Creamy Black Pepper Sauce

A couple of years ago, I saw a serving suggestion on the back of a bag of fresh Tagliatellie  to serve it with a steak and black pepper sauce. Immediately, I wanted to try the meal, so I looked up about how to make a creamy peppercorn sauce to go with it. In the end I looked at several recipes and did my own thing based on the similarities. The result was yummy, and while initially the idea of making a creamy sauce from scratch seemed daunting, this method actually turned out to be quite simple.

This recipe is for a sauce to be used with red meat, and is perfect for going with a steak dinner. However this sauce is also gorgeous with a Haggis Stuffed Chicken Breast. If you want this sauce with a chicken meal, simply replace the Brandy with White Wine, and the Beef Stock with Chicken Stock. Doing this make a slightly lighter sauce that works better with chicken.

Ingredients: 50g Butter A Good Glug of Brandy 1 Beef Stock Pot/Stock Cube Ground Black Pepper Pinch of Salt Up to 500ml Water 5 Tbsp Creme Fraiche 2 Tsp Cornflour mixed with 2 Tsp Water 2 Tsp Fresh Peppercorns (Optional)

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium-high heat, then pour in the brandy and cook for a minute or two.
2. Add in the beef stock pot and stir until dissolved. Add in the water. If you want more than 500ml of sauce, then add in an extra stock pot.
3. Add in several generous pinches of ground black pepper and a pinch of salt. Add as much pepper to your own taste, if you want a good bite add in more, if you just want a hint of the flavour, add less. Simmer on the hob for a few minutes to infuse.
4. Add in the Creme Fraiche (again, if making more sauce, add in extra) and mix in with a whisk. Check the flavour and adjust the seasoning if desired.
5. Add a little of the cornflour mixture at a time to thicken the sauce, stirring consistently. If you run out of cornflour and want a thicker sauce, simply add in some more cornflour mixture, if it's too thick, then just add a little more water/
6. Finally, if using, add in the fresh peppercorns. I like to use a mixture of 1tsp of both green and pink peppercorns. If using, you need to use the fresh peppercorns (I use these ones from Waitrose) not the dried, as the fresh give a lovely light bite if you crunch on one - dried ones would probably break your teeth.

Wedding Favour Chocolates: The Trial Run

Two weeks ago, I did a trial run of the chosen chocolates for my friend's wedding in October. I then had my friends over for the day for a meal, and an all-important tasting of the chocolates to see what needs to be changed. Having done the trial run, I'm glad I did, because certain things worked, while others needed work. Here are the results.

Fudge: This was the simplest of the lot. Make a batch of the mixture, shove it in a tin or tray, let it set, then use a cutter to cut into hearts. Even decoration wise, this was simple. My initial plan had been to line the outside with chocolate, but having cut it out, and looking at it against the other sweets, it didn't really need the extra chocolate. In fact, it was better to NOT have the chocolate on there as not only does it give a different option flavour wise, but it provides a little break in the chocolate-fest that is this favours box. The main trial with this was not only to practice the recipe (which I haven't made in about 8 years), but also to decide on a flavour. This was the only sweet that had multiple flavour options: cherry, raspberry, and strawberry.

The flavouring side of things was interesting, as the cherry, while not unpleasant, tasted more like banana. Meanwhile, the raspberry was more like raspberry ripple ice cream. it was only the strawberry that tasted properly strawberry-ish. After tasting, the general consensus was to go for the raspberry flavour - especially since one of my friends had a rather... violent reaction to the strawberry (medicine flashback). Aside from the flavour there were two main things I learned from making the fudge. Firstly, I needed to add in more colouring than I thought I had to in order to get the desired colour. Secondly, and most importantly, I need to nsure that I boil the mixture long enough. While the texture of my first batch was perfect, my second and third ones, were a bit on the softer side and not quite right for fudge.

Final Verdict: The raspberry flavour won out, I just need to make sure that I boil the sugar etc for long enough.

Champagne Truffle Squares: This was supposedly to be the simplest of all the sweets I was making, yet it turned out to be the most problematic. The actual recipe was really easy to make, and I put it in the fridge to set with no problems. And it did set. However, the nature of the ganache and the mixture of dark chocolate with the softer milk chocolate made the ganache very quick to melt at the slightest touch. The flavour was exquisite, but because of its easy-melt tendency, it wasn't ideal for a wedding favour. Too long out of the fridge, and it would be far too soggy, and in a room that's likely to be warm due to the amount of people inside, it would be a chocolatey mess by the time anyone went to eat it. My first thought was to toss it in cocoa powder, which took off the initial melty quality, but didn't change that it would still go too soft.

