Using up Christmas left overs (gammon and turkey)

So everyone always has left over food from Christmas, whether its gammon from boxing day or turkey from Christmas day, and as hard as you might try you somehow can't stop the men from eating dry turkey and ham sandwiches. In my eyes these ingredients can make some lovely dishes.

Left over gammon and mushroom pasta (serves 4)

Ingredients:
500g pasta (your choice, my favourites are farfale or spaghetti)
left over gammon cut up

2 large leeks 
1 clove garlic (crushed)
50g butter 
2 tbsp plain or wholemeal flour (give or take) 
60ml milk 
100g grated cheddar cheese 
Handful of fresh parsley 

Method: 

I'm a sort of chef who thinks pasta is a beautiful type of food that doesn't need any recipes cause it will always taste great. But I just realised I think that because I cover my pasta in cheese and cream and who wouldn't want that? So I've done this recipe using a roux rather than cream. I have kept the ingredients quite vague as its a matter of opinion really how much cheese or sauce you like. This dish can be made with almost any additions, if you're looking for a more healthy alternative to carbonara, this is perfect. 
Put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta with plenty of salt. Start by slicing the leeks thinly and frying them in a small amount of olive with the crushed garlic. Put the pasta onto boil. Once the leeks are cooked through and have come apart add the butter to the pan until it melts, and then add a tbsp of flour and stir for at least 30 seconds. The butter should have been absorbed, add more flour if it has not. The sauce will look lumpy and unappetising at this point. Once you have stirred the flour for at least 30 seconds (the starch granules need to swell and absorb moisture) add a small amount of milk. Stir vigorously now as the lumps will come out and the milk will thicken. Keep adding the milk until you have a decent amount of sauce (I personally like a lot) then add the grated cheese. Stir until all the cheese is melted. Add the chopped gammon now and allow it to heat through. Drain the pasta, but reserve some of the water from the pan and add it to the sauce if it is getting too thick. (the flour granules will continue to burst, making the sauce thicker while it is still hot). Once the sauce as reached your desired consistency stir in the pasta, top with chopped fresh parsley and enjoy! 




"Sick food"  (serves 4)

I urge you not to be put off by the name! In my family this is what we call it as its just the perfect thing for when you're feeling poorly, but its also delicious when you're healthy of course! This recipe is using up your left over turkey in a fantastic way. Similar to the recipe above, the additions can altered, we usually make this dish with chicken, but with left over turkey its just as lovely.

Ingredients:
left over turkey 
250g mushrooms sliced
350g long grain rice 
50ml double cream 
2 tbsp creme fraiche 

Method: 
Cook the rice (2:1 ratio water to rice cooks perfectly), fry the sliced mushrooms and then add the cream and creme fraiche, if its too thick add some water from the rice. When the sauce boils add the left over turkey, you only want to it add it at the end as it could turn to mush with lots of cooking, and then serve over rice. Top with fresh parsley if desired. 

REVIEW: Luscombes: The Golden Ball

This is my first food review I've done, and I had quite a choice of pubs/restaurants I could write about recently, so I thought I'd just choose my favourite, which was certainly The Golden Ball. 



We came here after a hard day's work for some late food, thinking we'd only have one course, two at a push, and all three of us ended up having three courses. We weren't swayed by the charm of the waiting staff if thats what you're thinking (although they were charming) but all the food on the menu was worth making space for. 
            The idyllic setting of this restaurant adds to the attraction, the beautiful rolling hills all around the area are perfect if you fancy a long walk and then cosy, but mouthwatering, meal. Not only is this lovely to look at, but of course, as its in the country, the food is seasonal and local. To set the scene of the inside I want to you imagine a typical country grandmother house, with slightly wonky ceilings and walls, with worn out beams and chipped tiles, the fire lit and a sense of security and ease. Then imagine the best food from the centre of London, all in this comfort, with much more attentive and intimate waiters and waitresses, who seem to be just as happy to serve you as you are to be eating there. Surely this is all anyone wants?! 
      Sometimes you go to eat somewhere and you get food envy. It happens to all of us, and its impossible to avoid, either from people sitting near you, or on your very own table. My mother had this exact problem the other day with me, the food I ordered was just better than hers! But at The Golden Ball this doesn't happen, you might have a little think about someone else's food, but as soon as you get your own plate anything like that entirely disappears. The proof is in three people's three sparkling clean plates at our table. 

