Gluten Free Tahini and Chocolate Cookies

For the little monsters, I like to try out super healthy recipes, because let’s face it… who wants to feed children cups of sugar? Well I know I don’t! 

We have got today, a gluten free, vegan and refined sugar free recipe! What? What is left of good? How can I be lots of butter and not give you an indulgent recipe? Well.. there’s always a balance! 

Gluten free tahini and chocolate cookies

• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1 cup walnuts (ground finely)
• 1 + 1/4 cup gluten free flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup cacao powder 

Firstly, in a bowl, whisk up maple syrup and tahini. When fully combined add in the walnut and whisk the mixture well. 

In a separate bowl, combine sifted flour, cacao powder and the baking soda. Add it to the tahini mixture in three batches. The mixture will be thick and sticky so it’s best to use your hands. Make sure you don’t overmix it otherwise the cookies will be hard. 

Weigh the dough and divide it into 12 even pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and press the ball down with a rolling pin, or an empty bottle of wine.

Put the cookies into the fridge for about 40 min. When about 30 min in, pre-heat the oven to 175C. 

Bake in a hot oven for about 10-12 mins. Once they are ready, remove from the over and transfer to a cooling rack. Let the cookies cool down before eating! 

I hope you enjoy this little bit of healthy heaven and please do let me know your opinion! 



Salted Pistachio Brownies

Hello petals. 

Sorry I haven’t been so active. It’s been a bit rough. Feeling under the weather and have lost someone that was very dear to me unexpectedly. 

J was one of the best people I have ever met. 

This recipe is for you, you never liked sweet things but you liked me. 

  
Ingridients: 

• 145g salted butter
• 250g white caster sugar
• 65g cocoa powder 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 70g plain flour
• 100ml condensed milk
• 75g crushed salted pistachios 

Firstly, preheat your oven on gas mark 6. 

Start of my lining your baking tray with greaseproof paper. You will want to do this as it will make it so much easier to remove it once it’s cooled down. 

As I am a bit lazy, instead melting the butter over a saucepan, I do it in the microwave for about 45seconds. In a bowl add the butter, sugar and cocoa powder. You don’t want the mixture to be too hot from the butter, as this might cook the eggs. 

Stir in vanilla with a spatula and then add the eggs, one at a time, stirring hard after each one.

When the batter looks thick, shiny and well blended, add the flour and stir until fully incorporated. Spread evenly in lined tray. 

Scatter half of the crushed nuts on top and evenly pour the condensed milk on top of the chocolate and nut mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the pistachios on top and pat down gently with the spatula. 

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean when you insert it in the center of the tray. You will need to keep an eye on it from time to time and you might have to bake it for longer. 

Once it’s done and it has cooled down, parts of the condensed milk will have turned into caramel. 

I hope you enjoy it. 

Ana 

Braised Duck Legs with Butter Bean, Asparagus and Courgette

Hello my fellow foodies! I hope you are all well – I have to say that this past month has been quite a good month for me and that I have been inspired to cook and pursue my passion. Everything becomes quite easy when you have people that believe in you.

This recipe is the bomb and you should definitely try it. 

  
Ingredients:

• 2 duck legs
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 400ml chicken stock
• 100ml red wine
• 2 cans of butter bean
• 2 small courgette chopped in batons
• 1 bunch of asparagus tips
• dried rosemary
• salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and season duck legs with salt and pepper.

In a large oven proof pan heat the coconut oil and fry the legs, skin sides down, over moderately high heat 10 to 15 minutes, or until skin is crips.Turn legs over and cook until browned on the other side, about 2 minutes. Add the onions, garlic, red wine and chicken stock.

Put the pan in the oven and let it braise for 1 hour  (total cooking time is 2 hours). Once they have cooked for 1 hour add the two cans of butter bean and let it cook in the oven for half an hour. Finally add the courgette, asparagus and the rosemary- you might have to remove some of the liquid/stock out, just leaving enough to cover the beans.

After another half  an hour of cooking, the duck legs should be extremely tender. Serve duck legs with some of the sauce, butter beans and vegetables.

Let me know what you think!
Ana x 

 

 

Savory Waffles with Salmon

Good day! 
I have created this brunch meal that I’m absolutely obsessed with, and I will be posting different variations of this. 