I then attempted to roll the truffles into balls and coat them in hundreds and thousands, which got rid of the chocolate coated finger problem, but it was still too squidgy. The best solution in the end was to coat it in melted chocolate, however simply dipping it in and rolling around produced a rather... messy appearance. This particular batch doesn't really make the cut, but I've learnt from this. For the actual wedding, I will now be using a square mould to encase the ganache filling in dark chocolate to make it easier to eat.

Final Verdict: The most gorgeous flavour imaginable, but needs to be encased in dark chocolate from a logistical point of view.

Violet Creams: For me, this was fairly straightforward as it's an amalgamation of other things I've done in the past: Flavoured fondant filling, dark chocolate casings in the mould, and a painted on design in coloured white chocolate. My first step for this chocolate was to colour the white chocolate - though this time with pink food colouring rather than with freeze-dried fruit powder. Then, after attempting to use a piping bag to create the design, and finding that it wasn't controllable enough, I used a brush to pain a pink heart in the bottom of the mould. After letting that set, I then added in dark chocolate to line the mould - to get a decent thickness, I did two layers, allowing each to set before doing the next layer.

After that I then made up the fondant filling with icing sugar, double cream, and violet essence before topping off with more dark chocolate to seal it all in. The actual chocolate worked well. The flavouring produced an interesting effect. The initial hit of violet seemed quite strong, but after the second bite, the flavour seemed to disappear. The overall opinion was that the flavour was about right, but could do with a smidgen less of the flavour.

Final Verdict: Great look and taste, but a little less of the violet flavour would make it perfect.

Rainbow Ganache Truffles: This was my biggest experiment mainly because I had never attempted using powdered food colouring before. it turns out that using the sugarcraft powders was ridiculously easy and getting the colour right was just like mixing paint colours. The only thing I'd say colour wise is that i would put a bit more of the green colouring in next time, as I don't think that the green shows up too much. I had initially attempted to use a piping bag to pie the chocolate in as I figured it would save time, but it ended up being too difficult to control on such a small scale, so the trusty paintbrush prevailed. When I finally took these chocolates out of the mould, I was genuinely elated with the final effect - though a slightly thicker layer of chocolate around the side would be better.

As for the filling, the dark chocolate ganache worked perfectly with the white chocolate. The popping candy was rather nice, but I was a little on the conservative side when adding it. I only used a small pinch, but really it needed a LOT more to truly pop. Out of all the chocolates, this is visually the show-stopper, and I must admit, I am rather proud of it.

Final Verdict: More popping candy needed, and a little more green colouring required, but otherwise, YUM!

As you can see, the sweets were generally a success. Flavour wise, there was very little to fault, most of it is down to refining the details, getting things right, and working out the logistical side of ensuring that what does in the favour box will be able to cope with being in a relatively warm room for several hours without melting or turning into a gooey mess. After doing the trial, I'm even more excited, so all I can say is: Bring on October!

Bombay Potatoes

When I was at school years ago, we had a "Day of Islam" where we spent the day painting designs on our skin with henna, cooking a few dishes, and generally learning about the Islamic faith. I don't remember much from that day, but I did remember making some gorgeous seedy potato things, and a few months back, I found the recipe, and I decided to use it as a base for my own bombay potato recipe.

This recipe calls for both black and yellow mustard seeds, but it's not necessary to have both types. If you only have black seeds, them simply use 2 Tsp instead. I just think it's nice to have the mix of both. Also, it is important to reduce the heat shortly after adding in the onions or else the seeds and/or the onions could burn, adding a bitter taste to the dish.

As a side dish this will give you a good portion for 4-6 people depending on the size of the potatoes and how much you want to eat.

Ingredients: 3 Large Potatoes Olive Oil Butter 2 Tsp Cumin Seeds 1 Tsp Black Mustard Seeds 1 Tsp Yellow Mustard Seeds 2 Large Onions Sliced 1 Tsp Ground Coriander 1 Tsp Ground Cumin 1 Tsp Garam Masala 1 Tsp Mild Chilli Powder Salt & Pepper

Method:

1. Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks of about 1 inch in size. Boil in a pan of salted water and cook until just tender. Do not overcook, or they will fall apart later on. Once cooked, drain the potatoes and set to one side.
2. Heat a little oil in a deep sided frying pan and when hot add in a knob of butter. once the butter has melted tip in the cumin seeds and mustard seeds. Cook for a few seconds until they begin to pop.
3. Add in the sliced onions and fry for a minute, then reduce the heat and cook the onions until they are nice and soft, but not necessarily browned.
4. Add in the ground cumin, ground coriander, garam masala and chilli powder and mix into the onions. season with salt and pepper and cook in for a few minutes.
5. Tip the potatoes into the pan and mix around thoroughly so that all of the onions and potatoes are coated in spices. Cook for a few minutes until the potatoes are warmed through and serve.

