Sam's First Subway

And so it happened on the 17th of August 2013 that Sam lost his Subways virginity. I know it is difficult to believe that someone so picky that he has no shame in asking for his signature "deconstructed burger" (no salad, no mayo, no gherkins, just a lump of meat between two pieces of bread) in both low and high rent places had not yet frequented such an establishment that is famous for making bespoke sandwiches, right down to the customer's choice of six flavours of breads. Yet, here we were on a lovely day in Windsor, looking for a snack of a lunch to tide us over until our big dinner with pals Becky and Charles. 

"You always make me try new things when others are around so that I can't make a scene!" Sam exclaimed, despite the fact that it wasn't even my idea to go there. Once our friends had heard that Sam had never tried Subways before, they were even more adamant to go! 

As we stood waiting in line for our delicious sandwiches, Sam almost started hyperventilating with fear. My attempts to assuage him with a calm explanation of the wide choices available (including several chicken flavours) did not reduce his anxiety, and it was only after we got to the front of the queue and he saw me order, that he finally got the idea, and ordered something to his liking. That being a beef pattie, with lettuce, olives and barbecue sauce. 

Needless to say, when Sam finally took a bite, much to his surprise, it was a pleasurable experience. The icing on the cake was topped off with the revelation that this store had unlimited refillable drinks. And so he was hooked.

For since we've introduced him to Subways, Sam has had no less than six more of their sandwiches in the last two weeks. All with the same beef pattie combination. I worry for what will become of him while I am away on exchange in Shanghai.....I fear Sam may turn into a Subway sandwich himself!

Sam's First Pancake Flip

Welcome to the second part of our come-back double bill!
Of course Sam has had pancakes before, and loves them like everybody else. Not even a picky eater like him could resist such a tasty dish. However, this post is about Sam learning to make his own pancakes, so that he can produce them on demand! (Not sure if this was a wise thing to do)
This all started when one lazy Sunday morning, I was in the mood for making pancakes. When Sam saw how easy they were to make, he quickly made up his mind to try and learn how to make them for himself.
We used Nigella's american pancake recipe from her "Nigella Express" book:
300 g flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
40 g caster sugar
2 eggs
500 ml milk
2 tbsp melted butter
This makes enough for two hungry people like us ;)
Whisk the ingredients together, and then ladle out into a hot, greased frying pan as thick or as thin as you like!

This was a big step for Sam, since he had planned to make pancakes all on his own for his stag do morning. Due to a change of circumstances, neither of the two stags ended up staying over, but this didn't deter Sam from making pancakes for three people at home on his own! Luckily, he didn't eat all of them, and I ended up being able to try some the following day, and they were pretty good!

Sam's comments: I like pancakes, and after seeing Eva make them, I realised that this was a simple dish that was probably at the right level for me to try to achieve on my own. They were easy to make, you just have to pay attention to the frying pan, to make sure they don't burn. The end result was delicious and was very filling, just what you need to gear you up for a stag weekend away!

Sam's First Potato Croquettes

Hello everyone!

We have been very busy with the wedding organisation, but now it's all over and we're back from the honeymoon, Sam's First Times is now back by popular demand! And we start off with a special double bill!

The first is a basic recipe of the deliciously crunchy potato croquettes.

Sam first discovered these in Barceloneta, where they make a delicious bacon version. In addition, his culinary interests have been expanding, after the discovery of a certain Nadia G, who popped up on the Food Network, one night when I was watching the addictive "Amazing Wedding Cakes". Her no-nonsense punky style combined with her Italian good looks and irreverent humour in "Bitchin' Kitchen" was obviously going to be a winner with Sam. Despite her obvious attractions, her recipes actually check out, and are thoughtful and encourage people to use quality ingredients in proper home cooked meals.
So we used her recipe for croquettes:
Four large Maris Piper potatoes (or any others good for mashing)
1 tsp of oil
1 garlic clove
A handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
A handful of grated Parmegianno or other hard cheese
Flour for rolling in
2 eggs
Seasoned breadcrumbs

So, we started off with cooking the potatoes for about 15 - 20 minutes and then peeling the skin off (with Maris Pipers, the skins just falls right off after cooking).

