Sumac Salmon and Apricot Tart

Cowie and I have caught Ottolegnhi fever. It’s a rare condition where the victim exhibits symptons of boredom with normal food and a craving for exotic sounding spices like sumac and Za’atar. Other tell tale signs are a new found love of vegetables and an addiction to scorched broccoli.

So when Cowie and I planned our latest dinner party it was only natural that it took on an Ottoleghi feel. Feeling confident having followed some of his recipes carefully, we decided to branch out and use the book as inspiration rather than treating it like a copy of the ten commandments. Our menu was:

Starter: Communal watercress salad with griddled nectarine, goats cheese and mandarin oil dressing

Main: Whole sumac BBQ salmon with fregola and sumac yoghurt

Dessert: Apricot semolina tart

For the salad we simply griddled some nectaries assembled a large salad of watercress, soft goats cheese and slices of prosciutto. We then sprinkled it with a dressing made from Nudo mandarin olive oil and white balsamic and a few turns of salt and pepper. It looked stunning and was wolfed down with great enthusiasm.

Kicking off dinner parties with shared salads like this where everyone can help themselves whilst having a drink is a great way of taking some of the strain out of being a host. It saves washing up and can be prepared really easily. It allowed us to concentrate on doing justice to the salmon…

As a result of our excellent turbot, we decided to source our wild side of salmon to feed 12 from Moxons. It costs more. But when it is the star of the show, it’s worth it.

I whipped up a marinade of olive oil, sumac, salt, pepper and sumac and left it to rest for half an hour whilst we got the BBQ up to heat. The logistics of BBQing a whole side of salmon are simple. But daunting. One wrong move and the fish falls apart and everyone goes home hungry. Having collected lots of advice from various books and websites I dived straight in with Cowie almost shouting at me to play it safe and cook it in foil… Pah…

Here’s what to do:

1. Clean the grill and then oil it so it’s nice and slippy
2. If you aren’t marinating the fish, then make sure you oil the skin
3. Disperse the embers so that you aren’t cooking directly above them – it’s much better cooking on indirect heat as it avoids burning
4. Place the fish skin side down
5. Attend to your fish with unwavering concentration
6. When the time is right, use two spatulas/fish slices and use quick jabbing movements and turn he fish quickly
7. Only turn your fish once
8. The fish will only need a short amount of cooking on the flesh side
9. Remove from the heat and serve

Our salmon took around 15-20 minutes of gentle cooking before it was ready. The smell of heat on fish skin is one of my favourites.

To our delight the salmon was perfect. The skin was so crispy and fragrant that fish skin haters lapped it up with glee; the flesh teased apart and made serving it a doddle; and It was still thrillingly medium rare. Phew!

The yoghurt dressing with sumac, lemon zest, chilli and clutch of herbs from the garden offered a fresh creamy counterpoint to the vibrant fish. The exotic, lemony flavour of sumac was very subtle, but utterly delicious. It’s got us hooked!

A bowl of fregola mixed with cous cous hazlenuts, tomatoes and herbs wasn’t half bad either! Another doff of cap to Ottolenghi.

After the success of a semolina rhubarb tart earlier in the year we decided to make the most of a glut of apricots by making them into a tart. It’s very easy and tastes great. The night before simply make a semolina cream by heating 1 1/2 cups of milk spiked with vanilla and when it gets hot add 45 grams of fine semolina and 55 grams of caster sugar. Stir this as it heat and bring to the boil. Cook for a little longer and when it is smooth and thick remove from the heat. Allow it cool a little and then beat in 3 egg yolks. Set this aside in plastic bowl and cover with cling-film that hugs the cream to avoid a skin forming. Then on the night of the dinner party blind bake some dessert pastry, allow to cool and then spoon in the semolina cream. Now you can get arty. Arrange your slices of fresh apricot in geometric patterns and paint with apricot jam. Then bake until the apricots have become soft and the top has turned golden.

We served it warm with some vanilla ice cream. But it is probably better (and easier to serve) cold. The tart apricots had turned sweet with their juices combined with the smooth semolina cream. The only disappointment was that there wasn’t enough for seconds! You could do the same thing with gooseberries or raspberries…

It was one of our most fun dinner parties to date. We managed to balance cooking interesting food whilst also taking as much stress and time consuming preparation out as possible. It’s a great formula, and one we are going to repeat.

