Goosnargh Cakes (pronounced 'Goozna')

These little beauties are easy to make, they can be served as a sweet or savoury biscuit/cake, and not only that, they come from my favourite cookbook of the moment - British Regional Food by Mark Hix. These tasty little cakes, or biscuits, come from the north west, Lancashire to be precise. They can be dusted with sugar for a sweet kick or served with some cheese if you are that way inclined. This week I have been mostly eating Goosnargh cakes with cheese at my desk at 11am. Satisfying it has been.

They may remind you of shortbread with a caraway kick. Pretty darn good.

ingredients:

275g plain flour, sieved

225g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

20g caster sugar

2tsp caraway seeds

icing sugar to dust (optional)

method:

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.

Put the flour and butter in a bowl and rub together with your fingers until you achieve a breadcrumb-like consistency.

Add the caster sugar and caraway seeds and mix well. It should now be a smooth dough (mine was a little sticky so I added a bit more flour). If you think the dough is warm chill it in the fridge for ten minutes.

Roll out onto a lightly floured surface to about 1cm thick. Cut into rounds, I used a 7cm cutter.

Dust with sugar (or not if you're taking the savoury cheese route).

Bake for about 20 minutes until they just begin to colour.

You can dust again while hot and cooling on a wire rack.

Enjoy.

Thanks Mark.

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Harry Potter marathon sweets

If like us, you are planning a Harry Potter marathon, in order to watch all seven spectacular films before the final battle arrives on our screens in July, it may be wise to take a few minutes to consider what sweets to serve. The films are long and require much snacking. We are now over half way through, having watched four films and the list below details the sweets which have worked well for us so far:

Strawberry liquorice wands

Popping candy (super loud)

Bertie Botts every flavour jelly beans

Jelly snakes

Chocolate caramel frogs

Jelly babies

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Green Gazpacho

Summer Soup: fresh and green as pastures new

Selecting the starter for Supper Club numero dos was a drawn-out affair. I was feeling despondent after weeks of making roasted vegetable terrines that did not set, when Charlotte stumbled across this recipe from Plenty by Ottelenghi. It ticked all the boxes: seasonal, light and a perfect match for Rachael's delicious ricotta and sun dried tomato stuffed chicken which would be making its debut as our Main.

A somewhat risky choice to feed a room of strangers (cold soup?!) but the guests lapped it up and cried for more (they didn't get it, we were carefully controlling portions so that they had room for the main, trio of desserts and exquisite macaroons we had in store).

The reason for its success? The nuts and basil give it a rich, full flavour; the chilli gives it a kick. And if you put that combination of delicious green things in a glass it can only lead to one thing: a taste fresh as a summer's day.

I served the soup with croutons made from homemade soda bread. Baking your own bread is a bit extravagant for croutons and not strictly necessary, but that's just how we roll in the Keston Kitchen.

Enjoy

Jules xxx

Green Gazpacho

(Serves 6 - big portions)

2 celery sticks (including the leaves)

2 small green peppers, deseeded

1 large cucumber (weighing about 350g), peeled

3 slices stale white bread, crusts removed

1 fresh green chilli

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp sugar

150g walnuts, lightly toasted

200g baby spinach

25g basil leaves

10g parsley

4tbsp sherry vinegar

225 ml olive oil

40g Greek yoghurt

250g ice cubes

2tsp salt

white pepper preferably, but black works too)

Croutons:

2 thick slices bread

4tbsp olive oil

To make the croutons, preheat the oven to 190C. Cut the bread into 2cm cubes and toss them in the olive oil and a bit of salt. Spread on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 mins or until golden and crisp. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Roughly chop up the celery, peppers, cucumber, bread, chilli and garlic. Place in a blender and add the sugar, walnuts, spinach, basil, parsley, vinegar, oil, yoghurt, water, half the ice cubes, salt and pepper. Blitz the soup until smooth.

(n.b. our blender is small so I had to do it in batches).

Lastly, add the remaining ice and pulse once or twice to crush it a little. Serve at once with the croutons.