Sam did the mashing, while I chopped the garlic. Nadia G recommends to lightly fry the garlic in the oil and then add it altogether to the mash

Then we added the chopped parsley and seasoning:

Of course, at this point, you would also add the hard cheese of your choice, but since Sam was involved, this had to be cheese-free. So I added a hefty pinch of Vegeta instead to give it some flavour :)

Once you've flavoured all your mash, you should leave the mix in the fridge for it to cool down enough to handle. Most recipes say leave for 30 mins or so.

After thoroughly washing your hands, you're then ready for the next stage - rolling into croquette shapes! Then roll in the flour, followed by the beaten egg.

At this stage Sam asked me what it meant to beat an egg - I think he thought it meant throwing them against a hard surface or punching them! Luckily I was on hand to give a quick demonstration with a fork.

Finally, roll the eggy croquettes into the breadcrumbs. We flavoured ours with some Nando's chip spice to give it some spice. The recipe suggests "Italian seasoning" but really, you can use anything you fancy.

Then we used our usual frying pan and just did a shallow fry, which seemed to work out fine:

We got ten croquettes from this recipe, which was just enough for our hungry appetites!

Overall, these were much easier to make than I imagined, and although it's not a weekday supper accompaniment, they still turned out quite well, and next time we'll try something more adventurous like putting bacon bits into the mash!

Sam: "It was nice to get back into the culinary saddle after a long hiatus. These were so fun to make, because there were so many different stages, and I got to dip things into eggs. As a rookie chef, it was nice to be doing something with your hands and they turned out really well. They tasted much better than supermarket ones! 9/10" 

Sam's First Meringue Roulade - Christmas Style!

Merry Christmas everyone!
In light of the Christmas festivities, a classic time for cooking and baking, I wanted to do something special. Since we don't eat Christmas cake or pudding in our house, I've been looking to having a range of possible alternatives that are just as tasty and special. So I settled on a trusty favourite - meringue roulade, by who else but baking queen Mary Berry herself. Since I already knew that Sam likes meringue, I thought this was a failsafe option, which I could easily spice up into a festive style.

Instead of fresh strawberries, I added home made cranberry sauce - there are many recipes online, but I picked this one from the Ocado website, and modified it to make it suitable for a dessert by omitting the shallots and doubling the amount of sugar recommended. Also, I didn't have any red wine open, so I thought I'd just substitute it with a little bit of port!

you can also see in the background the process of how I made the blue sugar star decorations. I used a recipe from the brilliant Sugar Hero with a very funny description of how she was inspired to make this recipe (from the show Breaking Bad, nothing at all to do with the festive recipe for which I'm using it here). The details for the sugar stars are at the end.

The recipe itself is pretty simple and starts off with making a very stiff meringue!

Since I wasn't using the almond flakes in this recipe, I added extra speaks for texture before baking in the oven.

After baking and leaving to cool, it was time to add the filling. Here I tweaked the recipe again a little, and used a Christmasy champagne double cream as a filling. After laying the cranberry sauce on top of it, the roll looked like this:

The extra space at the far end is required as when you roll up the roulade, the filling has a tendency to ooze out. This is nothing to worry about, and adds to the overall messy look to this tasty dessert! The rolling part is probably the trickiest, but it works best when you take the band aid approach - just do it in one, quick, swift movement!

Then we decorated the roulade with glitter sprinkles and the blue stars, like so:

It's quite easy to get the sugar shapes, just place some metal cookie cutters into the poured sugar while it is still molten. Then carefully pop them out when they've hardened.

 

I think it turned out reasonably well, and with a few tweaks, it could be really perfect. Unfortunately, Sam didn't really take to my cranberry sauce, I think that they were a little bit tart for him! 