  
You will need a waffle machine for this recipe, I have bought mine from Amazon brand VonChef for about £20 and it makes 4 waffles at the time. 
For the waffle batter: 

• 250g Plain flour 
• 7g Baking powder
• 20g Caster sugar
• 5g Salt
• 475ml Milk
• 2 Eggs
• 30ml Vegetable oil

Other ingredients you will need: 

• Smoked Salmon or Gravlax Salmon
• 1/2 tablespoon  Philadelphia Garlic & Herb cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon Honey
• 2 tablespoons  Lemon juice
• 1 Spring onion chopped or strips for garnish
• 1 Poached egg 
• Salt and Pepper

To make the batter, break the eggs into the milk and beat the mixture. In a big bowl place all the dry ingredients and slowly pour the liquid mixture in an stirring at the same time. 

Add the oil and mix all ingredients together until all the large lumps have been disappeared. Do not over mix otherwise the waffles will not be fluffy when you cook them! 

Turn on the waffle maker, while you’re waiting for the waffle to heat up, prepare the salmon by cutting into strips. When this is hot pour a bit of a batter – without covering all of the holes, quickly evenly distribute the salmon pieces on top and then pour more of the batter over covering all the holes – make sure you don’t get too excited and overfill it. 

You will know when the waffle is done when it stops steaming and its golden brown. 

While the waffle cooks, prepare the honey drizzle by mixing the honey, with the lemon juice and some salt and pepper to taste – this is the part that you can let your mind go free and add whatever spices/flavours to your sauce.  I find that lemon and honey are enough for this. 

Serve the waffle hot with a poached egg and the lemon! 

Enjoy 

Spicy Pulled Pork Rissoles

Hope you are all doing well.
Growing up in a Portuguese/Chinese household, I have been exposed to fusion food quite a lot.
So I have decided to make these lovely Spicy Pulled Pork Rissoles – in Portuguese Rissóis – I am basically filling this Portuguese snack with an amazing American meat.

 
For the Spicy Pulled Pork,  you will need:

• Shoulder or Pork Butt
• 2 onions
• 1/2 tablespoon of chili powder
• 1/2 tablespoon of chili flakes
• 1 tablespoon of paprika
• 500ml Pear cider
• 2 tablespoons of brown sugar
• Salt and Pepper

Start by turning on your oven on 150C.
Cut the onions in quarters and scatter the pieces all over a big roasting tin. Place the pork on top of the bed of onion and rub all of the dry ingredients on the meat – don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly after.. you don’t want to be touching anywhere sensitive after.

Pour over the cider and cover the tin with foil and let it cook covered in the oven for 4 hours, and 1 additional hour with the tin uncovered. The meat should be fork-tender, that’s when you know it’s done.
Remove the meat from the pot and shred completely with two forks and return the shredded meat to the pot and keep in with the juices until you need it. You can always tweak the quantities of spices to your taste and add on other herbs and spices. You can also use cheap cola or a stout instead of pear cider – the world is your oyster.

To make the dough:

• 125g all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 125ml water
• Salt
• 1 beaten egg
• Breadcrumb
• Oil for frying

Bring water to a boil in a pot and add the salt and butter, turn the heat off and stir in the flour stirring with a wooden spoon until a ball is formed and leave it to cool completely.

Once the dough has cooled down, dust your work surface with flour and knead the dough. I find it easier to use the pasta machine to roll the dough out, but you can do it with a rolling pin too, or your favourite bottle of wine. Roll the dough to about 0.5cm in thickness and using a cutter (or a pint glass in my case) cut disks of dough, the diameter should be about 7cm, but again that’s to your discretion, if you want to make one giant rissol, I am not going to stop you. In fact, please do and let me have half of it!

Place the pulled pork filling in the middle of a circle and fold the dough over to form a half circle (fat half circle), pressing the edges together and set aside. When you run out of dough or run out of filling you are one step closer to AMAZINGNESS!
Brush the pastries in beaten egg, and quickly dip them in breadcrumb. Fry until golden brown in hot oil, doing so in batches. You can check if the oil is hot enough by putting one of the rissoles in.

You definitely need to try this! Let me know how it goes for you guys!

Ana

Ramen with Braised Pig’s Ears and Roasted Pork Belly

Hello!
If you have not watched THE MIND OF A CHEF, please do yourselves a favour and go check it out! it’s very inspiring and educational (culinarily speaking)

Chef David Chang is an absolute junkie for ramen like me (not much choice, we got the Asian in us!)! I was inspired to make my own Japanese ramen noodles from scratch.

For the Ramen Noodles:

• 200g all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of baked soda
• 50ml warm tap water
• 50ml cold tap water

To make the baked soda, spread a a good amount of baking soda on a foil-lined sheet pan. Put it in the oven for about 1hour on 150C. You will only need 2 teaspoons for this recipe but you can store the extra in a jar for as long as you need. I read on a few websites and thought the baking soda would change colours, but that is not correct.

