Midweek Meal - Quick and Easy Crab Risotto

Hey,

Mid-week winner for me is risotto - although can take a little longer to cook out, it still effectively boils down to - put in one pan and cook!

I had a tub of crab meat at home - and I can't remember my original plan for it, but as soon as I clocked it while making dinner, I just wanted Crab Risotto. 

Risotto is 3 steps; 1 cook base, 2 deglaze, 3 cook rice. And that is universal. To expand on this a little:

Step 1 - the risotto base

Sweat diced onion and garlic in pan using butter (can add thyme leaves now too if you'd like). Add the rice into this once onions are translucent - and cook until rice is toasted (look for a little colour/starting to catch on the pan).

Step 2 - deglaze

Add wine and stir....yup I made this a step.

Step 3 - cook rice

This is the bit that takes time. Add a bit of hot stock - enough to just cover the rice - and then cook until dry - and then add stock - and then cook until dry - and then...I thin you get it. You need to be stirring pretty close to constantly otherwise it will stick to the bottom and burn.

And that is basically it. Sure we zhush it up - and if I am feeling a bit more fancy I may blend some peas with cream as a sauce to go with it. But overall - if your base is right then you are 90% of the way there!

Recipe and Method below - enjoy!

Recipe

• 1 White Onion
• 3 cloves of Garlic
• 100g crab meat
• 150g garden peas
• 200g risotto rice
• 75g grated parmesan
• 125ml white wine

Method

Prep

1. Dice white onion (ball park 5mm pieces) and then core and chop garlic (the green stem running through cloves of garlic are bitter and best removed (see video) but not essential, if its just me it usually all goes in!)
2. I always pick through crab (even the prepicked stuff) to check for missed shell pieces - a bit of faff but only takes a few minutes.
3. Grate the parmesan cheese so it is ready to go.
4. Prep stock (either have a pan on low heat with 2 ltr of stock in or kettle and mix stock in jug (likely need to do twice to have enough - but make second batch later if needed so it is hotter)
5. Have a small pan on for peas
6. Measure wine needed for cooking - and pour your self an assistant glass

Cook

1. Sweat onions and garlic down on a low/medium heat until translucent. (approx. 5 mins)
2. Add rice into pan and increase heat to medium/high - cook until rice begins to catch/toasts. (approx. 2 mins)
3. Deglaze with the white wine (throw in full measure and stir until all absorbed - and any bits caught on the pan are lifted off)
4. Cover with hot stock (just enough to cover the rice)
5. Stir occasionally - but as liquid absorbs/evaporates more stirring needed so not to burn.
6. Once excess liquid gone (See video) add more stock
7. Repeat steps 4 to 6 three times - and then check how cooked rice is - if still has a raw bite in the middle - repeat steps 4-to-6. 
8. Once rice is cooked right we can add a little more stock, the parmesan and the crab - drop the peas in the other pan of water (these can be strained and added as soon as done.
9. Drag spoon through risotto (touching the bottom of the pan) to create a valley and watch how it oozes back (See video for reference)
10. Happy with the ooze - make final seasoning adjustments (taste before adding salt) and then add to plate/bowls and enjoy!

See easy right - just in case you don't like reading or are more visual there is a video below!

Thanks bye 😊

Slow Cooked Lemon & Courgette Pasta

Hi,

I am growing my own courgettes for the first time, and they are yielding a lot  - a LOT - of crop!

So I am having to start to think of different ways of using them to keep them interesting! Below is a recipe for a pasta dish I made the other night.

I used two courgettes, one was cooked down as a sauce base and the other lightly cooked to retain its fresh flavour.

Lemon & Courgette Farfalle

Cooking time 30 mins.

• 2 Courgettes

• 1/2 Lemon (Juice)

• 6 Mint Leaves

• 1 TSP Dried Oregano

• 50g Grated Parmesan

• 2 Garlic Cloves

• 1 Small Red Onion (1/2 Large)

• 200g Farfalle (or other pasta)

• 200ml Stock

Method

1. Slice the onion and start to sweat on a medium heat in a pan (we want a light caramalisation to start). Add in the Garlic (chopped up) and cook for a further minute before adding one of the Courgettes (cut into quarters length ways, then slice as thinly as you can - the aim here is to cook this into an almost puréed consistency). Get some colour into the Courgette s before adding Oregano and then covering with stock.

2. Get a pan of water on for your pasta and season heavily. Slice the remaining courgette into ribbons on a Mandolin (if you don't have a Mandolin, I would recommend cutting julienne).

3. Keep topping up the base sauce to prevent Courgettes catching in the pan. When the Courgette's are starting to breakdown (about 20 minutes) put pasta into the boiling water (put a timer on for 1 minute less than the recommended cooking time).

4. Once pasta is in the water add the Lemon Juice and grated parmesan to your sauce base.

5. Keep an eye on your sauce adding spoons of pasta water when needed to prevent it catching (this will also season, so you may need to change to adding water fr the tap to prevent over seasoning). When timer for pasta goes off drop in your Ribbons of Courgette to the pasta water. And add mint chiffonade (thinly sliced) to your sauce.

