Dudley's pancake house in Barnet

For the past two years, each time we have driven past this little restaurant I have wanted to try it as it looks so inviting.

Last week, on the way back from the hospital we popped in and were horrified at the prices. The pancakes were £10.45 each!

Jim ordered one with a combination of ingredients like mushrooms and ham etc and it was presented unfolded on a massive plate, but was actually no bigger than the ones they make in the mobile vans you see around the place, which are folded.

It was ok, but pretty tasteless and certainly not worth the money.

I opted for a homemade burger, which I asked for rare.  The patty turned out to be just over a cm thick and consequently very well done (but not in the good sense!).

With a cup of tea and a smoothie we paid just under £30 - a rip-off.

Won't be going there again!

Valentine's Day 2012

The evening started nicely with some pink bubbly, presents, balloons and an M&S cupcake each!

 Jim prepared the rack of lamb by trimming it and cleaning the bones.

Due to the fishmonger forgetting to put aside the scallops we had ordered, we chose some king prawns. 
Jim heated butter and oil and a wok and when it was lovely and hot, fried the prawns with some chopped garlic and chilli, that he had been drying. He finished off the dish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
And they were finger-licking good!

Main course was the perfectly pink rack of lamb with a crispy rosemary and garlic crust - which I had unfortunately rather over salted!
We served it with a rosemary infused ratatouille, made the day before for maximum flavour, and deliciously creamy potato dauphinoise.

The climax of the meal was a pair of beautifully risen lemon soufflés, following a really simple recipe from the Gary Rhodes book of desserts, which he gave Sebastian for his 8th birthday, when we dined at his restaurant in Dolphin Court. Light and fluffy and a little tart, the perfect end to wonderful meal.


Can't wait for next year!

Perfect roast potatoes - every time

Raymond Blanc is certainly flavour of the month in the Bachelier/Moore household with his recipe for roast potatoes.

We have tried it 3 times since Christmas  (which actually sounds like an awful lot of roast potatoes in two weeks !) but the results have been perfect each time: lovely and crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.


Here's what you do (the first bit can be done well in advance):

• Peel the pots and cut them into equally sized lumps. 
• Rinse them in cold water for a bit to remove the starch. 
• Put them into a large pan of salted BOILING water (I was always told that root veg should be cooked in cold water and brought to the boil, so this was a new one on me)
• Boil for 6 minutes, then drain.
• Shake the pan around it a bit so the edge get a bit mushed - for extra crispiness

• Put your cooking fat into a roasting tin and heat to GM 6-7 / 200 C (I have used duck fat and ordinary sunflower oil - both worked equally well)
• Put potatoes into the hot fat, stir around a bit and cook for 45-60 mins - or until lovely and brown, giving them an occasional shake.

Serve and enjoy!

Les Galettes des Rois 2012

This year we decided to make not one, but two galettes.


Sebastian used my tried and tested recipe, but Blaise wanted to have a go at the Raymond Blanc version, featured on his Christmas special, which contains caramelised pears.


The almond fillings were quite similar - one contained a little more ground almond, the other an additional egg white - they both contained quite a lot of booze: Amaretto.







Blaise's pears were gently fried in butter and sugar till soft and golden brown, but not completely cooked through.






Once the rounds of pastry were rolled, the biggest challenge was to encase the fillings without any leaking out. For the Blanc recipe, the pears are placed on a layer of the filling and then covered with a second layer.


We patched any holes up with spare bits of pastry and hoped for the best.


We used 2 small glass pebbles for the charms.






After a period in the fridge to cool, we cooked Blaise's first (which didn't leak at all)


And then Sebastian's (which leaked a lot!).


The results, however, speak for themselves. Two very delicious pies.


Final verdict: the addition of the caramelised pears ensured that the filling was really moist, so this will be the recipe we use from now on.

Blaise's Galette with pears

Sebastian's

And Seb got both the charms, so he is doubly King for the year !

Easy gingernut dessert

Last night with the help of Sebastian and Joanna, we recreated a dessert I'd had many years ago at my godparents' house.

All you need is a packet of gingernut biscuits and some whipping/double cream.  Start by whipping the cream with a generous splash of alcohol - we used whiskey, but rum would probably have been even better. Whip till holding it's shape, but be careful not to overwhisk.

Pour a little more of the alcohol into a shallow dish and the quickly dip both sides of a biscuit into it.  Spread a little of the cream onto one side of the biscuit. Dip another biscuit into the alcohol and sandwich together.  Place this on a service dish or plate with the biscuits standing.  Continue spreading cream and sandwiching together the biscuits until you have a long sausage of sandwiched biscuits.  Allowing a 4 to 5 biscuit portion per person, make it as long as you need. 

