Entertaining Easter

This has been the first weekend in a long time that I have felt honestly excited! Like Christmas, but better. There is no doubt that Easter is a significant date in the calendar - whether it is for religious reasons or simply because the long weekend means time off work - Easter is exciting. For me I think Easter feels like the mark of Spring, new buds and blooms sneak out from the snowy winter months and the sun shines with much anticipation.
This Easter we headed north to Achiltibuie to spend the weekend with my family. Weeks in advance we had planned the menus for the long weekend and the car was packed with shopping to keep us all going.
Now the road from Inverness to Achiltibuie leads you through Ullapool, a wonderful wee fishing port which boosts some of the best fish and chips I have ever tried (and I have tried many many many). Last time we passed through Ullapool The Seaforth was being refurbished in time for the start of the tourist season so we headed there for a late lunch on Friday and it did not disappoint. The Seaforth is the only place (plaice?) I have ever been able to have Queen Scallops with chips. The man in my life tried the Scampi and chips which is my usual meal from a chippie but not the Seaforth. Their Scallops are the small sweet kind, lightly battered and fried to perfection - the chips are the best, home-made chips you will find on the west coast. As far as I'm concerned, a visit to Ullapool isn't complete without a visit to The Seaforth chippie.

Anyway, once lunch was done we drove up to Achiltibuie with enough food to feed an army. The meals for the weekend are listed below with links to recipes where possible. I made slight alterations as I went along but feel free to stick to the recipe or try the Gourmet Lass twists:
Good Friday
Fine Oatmeal coated Scallops with Roe in Garlic butter, served with Garlic Mayo
Pancetta Wrapped Salmon with Saffron Rice
Lemon Ice Cream with Biscotti

Saturday
Pancetta, Blue Cheese and Pear salad with walnut pieces
Lemon & Garlic Roast Chicken with roast vegetables
Passion Fruit Meringue

Sunday
Mezze platter with pea, mint, feta and pancetta salad
Roast Rack of Lamb with aubergine & goats cheese bake
Baked Yoghurt Cheesecake

Delicious meals from the deep

We have been away from the weekend. Down to Edinburgh. The plan was to do a lot of family things and then enjoy a nice meal in one of the best restaurants in Edinburgh - Chop Chop. It is so good that it made it onto the Gordon Ramsay F Word show as one of the best Chinese in the UK. It made it to the final two but lost out to a restaurant in Manchester. A real shame because Chop Chop is best known for it's dumplings - they are great, both boiled and fried. I tried the Crispy Northern Beef for the first time (I've been there 3 times in all) and it was delicious. I would highly recommend a visit to Chop Chop when you are in Edinburgh. Already planning our next trip as we have bought tickets for the Taste of Edinburgh Festival in May so are looking forward to more culinary delights when we return.

The A9 is the road which joins Inverness to Edinburgh and on the way there are many food stops (no I don't include McDonalds in Perth, the Little Chef or Motor Grill in these). One real mecca for Foodies on the A9 is House of Bruar which has become the favourite stop for everyone traveling during 9 - 5pm (if it stayed open later it would still rake it in!). The Food Hall is amazing. I've worked there many a Saturday when promoting the wonderful Smokehouse which is Summer Isles Foods but to finally be able to shop to my hearts content is fun. We had a good look round and I was impressed to see they have expanded since I was last there. They have a butcher section complete with a hanging area. It's good to see a business showing where meat comes from. I can imagine it's too much for the non-meat eaters among us but I believe butchery is a great skill, to do it humanely is good and we need to understand what it means to eat meat.

However, what really attracts me to House of Bruar is the seafood section - Arbroath Smokies, smoked mussels and what we finally purchased - white crab meat. Crab meat is lovely and light, delicately flavoured meat and deserves a simple meal so we tried this tonight and I'm adding it to my list of favourite dishes - simple and perfect:

Crab linguine with chilli, lemon, garlic and parsley recipe

I feel this chicken tonight...like chicken tonight...

