Ultimate Steak Sarnie

Yes I know it's a bit of a claim to make and I'm sure you all have your own version of this culinary masterpiece but here is my version of the mighty steak sarnie.








I think for a steak sarnie to be successful it relies on a few key parts;

The Steak
Obviously it's not gonna be a steak sarnie without this is it, but what cut? Personally I don't think you need to buy anything more pricey than rump steak, sirloin is a bit expensive to put in a sandwich and if anybody puts fillet in there I will hunt you down and confiscate it. Buy it from your butcher not a supermarket for a much better quality piece of beef. The steak in the picture cost me £5, filled a dinner plate and was enough for 3 sandwiches.

The Bread
A nice crusty ciabatta is my choice for this and not, as my dad suggested, a couple of slices of hovis...

Greenery
A bit of variety I think is needed here, Don't bother with iceberg, it has it's place but this is not it. Try watercress or rocket for a nice peppery flavour.

Beyond these elements I reckon you cant go wrong with most other additions...apart from cheese, back away from the cheese.

Ultimate steak sarnie (makes one)
Rump steak (as much as you wish )
Half a ciabatta loaf
Handful of mixed leaves

Fried onions
Splash of oil
half an onion

Butter dressing
Splash of oil
1 clove of garlic
Large lump of butter
Herbage of your choice, I went for rosemary.

Method
Slice your ciabatta and layer up with a good handful of greenery.
Season your steak with olive oil and black pepper and salt.
Thinly slice up the onion and fry gently in a frying pan until soft and golden brown, set aside.
Crush the garlic and fry gently in a saucepan until slightly golden, add the butter and herbs, set aside.

The Steak
Get a griddle pan and place it on the hob until it achieves nuclear temperatures, hotter than the fires of hell is required for this.
Gently lay your steak away from you on the griddle and leave it alone. Do not touch, poke, prod or move it until its time to turn it over.
In terms of timings, it all depends on how well you want your steak cooked and how thick your steak is. Mine was about a centimetre thick and took about 1 -1.30 minutes on each side for medium rare.
Once done on both sides, leave to rest for a few minutes on a warm plate.

Slice up and layer on top of the greenery.
Drizzle over the garlic herb butter and top with the fried onions.
Use the top layer of the ciabatta to soak up the juices left up on the plate after slicing the steak.

Belissimo!

Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Muffins (ish)

I knew these wouldn't work before I even started. However... I went ahead anyway as I'd bought the stuff to make them and I thought I would try my luck.  It's quite tricky to make muffins when you don't have a decent tray to support them in the oven and it's a sad sight watching a muffin case flatten as mixture is poured into it. If you have the required equipment I'm sure they would work quite well...they tasted nice anyways.


Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
250g Plain Flour
20g Baking powder
170g Light brown soft sugar
170ml Whole milk
2 Eggs
110g Soft Butter
150g Raspberries
70g Dark Chocolate, cut into chunks.


Method
Add all ingredients to a bowl, apart from the raspberries and chocolate.
Mix with an electric whisk or hand power until all ingredients are combined.

Stir in the chocolate and raspberries, gently. Don't over mix.

Spoon the mixture into muffin cases in a muffin tin (if you have one). (watch as they start to flatten, shed a tear... just me this bit then?)
Stick into a preheated oven at 200C
Bake for around 15 minutes until golden brown on top and risen.
Remove and cool on a wire rack

Enjoy

Black Banana Cake

It's been awhile since I did any decent cooking or baking, what with the madness that has been the last few weeks. So to get back into it I thought I would do something fairly easy but very tasty. While wondering what to cook, I had a wander round my kitchen and found some rather ripe and squishy bananas which reminded me about Nigel Slater's black banana cake....



I have altered the recipe slightly, adjusting to what I had in my cupboard. The original recipe is here

Black Banana Cake
Ingredients
175g unsalted butter
140g golden caster sugar/35g muscavado sugar
75g ground almonds
2 eggs
175g self raising flour
2 very ripe bananas
drop of vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate/50g white chocolate (cut up into tiny chunks)
sprinkle of brown sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 170C
Line the base and sides of a loaf tin (20cm/12cm)
Beat the sugars and butter together until light and fluffy
Slowly beat in the eggs to the butter mixture
Beat in the flour and almonds
Chop up the bananas into small pieces and mix gently into the mix along with the chocolate and vanilla extract. Do not over mix.

Spoon the batter into the loaf tin, dust with brown sugar and bake for 1 hour - 1 hour and 10 mins

Cover the cake with foil if the top starts to darken to quickly.
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack

Serve and enjoy.

Chicken in a Spicy Coconut Broth

What is it with Thai soups? From my, albeit, limited experience of them the more they look like dish water the more amazing they taste. Every spoonful is a constant battle for the taste buds attention with a complex blend of different flavours and this one is no exception.





The recipe is a very easy one from Ramsay's World Kitchen and I could literally drink the broth by the gallon.

