Hot Chocolate and Chrismica!

Reality is a wonderful thing. At the weekend I quite fancied a Christmas latte from a local coffee shop, not because I enjoy their brand or think that their Christmas latte's rock-they don't, but rather to feed my urge for the Christmas nostalgia that was heavy on my belly. I wanted something fill fulling  something that would ignite the fire in my cold bones and awaken me to Christmas feeling.I wanted something with spice, with smells of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. My chosen latte, although warming, was not that kind of magic. I get circumvent, as you can tell, quite quickly and if it doesn't suit my desire, I simply make my own.

Home-made hot chocolate: just for Christmas

Time: 25min  Makes: 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 6 cups of whole milk
• 3/4 cup dark muscavado sugar
• 10 crushed cardomom pods
• 10 whole cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 whole star anise
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 red chilli (med heat)
• 3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

In a heavy based saucepan, bring the milk and all other ingredients to the boil, except the cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Take off the heat once boiled and allow to cool for 20min, allowing all the spices to infuse the milk.Bring back to the simmer, adding the cocoa and vanilla. Whisk all together to create a smooth, silky texture. Take off the heat and strain into a bowl using a sieve.Ladle portions of the drink into 6 mugs. Serve with marshmallows or mince pies. 

Love G.chews.

Gummy chews and her mince pies..

I cannot begin to tell you my love affair for mince pies. I think it started when I was too small to remember, but each year around this time there is a feeling of nostalgia that looms in the air, bringing me back to fond childhood memories of slotting my face with these handsome tarts.

I would often sneak to the pantry and grab one mid-night so that nobody could detect me, of course the next morning awakening with icing sugar on my face was an immediate give away, mmm.I didn't mind that I got into trouble for eating the last one. My bulging-belly was proof enough that I didn't woe and that mincy's had become my favs!

Here is to Christmas and stuffing our mushs' with puds:

Mella's Mince Pies

Prep: 30min                               Yields: 24 mini                      Bake: 25min

For the pastry:

ready to roll short crust pastry (jus roll)
egg wash (for coating)
Icing sugar (for dusting)

For the fruit mince filling:

1/2 cup green Granny smith apple, diced

1/4 cup craisins (or cranberries-dried)

1/4 cup chopped almonds/ slithers

1/2 cup chopped dates

1/4 cup currants

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup brown demerara sugar

50ml orange juice

Method:

Add all the ingredients for the filling and place in a mixing bowl. Soak for 2 hours until the fruit begins to soften and swell. In the meantime, roll  out your pastry on a lightly floured surface, approximately 3mm deep. Cut out rounds big enough to fit your tin, this should be around 6cm. Grease your mince pie tin and place the rounds in the cavities. Fill with the fruit mince. With the leftover bit sof pastry, cut out shapes (stars, hearts, holly) and place over the filling. Brush the tops with egg wash and bake for 25min. Dust with icing sugar once cooled.

With love: Gummy Chews

a salty-sweety

All too often we rush around other people, rather than making a little time for ourselves. I am selfish that way. I need me-time more often than not and when I do have this option I am left to the wonders of my kitchen. I always try to think and conjure up recipes that will be different, ones's that will be a crowd pleaser. 

It so happened that this recipe was just that. I not going to brag about how good I am, or how I think my recipes are better than anybody's else's  or how this recipe was a winner and  all this blah-blah we get pressured into telling you. Truth is, I am just a girl trying to find her way around a kitchen. Exploring if you like, with flavours, stories and kitchen- conundrums.

Salted chocolate truffles 

Yields: 36 squares  or 18 rectangles          Prep: 3hours

 Ingredients

• 180ml thick pouring cream
• 600g dark chocolate (best quality), finely chopped
• Sea salt flakes (for sprinkling)

Method:

In a small saucepan bring the cream to the boil. Add the chocolate and stir with a spoon until all dissolved  ensuring that all the chocolate has melted and your texture is a smooth one. Pour into a lined square tin (20cmx20xm) whilst hot and allow to cool. Refrigerate for 3 hours until firm but not solid-hard. Bring to room temperature before removing from tin. Cut into small squares or long rectangles if you like. 

Love G.chews

My chicken got the poach.

There is something so fresh about ginger. Quite pungent on its own, but its detoxing benefits have a way with me. I cannot drink ginger tea, or eat ginger cake. I can however enjoy it in a curry or a soup, where the flavours are subtle yet effective, allowing me to just get a tang of it on my tongue. Eating like a girl means that I do not have to like everything, that I can proportionally have little bits of everything: just the way I like it.

Because I am a chicken feign I have cooked up a recipe that is heart-warming, bringing me closer to the bird -oh gaad I have poached the poor thing!