Breadcrumbed Turkey Steak with Pesto Pasta

This is one of my favourite ever dishes, which I could eat all the time. It's a quick and easy meal, and by deep frying the turkey, you not only get a nice even golden colour, but the breadcrumbs are particularly crispy and the meat is melt-in-the-mouth succulent. If you don't have a deep fat fryer, you can use a frying pan with 1cm of oil in the bottom and shallow-fry it - you may need to scrape out any loose breadcrumbs that are left in the bottom of the pan, or else you'll end up with black, burnt breadcrumbs stuck to your turkey. I would also highly recommend using Panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) instead of regular breadcrumbs as they are much crispier and give a nicer, flakier texture. You can get them at many supermarkets now, as well as at Asian supermarkets, and they're well worth it.

This recipe gives you a lot of pasta, so it's ideal if you're catering for several people. If not, then you can either reduce the amount of pasta and pesto, or, alternatively you can cook the full amount and have the pasta cold for a nice lunch. It's also worth noting that if you're only cooking up one or two turkey steaks, you will only need 1 egg.

Ingredients: 500g Dried Pasta Shapes (I like to use Cavatappi) 1 Portion Fresh Pesto Thin Turkey Breast Steaks (as many as required) Flour Salt and Pepper 2 Eggs (Beaten) Panko Breadcrumbs

Method:

1. Add a generous pinch of salt to a saucepan of water and bring it to the boil. Tip in the dried pasta and cook until tender.
2. Drain the pasta and return it to the empty saucepan. Tip in the pesto and mix thoroughly. Place into a large serving bowl and set to one side.
3. Take the turkey steaks and lightly bash them with a tenderising mallet so that they are nice and thin.
4. Take three large plates and line them up. In the first plate sprinkle some plain flour and season with a little salt and pepper. In the second plate, put your two beaten eggs. Finally, in the third put a generous handful of Panko Breadcrumbs.
5. Pick up one of the turkey steaks and dust in the flour. Then dip into the egg and finally into the breadcrumbs. Once coated, immediately place the steak into a deep fat fryer set at 190C and cook until golden brown. Remove from the fryer and put on a plate lined with kitchen roll to soak up any excess oil before placing onto a lined baking tray.
6. Repeat with the remaining steaks, if you run low on flour, egg, or panko, just replenish the plate as necessary. Transfer the baking tray to a low oven to warm through while you reheat the pasta in the microwave. When both are hot, serve and enjoy!

Fresh Pesto

When it comes to fresh herbs, one of my favourite is Basil; I love the gorgeous aroma a fresh bunch gives off and the flavour when it's used in a dish. So naturally, I've always enjoyed Pesto, though until about 18 months ago, I'd never attempted to make my own. I found a decent recipe on the net, and it was really simple to make. After a few small adjustments I managed to perfect the recipe, so here we go.

This recipe makes up a fairly large portion, which is the perfect amount to stir through 500g of dried pasta. If you don't need the whole lot in one go, simply pop it in a sealed jar or pot and keep in the fridge. This is also really nice to use in a home made tear and share loaf, stuffing into a chicken breast, or spreading on a fillet of white fish.

Ingredients: 120g Fresh Basil 50g Pine Nuts 1 Large Clove of Garlic 80g Parmesan Shavings Ground Black Pepper Salt 125ml Olive Oil

Method:

1. Pull the leaves off of the basil. This can be a tedious job, and is the most time consuming of the whole process, but you'll have lovely fragrant fingers afterwards. Put all the leaves into a food processor and lightly pulse to chop it up a bit.
2. Add in the pine nuts, garlic and parmesan shavings (use shavings as it gives a better flavour and a better texture than grated), and blend for a minute.
3. Season with a generous pinch of black pepper and a little salt and mix.
4. With the motor running, add in the oil and process until you have a smooth paste. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Fennel Glazed Ham

My family and I often go to Suffolk on holiday, and the last time we went, we visited a delicatessen noted for its smoked hams, bacons, and other yummilicious pork products. While there we tried a fennel glazed ham that was rather nice, so I decided to create my own version, and the result turned out so well that I wanted to share it. This dish can be enjoyed hot, but I prefer to let it cool, and slice it to enjoy in a cold meats and salad meal, or even as part of a ploughman's lunch.