I thought I would share with you a couple of great meals for a weekend night. Nice and simple but quite impressive looking. The key of course is to use good ingredients. We try to regularly get our meat and veg from MacCullochs Food because he sources everything as locally as possible. Which means not only are you helping support local food producers but you get seasonal veg. I get quite excited when the box arrives and you see what you are getting this week. They also have an impressive range of box deals - meat & veg for £25 etc. This week I ordered a mixture of stuff but I always like to get some chicken so I can make meals like this:

Chicken stuffed with Boursin with cannellini bean stew
Ingredients for 2
150g Boursin
1 tablespoon of Crème fraiche
Grated zest of 1 lemon skin
2 chicken supremes, skin on
Splash of olive oil
For the bean stew
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
200g pack smoked bacon lardons
400g cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
100ml white wine, martini or vermouth
100ml chicken stock, hot
2 tablespoons of Crème fraiche

Heat the oven to 200C/ fan180C/gas 6.
Mix together the Boursin with a table spoon of Crème fraiche, salt and pepper.
Lift the skin from the chicken breast and stuff the Boursin mixture in. Try not to over stuff it. Spread evenly and repeat with the remaining chicken.

Place the chicken in a non-stick roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil, season and roast for 25-30 minutes until cooked through.

Then heat the olive oil in a pan, add the onion and fry over a medium heat until softened. Add the garlic and fry for 1 minute, then add the bacon and fry until golden. Stir in the beans and white wine and bubble over a high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add the stock, simmer for 2-3 minutes, then stir the Crème fraiche.
When you are ready to serve, place a portion of the bean stew in the middle of the plate and pop the chicken on top. Yum

Chicken and Mushroom Pie
25g butter
1 red onion, diced or sliced into rings
1 chicken breast, diced
6 rashers of streaky bacon, diced
150g mushrooms, sliced
75g Broccoli, in small pieces
2 cloves of Garlic
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of Tarragon (or use fresh)
1 glass of white wine.
25g butter
75g flour
Milk as required
150g Boursin
1 bay leaf
Puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

This is a nice simple recipe. First cook the onion in butter until soft. Then add you chicken, diced and allow to cooked for 5 - 10 minutes. Then add your diced bacon. Allow the bacon to cook then add your mushrooms, broccoli and garlic. Cook for 5 mins, until the mushrooms are completely covers in the flavours then season to your liking with the nutmeg and tarragon. At this stage, add a small glass of white wine and leave on a low temperature for all the juices to evaporate. Mushrooms contain a lot of water so the mixture will be quite wet. You don't want this at the next stage so let it cook off.

While this is happening you can make your sauce for the pie. Start to make a bechamel sauce with the butter, flour and milk. When if gets to a nice thick sauce stage add your Boursin and allow it to melt into the sauce. Add a bay leave and season to taste. Add as much milk depending on the thickness you want for the sauce. I like it quite thick...

When your sauce is ready the chicken and mushroom mixture should be a nice sticky combination of ingredients (at this stage you could also use this mixture as a sauce for pasta!) Now, the easy part, mix the chicken and mushroom mixture in with the sauce and stir until nicely combined. Pour this into your pie dish. I use a Le Creuset pie dish (what else!). The mixture should just about come to the top of the dish but not quite. Then, roll out some puff pastry, big enough to cover the surface of your pie and a bit more. Pastry shrinks when cooking so you don't want to cut it neatly around the top of the pie dish. Then, if you have spare pastry you can decorate your pie lid! Always makes pies look more tasty. Then finish your pie by brushing some beaten egg over the pastry and pop it in the oven for about 30 mins or until your pastry has risen and is golden brown.

What I like about this recipe is the veg is in the pie too so you can just clear up and then serve your pie when ready. It's very tasty too!