Sam: The meringue was lovely, it was a perfect mix of crunchy on the outside, and gooey and chewy on the inside. I'm not a big fan of cranberries, but the sauce tasted relatively nice. Overall, I'd give it 7/10

Sam's First Crème Brûlée

Okay, so after a bit of a hiatus due to academic commitments, we are back, with a little taste of something we cooked up last week, before the looming deadlines were upon us.
Sam first came upon this dish when we were at the Himley hotel on a weekend away, and after a brief description, he was convinced to try it. The dish that came out was so much to Sam's liking that requests ensued to recreate it at home.
And after a bit of resistance on my account, due to a mistaken belief that it was a complicated and time-consuming dish to make, I felt I ought to give it another chance, and to my pleasant surprise, it actually turned out to be neither. I say "another chance" because, admittedly, I had once tried to make this before, but the results were a curdled mess in a pot, with a patchily charred topping - it was a less than tasty experience I quickly wanted to forget. But after having been inspired by the technical challenges the Great British Bake Off crew seemed to get through, I thought it was worth another try.
So, time to jump in to the crème brûlée! (Or as Sam says, "Burnt cream!") It's such a long-standing recipe, it was actually quite hard to find a basic one, since there's an array of variations out there. After settling on this one, things went pretty smoothly. Since the first part of the recipe is simply beating some egg yolks with sugar and heating some double cream, I've skipped to the part where we put the ramekins into the bain marie.

Having said that, prior to this point, Sam had done his fair contribution by holding the electric whisk until the mixture went pale and fluffy, and I do wish I'd taken a photo of him doing so!
After cooking, came the best part - the torching!

And the results were super tasty :)

With a good crunchy caramel topping

Sam: 9/10 I love contrast between the smooth custard and the brittle caramel topping. Deliciourific! Taste-tastic! Would definitely make this again

Sam's First Pain au Chocolat

Ok, so I know what you're thinking - surely Sam hasn't gotten this far in life without trying a pain au chocolat? The man loves croissants, and surely they're almost the same thing? Well Sam may have tried them some months ago now, but I can truly say that before me, he hadn't ever had a single one. He was so taken with croissants, he never saw any need to deviate from the predictable flaky goodness of a croissant. In fact, the bold step to even try one only came along when a few months back, our local Waitrose had run out of the premade frozen croissants we used to buy for Sam's breakfast. "Are pains au chocolat okay instead?" I asked nonchalantly, having already placed a packet in our online basket. "What are those?" came the reply. Shocked, yet excited, I ordered the bag of frozen pains and after they arrived, we popped them in the oven and they rose beautifully and turned a lovely golden brown. Sam was surprised to find that he enjoyed these other French pastries.
Sam's comments: lovely! 8/10. But why are they called "pains" of chocolate. It's not painful at all. Is this similar to that other dessert I keep hearing about "death by chocolate"?

Sam's comments: Eva sure was interested in me eating these pains of chocolate. She thinks I've never seen them before, but I have. I just didn't want to touch them. They may have had a chocolatey-looking filling, but I couldn't really be sure without trying one. And frankly, when you've got something as tasty as a croissant, what is the need to deviate? Having said that I did end up liking these and do enjoy them sometimes

Sam's First Cannoli

Recently when the continental market came to Leicester on its biennial visit, I was too busy to pop down, but since Sam had a couple of days off and was in town running a few errands, he offered to pick up a few things for me while he was there. So of course, I asked for my usual favourites - ostrich burgers and cannoli. "Right, so where do I find these canneloni?" After correcting him, he seemed to find his way to the aptly named "Italian temptations" stall, and clearly gave in to the 6 for the price of 5 offer, since there were many there in the box to greet me when I got home. But unusually, this time around Sam seemed interested in trying them out. I wasn't sure whether to be happy since last year, he didn't even want to touch them, or to be disappointed that there were fewer left for me. I decided to go with the former, since he clearly seemed to be enjoying them!