6. As soon as courgettes are translucent (30-60 seconds) drain pasta and immediately add to sauce - the Farfalle will trap some cooking water - cook out the dish on a high heat stirring constantly until you have a consistent sauce covering pasta (about 30 seconds) and then serve!

This dish would be great with some toasted pine nuts, or fresh dressed rocket on the top, or maybe a little cream running through the sauce!

Have a go and let me know how you get on, did you make any tweaks?

Whilst you're here check out my YouTube channel, slowly filling with content!

Thanks/bye

Rob

X

Banana & Rum Soufflé

Hey,

So I don't know about you but there is only so much Banana Bread I can eat, and now I'm all smoothied out too!

Good News - I am going to share a recipe for some Banana Soufflés I made not so long ago.

Soufflés seem to have an air of mystery about them, or people believe that they are much harder to make then they really are. All a Soufflé is, is air and structure. Air to lift it up and make it fluffy, and then something to capture the air and give the Soufflé structure.

Most Soufflés use a pastry cream or fruit pureé for the structure and all Soufflés use egg whites to provide the air.

The only thing you need to be careful with when making your structure mix is the fat content - you see fat breaks down egg whites, so a high content will weaken your structure (creating a recipe for a blue cheese Soufflé still gives me nightmares!).

It is also important to note that fat can prevent you whisking your egg whites to a peak; due to this it is highly recommended to use a glass or metal bowl, as plastic can trap fat and may be the cause of failed attempts.

So I had brown banana's and decided to make up some Soufflés for after tea (or dinner depending on your north/south divide). A dash of rum beacause... I like rum! You can exclude the rum if that is your preference, but I would be careful if you decide to increase the amount as this may ruin our precious structure!

I used this recipe from Eric Ripert as a base, it  made enough for 4 x 125ml ramekins. I simply swapped out the lime juice for some Rum and a squeeze of lemon juice.

First grab hold of all the ingredients!

You need a lot less sugar than you might think - ripened bananas have plenty of natural sugars, and you don't want to make your Soufflé sickly sweet!

I added the Banana, Rum, and Egg yolk and blended together to form my structure base. I was unsure of using the egg yolk due to the fat content, but it added a nice bit of richness to the Soufflé. I didn't add any cornflour to my pureé as there is enough strength with the bananas and egg, but cornflour can be added to mixes for additional rigidity, however that comes with more weight which will result in less height in the final Soufflé bake.

You then need to whisk your egg whites, when they start to form peaks, slow down the mixer slightly and and gradually add sugar until it is all combined and you have beautiful glossy peaks.

You will then need to butter your ramekins and line them with caster sugar before combing your two mixes.

Mix 1/3 of your egg white into your structure mix until fully combined, then fold in remaining egg whites until fully combined, be gentle and take your time.

Once you are happy you can't see chunks of egg white and you have a smooth mix spoon it into the ramekins and give each one a light tap (hard enough to settle the mixture, but not so hard as to deflate it - think a gentle door knock) on the counter top to settle the mix. Then run thumb around inside edge and dust with icing sugar.

Place Soufflé in the oven on a flat tray - they should take between 8-12 minutes in a pre-heated oven. This is the perfect amount of time to caramelise some banana to serve with your souffle, simply dust with sugar and get into a non-stick pan!

Once the Souffles have risen, and the tops are golden brown they are ready to serve, get them onto the table as quickly (and carefully) as you can, with a good scoop of vanilla ice-cream and a couple of slices of caramelised banana - yum!

Really hope you have a go at this recipe, I think I may revisit this and try cooking out a banana puree first to intensify the flavour!

Recipe for Soufflé

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened 
• 3 dessertspoons sugar for pureé
• 1 dessertspoon sugar for egg whites
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 dessert spoon rum
• 1 large egg yolk 
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 tea spoon lemon juice 

Extra Caster sugar used to dust Ramekins. Optional extra Caramelised Banana + Sugar for garnish.

separate.

Anyway please watch the below short video of this recipe - like, comment, and subscribe!

Thanks/bye

Rob

x

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

I have made a lot of Gnocchi, but I had never made a sweet potato Gnocchi. I wasn't certain it would even work, the first thing you learn about making Gnocchi, the drier your mash the better! And if there is one thing that I know about a sweet potato and that is it makes a wet mash - surely it can't work?!

It did...sort of!

First things first - I need a recipe, as everything I have isn't going to work - wrong potatoes! I had a look at a few different recipes online, and quickly realised that they followed the same rules as normal Gnocchi...just more flour.

So I decided against using a recipe - and decided to add flour in small quantities until I got what I thought was a good Gnocchi dough consistency.