Mid Week Dinner Party

There’s a lot of twaddle written about dinner parties. In Table Talk AA Gill derides dinner parties as being the “work of the devil” and you’ll struggle to pick up a weekend newspaper without reading about how dinner parties are the new restaurant. Personally, whilst I agree with AA Gill’s aversion to eating food cooked by people who don’t know their micro-wave from their tumble drier, let alone their sugar from their salt, I am rather partial to the odd dinner party.

As is Cowie. Although with Cowie I think she likes them because it gives her a chance to serve food on dangerously hot plates and draw up a seating plan. The poorer we all get, the less often we’ll eat out and the more often we’ll find outselves entertaining at home. But then again cooking for 14 is never cheap anyway!

Cowie took control of the beginning and end of the meal, leaving me to cover the interval.

Cowie, inspired by a certain Jamie Oliver, served up a quite brilliant starter. It ticks all the boxes for a dinner party: the wow factor comes with relatively little effort. Simply wrap some asparagus spears in parma ham and grill unitl cooked. Meanwhile, soft boil some eggs. Remove their lids and serve the eggs in their cardboard box and pretend the spears are soldiers. Celery salt in a ramekin was a good idea too. If people don’t gasp I’ll be shocked. It’s such a winner.

Great start from Cowie. Over to me. Sweating and already slightly pissed I took over gleefully.

I’ll have to wind you back 3 days to when I made the marinade for the miso cod. Simply follow the Nobu recipe on Epicurious and you can’t go too far wrong…

“For Nobu-style Saikyo Miso
* saké
* 3/4 cup (150 ml) mirin
* 2 cups (450 g) white miso paste
* 1 1/4 cups (225 g) granulated sugar

Make Nobu-style Saikyo Miso:

1.Bring the saké and the mirin to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Boil for 20 seconds to evaporate the alcohol.

2. Turn the heat down to low and add the miso paste, mixing with a wooden spoon. When the miso has dissolved completely, turn the heat up to high again and add the sugar, stirring constantly with the wooden spoon to ensure that the bottom of the pan doesn’t burn. Remove from heat once the sugar is fully dissolved. Cool to room temperature.”

Once the mixture is cooled simply pour it over your cod fillets and let them marinate in a non reactive dish for 2 or 3 days before grilling to perfection and garnishing with a stalk of bright red hajikami. Rest the cod on a bed of miso risotto (recipe is here). Some stir fried pak choi and oriental mushrooms is a good accompaniment.

I have to say I’ve had a few disasters on my road to perfecting the art of miso cod… but I’m getting closer to my goal. This time the cod flaked. The skin crisped up. And lips smacked with joy. And as for the risotto… well the fact that some of the girls had thirds speaks volumes! Victoria even asked for the saucepan and a wooden spoon so she could get every last grain of rice.

Feeling redolent with pride and probably insufferably big headed by now, I handed the batton back over to Cowie who brought us home with her brilliant lime and cardamom mousse that is fast becoming as famous as the guy who wrote the recipe (Gordon Ramsay). In case you are wondering, it was a mouse sized mousse and Jelfy is a dwarf. The spoon is a perfectly normal size!

It was a brilliant party. The more we cook and entertain the more we love hosting dinner parties. The Devil’s work? I think not.

Miso Trout with Broccoli and Pak Choi

Please, please, excuse the terrible photographs. It just shows that I need to get one of those clever lighting devices that Dinner Diary uses to make their photographs so awesome.

We had a sushi party last week which was awesome. But just in case it wasn’t that awesome, I had prepared some miso trout as a backup. Luckily the sushi went down well so the trout went back in the fridge for some extra marinating. Apparently 2-3 days is optimal.

Here’s what you do. Go to Waitrose or the Japan Centre and buy a packed of miso paste. Place a pan of water on the hob and bring to a simmer. Put a glass mixing bowl on top and empty the gooey miso paste into the bowl and add some water to thin it. Also add sugar, mirin, some vinegar and stir continuously until it has changed consistency to being more like a sauce. It should smell toasty and deep.

ALLOW TO COOL.

The reason this is in caps, is to remind myself. This time I forgot. In my haste I just chucked the trout fillets into the hot paste. Basically they cooked in the heat of the marinate. Schoolboy error from me. But I’ve done it right before now, All you have to do is have some patience and wait till it has cooled before adding your fish to the marinate and leaving it for between 1 and 3 days.

