Brilliant Banana Bread

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this, what with one thing and another it got a little delayed, anyway here you go.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4
Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin  I used a silicon one and there isn't enough fat in the mixture for it not to be greased.

140g Softened Butter
140g Caster Sugar
140g Plain Flour
2 Large Eggs- beaten
1 Tsp Baking Powder
2 Very Ripe, Large-ish Bananas


Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.

Add the beaten eggs into the creamed mixture slowly, adding in a little of the flour at the same time. Once all the eggs have been mixed in add the rest of the flour and baking powder and fold in. Mash up the bananas, fold that into the mixture and pour into the loaf tin.

Bake for 45mins, it may need longer, and it might go quite dark on top, but make sure it is cooked all the way through.  Mine sank a little after it cooled, but it was still delicious, especially still warm from the oven and spread with a little butter. Trust me it's amazing.

Here is what was left of mine after about 2 hours!

Rainy Day Risotto

Yesterday was not a nice summer's day in the slightly north of London area where I currently reside. I wanted something summery in taste, but comforting food for a soggy day. Risotto seemed like a good option, I had a few veggies knocking around, onions, carrots and celery that needed eating up, but needed something to give it a bit of a pick me up. After juicing all those lemons for the lemon and saffron chicken I ended up with 5 lemons worth of zest to use up- what goes well with lemon I thought- Peas! Broad Beans! Both of which I had handily in the freezer, which helped with another task of using up the freezer in order to defrost it. I know some people dismiss the frozen broad bean, in salads I would definitely agree, but baby broad beans that have been frozen are a life saver and delicious so there we have it.

Risotto:

Serves 4

1 Onion very finely chopped
2 Carrots very finely diced
3 Stalks of celery, peeled and finely diced
About 270g risotto rice, I don't tend to measure this out just shake it into my pan.
pan of stock- about 1 litre - better to have too much stock than too little, I used Boullion powder for ease
A cereal bowlful of peas and broad beans
Lemon zest- about 1 lemons worth
Parmesan
Olive Oil
Pea Shoots to serve
(added naughty extra- créme fraîche for delicious extra creamy risotto)

In a large frying pan with deep sides heat the olive oil and add in the onion, carrot and celery, sweat off until just starting to soften, then add all the rice and mix well. You want the rice to get coated in the oil and start to go glossy.
Meanwhile make your stock and have it on the hob, on the heat for the entire time you are cooking your risotto.
Add your stock ladle by ladle stirring as much as you can be bothered to- I know you should constantly stir to make the best risotto but I always get distracted by something. About halfway through add the peas and broad beans to the stock and make sure you bring it back to the boil, continuing to add the stock slowly until the rice is cooked and everything looks lovely and creamy.
Add in the lemon zest and a good grating of parmesan. Taste and season.
Stir in the créme fraîche if using taste again and add more seasoning if necessary.
Spoon into bowls and top with with the pea shoots.

Pour a glass of white wine and enjoy!

Cooking from Persiana

The new Persiana book by Sabrina Ghayour has been staring at me from the kitchen shelf for a few weeks now. I somehow managed to buy it from a store before its official publishing date. I really wanted to cook everything and anything from it, but various things kept distracting me, mainly things like having to empty out the freezer eating up all the mixtures of leftovers for the last month.

Then we had guests to stay and the perfect opportunity arose for me to try out at least one dish. Then the decision, which dish from the myriad of delicious, mouthwatering options. Eventually I chose Saffron and Lemon Chicken- Joojeh Kabab. It was a joy of golden, unctuous deliciousness, with the benefit of being pretty easy too!

Here:

Serves 4:

4 Onions sliced into half moons
5 Lemons- juiced I felt it was a waste not to zest them first so I have kept the zest for another time.
4 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Ground turmeric- I would advise not to wear anything white when making or eating this dish!
400g Greek yoghurt-  I ended up using Greek Style, which made the dish a bit more wet. I wil try again with proper Greek yoghurt
3 tbsp Sea salt- crushed
Generous pinch of saffron
3 tbsp Boiling water
6 Large chicken breasts- chopped into chunks

Mix together the onions, lemon juice, olive oil, turmeric,yoghurt and salt in a large bowl.

Grind the saffron to a powder and pour over the boiling water - be careful I managed to splash this everywhere- and leave to infuse for 5-10 minutes

Add the chicken into the yoghurt mixture and mix well, the add the saffron water, mix again thoroughly, cover and leave to marinade for as long as possible in the fridge.

When ready to cook preheat your oven/grill to the highest setting.

Get a large baking sheet and line with baking parchment, lay the chicken out in one layer and bake/grill for 18-20 mins, until cooked through and slightly charred on the edges.

Serve with flour tortilla wraps or rice - we are going through a brown rice phase and it was delicious, salad and yogurt if you desire.

No pictures as it was wolfed down so quickly, plus I don't think my photos could ever match up to the beautiful styling of Sabrina's book.