We need the baked soda to change the pH levels in the water, this is what gives the ramen its texture.

In a big mixing bowl put the warm water and the 2 teaspoons of baked soda to dissolved, then add the cold water. Lastly add the flour and mix until it forms into a dough. The mixture is quite dry and crumbly. Knead it for a full 5 minutes and wrap it in some cling film and let it rest for 20 minutes. Then knead again for another 5 minutes (very good work out). Reward the dough  in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for about 1 hour. 

For this recipe I would highly recommend for you to have a pasta machine, the dough is not easy to hand roll and cut if you don’t have the experience. Once the dough has chilled devide it into 4 equal portions. The thickness setting on the pasta machine is to your descretion, I like mine not so thin. 

Like Italian pasta, cook the noodles in a deep pot with plenty of water. The cooking time will depend on the thickness of the pasta, mine took about 3 minutes. Check the noodles regularly while they’re cooking; if they stick together, rinse them under cold water immediately after straining them from the pot to stop the cooking and rinse off any excess starch. Make sure you only cook the noodles when you’re ready to plate, you don’t want the noodles sitting around while you get the rest ready. 

Ingredients for Braised Pig’s Ears

• 2 pig’s ears
• 1/4 cup Shaoxing Rice Wine, or sake
• 3 Tablespoons dark Chinese soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 star anise

 

f your pig’s ears come with a few strand of unwanted hair and you don’t have a blow torch to hand, like me you can burn the hair using your gas stove – it is in no means as efficient as a blow torch, but it helps. 

Par-boil the ears in a pot of water for a few minutes, this will help remove any dirty from the skin. 

Remove the ears from the pot and put it in another clean smaller pot and fill it with enough water that will cover the ears, then add all the ingredients. Bring it to a boil and reduce it to simmer for 2hours30min. You will want to keep an eye on it for about every 30 minutes to turn the ears and add more water if necessary. 

When they are done, the ears should be very soft and dark. Let it chill completely before you sliced the ears into thin strips.This dish is supposed to be served cold but is just as good hot.

Please do not discard of the liquid used to cooked the ears, this will be used for our ramen broth base!

 

For the Pork Belly: 

• 1 Strip of pork belly cut in half
• Salt and Pepper
•  Chili oil 

Use a knife to poke the rind as many holes as possible. Brush the rind with chilli oil and season it with salt and pepper. You should marinate if you have time, but if you don’t, it isn’t a problem. place it in the roasting pan lined with foil and roast it in hot oven for an hour in 200C. The skin should puff up into crackling. Remove pork from oven and allow to rest uncovered. When ready to serve, cut into 1cm slices. 
For the Broth (1 serving) 

• 1/2 ladle of the pig’s ears cooking liquid
• 1 ladle of water 
• 1 teaspoon of miso paste

If you are not making it the pig’s ear and don’t have the liquid, you can make your broth/stock from scratch with any pork, smoked meat or chicken bones/fat – I will post a recipe for an easy broth in the next couple of days for you.

Add all the ingredients to a pot and bring it to boil. The thing I like about the ramen broths is that is very open to taste, so you can add absolutely anything you want as it is to your taste. I like it fat and flavoursome.

 
To assemble your lovely bowl of awesomeness, put your noodles in a bowl, add a few strips of the pig’s ears and a few slices of the pork belly (or whatever meats or vegetables you want to have with your ramen!) and add the broth. I have served this with a soft boiled egg and some spring onions. To create those lovely curls, cut the spring onions into thin strips and put it in a bowl with cold water, this will make the strips curl up. 

I hope you enjoy making this as much as I did, I am definitely happy with the results, nothing tastes better than your own success! 
Ana 

Coconut and Key Lime Pie

Hello lovelies! Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately! I have been busy loving life! 

Jokes! I haven’t had much time to cook beautiful meals unfortunately! I have had the day off today and have craved for key lime pie for weeks, so I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to make it! 

  

The ingredients you will need: 

• 200g digestive biscuits
•  20g desiccated coconut
•  100g butter, melted
• 397g can condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lime zest 
• 125ml lime juice
• 4 egg yolks
• 150ml coconut cream
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar

 For the meringue: 

• 4 egg white at room temperature
• 100g icing sugar
• 100g caster sugar 

Place the can of coconut cream in the fridge overnight to settle.

Preheat oven to 160C. Grease a tart pan with removable base. Place the biscuits in a food processor and process until finely crushed. Add the dissecated coconut and butter and mix until combined. Spoon into prepared pan and use the back of a spoon to press the mixture evenly over the base and side of the pan. Fine crust or thick crust is up to you! Place in the fridge for at least 30min to chill and harden. 

