Raise the steaks

I didn’t actually like steak when I was younger. I was fussy about meat if it didn’t ‘look right’ so I would avoid anything near a bone, too fatty, the wrong colour etc and I would certainly not eat a steak if I could see pink or heaven forbid actual blood. Therefore, on the rare occasions I ate it, I would have it well done and consequently I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I was missing the point of a good steak. That all changed a couple of years ago when my boyfriend at the time introduced me to Gaucho. I had a lesson in meat and ate my fillet medium, what a revelation! Now I’ve done a complete 180 and love nothing more than a juicy rare bloody steak. I became a total carnivore. I cook them at home quite a lot now; it always has to be good quality steak and cooked for 2-3 minutes each side on my Le Crousset griddle pan. Here’s one I devoured last night.

I admit that now when I eat steak out, I am a restaurant snob about it. My favourite steak restaurant is Hawksmoor; I’ve been to the Covent Garden branch twice. I like the dark wood and leather decor, it’s how I feel a steakhouse should look. The steaks were cooked to the perfection, once a juicy fat fillet and the other time a meaty 950g bone-in prime rib that I shared with my delighted dad. We are also big fans of the bone marrow starter, the soft meat sweetened by onion, and the peanut butter shortbread is to die for.

As mentioned earlier, my first memorable steak experience was at Gaucho. My first visit was to the Chancery Lane branch and it’s pretty much only the steaks that stick in my mind. As it was my introduction to good steak, I went through the full lesson where the waitress brought out a board of raw meat to show off the cuts and explain how they should be cooked. I also had a red wine tasting session but I’m afraid I still can’t take to it. More recently I went to the Piccadilly branch with work. At that visit I had a 300g bife de lomo, a fillet, which is my favourite cut of steak. Again, the meat was beautiful in texture and flavour. To start I enjoyed succulent king prawns with soft black pudding and orange segments, after warm cheesy bread rolls, and to finish one of my favourite desserts, a classic sticky toffee pudding.

For my latest birthday I tried out Goodmans, off Regent Street. This was another family outing, so following the tradition set at Hawksmoor, I shared a huge steak with my dad. This time it was an 850g chateaubriand which melted in the mouth and had a delicious crisp salty exterior. We all enjoyed our big starters, my rich sweet foie gras, mum’s thick cut smoked salmon and dad and Martin’s herring served Russian style ie with a shot of vodka! The truffle chips were the best I’ve ever had and I’m not a fan of chips so they have to be special to impress me and these certainly were, fluffy and light in the middle but crisp on the outside. My dessert was fairly average but the candle and birthday message were a nice touch.

Another great steakhouse is JW Steakhouse in Mayfair, where I have been twice. While I stuck to my usual fillet, the boys attempted a caveman style kilo Tomahawk steak each. Their desserts are of equally impressive size; the cheesecake wasn’t a slice, it was a whole cheesecake, and the peanut butter mousse was a huge slab. JW serve one of my favourite sides, bourbon sweet potato mash topped with marshmallow, for those with a sweet tooth.

At the bottom of my London steakhouse ratings is STK. There was nothing wrong with the steaks, they match up to the high standards of the above, but the restaurant is not my cup of tea, not to mention the horrendous service. STK is a steakhouse for girls; from the blinged up decor of sparkly silver and mirrors, to the menu of small sashimi plates and a fairground wheel dessert. I ordered the latter in great excitement then realised it’s just a combination of tacky sweets you could buy at the funfair for a couple of quid.

Apologies for the cheesy title of this post, but a steak pun is a rare medium well done.

Cocina Española

Yesterday I met my friend Beccy for breakfast at Nama raw vegan foods restaurant in Notting Hill, to try something different. I had the ‘porridge,’ a mix of fresh mature coconut, dates, almonds, apples, vanilla and spices, topped with cocoa nibs, hemp seeds and blueberries, and served with coconut milk. Beccy had the savoury crepe, filled with marinated mushrooms, tomato relish, greens, caramelised onions, fennel and cashew cheese. The food was beautifully presented and tasted delicious and super healthy.

After a mooch around the London West Bank Gallery and local shops, we started to feel hungry again and were tempted into El Pirata Detapas, by their lunch deal of two tapas, bread and wine for a tenner each. I was concerned at first, thinking the restaurant was another branch of El Pirata of Mayfair, where I had an awful dining experience. We were there for a work Christmas party, so the tapas were bog standard and mass catered, and my salad starter came with some extra protein in the form of a bug. Luckily, this restaurant is not related, but is one of Gordon Ramsay’s favourite Spanish restaurants in the country. We shared mushroom croquettes, fried aubergine with honey, mackerel with a cheese sauce and roasted figs with cheese foam. The food was great but far too rich for my tastes now.