Poached chicken Noodles with Ginger

Serves 4         Prep time:10 min      Cooking time: 20min

Ingredients:

• 1 litre of chicken stock
• a thumb size piece of ginger, thinly sliced
• 4 chicken breast (organic/ free range is best)
• bunch baby broccoli
• 1 carrot thinly sliced (julienne)
• 500g udon noodles (thin noodles)
• 2 tablespoons soya sauce (reduced salt version)
• bunch of fresh coriander leaves
• bunch of fesh mint leaves
• 2 diced spring onions
• 2 red chillies sliced thinly

Method:

In a deep saucepan, bring the stock and ginger to the boil on a moderate heat.Reduce the heat and add the chicken. Poach the chicken in the broth for a good 15min. Remove the chicken breasts and add the broccoli and carrot, cooking for 2 min. Remove from the heat and add the noodles, cooking for a further 2 min. Remove the stock, drain and return the noodles back to the pot with the soya sauce, coriander, fresh mint, spring onions and chilli. Toss and serve.

Love G.Chews

An oath to the perfect scone

It often annoys me how some chefs can class dishes 'perfection', when the very word is finite, It means that you have executed a recipe to a state of flawlessness and completeness- that the end product is your ultimate. I find this most difficult for scones to say the least, amongst recipes and food in general,because our tastes are all different,  but Scones? Really!?

Earlier this year whilst being a pastry chef for a delicatessen i was yelled at because I had not produced the perfect scone, which meant an entire day grafting at creating one. How was this possible? A scone is never perfect, not in shape, not in color and not in taste. I will confess that I never achieved the task of perfecting scones, I did however spend time on creating a truly scrummy recipe. Here is to odd looking scones that taste super! Remember always consume with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Eat like a girl.

Scones

Cooking time: 10-12min     Prep time:10min    Makes:12 large scones

Ingredients

• 3 cups self raising flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup of cream (full fat)
• 1 cup lemondade (7 up)
• egg wash ( 1 egg plus 1 teaspoon water)
• flour (dust)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.With a sieve, sieve the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the cream and lemonade. Combine with your hands until you form a dough. Place on a lightly dusted (floured) surface and knead until dough-like and plaible.Using a scone cutter cut out even shapes of the dough and place them on a lightly greased baking tray. Brush with the egg wash. Bake for 10min until lightly golden. Dust with flour.

..when I grow up

About Me:

As far as I remember I have always been engrossed in food. My dad was a budding cook and my mum a "I want-to-be-a-cool-mum baker", which she never fulfilled unless I nagged her endlessly until she finally did.I wanted her to be awesome with me, to bake and cake.To stir, to mix. It was a hard effort but growing up was fun. Typical Sundays were spent licking bowls and stirring flour, oven-watching and door-opening. Peanut butter cookies were prime and if I was not allowed to press them down with a fork, they just weren't edible.I was having none. I was a fuss-pot. The kind of girl that liked doing things her way and if they didn't work out, which was often the case, I would just kick and scream until they did. Nothing's changed.

It was imminent that I loved food, and food loved me.Growing up with foodie parents aided my love of the stuff, and if we did not have a three course sitting it just wasn't dinner. I learnt that tomatoes are the food of the heart, that pasta the food of the soul and sugar the food of happiness. The older I got, about the age when I could reach the counter, I began playing with utensils and all sorts of clammer-banging electricals. It was fun. It was exciting  It was gourmet, my gourmet. The kitchen became my experiment and it was my happy place, until boarding-school: yuk!

As a teen, and at boarding school I became less interested in food and more so in boys, french and my friends. Food and I developed a hate relationship and I became so engrossed in my social aspects at school that I missed the boat in choosing home economics, I chose French instead. It is not something I regret at all, but I wish I hadn't taken Geography as a silly subject instead.

My love affair for cooking really became prominent in my years in London. I learnt that food was an art, that it is somebody's job to review restaurants and that Michelin was the kind of dining I fitted well to.Food is exciting in London, fashionable just like her people. The more I enveloped myself in Borough market and brick lane the more I wanted to cook, the more it became my passion. Most weekends I found myself ad-hearing to recipe books or tv programes just to get a glimpse of other foodie fanatics and connoisseurs. I started a job at a cookshop in London, to get a real feel of the gourmet deal and took part in hosting cookery classes, something that enhanced my taste-buds and my experience with ingredients, it taught me to test my culinary skills, it taught me a challenge. With wise words and skills from the likes (and favourites) of Angela Hartnett and Ottelenghi, I was bound to be stuptified, and so my homage to cooking began. I networked and met some amazing people and learnt the wonders of flavours and palettes.

My flat in Wimbledon became my vice, I would spend hours baking up treats for people, or just for myself. I called myself Baker-Mella and the more I tried and tested different recipes the more fans I became to gain, my friends would come round "just for tea" and most likely be offered something sugar whilst at it. I catered for a company for a short while too, which was fruitful. I enjoyed  it.

I now blog mostly about my recipes and hope to inspire you through my stories, travels and tastes.

I have summed up my homage to food in a nutshell, but you get my drift!

Keep calm and eat on.

G.Chews