Fennel is a gorgeous spice with a flavour  that is reminiscent of aniseed. However, if you aren't keen on aniseed and liquorice, don't let that put you off. I can't stand liquorice or strong aniseed flavours, but I love fennel so it's well worth a try.

This recipe is for a fairly small gammon joint, if you want to cook a larger ham, then you only need to increase the amounts for the glaze as the amount of spices in the cooking liquid should be fine for the flavour. However, if cooking a particularly large joint - say a 4-5lb gammon, it would be worth doubling the spices due to the drastically increased amount of water.

Ingredients: A Small Unsmoked Gammon (About 1lb in weight) 1 Tbsp Whole Fennel Seeds 1 Tsp Whole Black Peppercorns Pinch Sea Salt For the Glaze: 2 Tsp Whole Fennel Seeds 15g Butter 2 Tbsp Runny Honey 1 Tbsp Soft Brown Sugar

Method:

1. To start with you will need to soak the gammon joint in water overnight. This will help reduce the saltiness of the joint, making it more tender when cooked.
2. Take the fennel seeds for the cooking and place in a pestle and mortar with the peppercorns and salt, and lightly crush. don't pulverise the spices, you just need to bruise and lightly break them up to release the flavour of the fennel.
3. Tip the spice mix into the bottom of a large saucepan. Drain the gammon from its soaking liquid and place it on top of the spices. Fill the pan with clean water until the joint is covered and put on the lid. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about half an hour. A good guide for cooking gammon joints is to cook the meat for 25 minutes per 1lb (450g) weight. So if you had a 2lb joint you'd need to cook it for 50-60 minutes. If you go over the cooking time, it won't matter too much, but too long may cause the meat to break apart. When cooked, leave the gammon to cool then remove from the water and pat dry.
4. In the meantime, you need to make the glaze. Lightly crush the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar and put to one side.
5. Gently melt the butter over a low heat, and add in the crushed fennel seeds, honey, and sugar. Heat through and stir well until the glaze begins to bubble and froth. Remove from the heat.
6. Place the gammon on a baking tray lined with parchment and brush with plenty of the glaze. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 180C, glazing the meat again two to three times during the cooking.

Parmentier Potatoes

I've been brought up on home cooked meals, so I've not always been huge on shop-bought ready meals. However, I always enjoyed buying pre-made parmentier potatoes from the supermarket and I alwys thought them to be more hassle to make than enough, One day, however, one day I decided to bite the bullet and have a go at making my own version. The result was seven kinds of awesome and I've never looked back. Shop bought are nice, but these, for me, are on another level. Subsequently, this has become one of my favourite potato recipes, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Ingredients: 8 Medium Sized Potatoes 4-6 Slices Bacon Butter Olive Oil 20cm Sprig of Fresh Rosemary (Chopped) 1 1/2 Tbsp Chopped Fresh Thyme Salt Pepper Grated Parmesan Cheese

Method:

1. Peel the potatoes, and cut them into 1cm cubes and place in a bowl of water to remove a little of the starch. Chop the Bacon into small chunks.
2. Melt a little butter and oil in a large, deep-sided saucepan and fry the bacon until cooked but not crispy. Remove from the pan and set to one side.
3. Melt some more butter (around about a 5-10 gram chunk) in the same saucepan with a little more oil for about five minutes.
4. Mix in the chopped herbs and season with a little salt (not too much as the butter and bacon will add a certain amount of salt content) and plenty of ground black pepper. Continue to fry the potatoes until they're softened and have begun to brown.
5. Next add in about 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese and return the bacon to the man. Mix thoroughly and remove from the heat.
6. Line a baking tray with some baking parchment and spread the potatoes across the pan in a single layer. Sprinkle with some more parmesan cheese to give an extra crisp.
7. Bake in the oven at about 180C for 20-30 minutes or until nicely browned and crispy. Make sure to shuffle the potatoes on the tray every now and again to ensure that they cook evenly and don't stick to the paper or burn.

Wedding Favour Chocolates: A Beginning

One of my closest friends and favourite people in the world is getting married this year and as well as being a bridesmaid (and wedding cake conspirator), I have been asked to make chocolates for the wedding favours. I love experimenting and generally playing around with chocolate, so with a fairly large task ahead of me, I thought I'd blog my progress through the process.

At the moment, We're at the end of stage one and the sweets in question have been decided upon. The next step will be to do a trial run, which I will be doing at the end of June so that I can experiment with new techniques to me and check that everything works well.