Enjoy!

Lemon Polenta Cake Version 2

You may have already tried out Nigella's Lemon Polenta Cake, which I wrote about here. It is a great cake, but I always find that it gets a bit too wet with the syrup. Recently I tried out another polenta cake by Rose Prince as part of the Telegraph's Baking Club recipe here. It was undeniably delicious, I am mad for polenta cakes, I love the gritty texture. With the syrup for Rose Prince's cake I reduced it a lot more than I do with the Nigella one, but also the cake is cooked in a different way so I am trying out whether I can get a more stable cake.

Here goes:

Recipe is much the same as Nigella's, if you want to do the orange version substitute the lemons for oranges and the syrup is a little different too.

200g Butter  Recipes always call for unsalted, I can never be bothered to buy different butter for baking so I don't. 
200g Demerara Sugar
200g Ground Almonds
100g Polenta
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Essence/Extract
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 Lemons zested- keep for juicing.

Syrup:
Lemon Version:
2 Lemons- juiced
125g Icing Sugar

Orange Version:
2 Oranges- juiced
100g Caster sugar

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 2 1/2, 160c

Grease and line a 20cm springform tin

Cream the butter and sugar together, the sugar won't dissolve so it will look gritty.
Add the vanilla in and stir.
Add in the eggs one at a time.
Mix together the polenta, ground almonds, baking powder and zest.
Stir into the butter and sugar.

Pour into the tin and bake for 45-50 mins.

Boil the syrup.
Rose Prince suggests to cool the cake for 10mins outside of the tin before pouring the syrup over, I don't do this as I'm much too impatient. Skewer the top, pour the syrup over and leave to cool.

Here it is.. I would suggest as Rose Prince does to add chopped pistachios over the top,not only pretty but give a lovely textured crunch and flavour with the cake, especially the orange one!

It is delicious with greek yoghurt on the side too.

Scrumptious Scandi Salmon

You will already know how much I love Diana Henry and her beautiful cook books. I know I have been out of the blogging loop for sometime due to having a real life job for once in my life and commuting all the spare hours for cooking seemed to evaporate.

Now that I am sadly jobless once more- the curse of the design industry- I have more time to cook (definitely a bonus).

So what else to do but delve into some new cook books. Diana Henry's A Change of Appetite landed into the kitchen a few weeks ago and now as with all of her books I am trying to find excuses for cooking several dishes everyday! However, I am holding back, there are only two of us and we can only eat so much!

We fancied some fish, and a different flavour, not a curry or cleansing watercress sauce but something more refreshing to our palate. Enter Scandinavia (my choice may have been influenced by the returning series of Wallander on BBC 4) and and the deliciousness that is about to engulf you!

I halved the amount of salmon for this recipe, but kept the rest the same. My notes as usual will be in italics, of course I didn't have all the correct ingredients!

Burgers:
500g Salmon fillet, skinless, boneless.
25g Butter -A knob- I can never be bothered to measure
1/2 Onion very finely chopped- Don't be tempted to put in a chopper- it goes too mushy
2 tbsp Chives- snip finely into the mixture with scissors- quick and easy
2 tbsp Mayonnaise - I used light mayo- I just happen to prefer it, not for any other reason
1 tbsp Crème fraîche - I had some soured cream to use up so I substituted
Salt and Pepper

Sauce:

150g Greek Yoghurt
1 tbsp Mayonnaise
1 tbsp Dill - finely snipped
1/2 Small garlic clove, crushed- As I'm writing this I realise I put the whole clove in 
75g Really good tomatoes

Rye bread
Salad- Leaves or whatever you fancy- we had avocado, tomato and cucumber chopped salad. Instead of leaves and sliced cucumber going on top of the sauce.
Cucumber

Chop the salmon up into very small pieces, they don't have to be perfect squares. 

Melt the butter and fry the onion, only until soft, not coloured.

In a bowl, mix the salmon, chives, mayo, crème fraîche and seasoning, add in the onions. Cover and set in the fridge for 30 mins. Once rested, shape into burgers and place on a nonstick baking sheet that can fit under your grill. Cover, put in the fridge.

To make the sauce, mix the yoghurt, mayo, dill and garlic, put in the fridge. Leave the tomatoes until you are 30mins away from serving, to add into the sauce, deseed and finely chop, stir through.

Preheat the grill to the highest setting- stick your sheet under the grill, not too close and grill until cooked, no need to turn. Diana Henry says to turn the grill down after 2 mins and cook for a further 2, I think I cooked mine for about 6 mins, I just miscalculated time. They didn't seem overcooked- maybe because the sheet was fridge cold.

Toast the rye bread, spread on the sauce place your delicious burger on top and revel in it's deliciousness.

No pictures- I forgot and was too eager to eat!

Also follow Diana Henry on Twitter and here is her Website