Category Archives: lemon

inverted lemon tart, fruit salad with lemon sorbet and orange tuile

Posted by Gary in food, lemon, orange and tagged with

Inverted lemon tart, fruit salad with lemon sorbet and orange tuile from Waitrose cookery school

I’m not much of a golfer at all but I do like to chase a ball into the rough for a couple of hours, and drink a flask of coffee in the horizontal rain. A couple of years on the trot a buddy took me along to the annual Wentworth weekend PGA tournament. It’s a great day out and I really recommend it, but the most fascinating thing as a dorky sub-player is to watch a real pro at close quarters. It doesn’t come across on TV but the mental rehearsal they go through, the microscopic movements of the arms, the careful concentration in the swing… these small details contribute massively to your own game, offering these sudden light bulb moments of inspiration that only the years of craft can give, shamelessly stolen by this charlatan. And so it was when I attended the Waitrose Cookery School recently.

I was one of the winners of their Easter Lunch Facebook competition. We were to be taken through a three course menu which we would then reproduce: Coquilles St Jacques, rack of lamb and lemon tart. Our hosts were Jon Jones and James Campbell, both experienced, genial and patient trainer chefs. And being able to observe a professional chef up close as they go through their routine just helps those little things slip into place. The way you work a knife, the mise en place, having an “s-star-star-t bucket” as James put it… all those tiny things you miss when you’re watching a cookery show.

Jon, a veteran of Fortnum &  Mason’s, took us through our savoury menu: the scallops were fresh, tender and mushroomy. The lamb was sumptious, rich and meaty. But the dessert was out of this world, possibly one of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten. The genius touch of leaving the fruit to macerate in a little vanilla, icing sugar and lemon was just perfect. Combined with a creamy lemon tart,a yoghurty lemon sorbet and wafer-thin orange and sesame tuile, this was clearly a dish constructed by someone who knows his puds. James has spent time in five different Michelin-starred restaurants, with accolades as long as your arm, and it shows. His passion for constructing and instructing is clear from the beginning. I’ll be making this again at some point, and I’ll run through the recipe in more detail then.

I went with my Dad, an experience in itself as I’m fairly sure he’s never made anything for me besides toast. Other members of the family advised me to keep him away from a tin of beans lest he chuck it into the scallops. But he had a great time too, despite phrases like “nappe” and “roux” going right over his head. If he can attend and get something out of it, anyone can. This is my second time at the cookery school, and I can’t wait to go back again.

Waitrose filmed parts of the day, I appear in the video far too much.

Update: Waitrose kindly sent through the recipe in handy PDF format: Waitrose recipe – Inverted lemon tart, summer fruit salad & lemon yogurt sorbet

rossi’s lemon ice

Posted by Gary in food, ice cream, lemon

rossi's lemon ice with a Cadbury's flake

One of my favourite food bloggers, Kavey of KaveyEats, hit upon a great idea for bloggers everywhere to explore their childhood ice cream-related memory. Like most Britons, particularly those that grew up on the coast, ice cream is a very tangible memory to me. One brand in particular is the first that comes to mind: not Wall’s, not Lyons Maid, not Haagen-Dazs. Rossi’s.

Southend Rossi's Kiosk

This is the kiosk I would get my Rossi's lemon ice from. (Image copyright Upixa.com via "Southend Sites")

Rossi’s in known throughout South Essex as the ice cream brand. The Rossi’s van came round my street every night after school, you could stroll along Marine Parade and visit their shop, or drop by their kiosk on Southend High Street. I was astonished as I grew up and went outside of the county to realise no-one else had heard of it. But it’s a brand that goes back eighty years, and it’s familiar blue-and-white livery is a prominent landmark on the Southend promenade.

The kiosk is now unfortunately gone, and you can buy tubs of their ice cream in many grocers and delis throughout the county. It’s not quite as magic buying it this way, but it still tastes the same as when I was eating it thirty years ago.