So for now all I can do is list what I have planned, and as and when I get to trying things out, I will post more details.

The wedding favours will be in a small box and will consist of four different sweets, which are as follows

• Fruit-Flavoured Fudge - For this I will be using an existing fudge recipe I have for strawberry fudge, and will experiment with replacing the colouring and flavouring with freeze-dried fruit powders in the hope that will naturally flavour and colour. I will be trying this in three flavours: Strawberry, Raspberry, and Cherry. If the powders don't work, then I'll be using food flavourings as per the original recipe.
• Champagne Truffle Squares - This is a recipe that I found in a supermarket magazine, and have never tried before. My main experimentation with this will be the decoration, which will be using gold food spray and a stencil to create a heart motif on the top.
• Violet Creams - With this chocolate I will be using a dark chocolate shell, decorated with a pink chocolate heart design on top, filled with a violet flavoured fondant cream. This is probably my most tried and tested recipe, that should be easy enough for me to do.
• Rainbow Ganache Truffles - By far my most ambitious chocolate.for this I will be using a dark chocolate ganache coated in a white chocolate shell which will be decorated with a circular rainbow design. For this, I will be experimenting with colouring the white chocolate with powdered food colouring, which I've never used before. If the colour works, then the actual execution should be relatively simple enough, but time consuming.

Also for the last two chocolates on the above list, I will be attempting to use a piping bag pen to make it easier to create the designs needed. Hopefully, this should be faster than using paint brushes as I have done before. No matter the turnout though, I can't wait to get playing - though I fear that if the colouring works well, could lead to more creative chocolate decoration ideas in future.

Wasabi Potatoes

Back with a quick and simple recipe. Potatoes are awesome. They may be pretty bland on their own but they are so versatile that you can do pretty much anything with them. This recipe is one that came from a passing thought and works really nicely. I tend to use this as an accompaniment to certain Japanese dishes, in particular it goes really nicely with Teriyaki Salmon and Salmon Miso Mayo. There are no specific measurements for this, as it all depends on how many potatoes you want.

Ingredients: Baby New Potatoes Butter Wasabi Chives (Chopped)

Method:

1. Cut your potatoes to the desired size and place in a saucepan. Cover with water and add in a pinch of salt. Put the lid on and boil until nicely tender - you can test this by pricking them with a knife, if there's little to no resistance, they're done. This should take about 20 minutes depending on the size of your spuds.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, take some butter, put it into a bowl and microwave for a few seconds until soft. Now take your wasabi and squirt it onto the butter and mix with a spoon. Add the wasabi to your own taste. From experience, I've found that it takes a large amount to get the flavour, but you don't get much of the spice as the butter dilutes it a bit.
3. When the potatoes are cooked, strain and place them in a bowl. Dot with the wasabi butter - as much as it to your taste, then sprinkle the chopped chives over the top. Mix thoroughly, and serve.

Haggis Burgers & Battered Haggis Sausages

On the 25th January each year, Scotland celebrates Burns Night in memory of one its most beloved poets, Robert Burns. I’m not Scottish, and neither are any of my family, but we always make sure that on Burns Night we have a meal of Haggis. Now, I know a lot of you have either gone ‘Bleurgh’ or are looking a little bewildered as to what this is. In essence, Haggis is a mixture of various offal, grains and spices that is traditionally wrapped in a sheep’s stomach and boiled – but more often than not nowadays it’s enclosed in a synthetic casing. At this point a lot of people are put off by the description, but it really is delicious. It doesn’t have that rich irony taste that most offal-based products have, and it is lovely and peppery. Frankly, it probably has more actual meat content than many of the cheaper sausages that people eat and love.

Normally, in my household we cook up our haggis and serve it with mashed potatoes, swede, and oodles of gravy. However, this year we decided to try something different, and I thought I’d share it with you.

The main part of our Burns Night dinner this year was Haggis Burgers. The following recipe makes enough for three ½ lb burgers, or up to six smaller burgers.

Ingredients: 1 Onion (Finely Chopped) A Little Olive Oil 350g Haggis (Get it out of the fridge half an hour early to warm up a little) 400g Pork Mince 2-3 Generous Handfuls of Breadcrumbs A Handful of Chopped Parsley 1 Egg (Beaten) Salt 3 Large Baps Optional Extras: 1-2 Large Cloves of Garlic Sliced Cheese Onion Rings (We cheated and bought some nice ones from the supermarket)

Method:

1. To make the burgers, start off by heating a little oil in a frying pan and gently fry the onion for a few minutes until it has softened but not burnt. A useful tip here is to use a pan with a lid and keep the onion covered for a while as it causes them to sweat and soften without getting burnt. Once softened, remove from the heat and put to one side to cool.