That is where I came a little unstuck - I knew sweet potato mash was going to be wet (I had even strained my mash through a muslin, removing 100ml of excess fluid) - what I hadn't realised is that the dough would have to be worked with wet - otherwise you end with too much flour in your mix, which leads to a (heavens forbid) tough Gnocchi!

As the mix is wet I avoided the use of eggs (which are contentious enough in Gnocchi), and stuck to a mix of sweet potato, flour, salt, and a little parmesan.

As mentioned earlier I was adding flour little by little, and with the dough being so wet I had put in 400g of flour before I made a sample Gnocchi to see how the mix held up, the good new was, despite the wetness of the dough, the Gnocchi firmed up and floated to the surface. The bad news? To my fussy palate I had overstepped the flour mark, it was bordering on the brink of having to chew!

If I was to do this recipe again - I would test at 200g and see where the mix was at - as the extra 200 I had added - really did very little to dry the dough. And less flour in Gnocchi is what we should all be aiming to achieve!

When it comes to serving Gnocchi it's really versatile and can be partnered with so many things. However, as this was my first time making sweet potato Gnocchi I wanted the dumplings to be the main flavour of this dish and kept it simple; butter, sage, sunflower seeds, rocket, and a little Parmesan to finish!

Overall I am pretty happy with the results - I need to try again with lower flower quantity and see how that works for me - if you give it a try i'd love to here how you did!

Anyway please watch the video below (like, subscribe - we all know the youtube drill!)

Thanks/bye
Rob x

Falling behind

Hey,

So we've moved house. It's been chaotic, and half my kitchen equipment is still in boxes. On top of that I may (I did) have factory reset my phone and lost all my logins etc...

So it's been quite some time since I have put any content - anywhere!

I am still not sure how best to do a video in the new kitchen (I have only produced one since the move - only using photos) as the layout makes it tricky.

I will find a way around this and put something up over the holiday season!

In the meantime my Dad's birthday is coming up and I am making dinner for him. I am in the planning stage at the moment - it's proving difficult as I won't e cooking at home, so I don't know what equipment will be available...eurgh!

This is where I am up to now:

Amuse

Espresso cup with a 'cappuccino' soup (soup with some froth on the top) either:

• Pea and Mint
• Asparagus
• Leek and Potato.

Starter

Going to do a Scallop starter, currently torn between:

• Scallops with pea puree, spiced foam, and pea shoots (unless pea soup used in which case this gets ditched)
• Scallops with Watercress puree, butternut squash puree, watercress, and pancetta
• Scallops with Celeriac puree crumbled black pudding, truffle oil, and watercress

...a bit of a puree theme.

Main

• Pork belly with sweet potato dauphinoise, purple kale, and red wine sauce
• Pork belly with sweet potato dauphinoise, pork scratching, roast garlic sauce, and Rocket
• Pork belly with sweet potato dauphinoise, pak choi, and 5 spice sauce

(The pork would be seasoned based on what it is served with)

Dessert

• Sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and clotted cream
• Creme brulee
• Tarte fine with ice cream
• Tart tatin with ice cream

Oh...I'm doing this in two days.

Oh...I'll have 6 hours to do it.

Oh...I'm relying on someone to get the ingredients I want.

Oh...shit!

I'll let you know how I get on - hopefully get some pictures for you all!

Take care,

Rob

Blackberry Crumble

Hey,


Welcome/Welcome back.


Without a recording space to do a new video I have put together a recipe and photo montage for Blackberry and Rhubarb Crumble (still got the summer feeling despite the rain here in Cheshire!).


Crumble is a classic pud, and a personal favourite of mine - as the sweetness is tempered by the sourness of the fruit. And its good with basically all of the dairy sides; Custard, clotted cream, double cream, and ice cream!


And you can use so many different fruits and fruit combinations - its ridiculously flexible!


Hope you enjoy (recipe below the video).

Take Care
Rob






Recipe


Crumble

100g Flour

50g Butter

50g Sugar



Fruit Mix

450g Blackberries

3 Sticks Rhubarb

50g Sugar

1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

Getting Rosti with it

Chicken, Chinese leaf, and beansprout salad

Hey,

So my partner came home from a day out raving about a salad she had.

When she described it to me it sounded simple enough to throw together...so I did!

And it was gooooood, simple food, clean flavours  - give it a try!

Recipe for 2:

2 chicken breasts
1 red pepper
4 large leaves Chinese leaf
200g beansprouts
1 lime
2 teaspoon almond oil
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 tablespoon of rapeseed oik
Handful of coriander

Season and grill both sides of the chicken breast and place in an oven at 180°c for 17 minutes (until cooked).

Sear beansprouts in a very hot pan, heat as quickly as possible (only cook a handful at a time) and then spread in an oven tray to cool.

Slice red pepper and Chinese leaf, add into bowl with cooled beansprouts.

Combine oils, lime juice, and coriander to make dressing.

Use most of the dressing to coat leaves, keep some back to glaze the cooked chicken.

That's it. Easy! 😊

Take care.