        So to begin, we all had different starters, which I thoroughly enjoyed as I got to taste all of them! Luckily mine was my favourite. I had a local duck terrine with caramelised apple and toasted brioche. This dish really was delicious, and a great starter as it certainly left me wanting more. The terrine had cabbage around the outside to hold its shape, which added a nice colour -along with the curly leaf parsley- to the plate. The duck was beautifully pink, and the caramelised apple was sweet enough to have a different taste dimension to the duck, but still had crunch enough to taste like raw apple. Giving the dish a nice bite every now and then. The most pleasant surprise on the plate for me was the very delicate drizzle of truffle oil around the edge. Not every mouthful had a taste of truffle, so practically every time I got one it was fresh and new. The brioche was perfect; perfectly toasted (not too hard not too soft), perfect thickness and perfect sweetness with the apple and duck. There was not a single bite left. 
The other starters on our table were also fantastic, not only taste but also aesthetically. The picture to the left is cheese soufflé, it came with a celery salad in a thick cream, and baby salad leaves. I was most impressed with the appearance of this dish out of the starters as the soufflé was standing magnificently upright and grand. The celery was diced into well sized squares. The soufflé was very light, just as it should be, yet had a good sharp cheese taste. The next starter was simple, but very delicious, and once again the plate was clean. The picture to the right is is squid rings and tentacles in a potato batter with lemon juice and parsley, with a small bed of baby salad leaves. The squid had a thin covering of the potato batter, yet gas a sense of a substantial feel in the mouth. The lemon juice cut through this and made it just right to eat a decent sized plate of it. The rings were just the right size to have no fuss about eating them in one. A great selection of starters all round! 

     
   I opted for one of the specials, as the beer battered cod and chips wasn't available. My special was a tiger prawn and tomato spaghetti. The spaghetti was home made and had no faults, the texture was great and the portion size good. The prawns were of great quality and cooked to a T, however the tomatoes had a sweet taste to them, as though they had been flash fried in some sweet syrup. It was subtle, but each taste was slightly spicy and then oddly sweet. I personally would have preferred this dish without the sweet dimension, but it was still above average! My mother and Jim both ordered the same main and pudding, not that I can blame them as they had the fillet steak with blanched spinach and green beans with crispy potatoes. 

This is a real hearty dish and definitely warms from the inside out. The steak cut effortlessly, and was melt in the mouth pink on the inside. I really liked the way the steak was served, with a small and elegant portion of potatoes and some vegetables with a thick jus gravy. Its rare to find a steak that isn't surrounded by chips, with a token salad leaf. 

After this we had assumed we would go home as it was already quite late, and we were the last people left. But we were feeling too comfortable in our intimate surroundings we just couldn't leave! That, and we all have a sweet tooth. Again mummy and Jim ordered the same pudding, titled 'banana meringue' which sounds simple enough I thought, until this was bought to the table. A skyscraper of a dessert, presented with whipped cream, meringue, caramelised banana on the bottom with sweet hot caramel poured all over it. I didn't get to try much of this dish as I was very hypnotised by my chocolate, but by the look of the clean plates, it was not at all too sickening or sweet. And certainly magnificently presented.


 I, for one, can't ever resist a chocolate fondant, the warmth of the thick melted chocolate is just too just to turn down. My hot chocolate fondant was served with pistachio gelato, which went beautifully as the rich chocolate taste was slightly toned down by the smooth and fresh pistachio. I had to stop the conversation momentarily so I could make everyone try the chocolate, it was gone much too fast, and I probably could have eaten a whole new plate of it. Of course the little details are just as important; the little chocolate cigarillo was the best detail for me, again it was a pleasant and unexpected surprise, and it had an acidic taste to it, which I'm identifying as raspberry. 