2. Put the haggis and the pork mince into a large bowl, then get your hands in there and mix it together thoroughly.

3. Next, add in the cooled onion, breadcrumbs, parsley, beaten egg and a small pinch of salt. Mix together thoroughly. This isn't particularly easy, but keep at it.

4. Split the burger mix into three balls (or however many you are making with this recipe) and flatten down to make your burgers.

5. Place the burgers on a baking tray (preferably one with a wire rack) and cook in the oven at about 200C for 20 minutes or until cooked through. Alternatively, if making this recipe in the summer, pop them on the barbeque for a nice char-grilled flavour.

6. Meanwhile, Cut the baps in half and lightly toast them, and prepare any extras you want – e.g., cook onion rings, chips, prepare salad etc. (Optional: If you fancy something a little different, peel a garlic clove and cut it in half. Then rub the sliced end over your bun to give a lovely, but not too overpowering, garlic flavour.)

7. Once the burgers are cooked, assemble your burgers and enjoy!

Since we bought a fairly large haggis and we had some left over, we decided to try something out. When I was little, I used to go on holiday to Northumberland to visit some of my Mum’s family, and one year we went up to Berwick-Upon-Tweed, just on the border between England and Scotland, for the day. While we were there, we decided to pop into a fish and chip shop for a warming lunch. While there, we noticed something on the menu that we’d never had before – deep fried haggis. I was only young at the time, but I remember two things about the lunch: firstly, trying to eat this lunch through my hair, which kept getting blown into my face despite my best efforts to the contrary, and secondly, that deep fried haggis is bloody lovely. I haven’t had it since, as it’s not something you tend to see down in the south. However, this year we decided to try doing it ourselves since we now have a decent deep fat fryer. So here’s my quick and easy recipe for Deep-Fried Haggis Balls – it may be horrendously bad for you, but it’s a nice wintery, warming treat. I'm not going to put any measurements on here, because it all depends on how much you want to make up.

Ingredients: Haggis Plain Flour A Small Bottle of Light Beer/Lager Sunflower or Corn Oil

Method:

1. Take your haggis and mould it into sausage shapes and put to one side.

2. Take a bowl and put a few tablespoons of flour in the bottom. Now pour in a little of the beer and whisk together. You want your batter to be the consistency of a slightly whipped double cream, so add more flour or beer as necessary.

3. Place a little flour on a plate and you’re ready to get started.

4. Heat up your oil in the deep fat fryer to 180-190 degrees. (This can also be done on the hob with a large wok if you don’t have a fryer)

5. When the oil is hot enough, take one of the haggis sausages, roll it in the plain flour, then dip it into the batter, making sure that it is coated. Now pop it into the hot oil and let it cook until the outside is a nice deep golden brown (If using a fryer, it’s a good idea to shake the basket a bit as soon as you put in your haggis, to stop it from sticking to the bottom). When cooked enough – this should only take a few minutes – take the sausages out and put on a piece of kitchen roll to soak up any excess oil before transferring to a lined baking tray. Repeat this process with the rest of your haggis until you’re done.

6. Now pop the tray full of battered haggis sausages into the oven at about 150C for 10-15 minutes. This ensures that they are all thoroughly cooked through and that they are all nice and hot. I’ve found that keeping it at a lower temperature prevents the batter from burning, without sacrificing the crispiness.

As an alternative to the above, instead of using batter you can breadcrumb the haggis sausages to make Croquettes. To do this, Roll your haggis sausages in the flour, and then dip into a bowl of beaten egg. Finally roll the dipped sausages onto a plate covered with a decent handful of panko (Japanese breadcrumbs that are available from certain supermarkets). Then cook in the same way as you would with the batter.

Kitchen Kit: Knives

So the title of this post sounded a lot less violent in my head, but today I want to blather on for a little bit about one of the most important pieces of equipment in the kitchen: the knife.

The knife is an invaluable piece of kit, because unless you plan to use a chainsaw to massacre your potatoes, or to shred your shallots into chunks with your bare hands like some kind of feral, onion-crazed maniac, you can't get by without a decent blade. When I was younger, using a knife used to scare and intimidate me a little, mainly because of their capability of slicing through your finger just as easily as through a raw sausage - something that I am still fully aware of today. So, I thought I'd share a couple of little tips that might help to make you more comfortable with a blade.