Their “vanilla” ice cream is great – doesn’t actually taste of vanilla, it tastes of white, but it’s great – but the crown jewel in their flavour riches is the lemon sorbet, or as it’s more commonly known, “the lemon ice”. If you’ve not had the pleasure it doesn’t quite taste like a sorbet that you are used to; it’s smooth and extremely fine-grained, with a curious luminous yellow hue. But it’s the perfect treat on a hot Summer stroll along Southend High Street.

For my attempt I needed a really strong syrup with a slick of gelatine to try and recreate the smooth texture. After freezing I was amazed how close to the real thing it tasted! I would probably dial down the lemon a tiny bit next time – maybe 4 lemons instead of 6, but otherwise it’s a perfect little scoop of childhood memories.

Visit KaveyEats for more info and lots of brill ice cream recipes!

(Oh and thanks to Kavey herself for kindly colour-correcting my typically crud photo)

Rossi’s lemon ice (makes about 500ml):

300ml water

200g sugar

Zest and juice (about 250ml) of 6 lemons

1 leaf of gelatine snipped into tiny pieces

1 teaspoon yellow food colouring

  1. Bring everything to boil in a saucepan. As soon as it boils take it off the heat and whisk vigorously to dissolve the sugar and gelatine. Pour into a freezable container and freeze overnight.
  2. When ready to serve, whizz up in a food processor and serve in a cornet, garnished with a Cadbury’s Flake.

heston blumenthal’s roast chicken

Posted by Gary in chicken, food, lemon, salt, thyme, wine and tagged with

heston blumenthal's ultimate roast chicken

Heston’s latest series, How to Cook Like Heston, is probably the one that could finally convert the non-believers. It’s vintage Heston treading familiar recipes, but taking them just far enough, and just explaining enough to make them accessible for those that want to try. The best example of this is roast chicken: I’ve previously cooked his perfect roast chicken (from In Search of Perfection) and it’s a brilliant recipe. But despite its relative simplicity there are a couple of stages in it that could be intimidating: plunging into water a few times, trying to cook a whole chicken in a frying pan, and chicken wing butter. So I was intrigued to see him show an even further simplified version on the show.

chicken roasted to 71°The brining is still there; an absolute necessity in my book. A low solution of 6% keeps the meat moist without making it too strong and cure-like. The slow roasting is also there, “low and slow” as Heston puts it, and after a simple resting back into your hottest oven to finish off. For the roasting itself, you simply have to use a meat thermometer to be sure that it’s done. I recommend Salter’s Heston-branded one but any one will do. It is recommended that you take the meat to 75°C; Heston admits that but says 60°C gives you the perfect succulence. If you have bird of spotless provenance that would probably be fine but I took my mid-range supermarket bird to 70°C.

And it’s tremendous of course. In fact I’d possibly argue that the extra stages introduced by the Perfection version are unnecessary. You get a fabulously juicy, tasty chicken, plump with flavour and intense chickenness. It’s well worth giving a go once – it takes no more effort than a regular roast chicken, just the brining the night before and a bit longer time blocked out for the oven. If you love your Sunday roast chicken, you owe it to your dinner table to try this one out.

The link to the Channel 4 recipe is here. An even more developed and detailed version of the recipe is in the book Heston Blumenthal at Home.

Heston Blumenthal’s roast chicken (serves 4–6):

6% brine (I used 240g salt dissolved in 4 litres of water)

1.4kg chicken

1 lemon

1 bunch of thyme

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for rubbing into the skin

30ml dry white wine

  1. Remove the trussing from the chicken to allow it to cook more evenly then place it in a container. Pour over the brine ensuring that the chicken is submerged then place in the fridge overnight.
  2. Preheat the oven to 90ºC. Remove the chicken from the liquid, rinse with fresh water and pat dry with kitchen paper. Place on a wire rack over a baking tray.
  3. Roll and pierce the lemon then place it in the cavity of the bird with half the thyme. Rub some softened butter on top of the skin. Roast the chicken until the internal temperature in the thickest part of the breast is 60ºC (for mine to hit 70ºC took 2 hours 20 minutes but there’s so many factors involved you should check every half hour from about 2 hours onwards).
  4. Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to rest for 45 minutes. Turn the oven temperature as high as it will go. This is a good time to use the oven if you’re doing roast potatoes.
  5. In the meantime, melt the butter in a pan and add the wine and a few sprigs of thyme. Bring to the boil then remove the pan from the heat and use the melted butter to baste the chicken before browning. Grind over some black pepper.
  6. Once the resting time has elapsed, put the chicken back in the roasting tray and return it to the oven for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown, taking care that it doesn’t burn.
  7. Once coloured, remove the chicken from the oven and carve. Serve with Heston’s perfect carrots and my perfect roast potatoes, a combination of methods including Heston’s.