Remove the fish from the marinate and grill until the skin is slightly crisped but the fish is flaky and tender. If you can try to undercook it. You will be astonished at how delicious and gorgeous the fish tastes. It falls apart and makes you feel like a pro. Or at least it does if you haven’t made a big blunder like I did! Luckily it still tasted great, even though the pictures look TERRIBLE.

Serve with sesame oiled noodles, a passion fruit for acidity, exoticism and fruitiness and some stir fried broccoli and pak choi. For the veggies, fry some onions, add some chili, then some garlic and ginger, then some florets of broccoli, then some soy, then some water and then lob in your pak choi. Add a lid of some sort to semi steam the greens and garnish with sesame seeds. In my panic I forgot to photograph this but you can see the work in progress below.

Or better still you could just follow the original recipe from Gastronomy Domine.

We finished up with what turned out to be the star of the show. A lime mousse, cooked to perfection by Cowie, from Ramsay’s new book, Cooking for Friends. It’s just a shame he could be arsed to write the book himself yet still adorns every other page with a cheesy lifestyle shot of himself.

It was a great way to end a really exciting meal. The photos ma be a let down, but the flavours weren’t. Whatever mistakes have been made have been learnt from. My next purchase is definitely going to be one of those clever lights.

Fishy Supper

Gilly loves fish. We tend to meet up for dinner once a month and it just seemed like a good idea to cook at home rather than splurge in a restaurant. Last month for instance we went to Zayna and had a fantastic Pakistani meal and the previous month we went to Silk which was good but very quiet.

Inspired by the passion fruit ceviche we had in India…

… we decided to replicate it with good old fashioned English trout. Simply chop up 2 trout fillets and marinate in lime juice, coriander, passion fruit and chili to taste. Leave for 20-30 minutes and then spoon back into the empty passion fruit shells for an effortlessly exotic treat. It’s a much more interesting version of the standard ceviche with the added benefit of it looking very sexy.

We followed this up with a very simple but delicious smoked haddock and prawn risotto – served with a goats cheese and roasted tomato salad. Simply make a standard white risotto with some good white wine and even better rice and stock. Meanwhile poach your smoked haddock fillets in skimmed milk laced with bay, pepper corns and mace and cook until the fish starts to flake. This photo below is one of my favourite cooking photos… I just love the colours. It’s like an accidental work of art.

Then stir in some frozen peas, spinach leavees and flake in two thirds of the fish and a good handful of frozen prawns. Cook until the frozen elements are no longer hazardous. Stir in a slurp of the mily fish liquor to lubricate and then serve with a garnish of chives, parsley and the remaining fish. To lift the dish to a new level, grate some lemon zest into a few tablespoons of creme fraiche and serve as a condiment – it lightens the risotto and adds some zing which compliments the smoky fish.

Yum.

We finished off with some roasted apricots, steeped in Courvoisier and crumbled with Amaretti biscuits which were far too tasty for something so simple. Unfortunately, because they were so delicious I didn’t get a chance to take a photo, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. All in all it was a raging success. The journey from sharp and sweet trout ceviche to creamy riotto, back to sweet and sharp again was fantasitc.

Quintessentially English Dinner Party

If I’ve learnt one thing from Cowie, it’s the need for themes. You can’t have a theme-less party. It’s just not allowed. And I have to admit, I think she’s right.

The only problem is picking a theme that is fun but also do-able. Whilst tarts and vicars was a fun theme at university it doesn’t work quite as well in London when you have to get changed into your fishnets and bondage gear in the office before hopping on the District and Circle Line and then getting the night bus home.

Whilst being overwhelmed by the experience we had at the Royal Well Tavern, we decided upon what turned out to be a brilliant theme: Quintessentially English. Quite retro, but perfectly in keeping with a Summer weekend at Stevington.

Catering for 14 for a weekend is a much bigger task than I had realised. So I took the Friday off in order to break the back of the cooking. My day started with a 4 page plan, which I’ve included here, mainly to impress Cowie who thinks I can’t organise anything!

The starters were all inspired by recipes from a brilliant book called Terrine by Stephane Reynaud. Admittedly this might sound a bit Frenchy, but it still felt English and very retro! Plus, most of the vegetables in the terrines came from our garden.