All in all I can hardly fault this meal, the food was all superb and cleaned up nicely. The staff were friendly and held up conversation with smiles and laughter, while constantly being there to fill up water glasses before we'd even noticed they were empty. I will certainly be recommending and returning. 
                                                                    

             

Chicken curry

I was looking through my Indian cookery books  for a new recipe to try out for a cosy boxing day meal, however I didn't find one that was speaking to me. I knew what I wanted, which was something with almonds, but also spicy, with plenty of sauce for my rice, and nothing I was reading was giving me this. So henceforth comes a curry I decided to invent with all these factors. Even though it was my first time creating a curry without a recipe, I think it was a success!



Ingredients
For the chicken marinade:
1/2tsp turmeric 
1/2 tsp cayenne 
1 1/4 tsp ground cumin 
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander 
1/4 tsp salt 

Depending on how many people your'e cooking for just use that many chicken breasts (if they're small, add one for the pan too) Give them a rinse under water just for good measure, then cut them into pieces you'd like to have in a curry. Put all those spices on the chicken, stir it until all the chicken has a good covering then cover with cling film and leave to marinate for at least an hour. 

Other ingredients! 
1 onion peeled and finely sliced
1/2 tsp cayenne 
1 tsp ground cumin 
1 tsp ground coriander 
1 kaffir lime leaf
30g ground almonds 
2 red chillies 
1 inch piece of fresh ginger
4 cloves of garlic 
75ml water 
1 tbsp tomato puree diluted with 120ml hot water 
400g tinned/chopped tomatoes 
6 tbsp natural yogurt (approx)
4 tbsp double cream (approx)
Basmati rice to serve 

Method

Use a casserole dish with a thick base for this as it will need to simmer in the oven for sometime to intensify the flavour and ensure the chicken is fully cooked. Chop the chillies roughly, and peels the garlic and ginger, place in a small blender with the 75ml of water and blend to make a paste. Depending on how spicy you want your curry you can either leave in the seeds of the chilli or leave them in. I personally left them in. Then sear the chicken in a single layer on the pan and then place on a plate with a slotted spoon. The chicken won't even be nearly cooked, this just traps there marinade on and gives them a good colour.

Once you have browned all the chicken pieces in this way fry the onion until soft and then turn down the heat and add your chilli-garlic-ginger paste. The water will very quickly boil away. The onions may still look liquidy but thats fine, now add the remaining spices and the ground almonds. Stir this around for at least 1 minute, then add your chopped tomato and tomato puree. Turn the heat back up and boil this. now add the natural yogurt. Now I like a saucy curry, and I like it to be smooth, so at this stage I get my hand held blender out and give it a good whiz to make it really smooth and velvety. This is matter of opinion however, so the blending isn't entirely necessary. Have a little taste, it will be spicy, but the cream added at the end will help this. If you don't like it this spicy then add a little more yogurt and taste again, don't mask all the spice though! Now add the chicken pieces back in with any accumulated juices, bring back to the boil then simmer for up to an hour. To check all the chicken is cooked take out a big piece and just cut into to check. (Or if you have a food probe give a piece of chicken a poke and the temperature in the middle should be 80-90 .C) 
As this curry is quite spicy I like to make the rice with a splash of double cream, it just makes it all a bit more mild! I also add 1/2tsp turmeric to make the rice yellow to give the dish some authenticity. A great trick with rice is double the water compared to rice, e.g 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water, perfect rice every time!! Then to finish it all off some spiced yogurt, which I make to go with all indian things, its a 2;1 ratio of natural yogurt to creme fraiche with 1/4tsp or ground cumin and 1/8tsp cayenne.