empire chicken with indian gravy and bombay roasties

Posted by Gary in carrots, chicken, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cucumber, cumin, curry, food, garlic, ginger, lemon, nigella seeds, potatoes, red onion and tagged with

empire chicken with indian roasties

What a triumph this is. Just when I was feeling a bit indifferent to Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain along comes this absolute belter. Jamie introduces this by saying most people when asked about their favourite foods will mention roast chicken and curries, and this utterly unites the heart of both of these.

With blackened, tangy skin the chicken comes out juicy and tickling on the tongue, although be warned it will make a mess of your oven as it sits on the rack.

Being the kind of blog this is though, I have to talk about the roast potatoes. They are a triumph. I used to get “spicy spuds” from a dubious takeaway near me and these are very, very close to those – crispy, spicy and fluffy.

I’ve made a few changes to the spices in the potatoes based on what I had, and used floury over new pots to get them really crispy. I’ve served mine with a refreshing salad.

I cannot recommend this recipe enough.

Jamie’s original recipe is here.

Empire chicken, Bombay roasties, Indian gravy and refreshing salad (serves 4):

For the chicken and marinade

1.4kg free-range chicken

1 heaped tablespoon each finely grated garlic, fresh ginger and fresh red chilli

1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée

1 heaped teaspoon each of ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala and ground cumin

2 heaped teaspoons natural yoghurt

2 level teaspoons sea salt

For the gravy

1 stick of cinnamon

2 small red onions, peeled

10 cloves

3 tablespoons each of white wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce

3 level tablespoons plain flour

500ml chicken stock

For the Bombay-style potatoes

800g new potatoes

sea salt and ground pepper

1 lemon

2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil

a knob of butter

1 heaped teaspoon each of nigella seeds, ground coriander, garam masala, fenugreek and turmeric

1 bulb of garlic

Pinch of chilli flakes

For the salad

½ a cucumber, peeled

3 carrots, peeled

1 red onion, peeled

½ lemon

    1. Slash the chicken’s legs a few times right down to the bone. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and smear all over the chicken. Leave to marinate overnight.
    2. Preheat the oven to 200°C and organize your shelves so the roasting tray can sit right at the bottom, the chicken can sit directly above it, right on the bars of the shelf, and the potatoes can go at the top.
    3. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball size pieces then parboil them in a large pan of salted boiling water with a whole lemon for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through. Drain the potatoes then let them steam dry. Stab the lemon a few times with a sharp knife and put it right into the chicken’s cavity.
    4. Roughly chop the onions and add to a roasting tray along with the cinnamon stick, cloves, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, then whisk in the flour. Pour in the stock or water, then place this right at the bottom of the oven. Place the chicken straight on to the bars of the middle shelf, above the roasting tray. Cook for 1 hour 20 minutes.
    5. Put a roasting tray in the oven for five minutes to get hot. Add the olive oil, butter, the spices, halve a bulb of garlic and add it straight to the pan. Add your drained potatoes to the tray, mix everything together, then season well. After the chicken has been in for 40 minutes, put the potatoes in.
    6. Once the chicken is cooked, move it to a board to rest. Pass the gravy through a coarse sieve into a pan, whisking any sticky goodness from the pan as you go. Bring to the boil and either cook and thicken or thin down with water to your preference (I had to add some boiling water to deglaze the surface and make a sauce out of it.
    7. For the salad, use a vegetable peeler to make thin strips of the carrot and cucumber. Then finely slice the onion and add this to it. Add a pinch each of salt and sugar, then squeeze over the lemon and toss to combine. Leave for 15 minutes while everything else finishes off.
    8. Get your potatoes out of the oven and put them into a serving bowl, then serve the chicken on a board next to the sizzling roasties and hot gravy.

lemon yoghurt cheesecake

Posted by Gary in cream cheese, jelly, lemon, yoghurt

[There is supposed to be a photo here, but once I'd seen it I couldn't inflict it on your poor eyes. It was an awful abomination unto lenses. It did however taste great.]

