Crab Cakes

Hello! 

After two weeks of California road trippin’, having an amazing time with my family, eating amazing food, just having an amazing experience.. I’m sure my waist line gained a few inches for letting loose. 

Missing the fresh seafood in the USA, I’ve decided to make and share this delicious recipe with you guys. This recipe makes for five cakes.

For the crab cakes:

• 170gr crab meat
• 150gr peppered smoked herring (or any smoked oily fish) 
• 1 medium sweet potato (mashed)
• 1 cup coooked finely chopped spinach 
• 1 egg (beaten) 
•  cup flour
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs 

In a large bowl, combine the crab meat, smoked hearing, sweet potato and spinach. One is well mixed, shape into five patties. 

In three shallow bowls, put in each the egg, flour and breadcrumb. Cover each pattie with flour, dip in flour and fully cover it with breadcrumb. 

If you have a deep fat fryer, then perfect.. fry each pattie for about 2-3 minutes on each side at 190C or until it’s golden brown. Alternately heat the oil in a sauce pan and fry the crab cakes. 

Enjoy it with a nice fresh salad or some slaw! 

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 

Matt-ioli

Today I had a special guest in my house, Matt Wright – he doesn’t really cook… He’s signature dish is beans on toast. So I’ve decided to teach him how to make a nice meal.

For starter we (me mostly haha) decided to make Parma ham and goats cheese ravioli. Baring in mind I’ve never made ravioli in my life – I just mastered the art of pappardelle making the other day.. Ravioli is on a whole other level!

 
For the filling, we used ricotta, goats cheese and parmaham (flown in specially from Rome thanks to my lovely friend Abi!)

We shaped the raviolis – I did the first one and the rest I let Matt get involved, and I must say he did a pretty damn good job for someone who can’t cook! – We cooked the ravioli in herbs and vegetable stock for about 15min (yes the pasta was a bit too thick unfortunately.. But we learn from our mistakes don’t we?)

Served in a bed of rocket and Parmesan salad with lemon and black truffle oil!

I must say that for first timers, we did well!

Ana x

Morning Bagels!

Good morning my loves.

After having a few drinks last night, all I want this morning is unhealthy comfort in food..

What do I have in the fridge… Black pudding, eggs, bagels….hmmm right, I know what to do now.. But what do I call this? Egg in a bag’hole? Yes that’s it… Egg in a bag’hole! Haha

 
My drunk self decided to snack on a bagel last night, and I’ve managed to leave the head and eat the butt! Let’s face it, if I had done it with a butt, it wouldn’t have looked as pretty!

I’ve seperated the egg yolk from the white (I have a surprise recipe for later that involves egg whites, so don’t waste yours!) – I buttered the bagel, and fried it in a pan along with the black pudding. Put the egg yolk on the bagel hole. And let everything fry away..

For the sauce, I used some mayo, English mustard, olive oil to liquify it a bit (is that even an expression?) and some salt and pepper to taste.

I guess this will be done until your egg yolk is done… I prefer mine runny to be honest, I need that to dip the bagel in!

All I can say now is that my place is empty! LOVE IT!
Ana x

Pappardelle Bolognaise

I have a bit of an addictive/perfectionist personality.. So when I attempt to make something, I want to be able to make it in my sleep… So as you can tell, it’s the second day consequetive that I’m making this pappardelle pasta.

 

  In this instance I have made the pasta with roughly 100gr of 00 pasta flour and 1 free range egg – the pasta was enough for 1 big portion.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Borough Market for the first time (it’s food heaven) and got a few different French cured sausages. For the normal Ana, I would have finished the sausages in a heartbeat, however in this occasion one of the sausages is made of donkey meat and pork.. And not knowing which ones are which, I’m playing Russian roulette with a donkey sausage.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about trying new meats, but there’s something about knowing that it’s donkey that makes me gag.. Haha

For the bolognaise sauce, I’ve raided my freezer and found qorn minced meat, so I have added this to my bolognaise, which is just basically one onion, half of French cured (hopefully not donkey) sausage, qorn mince and a tin of tomatoes.