I meticulously recreated his spring vegetable terrine that remarkably emerged from its icky looking cellopane actually resembling the picture in the book!

Anna and Edwin did their best to recreate a cauliflower and cabbage terrine. It’s just unfortunate that I forgot to buy green cabbage. Rather than turning out snow white and surrounded by dark green leaves like a classy maki roll, the red cabbage blead through the cauliflower turning the whole thing pregnancy test blue!

Whoops!

More successful was Cowie’s smoked mackerel terrine topped off with yellow courgette and cucumber “scales” – very retro. Very tasty. Very Cowie!

But the star of the starter show was the tomato, mozerella and basil terrine challenge. Edwin, myself and Ed from work all had a go at contructing this fiddly little terrine. Anna and Edwin had lovingly dried out a tonne of Mum’s yellow and red tomatoes from the greenhouse…

You just layer tomoato on top of mozerella on top of basil until you have filled the chocolate fondany pot. And then hope that your one emerges as the best! Sadly mine didn’t win. But it meant that Ed has been basking ever since, waiting for me to write about it!

Ed’s is the one in the middle and mine is at the far end. Edwin’s masterpiece is nearest the camera.

My favourite part came next. It was a whole day in the making, but it was all worth it! I had seen a stunning recipe for Heston Blumenthal’s pea and ham soup on Eats Like a Girl’s blog and was determined to give it a go. I brought a ham hock and two pigs trotters back with me on Thursday night from the ginger pig and lovingly simmered them all day on Friday with some herbs onions and other stock goodies. After many hours of bubblig I took out the hock and trotters and added a massive bag of frozen peas which quickly cooked. We had some for dinner on Friday night and it was delicious. But a day later after some serious straining and refinement we each had a cold shot glass of pea and ham soup as an amuse bouche. The trotters and hock had given the liquid a silky complexion and a serious amount of body. So much so that the jelly/stock left back in the pot was able to belly dance of its own accord.

We enjoyed these large shot glasses full of green gunge with a small glass of chilled sherry. And you know what. It worked.

By this point I was getting a bit worried by the state of my 3 kilo wild sea trout – it’s so hard to work out how long it should stay in the aga for. Unfortunately, I left it in a shade too long. I much prefer medium rare fish – with translucent flesh, but when you are cooking for so many people it is so hard to get things just right. We served this incredible fish from Delizzimo with steamed samphire, buttered new potatoes, brown shrimp butter and hollandaise sauce (which I had made for the first time). It was delicious and very refined. Tremendously English. And all inspired by the sea trout I had at the Royal Well Tavern.

The desserts lifted things to another level – Cowie’s gooseberry jelly was a masterpiece in Englishness. I wonder whether it could have been any more seasonal or Nationalistic. It was inspired by Stephen Reynaud’s strawberry jelly and was intended to offer a lighter option and also stop any celiac’s from grumbling about discrimination.

Anna and Edwin’s strawberry tart looked and tasted stunning.

And I was very proud of my home grown raspberry cheese cake that I had baked in my grandmother’s slightly rusty tin.

All of these seasonal desserts were washed down with a delicious Italian sweet wine, which brought our glass tally up to the double figure mark. Exhausted by all the cooking we eventually retired to the summer house to play a brilliantly chaotic game of roulette and black jack.

Thanks to everyone who came along and to all of you for helping out so much. Especially Edwin, Anna and Cowie. It has since been pointed out to me that I have got absolutely no photos of people any more. I’ll have to rectify this next time.

I can’t wait to host another party – all I need to do is save up for a bit and think of a new theme. My gut feeling at the moment is that it should be a pizza oven party.

Sushi Party

My super, sister, Suzy, gave me a sushi set for Christmas. Given my normally embarrassing tendency to not make full use of culinary Christmas presents for at least a decade, it has been almost newsorthy that I have managed to make the most of it in July. Only 7 months on from Christmas.

The kit contained a kilo of sushi rice, ginger, mirin, wasabi paste, rice vinegar, rolling mats, instructions and an amazingly sharp sushi knife. So all I needed to buy was 2 sushi books (why buy one when you can get 2 saying almost the same thing), 3 types of soy sauce, edamame, a rice paddle, and sushi grade salmon, tuna and makerel for 8 people. Cowie and I got most of the kit from an obscure and stifflingly hot Japanese store on Brewer Street before getting the bus to Victoria from the far more sanitary looking Japan Centre on Picardilly. Whoops.