The lovely people at Frank PR sent me some Onken Sicilian Lemon Yoghurt to try. Trying it neat it’s has a wicked tang, properly lemony. Really nice texture too that coats the tongue. But I couldn’t leave it at that, I thought it would taste perfect in a cheesecake. The version I’ve made has a jelly topping which is completely optional but just gives it one more tart edge. Zestilicious!

Lemon yoghurt cheesecake (makes about 8 servings):

200g shortbread biscuits

25g butter

1 450g pot Onken Sicilian Lemon yoghurt

300g cream cheese

1 tablespoon icing sugar

Juice of 2 lemons

1 gelatine leaf

50g caster sugar

  1. Bash the shortbread to dust and melt the butter. Combine to form a sticky paste and put it in the bottom of a pie dish. Bung in the fridge while you carry on.
  2. Combine the icing sugar and cream cheese and beat in the yoghurt until smooth. Put this on top of the biscuit base and return to the fridge.
  3. Snip the gelatine into bits and soak in the lemon juice on a heatproof bowl. After 10 minutes add the sugar and a splash of water, and sit on top of a saucepan of simmering water. Stir continuously until all the gelatine has dissolved, then pour on to the yoghurt base.
  4. Pop in the freezer for an hour, then transfer to the fridge for another hour or overnight if you can. Serve once the jelly has set.

heston blumenthal’s perfect treacle tart revisited

Posted by Gary in cream, egg, golden syrup, lemon, pastry and tagged with

heston blumenthal's perfect treacle tart

“Haven’t I read this before?” Why, yes you have. But for one thing, the picture is beyond ghastly. Secondly I followed even more of the rules than before. And finally I previously linked to The Times, and can’t stand the idea of the recipe disappearing behind the Murdoch paywall.

So how was it this time? I made the pastry myself. It was alright. I am no pastry ninja, possessing of skillet-like furnaces for hands that sees any dough crumble to bits in my grasp. I need a walk-in fridge to help with this. I’d be happy enough with shop-bought pastry for this. And I aged the treacle by baking it in a low oven for 24 hours. I’d like to think it made a difference, but the flavour maturation is subtle but interesting. Worth it if you have the time, don’t weep if you don’t.

If you haven’t tried this yet, really, really do. If you think Heston Blumenthal recipes are too complicated, they’re really, really not. It’s a stunner, and will make you incredibly popular if you take it round someone’s house for tea. Do it.

Heston Blumenthal’s perfect treacle tart (an easy 10 slices):

For the vanilla salt:

Seeds from 2 plump vanilla pods

50g sea salt

  1. Work the seeds into the salt with your fingers and leave to infuse until you’re ready to serve.

For the pastry:

400g plain flour

1 heaped teaspoon table salt

400g unsalted butter, chilled and diced

100g icing sugar

Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

Seeds from 1 vanilla pod

2 large egg yolks (about 40g)

2 large eggs (about 120g)