I cooked my own Spanish food earlier in the week, a seafood paella. I make this dish quite a lot using the simple recipe on the back of the paella rice packet. I vary the ingredients, almost always adding seafood and vegetables, often chicken and occasionally chorizo.

On the same night, my brother moved home from Madrid, where he had been living for the past 18 months. Before he lived there I had only visited Spain for cheap beach holidays and didn’t have a great opinion of the country, but since he’s been there I have been to Madrid three times, as well as Barcelona and Granada. I now have a much greater appreciation of Spain and would really like to see more of the country, particularly Valencia and Seville. The below photo is of my family in Granada, taken at Las Tomasas restaurant overlooking The Alhambra, which provided better views than food.

I don’t eat Spanish food a lot back home, but occasionally ate at average chain restaurant La Tasca or my preferred choice of Pix, a pintxos bar. I prefer to eat full meals than pick at food, so I don’t favour tapas, but visiting Spain opened my eyes to more authentic Spanish eating. On my first visit to Madrid I discovered that in most bars drinks are served with a tapa, a snack to enjoy with the drink. Larger portions of tapas are known as racions.

My favourites are tortilla, chorizo and garlic mushrooms. My main problem in Spain is that everything is served with bread, often even a tortilla is wedged inside a roll. There is also usually a lack of vegetables with main dishes or on tapas menus, though one traditional restaurant in Madrid, La Sanabresa, offered a wide range of vegetable dishes, though most were extremely garlicky, another key Spanish ingredient. That restaurant offered a ‘menu del dia’ which can often be found in restaurants in Spanish cities. These menus offer great value meals, usually three courses with bread and wine for less than €10. I do enjoy Spanish desserts, particularly crema Catalana and flan, but I never enjoy churros as much as expected and almost break my teeth when I try turron!

A special experience in Madrid was our visit to Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world (according to the Guinness World Records). The kitchen has rows of suckling pigs lined up on show, which are then roasted and served, head and all. This follows a starter of garlic soup and ice cream is served to finish. The restaurant has a great atmosphere and you can have a look around the old wine cellars too.

Following my enjoyment of Madrid, I went on a girls’ holiday to Barcelona. I discovered more types of Spanish culinary delights. As well as trying more common tapas style restaurants, we had two meals at Bilbao Berria, which offered pintxos style eating. A range of individual tapas are laid out on the counter and you can choose as many as you want, then pay per item at the end. One drawback is that again bread is a common theme, however it stops you having to decide what to share between the group if there are fussy eaters. The first Bilbao Berria branch outside of Spain has now been opened in London (Lower Regent Street) by Masterchef The Professionals winner Ash Mair. My favourite meal in Barcelona was at traditional restaurant Cal Boter, which served delicious Catalan food, juicy meats and creamy desserts, in a lovely local setting away form the hustle and bustle of the city centre. We also enjoyed our fair share of sangria. Although I’m not a fan of red wine, I am partial to sangria or a glass of tinto de verrano (essentially a red wine spritzer).

My most recent visit to Spain was a family holiday, collecting my brother from Madrid and going on to Granada, a beautiful city. Our first meal, at Seis Peniques, was probably my worst restaurant experience ever, with bland soup, gristly paella, tough meat and limp chips served by an extremely rude waiter. The fresh seafood at Noray and authentic racions at Ocana were much more enjoyable. However, the highlight was our exquisite meal at Carmen de San Miguel. A delightful walk through the back streets brought us to the restaurant with beautiful views over the city and Sierra Nevada. The tapas sounded amazing and lived up to our expectations. There was the surprising pairing of rabbit with lemon sorbet, fresh thinly sliced octopus carpaccio, creamy goats cheese with sweet marmalade and a modern twist on the traditional eggs, potato and chorizo dish.

Back in Madrid I had my first try of Senegalese food, a huge plate of tender lamb and vegetables, with sauce and rice for only €6 for two. Of course, there was more than just Spanish food on offer in all the cities, with great Italian food at A Gianni in Barcelona, Arabic meze packed with flavour at Shukran Casa Arabe and awesome burgers at Mad Café, both in Madrid. There were also delightful cakes on offer at cafes Mar de Cava in Barcelona and Los Porfiados in Madrid. I hope to do a road trip around Spain one day and take in more of the culture, sceneries and food that the country has to offer.