Spread the rest of the cream over the top of the sausage and if desired, grate a little dark chocolate over the top.  The longer you leave it to stand the soggier the biscuits become.

It is a quick and easy dessert to make, but be warned: it is VERY rich and remarkably intoxicating!!

Unfortunately, no pictures...

Samosas and vegetarian cooking

Unfortunately due to my father being hospitalised for the past 3 weeks and my visiting him daily I have had little time for inventive cooking, and Jim has been working so hard on our Weight Loss software that even when I have created something he has been too busy to get the camera out in time!

While the first to admit to being a true carnivore, I have come to realise that as I go to quite a bit of trouble to prepare interesting and varied veg to accompany the meat of the day, I could actually quite happily do without the protein and just enjoy the green stuff. 

I was really surprised by the attitude of the carnivorous contestants on the recent episode of Masterchef which focused on vegetarian cuisine; they seemed daunted by the task of making tasty, attractive food without meat - don't they ever put tasty vegetable side dishes together to accompany the protein?

On a whim I bought some filo pastry the other day.  I decided to make large samosas.  I have only ever used filo pastry once before and all I could remember was painting the sheets with melted butter.  All the recipes I found on the internet this time said to brush them with beaten egg, which is what I did.

I made a delicious mix of chopped aubergine, peppers, chilli, onions, garlic and loads of spices.  When cool I dolloped a large spoonful on the top of a half sheet of pastry (cut lengthwise), then folded down making the recognisable triangular shape.  It took two half sheets to make a strong enough wrapping. 

I then deep-fried each large parcel in hot oil.  Sebastian made me a spicy mayonnaise and we served them up with a green salad.  Delicious!

Next time however, I will go back to the melted butter; the egg made the layers of filo taste like one thick sheet of pastry, while the butter would retain the individual crispiness.

Roast pigeon

Has anyone seen the pigeon?

Smoked mackerel kedgeree with broccoli

Smoked mackerel for dinner but no idea what to do with it that would be yummy and exciting (I usually put it in pasta with a creamy sauce, but had a creamy sauce last night).

Found the above recipe on the web. First hitch was that it required pilau rice, so looked for a pilau rice recipe.  Had the wrong type of rice (basmati required) and the wrong spices (no cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks or saffron threads) but did have ground fenugreek, coriander and cumin, so substituted.

For the main bit I had to sub spring onions for the bigger, rounder variety... but I was able to conjure up some hard boiled eggs.

VERDICT: The rice was absolutely delicious and I will definitely be doing that again and on the whole the dish was pretty good, but the smoked mackerel did overpower all the other flavours, so I can't say that I'd recommend it.

My two wonderful boys

While popping tonight's dinner in the oven - beef silverside stew with onions, carrots and mushrooms, which has been filling the whole house with the most wonderful aromas all afternoon, I thought of what Sebastian, my soon to be 18 year old, often says: The thing he looks forward to most all day is coming home for dinner.  He says he thinks about it from the moment he gets up, wondering what I'll be cooking.

It's lovely to know that the effort you're making will be so appreciated!

I'm very lucky with both my boys.  They both love food; while Sebastian's interests definitely lie in eating it, Blaise, his 19 year old brother, is equally interested in cooking it.

This is his 2nd year at uni and since he moved into a proper house this year with 3 friends, he has become quite a proficient cook.  He often prepares a roast dinner at the weekends, makes cakes for birthdays, concocts various fusion dishes and hand-crafts wonderful chocolate truffles, which he rustles up as a gift if going to someone's house (he also makes a mean margarita!).

While his friends imbibe their student loans down the pub, Blaise is to be found in M&S, seizing up the deals and planning the next menu.

I fear that Sebastian is relying on finding a mother substitute when he goes to uni this September - a good old fashioned girl who'll take pity on him and feed him, but I wonder if such girls exist anymore?

Orange whisky cakes

Today I'm back to what I know best - proper cake! 

I offered to make a fruit cake for my parents and thought that it made more sense to make loads of small cakes for them instead of a normal sized one - the mixture seems to go so much further this way!

The recipe starts by telling you to put 6oz of sultanas in a bowl with orange zest, the juice of half an orange and 3 tbs of whisky, and leave it to stand overnight.  Unfortunately I always decide I want to make this cake at the last minute, rarely have oranges at my disposal and can't wait more than an hour for the soaking.  The result is usually a perfectly good fruit cake.

This time I thought ahead and followed the recipe to the T... well, almost - I didn't have enough self-raising so I had to make up the 4 oz with plain, adding a little baking powder.

The finished result, pictured here, are absolutely delicious - the best I've ever achieved (something to do with following the recipe I suspect!).

Will have to refrain from eating them all before next seeing my parents!