Beginning Basic Baking

I was in Paris at New Year. It was a long weekend of indulgence consisting of much vin rouge, fromage et croissant. This is the perfect way to spend a long weekend in any city I think. While we were in Paris I took my friend to Ladurèe for afternoon tea. The place was hooching with Parisians buying boxes of the world-famous Macaroons for New Year party presents. There is something child-like and innocent about a Macaroon. The playful colours, the cute perfectly rounded shape and the lightness of them is delightful! I can understand why they were a favourite of Marie Antoinette. We had a lovely selection of Macaroons (Raspberry, Chocolate, Pistachio and Vanille) as well as an amazing little Raspberry cake, not to mention the famous Marie Antoinette tea and Ladurèe hot chocolate.
It was an experience, one I would repeat any day of the week. Driven by this desire to enjoy macaroons regularly and given there is not one macaroon to be had in the Highlands I have tried to replicate the delicious treats. So far, with no joy. Macaroons are notoriously difficult to make. Even years of training with top patisserie chefs does not guarantee to perfect macaroon. It can be so difficult to perfect that entire batches of macaroons are thrown away if they are even remotely flawed. So far, my two attempts have been awful. So I took a step back and thought 'maybe, I need to perfect meringue first' so this is my plan. Practice Meringue until perfect then try the next step - Macaroons!
If you want to try the recipe I have so far failed to perfect then be my guest and if you manage to crack the technique please let me know!

Something smells good...

I'm getting a bit of a reputation at work for stinking out the office at lunch time. Guilty! And I'm not ashamed of it. I am making it my mission at work to make sure everyone smells my delicious lunch and drools! Well, not quite but for the last week I'm afraid work colleagues have religiously started popping their faces round the office door to find out what I have made that day. So I thought I would share a few of my favourite, drool-tastic lunch meals:
Cous Cous with Roasted Vegetables and Chorizo
Roast a selection of vegetables for 30 -40 mins with olive oil, garlic and seasoning of your choice. I like to roast mushrooms, aubergine, courgette, yellow pepper, red pepper, red onion and even a little butter squash! Chop them up into small bit size pieces, roast them up and then make your couscous. Mix altogether (and if you have made a large batch you can freeze some) then pop into your lunch tupperware with some chorizo (make sure it is the cooked kind, any size will do). The key to making your work colleagues jealous though is to pop it in the microwave for 2 mins so the juicy flavours of the chorizo melt into the couscous. Tastes amazing and guaranteed 'head popping' will follow....
Lentil Soup with Smoked Bacon
I take a flask of soup in with me most weeks but my all time favourite soup is Lentil with Smoked Bacon. I've tried many recipes but here is one I found earlier (although I blend it up) - read it here
Give your soup a quick blast in the microwave or on the stove if you have one at work. Cue 'head popping'...
Leftovers with green salad
This is an excellent meal for lunch, it works well with any leftovers from the night before; chicken, salmon etc. Grab some salad leaves - I like spinach, rocket and watercress but any will do! Mix in some avocado, cherry tomatoes, celery, cucumber etc whatever you want from a salad really. Add a little garlic olive oil (what? you don't make your own?) then wrap your fish or meat up in tin foil. Add the salad and fish/meat to a tupperware tub. When you are ready, unwrap and place the fish/meat on a plate to heat up - 2 to 3 minutes in microwave then serve with your salad. The head popping will start when you are half way through your lunch...
Creamy Chicken Mousaka
Ok this is a funny one but it's basically Mousaka but with Chicken instead of beef and Boursin instead of tomatoes...this is a great one when you have time to make it but basically...slice your aubergine length ways and sprinkle with salt. Leave for a couple of hours so water soaks out and the bitterness of the Aubergine is removed. When ready, start to fry using a griddle pan and olive oil. Set to one side, you are basically preparing 'lasagna' sheets. Then soften up some onions in butter, takes 10 - 15 mins. When ready add the chicken, cook it up. Once the chicken is cooked I like to add Asparagus at this stage if I'm feeling flush, mushrooms and spinach too are good at this stage. Then once, you have cooked all your vegetables mix in some Boursin and Crème fraiche. Once melted start to layer up like you are making Lasagna then finish with parmesan grated on top. Cook in the oven until golden brown. Take a portion to work, heat it up and yet again your lunch will be the envy of your colleagues...

Oh did I mention I don't work in an office on Fridays so I usually forget about lunch but cook an amazing dinner...

So, make yourself the smelliest person at work. Make and take some amazing lunches with you, it's economical and you will be the culinary goddess of your work place too!

When is a cupcake not a cupcake?

It has come to my attention that many people claim to make cupcakes. I can't walk into a well-known food hall or local bakery without a pretty pastel coloured cake winking at me with its' cheeky "come eat me" icing.
Let me tell you, I have eaten many cupcakes in my life but I'm afraid I've never come across what I would describe as a genuine cupcake in the UK.