  1. Tip the flour and salt into a large bowl. Using your fingertips, rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Given the amount of butter, you may need to add and rub it in in batches.
  2. Quickly stir in the icing sugar, lemon zest and vanilla seeds. Add the egg yolks and the whole eggs, and mix until combined. Tip onto a sheet of clingfilm, wrap it up and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 3 hours.
  3. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 150°C.
  4. Dust a piece of greaseproof paper with flour. Take the pastry out of the fridge and remove the clingfilm. Place the pastry on the greaseproof paper. Cut off about one third of the dough and reserve in case it is needed to patch holes in the pastry base. (If unused, it can be frozen or baked as biscuits.) Shake over more flour, then top with a second piece of greaseproof paper. Begin to roll the pastry flat, moving the pin from the centre outwards. Turn the pastry 90 degrees every few rolls. Aim for a thickness of 3mm–5mm, and a diameter of 45cm–50cm. Once the pastry is rolled out to the correct thickness, peel off the top layer of greaseproof paper, trim off any excess, then wind the pastry onto the rolling pin, removing the other layer of paper as you go. Unwind the pastry over the flan tin and gently push it into the base and sides. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  5. Once the pastry has firmed up, remove it from the fridge. Prick the base with a fork to stop it puffing up. Take a fresh piece of greaseproof paper, scrunch it up and smooth it out several times (this makes it easier to put in position), then place it over the pastry base. Put baking beans or, even better, coins on top. Return the lined pastry case to the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
  6. Remove the case from the fridge and put it in the oven to bake for 25–30 minutes, until the pastry is a light, golden brown. If, after removing the beans or coins, the base is slightly tacky, return the case to the oven for 10–15 minutes.

For the filling:

400g loaf of brown bread, whizzed to crumbs

200g unsalted butter

3 large eggs

75ml double cream

2 teaspoons table salt

900g tin of golden syrup (age this by placing in the lowest your oven will go for at least 24 hours)

Zest of 3 lemons

Juice of 2 lemons

  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.
  2. Make a beurre noisette by putting the butter in a pan over a medium heat. When the butter stops sizzling (a sign that the water has all evaporated, after which it will soon burn) and develops a nutty aroma, remove it from the heat. Strain it into a jug and leave to cool. Discard the blackened solids left in the sieve.
  3. Put the eggs, cream and salt in a bowl and whisk until combined. Set aside.
  4. Pour the golden syrup into a pan and heat gently until liquid. Pour the beurre noisette into the warmed syrup, and stir. (Try to avoid tipping in any sediment that may have collected at the bottom of the jug.)
  5. Pour the buttery syrup into the egg and cream mixture. Stir in the breadcrumbs and the lemon zest and juice.
  6. Transfer the mixture to a large jug. Pour two-thirds of it into the pastry case. Slide the tart into the oven and pour in the remainder of the filling. Bake for 50–60 minutes, or until the tart is a deep brown colour. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before taking out of the tin.
  7. Serve the treacle tart with a few grains of vanilla salt sprinkled on top, and with a good dollop of clotted cream.

ottolenghi’s sagnarelli with broad beans and lemon

Posted by Gary in broad beans, food, lemon, pasta and tagged with

sagnarelli with broad beans and lemon

I’ve read an awful lot about Ottolenghi from various food bloggers (EssexEating seems to mention them a lot, especially their cookbook) with nothing but gushing praise. I follow them on Twitter, and they posted rather intriguingly “Exclusive to twitter: a scrumptuous recipe that didn’t make it to Plenty. http://tweetphoto.com/18283142” with a follow-up challenge of first to post a photo of the completed dish gets a prize. How could I turn that down?

I couldn’t quite manage to get the sagnarelli (a flatter, less fluted pasta) but as suggested I hoped farfalle would do the job. Therefore purists may wish to edit the name of this post!

It’s a fairly simple affair – pasta and broad beans in a shallot-infused lemon, wine and pink peppercorn sauce – but there’s a bright summery burst of flavour in every mouthful. Earthy beans, pasta with bite, being zinged with lemon, tempered with salty cheese and as everything fades away you’re left with a gentle tickle of heat from the peppercorns. It was very tasty.

It’s a great starter recipe, though the carnivore in me wanted a little bite of meat every now and then. I’d try it again, definitely, perhaps with a little less parmesan and pop in some diced pancetta instead. I might substitute the broad bean for another bitey veg as well, such as courgette or possibly purple sprouting broccoli. And simply because I love the taste – maybe a blast of garlic too. I enjoyed it a great deal and will give it a whirl another time.