1. Find a knife you're comfortable with

Now this may sound a little odd, but I've found that it really helps. Kitchen knives come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from the long skinny type, to the short dumpy ones. My biggest piece of advice is to find the one you're comfortable with and stick with it. Personally, I love to use the biggest knife that I have - the 12" wide blade - and I use it for everything. I've become so comfortable with it, that using it for whatever I'm chopping or slicing feels right. With the big blade I can easily crush garlic cloves, thinly slice a chicken breast, dice an onion, or chop up fresh herbs. But if a big knife feels too intimidating, go for something smaller. If it's too bulky, pick one with a thinner blade; try different ones, and go with what you prefer. Of course that being siad, there are certain tasks that may require a different type of knife, in which case, use the most appropriate tool, but for everyday cooking, I find it best to use that one knife you're most comfortable with.

2. Make sure the knife is sharp

This really is absolutely imperative. There's nothing more dangerous than a blunt knife, so ensure that your blade is always kept sharp. If it's dull, then it's much more likely that the blade will slip off the item you're trying to cut and head straight in the direction of the nearest finger - and while it may be blunt, it can still do damage. Aside from that, a razor sharp knife, makes any kind of chopping and slicing much, much easier. So keep your knife sharp, as not only are you preventing the loss of digits, but you're making life easier for yourself.

3. Have confidence when using a knife

Yes, this may sound a bit dumb, but it's a worthwhile tip. Don't be too timid when using a knife. Being too aware of what could go wrong, or being overly cautious can sometimes make you more prone to kitchen mishaps. Now I'm not saying go hell for leather and forget the consequences, because that's equally as dangerous, just work carefully and confidently and that brand new box of sticky blue plasters can stay unopened.

4. Work at your own speed

Whenever I watch cookery shows and we see the chef actually preparing the ingredients instead of just tipping them out from one of their "here's one I (meaning some poor lackey) chopped earlier" bowl, the speed with which they use the knife astounds me. There is no way I can chop a carrot at that sort of rate, but you know what, I don't have to. So my next knife tip is to chop, slice and dice at your own pace and when you know how quickly or slowly you work, simply allow the appropriate amount of time when preparing a meal. Hurrying to meet a deadline, will only make you sloppy and stressed, so simply relax, work at a speed that suits you and enjoy cooking.

5. Don't be afraid to cheat a little

Now, by cheat I don't mean going down to the local supermarket and buying a pack of ready chopped onions - that's just lazy. What I mean by this, is don't be afraid of employing the services of a food processor in certain circumstances. For example, there's a ragu recipe that I love, which calls for carrot, celery and red onion to be finely chopped. In this case it's going in a mince dish, so why not make life easier and pop the three vegetables in the food processor and briefly blitz them until they're the desired size. It's quick, effective, and much less hassle than fiddling about with a knife. However, it's only worth employing this method when a recipe specifically calls for particularly fine chopping.

6. Water can be your new best friend

This final tip, is more specific to certain aspects of cooking, and isn't necessary for everyday chopping. At times you may have to cut up something sticky, and this can be a real pain in the rear end as the blade can get really sticky. The best example of this I can think of is if you are making rolled sushi. In trying to cut your big sushi roll into the bitesize pieces they're meant to be, the glutenous rice will often cling to the knife like a particularly needy limpet. This not only makes trying to cut it more difficult, but because there's a certain amount of resistance, you can also end up squashing the sushi roll. Luckily, there's an easy, and miraculous fix. Keep a bowl of water beside you, and before each cut, simply douse the blade. The water will act as a buffer, which will prevent the rice sticking to the knife, and allowing you to smoothly cut through. This same principle also applies to slicing raw sausages, use a little water and the sausagemeat won't stick to the knife; instead you'll have nice clean slices and a much easier job when it comes to washing up the knife. So if you come across something sticky to cut, try wetting the blade.

Well, I think that's it for now, as I've waffled on enough. Hopefully, this has been of some use, and with luck it may help someone out there feel mo confident the next time they pick up a knife in the kitchen.

Breakfast Fried Rice

This is one of my ultimate comfort foods. Fried rice is such a versatile meal, and frankly you can pretty much put what you like in it. I got the inspiration for this particular incarnation of the dish when looking through one of Ching He Huang's cookbooks. In there she had a recipe for Salmon and Egg fried rice and a Sausage, Green Pepper, Tomato, and Pineapple fried rice under the breakfast section. After looking at these thinking that they were odd, yet oddly yummy sounding combinations, and I figured, well why not combine Chinese Fried Rice with a Full English Breakfast, and thus the breakfast fried rice was born. Now, it may seem a bit odd to put ketchup in fried rice, but it's not a completely foreign concept as one of the flavourings in the Japanese dish, Omurice (Fried rice encased in omelette) is ketchup. It's a really easy dish to make, yet it is so tasty, and well worth a try if you like the sound of it.