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Ginger, Lemon and Garlic Baked Salmon

Ginger, Lemon and Garlic Baked Salmon. By Ceri.

This is a really fresh fish dish, perfect for Spring or Summer and is one of my favourites from my contribution to the Keston Kitchen Calendar for the month of May. I was given this recipe by my previous boss, Jill. My colleague, Sarah and I would poise with our notepads at the ready whilst she dictated recipes to us. The flavours go really well and the end result is succulent fish and tasty spring greens, full of flavour. A lot of people have asked me for this recipe, so I'm happy to be sharing it. It will also work with trout and most other types of fish.

Serves 4

4 well sourced salmon fillets

2 large cloves of garlic, crushed

A thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated

300 ml olive oil

Juice of 2 lemons

Baby leeks

Baby corn

4 spring onions chopped

600 g fresh baby leaf spinach

Salt and Pepper

1 large roasting tin

Preheat the oven to 180 / Gas mark 4.

Pour the lemon juice and olive oil into a bowl and stir it together with a fork. Add the garlic and ginger, mix and season with salt and pepper (ideally, make this an hour before baking so the flavours infuse). Put the spinach into the roasting tin. It may look like a lot of leaves, but it cooks down considerably when baked. Press it down into the dish if necessary. Now place the salmon fillets on top of the spinach and add the spring onions, leeks and baby corn around the side.

Finally pour the sauce over the entire dish and bake for 35 minutes. When you remove from the oven, the spinach will have cooked down and the sauce will have doubled due to the water from the veg with all the flavours soaking into the spinach. Serve with roasted sweet potato wedges or mash. You will have some sauce in the bottom of the dish which you can put on the table in a jug for your guests to add extra if they wish.

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On location: Paris

Two hungry Londoners in Paris.

On arriving in Paris for a two night, three day sojourn, pretending to be French, I decided to keep a food diary. The Sicily diary had been a great success, as well as highlighting how much one can eat. So here's what happened en France.

Day Un

Petit déjeuner:

Café au lait and cappuccino

Pain avec beurre et confiture (rouge)

Déjeuner: Le Timbre

Pea soup with pork croutons (!)

Terrine with onion marmalade and cornichons

Cochons noir (black pig) with fava beans

Confit du canard with sweet red peppers (stuffed with mashed potato - genius)

Espresso x 2

Diner: Le Hangar (good recommendation by Time Out)

Salmon tartare with basil on cucumber

Salad of haricots verts with Parmesan - oh so good

Boeuf stroganoff with small crispy potatoes - rare steak mixed in with cream and wine...

Matt, with his strong love for duck, went for a duck and foie gras pie with mash and nutmeg topping - zut alors!

Espresso x 2 served with small biscuits and gooey chocolate truffles

Day Deux

Petit déjeuner:

Café au lait x 2

Croissant x 2 (good dipping in coffee occurred)

Déjeuner: Nanashi (organic Japanese bobo canteen - bourgeois bohemian)

Organic lychee lemonade (oooh)

Heineken

Chirashi salmon - hot rice, salad, smoked salmon chunks, ginger, sesame seeds and some small shoots

Chicken bento - bulgar wheat and rice mix with chicken and shitake mushrooms in a real tasty sauce. with leaves, tomatoes, carrot and sesame seeds, broccoli and courgette. Small feast in a box.

Diner: Claude Colliot

Warm white asparagus, rhubarb and radish salad. Mouth watering.

Crab with an egg yolk on top, with yellow courgettes and apple puree. Fancy pants. Creamy. Yellow. Good.

Veal cooked in liquorice with perfect seasonal vegetables

Suckling pig flavoured with tobacco with perfect seasonal vegetables

Chocolate ganache with glazed fruits, nuts and orange cream

A small goats cheese

Day Trois

Petit déjeuner:

Two boiled eggs x 2

Café au lait x 2

Déjeuner: Le Pommette

A mozzarella type cheese with garlic and truffle oil

Green salad avec tomatoes, goats cheese, grapes and potatoes

Meats with salad and rosemary potatoes

Diner: (waiting for the train)

One salty sausage, half a goat's cheese and a bag of Lays crisps (a must)

Followed by a coke, an Orangina and a Lipton ice tea - salt overload

Bon appetit!