Farfalle with lemon and broad bean (serves 2):

4 shallots, finely diced

25g butter

200ml white wine

250g farfalle pasta

250g broad beans

2 teaspoons pink peppercorns, coarsely crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Zest and juice of a lemon

Grated pecorino

  1. Fry the shallots in butter for a few minutes, until browned. Add the wine with a pinch each of sugar, salt and pepper and reduce vigorously until there is about a tablespoon of liquid left in the pan. Take it off the heat and check for seasoning.
  2. Meanwhile cook the pasta as per packet instructions, and cook the broad beans until al dente. Transfer both to the winey liquor along with the olive oil and lemon zest, tossing well. Taste for seasoning and add as much lemon juice and cheese as you think it needs.

fairy cakes three ways

Posted by Gary in cake, coffee, food, lemon and tagged with

an array of cupcakes

An unusual post this one: it’s a birthday gift show-off in disguise and I didn’t cook the featured articles!

Recent birthday gifts were: individual silicone cupcake cases (re-usable and easy to remove from the cases you see), a wiry cupcake stand, and my first ever piping bag. As I was about to spring into baking action, my 4 month old daughter fell asleep on my shoulder, so Mrs. Roastpotato stepped in to bake. I can be a nightmare to cook in front of, with my pestering and pointy fingers. Luckily she manage very impressive cakes despite my interference. We felt like baking the same cupcake base, with three toppings: coffee, lemon and vanilla.

We were deciding on which cupcake recipe to go for and went for Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. Out fell a grubby, yellowed piece of paper which was once lined. On it was familiar: my Nan’s tiny, curly handwriting. It was her recipe for ‘Queen Cakes’, which are fairy cakes studded with sultanas. They made the most perfect, golden, light and moist little gems. Luckily the toppings did them justice: a zingy, crisp lemon icing, a dense, sweet coffee rush and oozy, rich vanilla buttercream.

Fairy cakes (measurements and method are presented old school, exactly as per my Nan’s instructions) – makes 23:

8oz butter

8oz sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

A little milk

Cream fat and sugar add eggs beaten well. Fold in sieved dry ingred. little milk if ness to soft dropping consistency. Bake in mod oven 15 – 20 mins.

Coffee icing:

3 tablespoons espresso

2 tablespoons icing sugar

Lemon icing:

Juice of ½ lemon

2 tablespoons icing sugar

Vanilla buttercream:

100g icing sugar

50g butter

Dash of vanilla extract

pork escalope milanese

Posted by Gary in breadcrumbs, food, lemon, pork

pork escalope milanese with green beans and fries

You can’t beat a piece of meat in breadcrumbs. That feeling as you sink your teeth into the crunchy coating and it gives way to tender, juicy meat… A little flavouring in the breading and it’s slightly different every time. I always try to blitz a leftover loaf and chuck them in the freezer so I’ve always got a bag of breadcrumbs ready to shake over a piece of meat.

Pork escalope milanese (serves 3):

3 pork shoulder steaks, bashed to about the thickness of a pound coin with a rolling pin

Zest of 1 lemon

50g breadcrumbs

2 eggs, beaten

3 tablespoons seasoned flour

  1. Mix the breadcrumbs with zest and plenty of black pepper.
  2. Dip the pork steaks in flour on both sides, shaking off the excess. Then dip them in egg, then the breadcrumbs. Ensure they’re well coated.
  3. Fry in oil over a medium heat for about 4 minutes or until browned. Turn the steaks over and dot the gaps with butter.
  4. Fry on the other side until browned and serve with lemon wedges.

mackerel pate

Posted by Gary in food, lemon, mackerel and tagged with

mackerel pate with toast

I can’t claim the slightest bit of credit for this one. A friend and I were rummaging through the Tesco cook books and I stumbled on the Fay Ripley’s book Fay’s Family Food, which was jolly homely and decidedly honest. I glimpsed this mackerel pate, which I’m ashamed to say I memorised the recipe and put the book back. However on the strength of this and other interesting things I saw, I think I’ll pick it up again – but pay for it this time…

This makes an excellent lunch on a piece of toast.

Mackerel pate:

200g mackerel

2 tablespoons cottage cheese

1 tablespoon creme fraiche

Juice of 1 lemon

Black pepper to taste

Pinch of smoked paprika

  1. Bung the lot in a food processor and whiz until as smooth or as chunky as you’d like it. Alternatively mash with a fork.