Pain perdu with glazed cherries

I am one of those people who cannot throw away food. So everything that doesn’t get used before its “Best before” date ends up in my freezer. Like last Christmas’ panettone. It was about time – after all, we are now in July – to finally use it.
I sliced it before freezing which turned out to be a great idea. It defrosts in literally minutes that way.
Pain perdu with glazed cherries, for 1
For the pain perdu
: 2 slices of panettone
: 150 ml milk
: 1 egg
: 1 tsp vanilla extract
: butter for frying
: caster sugar for sprinkling

For the glazed cherries
: 1-2 handful od stoned and halved fresh cherries
: 2 tbsp caster sugar
: 2-3 tbsp water

Heat the butter in a pan. Mix the milk, the egg and vanilla essence. Lightly soak the panettone in the milk/egg mixture and fry in the butter until golden brown. In the meantime, pit cherries in a pan and sprinkle with sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the water and simmer for a few minutes.
Place the pain perdu on a plate and sprinkle with sugar. Pour over the hot cherries and finish off with a few drops if cream.

Glorious (and almost homemade) bread

When I was a child I wouldn't really eat any bread but go for the nowadays more fashionable "no-bread-sandwich" a la Pret a Manger. Not that I would have cared about my wheat intake. What child would?
I simply wasn't a big fan of anything made out of dough. When, for example, my aunt invited us over to her place, she would baked a cake for my sister and my mum and I present me with my absolute favourite: smoked sausage with chantilly cream. Yum!
In my defence though, when we got older my sister discovered brie topped with nutella as her special treat... weird family ;-)
At home I would have the occasional thin slice of pumpernickel or crisp bread laden with virtually the whole content of our fridge: pate, mayo meat salad, cheese, sausage... you name it, I had it!

Times have changed and so has my taste. I now love bread. The darker, the better. Rye is my absolute favourite followed by brown bread with nuts and raisins. But whoever has ever been to the UK knows how hard it is to find edible bread in this country. So I started to bake it myself, even imported sourdough and bread spices from good old Austria.
But there is not always time to bake bread from scratch. Luckily, in amost every country on this planet there is now Lidl, the German discount supermarket. Try to get the ciabatte bread mix (or get some white bread mix from any another supermarket I guess) and make it our very own creation by mixing in some interesting flavours.
Try to mix in the following:
: walnut and maple syrup, sage, olive oil and honey
: chili and good quality dark chocolate
: sundried tomatoes in oil and smoked cheddar or feta cheese
: pumpkin seeds and honey
: lardons and fried onion
: lemon zest and thyme
... even better: leave the thyme out and just put lemon zest and a little bit of brown sugar in the dough. While the bread is still hot, slab on some salted butter and drizzle with maple syrup.

Jalapenos, Sushi and kids at Ubon

Nobu is one of London's many celebrity hotspots. And Ubon is its less glamorous sister. Well, they do try hard at Ubon to put a little bit of glamour and trend into the backyard of a Canary Wharf apartment building block. Too hard. They seriously present their Fiji spring water plastic bottles in custom made silver coolers.

Since it is situated in an apartment block, the main customers are the neighbouring young yuppie families. One word: kids. No, I am not all against them; and yes, taking your kids out to a sushi place is surely much better than getting them a Big Mac with fries from your local MacDonald's. But please, not on a Saturday evening.

Apart from being exposed to the occasional crying baby and very unfriendly staff, the evening turned out to be a positive experience. Thanks to the great food.
Jalapeno spiced thinly sliced yellowfin tuna simply melted in the mouth. And the fried baby squid in creamy jalapeno sauce was a class on its own. Tacos filled with scallops were unexcitingly nice, the sweet potato tempura a bit tasteless. The avocado tempura though had potential: if only the dipping sauce would have had some taste. But definitely worth trying at home... with a decent sauce.
The sushi was simply great. Especially the tuna maki with spicy mayo!
As for desserts however: the "cheesecake" wouldn't normally qualify as such as its spongy yet chewy consistency had nothing in common with anything else made from chream cheese.
Still, although it wasn't perfect, Ubon is a nice addition to the bland high street restaurant-chain dominated area of Canary Wharf.