I’ve cooked the pasta twice, both times for no more than 2 min, then added the pasta to the bolognaise!

I’m definitely going to make more pappardelle, I feel like a seafood one id needed!

Please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions or give me any suggestions!

Ana x

Last night’s dinner

Yesterday, I was a bit homesick and all I wanted was salt and pepper ribs with Chinese sausage and rice.

This is what it looks like (thanks google for the images)

Because I’m a bad half-Asian, I barely have any Chinese condiments to make these yummy stuff.. So I’ve decided to make my own westernized version.

Sticky spicy ribs with European rice (got borlotti beans and French sausage so we’ll stick to European!)

The ribs were baked with a tomatoes, agave, soya sauce, Worcester sauce, chili powder, salt snd pepper.

For the rice, I used wholegrain, a whole onion, French cured sausage and black olives. I cooked the rice in knorr beef stock pot.

I’m a terrible teacher, I don’t use measurements, I cook everything by eye so I couldn’t tell exact quantities! I’ll try to do better next!

Ana x

A Cheese Affair

Good Wednesday pals!

So everyone that knows me, knows I have a unhealthy obsession for cheese – cheese on everything pleeeeease!!

When it gets to almost the end of the month, you’d rather save those pennies and have a scavenger hunt in your cupboards!

I went away for Portugal for a week and completely forgot that I had black truffle oil laying around in my house.. Yes this is something that you can use and lift a dish up.

 Let me present to you:

Grilled cheese in truffle oil

 
Instead of buttering the outside parts of the bread, sprinkle a bit of the truffle oil – not too much because the taste can be overpowering! – grill that mofo’ until you can see the cheese inside oozing out. Now for the cheese, I used cheap cheese but if you can please take the time and go to your local fromagerie and ask for a mild child that melts easily – like Gruyere, manchego, Swiss, Haverti, provolone, etc..

When it’s time to serve, please do yourself a favor and sprinkle a bit of salt, pepper, smoked paprika and dried herbs (herbs de Provence should do).

Now, get off your seat, try it and thank me later!

Ana x

Homemade Pappardelle

I tried to make pasta for the first time today and I loved it.. It’s definitely my new addiction.

I was watching “two greedy Italians” on food channel as you do, and they were making homemade pasta with pesto sauce… I have been dreaming of homemade pasta ever since..

Today I made some lamb ribs, and since I had so much left over tomato sauce from the ribs, I have decided to save this for pasta sauce.. Like a cheating lamb ragu.. All the flavors of lamb but no meat just tomato sauce!

Since I haven’t bought a good scale yet, all measurements were done by eye and roughly how I would think pasta feels like

I used roughly 200gr of 00 flour and two free range eggs. Hand mixed the mixture like it was play dough, and rolled it with a glass – since I don’t have a rolling pin either… Once it’s thin enough that you can blow it off from your bench (trick learnt from the Italian gents) your pasta should be ready to be cut. I’ve cut mine with a pizza cutter.

Once your pasta is all cut in pieces, boil a pot of water and season it with salt to your taste. I’ve cooked the pasta for 1 minute and then rinsed it in cold water, this should helpremove the flour from pasta. Change the water in the pot and boil it again, once this is boiled, cook your pasta for another 2 minute and a half (or longer I like my pasta al dente).

In a sauce pan, heat your chosen sauce and add your pasta in for 30seconds.

Serve your homemade pappardelle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese

I hope you enjoy your meal

Ana x

Lots of Butter

Good day!

So as you can probably tell, this will be the start of my food blog. I will post recipes, my firsts and my non so first, restaurants that I have been, my guilty pleasures and all the things that are good.

I love food and I love cooking, and I will show you how much.

Ana x