We decided to do sushi as a starter and fill everyone up with miso marinated salmon as a main course. We made the brilliant decision to delegate pudding to Anna and Edwin… and they certainly lived up to the task. This truly was an Anna Surprise which I doubt you’ll find in many Japanese recipes books. Or indeed any recipe book that has made its way past a comprehenisve tasting committee.

Suz met me in Selfridges to collect our fish along with some bright orange fish roe and filleting advice from the charming lady on the immaculate sushi stand. She even gave us some belly tuna free to go in our rolls. We whizzed back to the flat as fast as possible as we realised that not only did all the rice have to be cooked by 7.30… it also had to have cooled! Ah. Panic.

But not to worry. With the Brown siblings working in tandem we managed to get the rice cooked, cooled and made vaguely into salmon, tuna and makerel nigiri relatively easily. The rest of the team feasted on edamame, sashimi and Japanese beers.

Having never made sushi before, I was amazed at how sticky the rice is. But even more so it made me realise that the sushi you are served in Japanese restaurants is stunningly perfect. To get that level of control and precision over such niggly rice is mind blowing. But it also made me realise how crap the sushi is from Tescos and the likes of Prett.

With the nigiri filling everyone up and making us feel more confident we moved onto to using the rolling mats. Our first roll was very ricey, but well put together. After setting the bench mark Suz took over and created master piece after master piece. If she ever gets booted out of Harrods she can always go and become a sushi master! Here she is in action:

These little badgers with the roe on top were stunning…

I guess it shows that I had a more innocent childhood…

And here’s Suz embarking on what looked impossible in the book… but turned out to be pretty easy.

Everyone had a go at making maki rolls with varying degrees of success. It’s such a brilliant way of hosting a small dinner party with everyone getting a chance to have some fun. Very interactive. I can’t wait to give it another go and get seriously good at it. It’s also made Cowie want to go out to all of London’s best sushi restaurants… which is going to cripple me.

On to the now thoroughly unnecessary main course! Miso Salmon. Having had some epic black miso cod the week before I had it in my head that we had to recreate it… albeit with some cheaper fish! With a few packs of salmon tails from Sainsbury’s and a large tub of shiso miso from our weird Japanese shop on Brewer Street I embarked on creating the salty, sticky marinade that turns cheap fish into stunning haute cuisine (or whatever the Japanese is for that). I religiously followed a brilliant recipe I found on Gastronomy Domine. I say I religiously followed it… I’ve got to confess that I only let the salmon sit in the sticky goo over night rather than for the stated 3 days! Next time!

It was stunning. I am still kicking myself for letting the skin char a bit too much. One of my favourite things in the whole kingdom of food is crispy fish skin. And there’s a fine line between gorgeous crispiness and a mouth full of soot! The flesh itself was stunning. The salmon tails had been through a full transformation from decidedly average through to very special.

But not as special as Anna and Edwin’s “Anna Surprise”. Which is rather a kind name for it. I am still not quite sure what it was despite it being the one thing that will stay in everyone’s minds for over. My tasting notes would be… like a creamy, warm, Red Bull and grean tea soup with a hint of gelatine. I am not kidding, my stomach just started growling with horror as I typed that last sentence.

We all had a wonderful time – Cowie and I can’t wait for our next sushi adventure. It’s made me yearn to go to Japan!

Christmas Eve with Hannah and Family

Mum invited Hannah and her entire family over for dinner on Christmas Eve. We had a brilliant evening eating good food and playing silly games. After a day of fetching the goose and finishing off neglected Christmas shopping it really got us in festive spirit… to the extent that Dad did a recital of the Bird in the Guilded Cage in a throw back to his days as a choir boy.

As a present Hannah brought over some fondant fancies covered in edible glitter and psychodelic icing. They look utterly stunning and fit in well with our wallpaper! They are a huge speciality of Hannah’s and I can’t wait for her to bring another batch over.

When we collected the goose earlier in the day we asked whether they had any venison fillet and were delighted when a gigantic piece of dark, tender meat appeared. I decided to make a venison carpaccio starter with a roquette salad dressed with juniper oli, black chocolate and parmesan. Later on in proceedings after a glass or two of champagne I decided it might be a good idea to add a dollop of Mum’s 2004 vintage damson jam to the mix!