Deliciously different

I needed a fresh start this week to kick start some much needed weight loss. I’d been following food blogger Deliciously Ella on Instagram, after hearing about her through friends, and bought her new app last week. She uses a vegan whole foods diet to help with an illness. I’m not about to become vegan anytime soon but the recipes sound and look delicious. The app has a detox section and I thought I could use it for inspiration.

http://deliciouslyella.co.uk/

I don’t believe in detox diets as such, our livers do that job for us, but I wanted to shake things up a bit so I thought trying something different could help. The main changes to my usual way of eating were dairy free breakfasts, eating bigger morning meals and smaller dinners, and eating less meat. I did have to start adding in meat and fish here and there though and have a couple of protein bars, because I was still lifting weights and my protein count was too low. I favoured Quest bars that week, as they are my favourite higher protein pre-gym snack (20g for a 200 calorie bar).

My first DE recipe was before the ‘detox’ week began and was my Sunday night supper. I love porridge and have it a lot, not just for breakfast. I’d recently started seeing lots of recipes and photos of baked oatmeal, which I’d not previously tried, but it looked like a delicious treat, a cross between porridge and my favourite pudding, crumble. DE’s baked oatmeal was made with bananas and blueberries (I didn’t have raisins). To be honest, I was a little disappointed. It was a bit too dry for my tastes, not the creamy oatmeal I love. Plus as much as I adore blueberries, my new obsession, I don’t like them warm. Sticking to normal porridge in future, which is a lot quicker and easier to make luckily!

On the first morning, I had a smoothie for breakfast. I could never do a full on smoothie or juice diet but I was interested to see how I would cope on having one in the mornings. I expected to struggle a lot with hunger, even more so because I had to drink it at home and therefore was having breakfast an hour earlier than usual. I started with the healthiest sounding smoothie on the app, the apple, pear, avocado and spinach detox smoothie. It looked like the unappetising green sludge found on most health freak’s Instagram feeds but to be fair it was pretty delicious. Very sweet from the fruit and creamy from the avocado (I discovered the joy of avocados in smoothies in Marrakesh last year, where it was combined with dates and almonds). Did it ‘make me feel beautiful?’ No Ella, I enjoyed it but it left me ravenous and anxiously awaiting my next meal.

That next meal was a rainbow salad with houmous and sunflower seeds. This was not dissimilar to my usual lunches, as I tend to opt for salads, though it did make me think about the variety of vegetables I could add and I wouldn’t normally have houmous so that was a nice change. The seeds and red pepper added crunch against the soft spinach and creamy houmous and avocado, and made it more satisfying to eat.

For dinner I had the warm sweet potato, mushroom and spinach salad. This was delicious for a simple meal and a photographic winner. The spices and apple cider vinegar (a new purchase) added plenty of flavour but I was already getting in a panic about protein so I added some prawns. Just to note here, that I am not protein mad, but I do heavy weight lifting and therefore must aim for a target level in order to maintain and grow my muscle mass. I was only at around 30g from the other meals so needed a boost.

For two breakfasts I made almond and cashew yoghurt. The yoghurt was made by soaking and blending nuts with dates and water. I added a little too much water to mine and it wasn’t thick enough but it had a lovely sweet taste. I topped mine with blueberries and some dried fruit and seeds. On the second day I also added cocoa nibs, which I had impulse bought in Holland and Barretts. Yuk! On their own they were very bitter but the yoghurt covered up the taste. Again, I did find myself getting hungry before lunch but having eaten twice my normal breakfast calories. I am usually much more satisfied from a simple bowl of porridge without all the faff of preparing and blending.

     

For the rest of my lunches I just had usual salads, but carried on with DE recipes for breakfast and dinner. The next breakfast was a banana and blueberry smoothie. The addition of oats, flaxseed and chia seeds to the fruit, along with some almond butter, made this much more satisfying than the previous smoothie and even more delicious. It didn’t look quite as bright and vibrant as Ella’s though!

For dinner I made a butternut squash risotto, which was delicately spiced and wonderfully creamy. I wasn’t convinced it would work using brown rice rather than risotto rice but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. The portion looked small in the middle of my dinner bowl but I made sure to eat it slowly and fully appreciate every mouthful, which made it more satisfying. I am experimenting more with risotto and will be trying another vegetarian version tomorrow, with beetroot and goats cheese. The DE risotto involved some more new ingredients and I bought some tahini which I will be getting creative with this week. I couldn’t find any nutritional yeast and still not sure what the hell it even is but the risotto seemed fine without it!