Recipe serves 4-6 as a starter

Chicken in a Spicy Coconut Broth (tom ka gai)

Ingredients
2 boneless chicken breasts
Sea salt and black pepper
400ml tin of coconut milk
600ml water
3cm fresh root ginger, peeled and sliced
4 kaffir lime leaves, ripped up
1 lemongrass stalk, halved length ways
2 red chillies, halved length ways and deseeded
1 Tsp palm sugar or light brown soft sugar
21/2 Tbsp of Fish sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
100g button mushrooms
handful of coriander leaves

Method
Slice the chicken into bite sized pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside
Pour the coconut milk into a pan along with 600ml of water
Add the ginger, kaffir, lemongrass, chillies, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice
Bring to a simmer and cook gently for about 5 minutes, allowing the flavours to infuse
Add the mushrooms and simmer for 3 minutes
Add the chicken and simmer until cooked through, about 2 minutes.
Serve by discarding the chili, lemongrass, ginger and lime leaves or be traditional and leave them in but don't eat them.
Garnish with coriander

Enjoy

100 Blog Posts

Waaaaay back in the summer of last year, I had finished my degree and waiting for my next qualification to begin in September. One day I got bored and decided to have a go at writing a blog. I figured if I was to stick at it then it would have to be something I was interested in. so what better than food? Pretty much every single part of my life revolves around the stuff in some way so I may as well write about it as well.

I never actually thought I would be sat here writing my 100th post, I figured once I started University again by September I'd get bored with it and leave it to be forgotten in the depths of the Internet but alas no and here I am writing this and wondering what blog post 101 will contain.

It's been a fun 11 months. The blog plus Twitter has opened up many an opportunity and events that otherwise I would never have known about it. So I think to mark 100 posts I'll recap on some highlights:

Recipes
Birthday cake - easily one of the best cakes I've made and my first venture into sugar craft

Buttermilk scones - the first ever recipe post.

Beef wellington - Christmas Dinner, beats turkey any day

Chicken and papaya curry - The first blogger challenge hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen

Chocolate, honeycomb and truffle cake - well just look at it, it's huge!

Fig Tart - another blogger challenge, a thing of beauty.

Events

My Secret Tea Room - hosted by the delightful 'Bakelady' with superb home baking and my first ever underground supper club

The Spice Club - another underground supper club hosted by Monica and her lovely family, superb Indian food.

Test Space Kitchen - a deconstructed whole hog followed by a huge Eton mess in an abandoned run down old building? you couldn't make this stuff up.

Clandestine Cake Club - turn up with a cake in a random location, eat loads more of other peoples cake, meet lots of lovely people. drink tea. - brilliant

Well there you are, a few highlights since I started and I haven't mentioned all the superb restaurants I have visited in Leeds, Sheffield,  London, Edinburgh etc...

Here's to the next hundred, hope you will join me.

Cheers

Mixed Berry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting.

For this months Clandestine Cake Club meeting the theme was Flirtatiously Fruity and Succulent Savoury. For an excellent review go here and look at what else turned up.

I decided to go for the flirtatiously fruity and decided to make a recipe I found on BBC Good Food and adapted slightly.




Mixed Berry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting
Ingredients
175g soft butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 Large Eggs
225g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
142ml carton of sour cream
350g of mixed berries. I used; blueberries, raspberries and blackberries

Frosting
200g Philadelphia cream cheese
100g icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180C (fan =160C)
Line a deep loose based cake tin.
Mix the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla and beat together until well mixed.

Beat in 4tbsp of the soured cream.

Stir in the fruit gently, leave about 50g to decorate.

Tip into the tin and bake for 50 minutes until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes then tip out onto a wire rack to finish cooling

Frosting
Beat the soft cheese, icing sugar and the remaining sour cream together until smooth and creamy.
Spread out on top and decorate with the remaining fruit.

Enjoy.

I took a picture of my plate after my first assault of the rather long table filled with cake at this months event:

Not bad for a first course. Yum

Strawberry Mojito Pudding

While at the grocers picking up veg for my Summer Tart I spied a large box of English Strawberries for £1.70 so I thought I would do a dessert as well.

Again, being lazy, I wanted to keep it simple but big on flavour.

I decided to attempt to combine the flavours of a Mojito (easily my favourite cocktail after a Vesper Martini) along with the summer classic of Strawberries and Cream.







 Ingredients
Punnet of English Strawberries
Mint leaves (to taste)
25ml measure of Golden Rum
1 Tbsp golden Caster Sugar

250ml  Double cream
1Tbsp Icing sugar


Method
Remove the stalk from about half of the strawberries and cut in half.
Place in a bowl and pour over the Rum and Caster Sugar
Rip up some mint leaves and add them to bowl.
Mix up and leave for an hour or so.

Whisk up the cream until stiff using an electic hand whisk or elbow power.
Beat in icing sugar.
Tip in the contents of the bowl and mix in gently.

To serve:
Thinly slice some remaining strawberries and place in the bottom of a martini glass.
Spoon over the strawberries and cream
Garnish with a sprig of mint and more strawberries

Enjoy