Whilst the venison was chilling in the freezer to firm up, I whizzed up loads of juniper berries with black pepper, salt, olive oil and a sprinkling of dried chilli. Mum always holds us back with chilli because it makes Dad sneeze! Having made a very fragrant oil I tried it out on Suz and Mum. Mum said it was too gritty and Suz added some lemon. So I sieved the liquid and held it back for later.

Slicing the venison was a very therepeutic experience. There’s something very soothing about taking a really sharp knife and slicing through super tender flesh. I tried my hardest to slice it as thin as possible and then layered the meat on top of the salad leaves before dressing them with the fragrant oil, parmesan scrapings, dark chocolate shavings and damson jam.

We served the venison with the delicious curry paste bread that Hannah brought with her and popped a few bowls of extra chocolate and parmesan on the table in case people wanted more. I was delighted to see 11 clean plates as well as people helping themselves to extra toppings! It made a great alternative to smoked salmon and was actually quite economical.

A delicious salad Nicoise followed the venison which made for a great alternative to turkey or ham. We were so relieved that it allowed all to breathe a sigh anticipation for the goose and turkey later in the week.

Suz slaved for hours over some delicious cinamon and white chocolate pannacottas. They turned out perfectly and looked fab. Well done little Sis.

What a brilliant Christmas Eve. Great to catch up with Hannaa and the Miles gang.

Check out Hannah’s brilliant blog here.

Shin of Beef Lasagna and Coconut Rice Pudding

The beauty of days off work is that you can indulge your cooking fetishes to your heart’s content. I’ve been keen to make some fresh pasta and a rice pudding for a while so today seemed like a good opportunity to have some fun.

I bought a shin of beef from the local Halal butcher in Balham and agressively browned it in medium sized chunks. Next I cooked a batch of pancetta and then tossed in 5 cloves of garlic to bring their flavour out. All this was lobbed into Stewie, my slow cooker along with a jar of passata and some choppoed tomatoes. In too went a splash of red wine, some pepper, some sweated shallots, a smidgen of mushroom ketchup and a small prayer. I let this tick over for around 12 hours until the shin had transformed from being a tough brute into a silky princess. The soft beef pulled apart and broke down into a rich, deep ragu. Perfect for my lasagna.

Whilst the ragu was slowly spluttering away I had ample time to make my pasta from scratch. I bought some special pasta eggs and tipo 00 flour from the Northcotte Road in order to do it properly. The eggs were bright orange and the pasta was super fine.

Making pasta is easy. Simply use 100gr of flour for every egg. I used two eggs and 200gr of flour which by sheer chance turned out to be exactly the right amount. Kneed the eggs and flour together to make a dough. After a while it will begin to cohere and look like the picture below.

Pop it in the fridge and leave it there until it’s time to roll it out. Use a pasta maker to roll the dough out into thin sheets that fit the dish you’re going to cook the lasagne in.

To make the white sauce simply make a white sauce and add some cheese. You can add some mustard and nutmeg if you want but it doesn’t matter too much. The bechamel is very straight forward. Just don’t burn it or let it get lumpy. Whilst it was finishing off I tossed some spinach in a hot wok and blasted some mushrooms to use in a secret layer!

When filling the dish put the ragu at the bottom then top with a layer of pasta. On top of this I put the wilted spinach and mushrooms which in turn were topped with a layer of pasta. Add more ragu on top of this making sure to push it into all the corners then add another layer of pasta. Then slosh the bechamel sauce on top and grate some parmesan on to finish.

Place in the oven.

Romove.

Enjoy.

We guzzled our lasagne with a light salad with flame grilled red peppers and some roasted tomatoes. It was delicious and worth every ounce of effort and time!

As if a vast helping of gooey lasagna wasn’t enough we tucked into our coconut rice pudding with glee. To make it simply visit the BBC Food site, look at the recipe and bastarise the hell out of it. I used 200gr of pudding wine, 2 tins of coconut milk, a tin of evaporated milk, about a litre of full cream milk, some single cream, a few tea spoons of sugar and some coconut shavings. Pop this in the oven for a few hours at 150 degrees celcius and try not to burn your hands!

Add some milk if it gets too dry – I found I had to top it up quite a few times. And enjoy.

I can’t think of many better ways to enjoy a day at home than to cook for friends.