French Connection

It had been a weekend that could be described as being eventful and varied; the cricket team I play in had obtained a hard fought win to move out of the relegation zone, I had been to a chili and chess evening, I'd managed to play my best round of golf all year plus I had the prospect of a trip to watch some live Olympic sport to look forward to.

I realised that the best place to come and wind down between all the excitement was in the kitchen by making some French Onion Soup. The album of choice for preparation of the soup was the laid back ambient, synth-based rock of Neu 75 by Krautrockers Neu! The music on this record was shamelessly ripped off by David Bowie two years later for his, admittedly superb, albums Low and Heroes.

I took five large white onions and fried them on the hob on a medium heat in some olive oil in my Le Cresceut dish. In order to make sure they were the correct texture and soft enough for the soup I covered the dish with a lid and stirred the onions every five minutes or so to make sure they did not stick to the pan. I repeated this process for around thirty minutes until the onions were slightly transparent and a golden brown colour.

When the onions were properly cooked I took the leaves from four sprigs of thyme and mixed them with the onions together with some white pepper and two bay leafs. I cooked the mixture on a low heat for five minutes and then added a pint and a quarter of chicken stock.

If you like your soup to be a bit alcoholic, not mention giving it a much richer flavour, you can add a quarter of a pint of red wine to the mixture. However I chose not to on this occasion as I was also having a dish that contained half a pint of cider.

Not just like eating a bowl of gravy- the soup prior to the addition of the bread

Once the soup had cooked on a low heat for twenty minutes I poured it into individual serving bowls and placed half a slice of buttered bread on top of each bowl with a generous helping of grated Parmesan on each piece of bread. I then put the bowls under the heated grill for around two minutes to toast the bread. I should point out that you need to use bowls that are oven proof when you grill the bread on top of them. Once the bread was grilled the soup was ready.

The use of the thyme, Parmesan covered bread and bay leafs was enough to make this a worthwhile soup and stop it feeling like I was simply eating a large bowl of gravy. However next time I will definitely put some red wine into the mixture to give it a richer taste.  

The freshly toasted bread complete with melted Parmesan and butter  atop it

Transatlantic Fruit Salad

On a sunny March afternoon earlier this year as I prepared myself to head to a friend's house for an overdue catch up I decided I fancied making something suitably refreshing as a result of the un-seasonal summery sunshine.

The soundtrack was the Rolling Stones' somewhat lethargic live double album Love You Live from 1977 which, although it contains a lot of unfocused playing in large stadiums, redeems itself with four excellent blues and rock 'n' roll songs recorded on stage in a very small and intimate club.

The dish I made was a Pear, Cinnamon and Pomegranate Fruit Salad which is recipe that is popular across the Atlantic in North America. The recipe itself is pretty straightforward but consuming the finished product is a slightly different matter.

I first took three pears, peeled them and then cut them into baton shapes before placing them into a glass serving bowl. It's true to say that pears have a reputation as being very sloppy and therefore after preparing them I made sure that I cleaned my hands thoroughly.

The next task was even more messy; preparing a pomegranate. I first removed the skin with a peeler and then ripped out the cardboard membrane with my bare hands to leave lots of red and magenta seeds that were very juicy. I added the seeds to the pear batons in the bowl and mixed them well together.

I followed up by taking a lemon and squeezing half of its juice over the pomegranate seeds and the pear pieces. I then found a separate bowl and added two tablespoons of brown sugar, quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg and half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the bowl and stirred them all together. I then added this fine smelling mixture of seasoning to the bowl of fruit and mixed it in until the fruit turned a muddy colour.

This New World fruit salad was now ready, but what would it taste like? I have to say I am not usually a fan of English fruit salads as they are usually a banal mixture of oranges, strawberry, banana and kiwi fruit- food that in my view should never be seen dead in the same bowl. However this fruit salad was a revelation; the cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg elevated the taste of the pears and the pomegranate juice into something special. I felt that I had been transported three months forward into mid-summer so much did the taste evoke  sunny Sunday afternoons sitting in the garden. The only downside to the dish is that each of the pomegranate seeds needs chewing individually to get the goodness out of it and then the husk needs to be thrown away as it cannot be eaten safely. Still as the fruit salad's taste is top quality this tedious job is well worth it for such a rewarding meal.

In the serving bowl and ready to eat- but be ready to pick through those Pomegranate seeds

Lemon and Lime Cake

Today I was feeling slightly tired as I had spent the previous day partying hard in Sheffield for the wedding of two good friends I had known since school. I therefore decided to make something that was quite light and also refreshing bearing in mind how dehydrated I was from consuming champagne the previous day.

The soundtrack for the cooking of the lemon and lime cake was the Who's 1973 double album Quadrophenia, a record that was often on my cassette player during some of the most memorable moments I had shared at school with the two friends who had just married.

I started by greasing a 25cm wide and 10cm deep baking tin with margarine and a dusting of plain flour in order to prevent the cake from sticking to it. I then grated the zest of a lemon into a bowl and mixed it with a tablespoon of vanilla extract, 8 ounces of caster sugar and 8 ounces of margarine.

After I had mixed these ingredients together so that the sugar disappeared into the margarine I beat four eggs together in a separate bowl and then added a quarter of egg mixture to the bowl of ingredients. I then measured out 8 ounces of self-raising flour and added a quarter of the flour to the bowl. I mixed the eggs and flour thoroughly into the other ingredients. I then repeated this process with the remainder of the eggs and the flour until they were completely integrated into the other ingredients.

The Sponge Mixture prior to cooking, it's pretty runny as this is a light cake. 

After this I poured the mixture into the baking tin and baked it in the oven at 160 degrees in my fanned oven (or 180 degrees if you have a regular oven) for around fifty-five minutes. I knew the cake was ready as when I put a skewer through it none of the mixture was attached to it.

I left the cake to cool down for an hour or so and then cut it in half width ways. I spread half a jar of lime curd in the centre of the bottom half of the cake and then placed top half of the cake onto the bottom half to form a sandwich. I finished the cake by sprinkling a dusting of icing sugar on the top it.

The cake lived up to expectations when I had a piece as its light sponge and the lime curd were the perfect refresher after the excitement of the previous day.  

Dusted with icing sugar and ready to eat. 

The Lime Curd in the middle of the cake.