Blog - All That I'm Eating

Classic French Onion Soup

February 23, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 19 Comments

For some reason I have a bit of a thing for French food. It’s the food that never fails to put a smile on my face; partly because of the flavours but also because it’s a great excuse to showcase local, British ingredients in different ways. It’s a funny time of year, I feel it’s almost time to crack out a salad but at the same time I still want comfort and warmth. What better than the absolute classic French onion soup?

There’s nothing quite like it, it wraps you up from the inside out but at the same time remains quite clean and almost guilt free. Considering it’s basically boiled onions in beef stock, which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, it delivers on so many levels. There’s sweetness, depth and texture with every mouthful. There are so many different ways of making French onion soup/onion soup and after looking at several versions I was able to ascertain the most important ingredients are: onions, beef stock, alcohol and Gruyère. I went into soup making with full gusto. read more

What influences you to choose something from a menu?

February 17, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 13 Comments

I was having dinner the other day and found it very hard to decide what to order. It seems that choosing what to eat from a menu is something that takes a lot of consideration. Things that tick along in the back of your mind maybe without you even realising. But what is the deciding factor, the one thing above all others that will make you choose one thing over another?

What if when you’re out you decide this is the time you will try something new; salsify, heart or salted chocolate for example. It’s a strategy rife with risk. It can go one of two ways; revelation or regret. The first time I went out for a really nice meal I had a selection of vegetables, each vegetable prepared in a different way. At the time I was a carrots, parsnips and peas only girl. That particular dish and that meal changed my life; a world of vegetables was opened up to me.
However, what if you try something new and it’s awful? Trying something for the first time and it being badly prepared or if you personally don’t like it can really ruin an ingredient for life. Galangal is the one thing I cannot bear because I had far too much at once. I can’t even look at it now.

If you’re looking at a classic menu, do you choose something familiar or foreign? Sausage and Mash, Lasagne or Fish and Chips are familiar to most but would you choose it because you recognise it or because you feel like it won’t let you down? If it does let you down, you might feel so deflated and disappointed but if it’s the best one you’ve ever had the benchmark has been set.

Seasonality and locality can be an important influence when deciding what to eat. Local sausages or asparagus when it’s in season can be magnificent and what a great chance to try it. Equally, choosing something you would never buy or prepare at home is a great excuse. If you’ve never fancied battling with a celeriac or preparing a beef wellington, here’s your chance.

Perhaps it just come down to price. Is it ridiculous to spend £12.50 on a risotto you know you could make just as well yourself? Is it a good thing to be able to try something expensive that you’d never normally buy for yourself; caviar or foie gras maybe. I think it is always worth giving some consideration to price; if the ingredients themselves aren’t expensive but the dish is pricey, maybe the execution of it is fantastic.

What is the most important thing to you when choosing what to spend your money on? read more

Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut Tart with Rhubarb and Blood Orange Compote

February 11, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 23 Comments

You can’t have Valentine’s Day without a little chocolate. This tart is great because you can make it in advance and leave it in the fridge so there is no last minute pudding fretting! It’s beautifully rich and very easy to make; made even easier if you use a food blender for the pastry. If pastry is your nemesis, it used to be mine, I have a previous post that will make you feel much more relaxed about constructing this tart.

Start by making the pastry. Blend 50g cold butter with 100g plain flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add 15g caster sugar and 25g chopped, toasted hazelnuts and then bring the pastry together with one small egg. Persevere it will get there in the end but you can add a little cold water if you think it needs it. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill in the fridge for half an hour. I would recommend making the pastry when you’re as sure as you can be that the phone won’t ring and the doorbell won’t go because otherwise there’ll be pastry all over the place. read more

Boeuf Bourguignon with Dauphinoise and Purple Sprouting Broccoli

February 9, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 12 Comments

Beautiful, traditional and French; a perfect meal for Valentine’s Day. This one’s a winner because the bottle of wine you need for the boeuf bourguignon you can then drink with the meal or yourself during the preparation as a reward for all your hard work. Being a slow cooking dish means once it’s on the go you don’t need to worry about it and you can get on with other things. If that wasn’t enough, it’s also incredible and actually quite cheap.

