How To Make

Globe Artichoke – How to preparing them

September 19, 2012
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If the globes are baby size and young, in which case they would look much thinner and an elongated shape to these, their inner leaves around the heart can be eaten, when they get to this stage the leaves become hard and leathery.  The easiest way to tackle the outside leaves if like these globes […]

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Pan-fried seabass with roasted fennel mayo and sea aster – How to get crispy skin

September 7, 2012
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Frying fish fillets like this seabass here is important for me to end up with crispy skin, I love it.  I go through all the trouble of creating crispy tasty skin to then see Bikerboy removing and discarding it to the side of the plate. The sea aster to me tastes of mild spinach, I […]

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How To Make Mayonnaise

September 5, 2012
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I have always made mayonnaise successfully by hand and the couple of times over the years I’ve tried making it in a food processor I’ve managed to curdle it.  I’m not sure how making it by machine saves time unless you’re making catering quantities.  The trick, whether by machine or by hand is to be […]

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How to make super smooth ice-cream or sorbets

August 29, 2012
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I made this blackberry frozen soufflé using the two tricks I’ve learnt to keep frozen mixture smooth and edible straight from the freezer; jelly and inverted sugar. Back in January 2011 I wrote a post on Ice-cream or sorbet too firm in the freezer? where I describe the problems of making homemade ice-creams, that they harden too […]

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How to make: Shortcrust Pastry by Hand

August 18, 2012
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Making shortcrust pastry by hand is easy, just follow a couple of simple tips I’ve listed below and you’ll see how gratifying it is to make.  I have a very detailed post already on how to make shortcrust pastry with the food processor.  The post details how to roll it, chill it, blind bake, under-baking, […]

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How To Cook Octopus

August 13, 2012
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How To Tenderise Your Octopus The not very well kept Portuguese secret of how to produce tender octopus is to freeze it first.  This one here I bought already frozen from a Portuguese deli and it comes pretty clean with only the cutting to do, easy to prepare.  If you don’t have time to freeze […]

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How To Make Brown Butter, Beurre Noisette

May 30, 2012
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Melt the butter on a medium heat. Once melted it will begin to foam.

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Vegetarian / Vegan Dashi – Japanese Stock

May 18, 2012
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The commonly known Japanese stock, dashi  uses kombu (seaweed) and bonito flakes (fish), to make either the delicate very clear stock ichiban dashi, or the stronger fuller body flavoured niban dashi.  It’s seriously worth making dashi from scratch, so simple and the flavour is beautifully clean, you can not compare it to instant dashi sachets for sale. This […]

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Scoring, Slashing Sourdough

May 8, 2012
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I’ve already posted lots of photos on scoring/slashing loaves in this post here, but Nicola asked me last night to show her how, and since I had 2 loaves already in the fridge for baking this morning it would be easy to video scoring them…well easy because I had a second pair of hands to […]

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Cold Oil French Fries (Chips) Absorb Less Oil

February 4, 2012
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I saw this method of chip making (French fries if you’re American) this week on  America’s Test Kitchen  and couldn’t wait to try it because it just seemed so easy and anything that’s easy if you have kids is a done deal for me.  The other reason and most convincing was the topsy-turvy notion that starting […]

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Butter – We Have Great Butter

January 14, 2012
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When I refer to we, I’m talking United Kingdom and Ireland.  These Isles with gloomy dark winters and wet summers may not be beach holiday destinations but they are great for pasturelands with grazing cows…there is a benefit for putting up with lousy weather; great dairy.  If you have only lived in these parts you […]

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Why Start A Food Blog? And Can You Make Money Out Of It? Part II

January 8, 2012
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This post is following on from Part I here. Blog Envy & The Godivala Syndrome If you want to start one, do it, it’s free, make it your own but be prepared to put the hours in if you want it to have a certain regularity, it really does not feed itself. I’ve had moments […]

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Why Start A Food Blog? And Can You Make Money Out Of It? Part I

January 5, 2012
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Why?  Because you want to. And the next answer is no, you can’t make money out of a food blog, or to be more precise, you can’t make a living directly.  Not as things are, whether it will change or not, that I don’t know. I’ve been blogging for just over 2 years and in […]

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Learning Curve During 2011

December 31, 2011
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I thought it would be a good idea to do a recap of my blog’s year, but rather than talk about recipes I go through and highlight what I’ve learnt through my posts.   Starting at the beginning of the year : Stoping Ice-cream Becoming Too Hard Blog Post Here Recipes which contains a lot of […]

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Dan Lepard’s Slider Buns with Buffalo Burger

November 11, 2011
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Dan asked Luc, Fergus and I to do a home trial of his slider buns coming out tomorrow in his Guardian column, Luc’s results are here, and Fergus’ buns are here.   What’s so different about these buns?  It’s the method, using a roux method.  I first heard about this from a blogger friend Sunflower […]

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