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Sausage rolls

A couple of weeks ago Charl had some of her uni friends round for lunch, it was a sunny spring Sunday afternoon so we had a picnic in the garden before heading to the park.
My contribution to the spread was some homemade sausage rolls, they are really quick to make (as long as you have some puff pastry already defrosted and you aren't hideously hungover). You can definitely tell the difference from frozen pre-made sausage rolls and using homemade pastry makes them even more buttery and tasty. We ate them along with some delicious salads, crusty bread and a cheese and ham cake that Julia had made from a recipe in that weekends Guardian magazine. They were very well received, one of our guests, Leo, even said he would never be able to eat bought sausage rolls again because they wouldn't be as good!!

Best served warm from the oven

Rachael x


Ingredients:
400g puff pastry (either bought or homemade)
450g pork sausage meat
1 onion peeled and grated
2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1 egg beaten

Method:
Mix the sausage meat, sage and onion together in a bowl and season with a little salt and pepper.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface as thin as you can into the shape of a rectangle. Cut the rectangle in half length ways.

Divide the sausage mixture in half and form them into 2 rolls the same length as the strips of pastry.

Place a roll of sausage meat down one side of each of the pieces of pastry, brush the beaten egg along one side of the pastry and fold the rest of the pastry over to meet it, covering the sausage meat. Use your fingers to make sure the edges are completely sealed together.

Slice the 2 large rolls into 2 inch portions. Coat the sausage rolls with some more beaten egg and use scissors to make a V shaped snip in the top of each one.

Place on a baking sheet and cook in the oven at 220C for 20-25 minutes.

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Pop Up Supper Club

Pop-up Supper Club - Take #1

The idea of a pop-up supper club in the lounge had been floating around the Keston Kitchen since the end of summer 2010. The first one finally took place on March 12th. The evening was a brilliant success and a great time was had by all.

Behind the scenes

When we realised we were serious about popping-up in the lounge, the preparation started with finding a date that we could all do. Not as easy as it sounds when you have four busy girls, and Lindsay on board! March was decided, so then came the task of the menu. We worked to our own guidelines; a four course menu of seasonal dishes, with ingredients sourced as locally as possible. We all like a challenge, and March, being the most sparse month of the year when it comes to fruit and veg, certainly provided that.

The menu

The menu was decided; trout to start, some local pork in the middle, rhubarb and custard dessert, and something sweet to end. A lot of hours went into testing recipes, tasting ingredients, and collecting everything on the Friday before the big day. A big thank you to Jesse Dunford Wood, an amazing chef that we stumbled across at the Mall Tavern in Notting Hill. He kindly discussed our menu with us and offered to help us source the trout for the starter and smoke some of it on the roof of the pub! I can safely say the smoked trout was out of this world, with an incredible intense flavour that just made you want to have one more piece. Also, a big thank you to Kurt at Volcano Coffee Works, who I spent a couple of hours tasting coffee with and choosing the right blend for the end of the night. Finally, thanks to the bees of Nunhead who make really good honey, which we used in the mini merigue cupcakes with toasted hazelnuts and cream.

The blues versus the reds

On the day we spruced up the lounge, which has never looked so good. Rach sorted the tables so that we had a blue end and a red end. Very pretty and also pretty practical for those on waitressing duty. The red table became the rowdy table after about 5 minutes. They all hit it off and the chatter, laughter and drinking continued long into the night, with the blues occasionally trying to match the noise levels from the reds - a difficult undertaking. The food ended around midnight and we all got talking. I can only compare it to a brilliant dinner party with great guests. Suddenly it was 1am and then it was 3am when the last four guests left, as good friends, with numbers swapped and plans made.

Now, we're putting together our next menu and guest list for June 4th, take #2, ensuring the night will be as entertaining and delicious as the first... Book early if you fancy coming along.

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