Quality & Quantity at Artisan

I would have never thought about eating out in a hotel restaurant (unless it is situated in St Martin's Lane and called Asia de Cuba), but there is always a first time for everything. And what a first time it was!
We arrived early at The Westbury. The weather was crap, we were thirsty and the bar was open. Lydia opted for a berry champagne cocktail, mine was called Lady Marmalade. Mandarine Napoleon with ... yes, marmalade; served in a tall glass over ice. Possibly the best non-cream based cocktail I have had so far.
It didn't come in cheap at 24 pounds for two drinks. But there is one thing that makes hotel bars well worth it: unlimited nibbles. Whether it is The Westbury or The Four Seasons: nuts, crisps, mini bruschettas, olives, capers... everything that is addictive.
So by the time we went across the bar to our restaurant we were already happily satisfied. But what came next exceeded all our expectations.
Ok, so it wasn't St Martin's Lane: no trendy, stylish crowd or decor. Just pure class, actually. The chandeliers were big, the music played nicely away in the background and the waiters were attentive. And the food: gorgeous.
First came the amuse bouche: gazpacho with avocado. Not sure whether the avocado was ripe enough to go into the soup nor whether it was necessary to go into the soup, but as a whole the gazpacho was quite nice and refreshing.
We did a no-do for starters and ordered the same dish: Scallops with squid-ink polenta. The scallops were perfectly cooked and the polenta not only a nice touch of colour but also a tasty addition to the tender and juicy scallops.
As for mains I stuck to my mid-year resolution: no more foie gras. I love foie gras. I adore it. But ever since I got reminded visually how it is made I started enriching organic duck liver with double cream and butter to fake the experience at home. So no, no black chicken leg with roast foie gras for me but beef fillet with polenta (again!) croquettes. The fillet could have fed 1.5 people and my sister, a dedicated potato croquette fan, would kill for the polenta version. Crispy on the outside, unbelievably and high calorifically creamy on the inside.
The palette cleanser, berry puree with bits of steamed apple reminded me of jarred Hipp baby food. But then, I do like Hipp baby food, so no complaints.
Lydia finally opted for the perfect dessert: pan fried apricots with lavender ice cream. The ice cream was to die for: and I usually do not even like ice cream.
My chocolate fritter with ice cream of undefined flavour (yes, I can read a menu, but neither Lydia nor me have ever heard about this fruit/nut/liquor...) wasn't bad but the post-dessert pre-bill sweeties were much better: homemade marshmallows, truffles, mini madelaines and chocolate dipped orange peel.

More bread for dinner

I should eat wheat-free at night. Like every other woman on this planet. At least according to Marie-Claire, Red, Elle, Cosmo and whatever else they are called. A wheat-free evening is the key to a speck-free life.
But there is the wheat-free dilemma: I think Scott could do with a bit more speck on his body and I could do with a little less. Carbs and wheat for him and no carbs for me. What to cook for dinner then?
Meat/fish with salad or veggie stir fry for me. So I try to feed Scott with extra rice or a pasta dish. But let's face it: Scott's having his 4th pasta dish this week - and it's only Friday: not much of a variety.
So why not a healthy burger for a change.

Turkey burger on rosemary bread with corn-on-the-cob
: 2 slices of rosemary bread
: 1.5 turkey escallops
: 1 fried egg
: cheddar
: butter
: ketchup
: pickled peppers or peppadews
: 1 cooked corn-on-the-cob

Lazy Sunday food

Q: How can a plate start off as seen in Picture 1 and end up looking like in picture 2?
A: Get yourself an English boyfriend.
As long as it isn't drenched in (preferrably tasteless tomato) sauce it ain't good. Or as Scott would say: it's bland.


My recipe for Prosciutto filled tortellini with artichoke, spinach and smoked cheddar, for 2
: 250g prosciutto filled tortellini
: 3-4 artichoke hearts in oil, thinly sliced
: 150g spinach, cut or torn in smaller pieces
: zest and juice of 1 lemon
: 75g mature smoked cheddar

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack, drain, but leave some of the cooking water in the pot. Put pasta back into the pot, put on a gentle heat, add spinach and artichoke hearts. Add zest and juice of half a lemon and grate over some mature smoked cheddar.