My last deliciously different dinner was roasted squash and pine nut quinoa, but I also added all the leftover veg in my fridge. Again this was very easy to make but a bit blander than the other recipes and I was hungry afterwards, though I think that was a build up of hunger over the week from eating less and exercising a lot.

My final detox breakfast was a banana , date and almond shake, which tasted more like a naughty milkshake than a healthy breakfast. As yummy as it was, it just reinforced my decision that porridge will always be the best breakfast for me!

After that week (well five days) of so called detoxing, I then had a girlie weekend away. Although I did relax and consume wine, chocolate, sweets, cheese and biscuits etc, I was more controlled than normal, determined not to undo my hard work. I was rewarded with a 1lb loss for the week (a great result for me). I will definitely be consulting my Deliciously Ella app for future recipe inspiration and incorporating at least one vegetarian dinner in every week. In fact, this week there will be two, with the risotto mentioned above and a DE carrot, lentil and raisin salad.

Saturday night fakeaway

Takeaways are a rarity in my flat, mainly because I can’t afford the calories spent on them, but also because I am a lot more organised these days with food planning and easy options on standby in the freezer, so they aren’t necessary even when I really don’t feel like cooking. If I do get a takeaway it’s a real act of desperation and rebellion! I’m also now more likely to get a vaguely nutritious Banana Tree than a horrendous processed Dominos which will inevitably leave me feeling rough, even with attempt to make it healthier by adding salad!

I do still like to eat something a bit different for dinner on weekends though, something a bit more special, with takeaway style but all the benefits of a home cooked meal. Let me introduce you to the fakeaway. The term is used by the Hairy Dieters in their recipe books, so that might be where it came from, but I picked up the name and habit from my good friend and food buddy Chanel (aka Nom Nom Nelly, check out her blog at http://nomnomnelly.wordpress.com/).

A fakeaway is essentially a healthier take on a takeaway and can therefore be any version of your favourite cuisine. For me it is usually an Indian curry or Chinese noodle dish, occasionally homemade fish and chips.

For tonight’s fakeaway I thought I would try a new one, from ‘The Hairy Dieters – Eat for Life’ recipe book. Their diet take on a doner kebab, complete with my own take on chips, sweet potato wedges. And the verdict is…amazing! Juicy seasoned lamb, chilli sauce complimented by garlic yoghurt and crisp salad encased in a warm pitta with my favourite side. I had enough lamb and pitta to freeze three portions so this will be a regular in the future.

A love affair with Jamie O (part 1)

Jamie Oliver, cheeky chappie and all round good guy, apart from when it comes to naming kids (Buddy Bear and Daisy Boo, seriously?). His recipe books are my favourites and provide such a wide range of styles and cuisines. My introduction to his recipes was through Ministry of Food, making cooking simple and accessible to anyone, but my favourite has got to be 15 Minute Meals.

No they don’t take fifteen minutes and trying to rush through them can send me into a state of panic, leaving in its wake a mess you would not believe was made cooking for one person. However, they are still relatively quick to make and deceptively simple. The trick is in the preparation, having ingredients out ready and chopping the necessary in advance if, like me, you don’t have a gadget that does it for you. His suggested pantry list contains a lot of ingredients, but trust me each one really adds something. There are a few meals I have made more than once, initially skipping the less common ingredients, then subsequently going all out, and the second really were the winners on flavour.

So here is my rundown of meals I have made from the book with a quick review of each:

Chicken:

Chicken tikka, lentil, spinach and naan salad – I don’t find salads particularly satisfying for dinner so I like to make Jamie’s salads as big weekend lunches. I make this one without the naan as I’m not a big bread fan. The sweet yoghurt dressing compliments the spicy chicken and adds perfectly to the colourful salad base.

Spicy Cajun chicken, smashed sweet potato and fresh corn salsa – this was always going to be a winner with me. Love chicken, love sweet potato and love sweetcorn. The salsa is so fresh though I’m yet to add chilli to it (I am getting better with spicy food and experimenting more with heat).

Gorgeous Greek chicken, herby vegetable couscous and tzatziki – gorgeous is the right word. My first 15MM and left me wanting to make all the rest.

Thai chicken laksa, mildly spiced noodle squash broth – my absolute favourite and one that really proves my point about the importance of using all the ingredients and making a proper paste (the first time I just chucked them in the pan and had no lime leaves, fish sauce or coriander).

