Breakfast Baguette

I made a nice breakfast baguette the other day. Very simple and can be done with various ingredients. For this one all I used was bacon, mushrooms and some cooked chicken breast. Now I don't normally fry my bacon but for this I found it was better because once the bacon was done I added the mushrooms to the same oil that the bacon was cooked in, thus giving the mushrooms a nice flavour and no need for extra seasoning. Finally the chicken was added and just heated through. I had a 12" baguette which I sliced length ways and buttered. I added the bacon first then scattered the chicken and mushrooms over the top. I drizzled some of the oil that was left in the frying pan too, just to add a bit more flavour. Simple as that, all done in 10 minutes.

I unfortunately wasn't rocking out while cooking this as I was trying to fend off my hangover!

Just To Prove...

Lee Cooks
Originally uploaded by mooosh.

Just to prove it, here I am cooking and rocking! Me and my Anthrax apron rocking out making samosa's!

Restaurant Review - Ichiban Glasgow

Claire, Jo and I decided to go for something to eat in Ichiban in Dumbarton Road, Glasgow. Being fans of all things Japanese, this was Claire and Jo's wet dream, whereas I am just a big fan of all things food!

We arrived and were given a table towards the rear. The thing I don't like about this place is that you sit at benches and you can be sat next to others, so you don't get the privacy I would rather have when I eat. Once Claire and Jo had stopped talking and decided what to eat our order was taken at the third time of asking!

After we had placed our order another couple had sat down next to us. About 15 minutes later they were tucking into their food. We were still waiting. Then 5 minutes later the waitress comes up and says they have lost our order so we have to order again.

Fair do's the order came pretty quickly after that mix up, but still I'd rather not have to wait that long to get my food. Claire and I had starters. Claire had the gyu-niku maki which is grilled sirloin steak rolls filled with mushroom in sake wine and onion and soy sauce. I had the salmon teriyaki which was a char grilled salmon steak in teriyaki sauce. We were very impressed with both and the sauce on Claire's was beautiful.

For the main course Claire had gyu-don which was grilled sirloin steak and onion, served with boiled white rice, Jo had the katsu bento which was king prawn, chicken breast and scallop, deep fried in Japanese breadcrumbs, while I had Ichiban yakiudon which was noodles served with onion, green pepper, carrots, bean sprouts, spring onion, king prawn, chicken, squid, crab stick, naruto, and shitake mushroom.

We were again all impressed with the main course. It was all cooked well and couldn't be faulted. From a personal point of view I like my fish, but seafood can be a bit hit and miss. But this was nice and well cooked. It might seem like it was a load of things all put in one dish, but it wasn't a car crash of flavours.

Like I said earlier I like my privacy when eating but because we were sat next to somebody else, one of them kept trying to make conversation. Also the length of time it took for our food, nobody loses an order! These 2 things let the evening down a bit. Don't though let that detract from the quality of food, because it was very good.

Something To Try With Roasting Meat

Something I have tried a couple of times, but alas I don't have pictures! I tried this with lamb first of all and something similar with beef the other day.

With the lamb, when I was preparing it, I sliced up some garlic, and had some fresh sprigs of rosemary. Using a sharp knife put random cuts into the skin. In these cuts put in your garlic slices and your rosemary sprigs, and that's it simple as that. Put into a pre-heated oven and roast until cooked. The garlic and the rosemary flavour the meat so well, rosemary especially goes well with lamb.

I did a similar thing with beef the other day. I just used garlic this time and did the same as with the lamb. It was then drizzled in olive oil and put in the oven for an hour and a half before it was removed, covered and left to rest for 20 minutes. I find Beef a bit tough sometimes but the garlic flavoured it and helped it stay nice and juicy.

Give it a go, hopefully you'll like it too

Chicken Pasta

Mmm, chicken
Originally uploaded by mooosh.

A little experiment with this, and not complicated in the slightest. I was driving home from work the other day and was thinking what to cook for tea as there wasn't much there. I fancied trying something with some mushrooms that were there and something creamy (probably inspired by my visit to No16 restaurant). I bought a pot of cream on my way home and came up with this. All I did was brown the chicken in a wok then add my vegetables. I used mushrooms, red and yellow pepper, garlic, and spring onions. once these were looking cooked I added a pot of single cream. When you simmer this gently, the cream starts to thicken and thegarlic and mushroom flavours infuse with it. I also added chickpeas and sweetcorn towards the end just as another flavour.

This meal literally took 15 minutes to cook. I added cooked pasta to it when it was done and mixed it all together. I must say it turned out to be very nice and Claire was mightily impressed too!