Ingredients: 3 Sausages 200g Rice Groundnut Oil 3 Eggs (Beaten) 4 Rashers of Bacon (Cut into strips) A Few Shiitake Mushrooms (Chopped) 2 Tbsp Tomato Ketchup 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce A Drizzle of Toasted Sesame Oil Black Pepper This dish should serve 2 people as a main meal, but it's also good for one person, which would leave a good portion for lunch another day. Simply reheat in the microwave and it will be good as new.

Method:

1. Place the sausages on a baking tray and cook in the oven for about twenty minutes. Remove from the baking tray and cut into thick slices about 1 - 1.5 cm thick and set to one side.
2. In the meantime, bring some water to the boil in a saucepan. As it reaches a rolling boil add in the rice, stirring to ensure it doesn't clump together. Cook until tender and strain.
3. Heat a little groundnut oil in a wok and when hot, tip in the beaten eggs. Stir the eggs with a spatula and keep them moving. As soon as they start to harden and scramble, remove them from the wok and put them to one side. If using a wok that's smoking this should take less than a minute.
4. Put the wok back onto the heat and add in the bacon - there's no need to add more oil as enough fat will come out of the bacom. As they start to cook add in the sliced sausages, then add in the chopped mushrooms. Once cooked, remove from the pan and place on a plate. It may seem like a pain removing all this, but it makes it easier to coat the rice in the flavours.
5. Add a little more groundnut oil to the wok and put over a gentle heat. Add in the cooked rice and stir. Season the rice with a the tomato ketchup, light soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and a good pinch of ground black pepper. Don't overdo the seasoning. Too much ketchup and it will dominate the flavour, likewise too much Soy Sauce and the dish will be far too salty. Mix thoroughly to fully coat the rice.
6. Return the bacon, sausage, mushroom and egg to the wok and heat through. Finally, serve and enjoy!

The Obligatory Introduction Post

To say I enjoy cooking would be something of an understatement. I've been out in the kitchen for as long as I can remember. As a young girl, I used to help my Dad cook the dinner at the weekends, of course by cook I mean stand on a little stool so I could reach the counter top and doing a lot of stirring, squeezing of tomato purée, and crumbling of oxo cubes. Occasionally, I was allowed to slice a mushroom under strict supervision - since they weren't going to slip and slide around - and when it came to roast dinners, the Yorkshire puddings were my domain. A couple of decades later, and now it's me in the kitchen pretty much every night cooking up a whole host of different meals.

Despite my love of cookery, I've never had any kind of professional tuition (well, unless you count GCSE Food Technology, which consisted of 'here's a recipe, now go make it'), everything I've picked up has been from relatives, cooking shows, or from pure experience alone. Now that I'm a bit older, and I like to think wiser (though the jury's still out on that one), I enjoy experimenting out in the kitchen, using tried and tested recipes as bases for new creations. In particular, one of my more experimental, and certainly creative, ventures in the kitchen has to be making my own homemade chocolates. Four years at art college, and pretty much the only time I make the most of my artistic side is when I play about with chocolate.

On a more savoury note, I love cooking with spices. Oriental and Indian cuisine are two of my favourite things to cook but for very diffeent reasons. With Indian, I love the combination of so many different ingredients all being mixed together to create such rich and vibrant flavours - that and I kind of feel like a witch standing over her cauldron creating something magical - except instead of eye of newt and batwing, it's a teaspoon of Cumin and a pinch of Garam Masala. When it comes to the more oriental cuisines, particularly Chinese, I love the simplicity and freshness, and the fast-paced cooking. To me there's something exhilarating about working with a smoking hot wok and keeping everything moving to create a fully cooked meal in five to ten minutes.

There are a couple of reasons that I decided to create this blog (and one big reason - namely one of my closest friends - that I actually got going on it). Mainly I wanted to share odd recipes and tips about cooking that I've picked up over the years, but I want to use this to talk about individual techniques and ingredients. I'd also like to use this blog as a place to document some experiments and generally share my love of cooking. It'd be nice if I could inspire someone out there to try something new, or give them an idea that they may not have otherwise had, but I'm not egotistical enough to believe that will be the case. I imagine that most of what I say here will have been said before, but if that's the case, I want to say it in my own way. And if nothing else, I want this blog to be a record for me, something that in years, when I'm old, grey and probably a bit more batty than I am now, I can look back on and still manage to rustle up a decent meal from.