Whisk the condensed milk, lime zest, lime juice and egg yolks together in a large bowl. Pour over the chilled crust base. Place on a baking tray. Bake for 30 mins or until just set. Once it’s done, set a side to cool down and put it in the fridge. 

To make the coconut cream, open the can of coconut cream and scoop the hard cream at the top into a bowl. You won’t be needing the coconut water/liquid. Add thickened cream and icing sugar. Use an electric mixer to beat until it’s soft then spoon the coconut cream over the pie. 

  
For the meringues, reheat the oven to 100C . Put the egg whites on a non plastic bowl and beat them on medium speed with an electric whisk until the mixture resembles a fluffy clouds and stands up in stiff peaks when you lift the whisk. 

Now turn the speed up and start to add the caster sugar, spoonful at a time. Continue beating while you add the sugar slowly. However, don’t over-beat. When ready, the mixture should be thick and glossy. Sift icing sugar over the mixture and gently fold it in. Continue to sift and fold in the rest of the icing sugar bit by bit. Again, don’t over-mix. The mixture should look smooth! 

I’ve used silicone muffin trays to keep them the same size, once spooned you can sprinkle with lime zest or thinly sliced lemon zest like I did. Bake for an hour and a half in the oven, until the meringues look crisp. Leave to cool on the tray and put them on top of the coconut cream to decorate. 

Blueberry Muffins

 I am not the biggest fan of sweets, so it will take a lot for me to actually make something something sweet. I am more inclined to bake during the cold weather because who doesn’t like a nice warm muffin?

I was having a look in my fridge the other day,  and saw that I had frozen blueberries. The first thing I thought I could make, was blueberry muffins.

What you’ll need to succeed:

• 110g plain flour
• 110g butter
• 85g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
•  1½ teaspoons of baking powder
• 125 frozen blueberries

Cream the butter and sugar together then slowly add the eggs. Add the flour, baking powder and stir to combine. This is the hardest part: refrigerate the mixture overnight.

Place a spoonful of muffin mixture into each muffin case, filling each to just over half way.

Bake in an oven set at 200C/400F/Gas 6 for 20 minutes, or until golden on top.

Best served  warm out of the oven! You do not want to have these cold.. It won’t taste the same!
Ana xx

Pumpkin Soup

It’s autumn and we love it right? We love the leaves, we love pumpkin lattes and pumpkin spice, pumpkin all things everything!

So I have a really easy and quick pumpkin soup recipe!

 

What you’ll need:

• Splash of olive oil
• 1 chopped onion
• Half of a small pumpkin (chopped, deseeded and peeled) – let’s say about 500g
• 400ml chicken stock (or vegetable if you’re vegetarian)
• Double cream to serve

Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan, then gently cook the chopped onions until soft but not coloured. Add the pumpkin to the pan, then carry on cooking stirring occasionally until it starts to soften and turn golden.

Pour the stock into the pan, then season with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika. Bring everything to the boil, then simmer on a low fire until the pumpkin is very soft. Purée the ingredients in a blender and the most important part: push the soup through a fine sieve into another pan for a smooth consistancy!

Once you’re ready to serve, add a tablespoon of double cream! And taaaadaaah! Smooth delicious pumpkin soup!

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!
Ana X

When in Switzerland

I haven’t been anywhere this summer, so to treat myself, I decided to go see a friend in Switzerland.

I have to say that the country has stolen a piece of my heart. Cheese and chocolate, what else do I need?  Yesterday, was my last night in Basel and we decided to have cheese fondue at home!

 
I have had a lot of fondues in my life.. Like meat fondue, chocolate fondue or the Chinese fondue. Never really had cheese fondue until last night.

The classic dip for this would be bread, but I went a bit crazy.. I started googling ingridients that would be nice for dipping… No, unfortunately no nachos! On the table we have boiled cauliflower and new baby potatoes. Also have pears, cured sausage, pears and our main guest: bread.

You’ve guessed right, there was no cheese left behind.

We have bought ready grated cheese pack for fondue. I’ve done my research and the simple version seems to be from Neuchâtel, which only uses Emmantel and Gruyere. Add about 200ml of white wine – I cannot stress enough about this, but please use a wine that you would drink. If you wouldn’t drink that wine then why would you use it to cook and eat? To the wine, add two tablespoons of strong white flour or ideally cornstarch, once the mixture is warm, add the cheese and melt it. The consistency should be thick but a bit runny.

It’s the perfect social dish for winter.

Ana xx