Blackened chicken, San Fran quinoa salad – another great weekend lunch and I love the combination of the sweet mango, creamy avocado and salty feta. The problem for me with this sort of recipe is the need to find other meals that use up those ingredients.

Golden chicken, braised greens and potato gratin – aka chicken, cheesy potatoes and peas, a pretty standard win-win combination.

Beef:

Sizzling beef steak, hoi sin prawn and noodle bowls – an Oriental take on surf and turf, with sticky sweet prawns combined with juicy steak and crunchy noodles.

Beef kofta curry, fluffy rice, beans and peas – cooking the curry as written, I found the portion size a little small for my liking but the flavour was still there. I served mine with a chapatti instead of poppadoms to suit personal taste.

Grilled steak, ratatouille and saffron rice – one of my favourites. I usually cook up a big batch of the ratatouille and freeze a few portions. It’s important for me to buy good quality steak to make the most out of these recipes and I prefer to cook mine for 2-3 minutes on each side.

Korean fried rice, steak, mushrooms and pickles – I found this dish on the dry side give the combination of steak and rice with no sauce. I’d rather just have the steak and eggs with no rice and pickled vegetables just aren’t for me.

Black bean beef burgers, noodles and pickle salad – I find the burgers fall apart quite easily, I probably used too much black bean sauce, but despite that this still made for a good beef stir fry.

Cajun steak, smoky baked beans and collard greens – the BBQ sauce recipe is used in a couple of Jamie’s meals and it’s packed full of sweet spicy flavours. The smoky beans are fantastic with the juicy steak and salty bacon veg.

Pork:

Glazed pork fillet, Cajun-style pepper rice and BBQ sauce – another use of the tasty BBQ sauce, topping soft pork combined with colourful vegetable packed rice. For the recipes that call for cooked brown rice, I just cook rice as standard just before starting to cook the bulk of the meal.

Pork steaks, Hungarian pepper sauce and rice – this was my first time cooking with fennel, perhaps even first time eating it. I thought the flavour could be overpowering, but the apple and peppers balanced it out and the passata mellowed it.

Lamb :

Lamb meatballs, chop salad and harissa yoghurt – I decided to serve my meatballs with couscous rather than with salad in wraps and again, I found the portion a bit on the small side, but still the usual great flavours.

Turkish flats, shred salad, feta and herbs – so much flavour packed into a tortilla wrap, one of these would make an awesome lunch but perhaps not enough for a dinner (can you tell I like my portions on the larger side?!).

Fish :

Grilled Cajun prawns, sweet potato mash and Holy Trinity veg – I couldn’t get hold of shell on prawns (saved on mess anyway) but I loved the crispiness from grilling them. The cheese adds a whole other dimension to the mash but I overdid the fresh chilli (still learning) which ruined the veg a bit for me.

Killer kedgeree, beans, greens and chilli yoghurt – a wonderful one pot dish mixing smoked fish, eggs, rice and veg.

Seared Asian tuna, coconut rice and jiggy jiggy greens – coconut rice became a staple of ours in Colombia and I couldn’t wait to try it at home. That was my favourite part of the meal as I found the tuna a bit overpowering and didn’t have all the ingredients to complete the dish as it should have been.

White fish tagine, carrot, coriander and clementine salad – the elements of this dish all worked really well together and I particularly liked the sweet crunchy salad.

Pasta:

Chicken cacciatore, spaghetti and smoky tomato sauce – I don’t eat pasta very often as I usually find it quite boring and this fell under that category. Good tomato chicken pasta, nothing extraordinary.

Fettucine, smoked trout, asparagus and peas – I preferred this pasta dish, probably because of the creaminess and flavour from the fish, which was actually salmon in mine because I couldn’t get hold of any trout.

Chicken pasta, herby 6-veg ragu – somewhere in between the above two dishes, with more texture and taste from the vegetables than the first one.

Soups and sarnies:

Grilled mushroom sub, smoky pancetta, melted cheese and pears – wow what a sandwich! Unfortunately I couldn’t get a ciabatta loaf so used a baguette which was too small and everything fell out but I loved the combination of the honey roasted pears with the juicy big mushrooms and nutty cheese.

Veggie:

What can I say, I’m a carnivore!

I’ve got some pork and lamb mince in the freezer and I have some recipes in mind for those to try. I’d really like to experiment with fish some more too but the smell permeates the flat and puts me off!