Preparing the meat can be as difficult or easy as you like. Valentine’s Day brings out our flirtatious side and, not that I would advocate it of course, projecting a little of this new found eyelash fluttering on your butcher may result in your chosen cut being prepared for you. I’m not sure it would work with your greengrocer though. I used brisket for mine which needed a fair bit of trimming and preparing but I quite like doing that. read more

Beetroot and Goat’s Cheese Risotto

February 7, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 21 Comments

This is the first of a three part post for Valentine’s Day. It’s designed to be seasonal, sumptuous, divine and stress free. The quantities are meant for two. The dessert is one that can be prepared in advance and kept in the fridge; the main is meant for long cooking so you have ample time to make the simple starter. All this spare time means you’re not rushing around desperately trying find that Barry White CD at the last minute. After all, it’s your Valentine’s dinner too. read more

Sloe Port – how to use leftover sloes

February 4, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 34 Comments

Luscious sloe gin will inevitably result in spare berries when sloes and gin are separated. There is only so much sloe chocolate you can eat and extra sloe gin you can make. I was informed by a kind friend that sloe port was worth a try but receptacles were thin on the ground. Fortunately my Granny had given me a Rumtopf a while back which was perfect for transforming my gin soaked berries into deep red port. This port takes around four months from start to finish and it really is worth the wait. Depending on when you pick the sloes, make the gin and start the port the whole process can take six months or more but you end up with something rather special.

Top Tips

First and foremost separate the gin from the berries. Not as easy as it sounds; one kilo of sloe berries fills a much larger space than the average sieve provides. I would recommend the bath rather than the kitchen sink to help stop any escaping berries and gin. Once this task has successfully been completed, make the sloe port. When making my sloe gin I ignored the advice to use cheap gin. I’ve tried sloe gin using cheap gin and nicer gin and it does seem to make a difference. I applied the same rule to the port; I used wine I would have been happy to drink.

Variations

Sloe port is a brilliant way to use up leftover sloe berries and makes something a little different. If you want to use the sloe berries another way, you can simply add more gin and sugar and make another batch of sloe gin.

To find out what the sloe port turned out like you can find the taste test here. It also makes a fantastic sloe port jelly to serve with cheese.

After the sloes have been decanted from the port, they can be used again to make some sloe chocolate truffles.

Pin my Sloe Port recipe for later! read more

Rhubarb and Custard with Blood Orange Sauce

January 29, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 16 Comments

Rhubarb makes a wonderful crumble and a devilishly good fool. Its astringency can cut through the most fatty of foods and its delicate colour is about the only thing around at the moment that isn’t green or brown. It’s also citrus season with Satsuma’s, tangerines and blood oranges galore. It seems a shame to eat all the members of the orange family just for their cold preventing benefits.

I was one of those children who would pick out the sourest, most mouth puckering and sharpest of sweets. Sherbert wasn’t quite tart enough for me and so rhubarb and custard sweets were my saviour when all the sour apple ones had gone. They soon became my favourite; when you were turning the sweet over in your mouth you never knew if you were going to get a burst of sour or a shot of sweet. Although I do enjoy one of these sweets occasionally I have moved on to a more grown up version. read more

The Carnarvon Arms at Burghclere

January 24, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 10 Comments

The Carnarvon Arms seems to have a bit of a reputation for being one of the best places to eat in the Newbury area. Are these rumours unfounded or based on exquisite experiences had by everyone who has been there? Before my most recent visit, I had been before and it was good. I wanted to try it again with a now more sophisticated, some might say picky, palate. We arrived with no booking on a week night, the staff behind the bar were lovely and friendly and we got a good table.

Bread, oil and vinegar is a favourite of mine and I think the bread served can tell you a lot about a restaurant. This bread was a bit disappointing. The oil it came with was in what I can only assume is meant to be a ‘fun’ traffic light formation. It certainly wasn’t there to serve any taste purpose. I think that restaurant bread can take two forms; the first a really fantastic example of simple bread or secondly a selection of more unusual or flavoured breads. We had boring brown and wearisome white. They weren’t crusty, weren’t warm and worst of all they were stale. When we informed our waiter of this he said, “OK”. read more

Golden Beetroot Soup

January 20, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 13 Comments

The beetroot is a vegetable of many guises. I have been fortunate enough to obtain, consume and even grow some of the purple, the pink and white striped and the golden. There’s nothing quite like a beetroot; so earthy and yet so sweet. Growing beetroot has been, in my experience, immeasurably easy. I think it helped that I slightly cheated and bought plug plants rather than seeds but irrespective of this they were all a success. If you were to grow just one thing, broad beans or beetroot would be my recommendation to you. It’s only January so there’s plenty of time to get some dirt under those fingernails. read more

Purple Cabbage Soup

January 13, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 15 Comments

Cooked cabbage and a wet flannel have an unfortunate amount of textures in common. Particularly if, like me, you were put off cabbage at school where it was boiled to what can only be described as wallpaper paste. Things have moved on

since then and I wanted to give the cabbage a chance. I’ve baked it, boiled it, steamed it and fried it. Apart from frying, none of these yielded any spectacular, life changing results. Nevertheless I wasn’t about to give up on them; they are pretty much the only thing in season right now so I have no choice. If I have learnt anything about the cabbage it is that determination is key. read more