Scott's recipe
as above plus
: 150ml sieved tomatoes
Warm up the tomatoes in a pot, do not add any olive oil, garlic, spices, pepper or salt. Pour over Romana's Prosciutto filled tortellini with artichoke, spinach and smoked cheddar.

Never judge a book by its cover...

... or a restaurant by its interior. English Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsey, who travels the continents to slag of aspiring chefs and malfunctioning restaurants on national TV, wouldn't be able to suppress his trademark "f**cking hell* when walking into The Drawing Room. This time, my holy grail of London's restaurant scene, toptable.co.uk, let me down big time. But it's partly down to my own superficiality of judging most/all things in life by their design.

Not that The Drawing Room looked super-trendy or Conran-stylish, but it looked interesting enough to book a table.
Half-decent pub food, that's the best I could say about this place. Or as Gordon Ramsey would say: when you serve f**cking pub food, charge for f**cking pub food. And serve it in a f**cking pub.
I have hardly ever left a restaurant being so stuffed. The portions could feed a whole family. And I mean one portion for all! The sea bass was monstrous, the pineapple that came with it tasteless, and although the crab meat salad was made of actual crab meat rather than surimi: one couldn't have cared less, it didn't have much taste anyways.

The fried goat's cheese was a nice idea for a 21st century take on of an 80ies classic. But again far too much, and just not 21st century enough.
So guys, go back to catering college, throw out the posh interior and give the local community what they really want: a cosy pub, decent food and ok prices.

The mother of all chocolate cakes

Ok, I borrowed the recipe from another blog... so what ;-) I have been searching for the perfect chocolate pud now for years. I have tried two Nigella recipes... not bad, but they couldn't live up to my expectations either and were not even nearly as good and chocolaty as the chocolate tarte recipe a former French housemate once gave me. His chocolate tarte was almost perfect, but again, just not gooey enough.
Who would have thought that another French would finally come up with the perfect chocolate cake (usually the English turn out to be unbeatable when it comes to gooeyness): Ein grosses Dankeschoen an die Chocolate & Zucchini Lady! Check out her recipe for the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake.

My version is very similar, just that I didn't have 200g of dark choc in my cupboard when the emergency of baking a cake arose. But 100g of 85% dark choc and a good quality dark truffle bar worked just as well.

Afternoon Tea at Yauatcha

Yauatcha is one of my favourite afternoon hang-outs in London. Ok, so the service is appalling. But the cocktails are great, although dubbed "cough medicine" by one of my friends. The food is delicious and the cakes are from heaven. Like our Blue Tea Cake we had last time. I still wouldn't think that the blue powder on the cake actually was 100% tea without added colouring, but who knows...
The cake was a perfect blend of rich tea cream and fruity blackberry jelly with a hint of sponge at the bottom.

I simply love to recreate food I eat at restaurants at home. It's one of life's challenges I aim to master.

But not much chance for the Blue Tea Cake to be produced in my kitchen though, too much work! And too much hassle and I would guess money to get hold of blue tea.

I discovered one dessert in the restaurant's cake display though which I will definitely put on the menu next time I have friends round: Matcha panna cotta topped with cranberry compote.

Birthday at Beauberry

Thank internet for toptable. Posh nosh at (sort of) dumping prices. www.toptable.co.uk comprises an almost endless list of exclusive London eateries that let us sample there exquisite creations for 'n Appel und 'n Ei. You can eat your way round London without forking out too much and if you are lucky you discover a real gem. Like Beauberry House.
Situated in the picturesque village of Dulwich it must be one of London's best kept secrets. Impressive from the outside, stylish from the inside. And food (and charming waiters) to die for!
We went there for Scott's 30st. The offer: 3 course dinner with a complimentary glass of wine for 17.50 pounds.
The set menu was great, but while browsing through the a la carte we discovered one dish we simply had to order as a wee extra: scallops on cauliflower puree with vanilla foam, topped with crispy bacon. Lecker!
The set menu and the free glass of wine were more than decent. In fact, the dessert was outstandingly yummy: panna cotta with coconut granite and banana tarte tartin.