Mum.

( recipe )