Sam's comments: They were nice. They were just like an Italian Milky Way Crispy Rolls. 7/10

Sam's First Pumpkin Pie

Sorry for the dry spell in posts recently, the start of the new term has been busy for both of us, so we've had to put our cooking hobby a little bit on the back burner for a while.
But when the holiday season came along, even we couldn't resist but rustle up something in the name of Halloween and Bonfire night. So in the end I snapped up a pumpkin at the market for a £2 bargain.
Sam helped to start off the carving and put in a bit of elbow grease in scooping out the flesh of the pumpkin as well.

Since we had a pumpkin, I thought we may as well make some pumpkin pie. So I just followed the basic recipe from Anthony Worral Thompson, except first I made some of my own sweet shortcrust pastry from scratch (mainly because I'm not a fan of shop bought sweet shortcrust pastry with all the hydrogenated fat and it allows me to add brown sugar and crushed pecans, for a boost of extra flavour and texture). So after blind baking, it looked like this:

After steaming and blending the pumpkin flesh, it was mixed with the eggs and cream:

After 35 minutes cooking, it looked pretty well risen, as if it was about to bubble over, but after leaving to cool like the recipe said, it collapsed back down. I decorated with with a few chocolate shapes to make it look more festive:

The pie turned out well and sturdy, with a good flavour in a way that a good traditional pumpkin pie should. It seemed to go down well with a fellow PhD friend who was excitedly trying out pumpkin pie for the first time. However, it didn't seem to be such a hit with Sam himself, who promptly left the remainder of the slice after trying only one spoonful:

Sam: "Urgh! It tastes like slime! I won't be eating that again in a hurry!" 2/10

Still, we cheered him up by putting a carving into the pumpkin of his favourite spy that's been popular in the cinemas lately :)

James Bond pumpkin

James Bond pumpkin-tastic!

Sam's First Coca de San Juan (St John's Flat Cake)

Continuing with our Spanish thing, there was one thing that certainly caught Sam's eye (and his stomach). Every morning, we would peruse the delicious things on offer in the local bakeries, and inevitably, Sam would almost always ask for the same thing. Decorated with a colourful array of dried fruits, Coca de San Juan is a flat sweet bread that is traditionally eaten as part of the feast on the eve of St John's Day on 24th of June, as part of the Spanish midsummer celebrations (just after the summer solstice). It could be that they were prevalent because we were there just a matter of weeks after this date, or maybe they are available all year round, but whichever it is, it was certainly delicious.

We used a simple recipe from a little Catalan cookbook we bought in one of the tourist shops:

Ingredients:

300 g bread flour

125 g softened butter

3 eggs

40 g of sugar or more to taste

1 sachet of baking yeast

a pinch of salt

For the decoration:

100 g of glazed fruits such as candied orange slices, glacé cherries, angelica

20 g pine nuts

50 g sugar

1 glass of muscatel or other sweet dessert wine

1. Leave the dried fruits to soak in the sweet wine for 2 hours

2. Mean while, rub the butter into the flour, then combine with the remaining ingredients to make a bread dough. I usually combine the butter and flour by hand, then add everything to a bread machine on the dough setting. Add some milk if the dough is too dry, and some flour if it's too wet. The dough can also be flavoured with lemon zest or anise for a more traditional flavour

3. Cover the dough and leave to rest for 4 hours (yes, the recipe really says 4 hours!) until it is doubled in size.

4. Stretch the dough out into a flat cake oval shape, but try to avoid knocking all the air out of it. Spread the fruits on top, then sprinkle with the pine nuts and the sugar. Leave to rest in a non-draughty place for another 30 minutes, during which time you can preheat the oven to 180 oC (I found this was too hot for my fan oven, so I took it down to 160 oC)

5. Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown

6. See how long it lasts when it is fresh and warm from the oven!

Sam's First Reibekuchen (Potato Pancakes/Latkes)

Recently, when a German friend reminded me of these wonderful fried goodies, they seemed like the perfect accompaniment to my attempt to bring a little bit of Spain with us for our weekend dinner; not just because I haven't quite mastered the finer Spanish arts with potatoes such as croquettes, but also because patatas bravas seems to be a form of glorified roast potatoes. In addition, they reminded me just a little bit of my childhood (although my dad would refer to them as "krumpli lepény"). And when I found out that Sam had never tasted these deliciously irresistible treats, I knew I had to incorporate them into our next meal.
My German friend recommended this recipe, but I found the onion content rather high, and there's an equally good one on the BBC Food website. Having said that, this is really one of those recipes that can be done by eye according to the cook's preference.