The humble cupcake started out as a small cake which was baked in a 'cup' which was any sort of tin, tray etc and they measured the quantities needed for the cake by 'cups' a la American recipes. Since then the cakes and quantities have grown and cupcakes come in many different shapes and sizes as well as colours and flavours. Yum!

However, since they were popularised (many claim through Sex and the City) the cupcake has been crucified and is no longer, in my opinion, a cupcake.

If you want a cupcake head to Magnolia Bakery on Bleeker St, New York. This is the bakery where Carrie and Miranda sat outside and shared cupcakes. This is the bakery which creates wonderful cupcakes, so good they have their own cupcake cookbooks! This is the benchmark for cupcakes.

There are many other great cupcake companies out there - many deliver using mail order so you can have cupcakes to your hearts delight but I stress, I am yet to try a good honest UK cupcake.

The reason for this post was I purchased a couple of cupcakes from a local bakery. I knew from their icing that they were probably not cupcakes...on eating them my suspicions were confirmed...they were fairy cakes disguised as cupcakes. Should I report the bakery to Trading Standards for false advertising? Would they care? Well, if they had tried a proper cupcake they would!

Comforting foods for wintery days

This week I enjoyed a drive up to Gairloch for work. It was a stunning drive. The winter weather meant clear skies, bright sunshine and a view of snow-covered mountains in the distance. It is a great time of year by all accounts.

When I arrived in Gairloch I was due to give a talk at a local hotel and was just in time for lunch. Given the cold weather and shortness of time being my talk I thought the best plan of action would be to order some soup and was given the choice of Scotch Broth or Cream of Celeriac. I love celeriac, and having made good soup with it in the past, I thought this would be a good choice. I should mention that other delicacies on the hand-written menu consisted of “Deep Fried Battered Beetroot” and “Brest of Duck” but my expectations were high.

When my soup arrived however it was more like a bowl of puréed celeriac, very thick and lacking any of the subtly which celeriac offers. Nevertheless the soup was a real ‘stick to your ribs’ substance.

Driving back towards home I noticed my dog was getting very excited about the smells coming from the countryside as we whizzed past. I realised it was because she could smell all the deer that had come down from the hills. The cold weather has been driving them closer to the roads in search of foods where the snow isn’t so heavy or the ground so frozen. Their presence was making my pooch crazy because of their scent. I on the other hand started to think about delicious venison meals I’ve eaten in the past. Venison is by far my favourite meat. It is so lean, tasty and also there are a lot of deer around, over populated in fact so we should be eating more venison where possible. Because of my strange gloopy soupy at lunch time I was reminded of one of my favourite comfort food meals which I thought I would share:

Venison with Celeriac Gratin
Works with most cuts of venison, try a steak for ease those or roast a nice haunch or for a lovely twist eat with cold smoked venison.

• 1 large celeriac, peeled and chopped into large chunks
• 1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
• 25g salted butter
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 125g Cheddar cheese (or to taste), grated
• 600ml carton double cream
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley leaves

Start by pre-heating the oven to 200°C.
Par-boil your celeriac in boiling water with a pinch of salt until soft. Drain and allow to cool. In the mean time cook the onion and garlic in butter until soft and just starting to turn golden (you want the sweetness of a slightly caramelised onion) and season. Slice the celeriac thinly and place a layer in an ovenproof baking dish. Sprinkle this layer with cheese, add another layer and repeat until you have built up a nice gratin. Pour the cream in with the onions & garlic and mix them together. Finally pour the creamy mixture over the gratin and finish with a sprinkle of cheese on top. Pop it in an oven and bake for about 30 - 40 minutes or until golden brown on top.
If you are eating with venison steak you can prepare these about 20 minutes before the gratin will be ready. Remember to give them time to rest before eating. If you are going for the smoked venison option (which I recommend!) then leave the venison out of the fridge for a good couple of hours so it reaches room temperature when serving.
When your gratin is ready, add some parsley to the top and serve all together with green vegetables, braised cabbage or crusty bread! Great with a nice Pinot Noir or Bordeaux.