So, as always, it starts with grating the onions and potatoes:

As you can see, I used a mandolin on the julienne blade to get nice, clean, thin, slices, as I find that using a cheese grater tends to "mush" the vegetable flesh too much. This way you get a nice crisp finish. Also, I find that in this way you get less of the liquid which many recipes tell you needs to be eliminated to achieve the best finish.
Then mix with the eggs and flour to make it all stick together:

Scoop out large serving spoonfuls into hot oil in a frying pan, like so:

It is perfectly fine to shallow fry these, just give them a few minutes on each side; there is no need for a deep fat frier.
And that's it! They're done pretty quick:

Ok, so whilst they're not the most aesthetically pleasing food creation, they are one of the most delicious, and had Sam in fits of saying "More, more!", followed by "these are like crack!" and finally "I've found heaven and it's in the shape of a potato pancake!". There were many more, but some are less appropriate to mention here!

So I can safely say that this is a whole hearted 10/10 from Sam, with requests for them again the following day! :)
The complete dish was home made chorizo in red wine (using up the chorizo we brought home from Barcelona!), peas, and the reibekuchen drizzled with bravas sauce. A bit of a European fusion meal

Sam's First Battenberg Cake...Jubilee style!

So, after many different cakes tested, Sam settled on a traditional English Battenburg Cake, but jazzed up with some jubilee colours! The recipe itself is pretty straight forward, and Sam has pretty much got the sponge recipe down pat. The only part of the recipe that was fiddly was that we used two tins, and had to align them exactly, and also, the cut sides of the cake were not easy surfaces to spread with butter cream. But overall, we had a great time making it:

Sam: 8/10! I really enjoyed making this cake.It was fit for a Queen :)

Sam's First Attempt at Lemon Drizzle Cake

So, with Sam's work Jubilee weekend bake-off only round the corner, he has gone into cake over-drive, road-testing other recipes that he could bring along. This week, he thought he'd give his old favourite Lemon Drizzle Cake a go, using a recipe from Olive. Having learnt the creaming method from the previous cake, Sam got off to a great start.

He could even be safely left alone to zest the lemons (he spiced things up a bit by adding a lime too)

My intervention wasn't required until the final stages, when a surprisingly dry cake mix gave away the fact that Sam had neglected to put in four eggs - yes! FOUR eggs! With disaster averted, Sam was confident that the cake would nonetheless turn out well, regardless of what order the ingredients went in. It seems that he was proved correct in this case, since the cake turned out as tasty as ever:

Sam was very pleased with himself :)

Sam's First Marble Cake

Now, I know what you're thinking - "Surely, Sam couldn't possibly have gone through life without ever trying any marble cake?!" Well I'd say that you were right! (And don't call me Shirley) In fact, this was Sam's first attempt at baking a cake, so he started off with a simple, familiar family favourite. So after finding a good, basic recipe for marble cake on the BBC Food website, he enthusiastically threw himself into the joys of baking. The initial stages of creaming the butter and sugar together were done by hand, so they needed a strapping young lad like Sam regardless, and I'll admit I've put his brute force to good use in other such situations. Here is Sam at work, in happy anticipation of the cakey goodness coming up:

 This project required the minimal supervision, just a few checks during mixing, and before going into the oven:

And after an hour's baking, it came out quite well:

Sam's comments: I chose this recipe because it was a childhood favourite. It wasn't too complicated, and I wouldn't mind making it again.  I've yet to perfect the recipe, as it came out slightly dry, so much so that at one point, I think I aspirated some crumbs and almost started choking! 7/10, but with promise for the future :)