And Now For Something Different

Since I've started my new job I haven't had as much time to create new dishes, so to remind you that I'm still here, I will be doing some restaurant reviews too.

My first review is for Number 16 in Byres Road Glasgow. Claire and I visited here last Monday for our friend Rebecca's birthday. Where will you find it? Byres Road, number 16 surprisingly! It's not the biggest of restaurants, with probably enough room for about 20 downstairs and maybe the same upstairs (I never went up so I'm only guessing) so probably you would be best phoning in advance. The welcoming to the place was warm and polite and water was readily available and poured out for you. I was driving so I'm not sure what the wine list was like, although Claire had a glass of the house red which was apparently nice.

The food menu itself is not the biggest, but don't let that fool you, remember its quality not quantity! There was probably a choice of about 8 starters and main courses, and it was aimed more at fish lovers with all bar 2 of the main courses fish.

To start I had the salmon and Claire lamb with harissa and parsnip mash. The salmon was served on top of baby potatoes and had mushroom sauce drizzled around it and a couple of mushrooms. To be honest the starters sounded like a meal in themselves, but they did not fill you up so you were ready for your main course. The presentation of the food was very impressive. I'm not really one for over doing presentation when it comes to food, but this was impressively served.

For the main course Claire, not liking fish in the slightest, had venison, whilst I had the roasted belly pork. The venison came with a cabbage, bacon and oatmeal mixture (can't remember what it was called) and pink peppercorn sauce. The pork came with pakchoi and a mixed greens, mashed sweet potato and gravy. Again it was all very well presented on the plate, although with me enjoying food as much as I do I thought that maybe there wasn't as much as I'd like on my plate. But like I said before, quality not quantity. There was certainly enough plus they put a bowl of sliced carrots and a bowl of sliced potato in a creamy sauce on our table for us to help ourselves.

After all this lovely food I managed to fit in room for desert (of course!) which Claire and I shared. It was a chocolate tart served with raspberry sauce and cream. As you can guess this was nice!

Overall I would highly recommend this restaurant. The decor was pleasant with like old fashioned stone walls and driftwood hung on the walls and the lighting was not too light or too dark. The staff were polite and friendly, especially when one of them found out it was Rebecca's birthday and put a candle on her dessert and sang Happy Birthday! Also the bill at £168 between 7 people still works out at £24 each, which, for the West End is good.

Number 16
16 Byres Road
Glasgow
G11 5JY
Tel: 0141 339 2544
www.number16.co.uk

Sponge Cake

Claire has been feeling poorly the last couple of days so I baked a cake to cheer her up! I used a basic sponge cake recipe for this so all you need is 175g of self raising flour, 175g of caster sugar, 175g of softened butter, 3 large eggs and a teaspoon of baking powder. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl then add all the other ingredients and mix together. Pour mixture into cake tins and put into pre-heated oven of 170 degrees centigrade until golden brown and springy on top. Remove from oven and leave to cool. It's entirely up to you what filling you want, or whether you want to put icing on it. I chose to fill mine with jam and butter cream. I did the butter cream whilst it was cooling. Pretty simple to do this: 175g of icing sugar, 75g of butter and a couple of drops of milk. Mix all together and Bob's your mother's brother! The butter cream was spread on one half of the cake and the jam spread on the other side. It was then sandwiched together and dusted with icing sugar.

I was rocking out to Lamb Of God while making this... wooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrhhhh indeed!

Pork N' Egg Fried Rice

This was a Chinese influenced dish I made yesterday coincidentally on Chinese new year! Pretty easy do do, toss some pork into the wok to seal. Whilst this is browning, in a bowl chuck in a few spring onions, a tablespoon of chili sauce, a tablespoon of minced garlic, 5 tablespoons of soy sauce and 3 tablespoons of hot water and mix this altogether. Chuck in in with the pork and turn the heat up. Whilst this is cooking, make some rice. Once the rice is cooked, chuck it on with the pork and sauce and mix together. You might want to add more soy sauce at this point. Finally add an egg and keep stirring until the egg is cooked. Serve with some prawn crackers as I have done! You can change the amount of ingredients in the sauce dependant on taste, Claire found it a bit spicy but it was OK for me. But It wasn't an over powering spicy taste that blows your head off!

Some Tips

Just some tips I would like to pass on. Buy fresh. I'm as guilty as most by buying ingredients from the supermarket as, yes, it is convenient. But I've found that buying fresh from farmer's markets or fruit and veg shops or butchers makes such a difference to your enjoyment of food.

I find that fruit and veg shops and butchers and the like are more sparsely spread around due to the fact that supermarkets are so dominant these days. But if you can buy fresh as the quality of ingredients is far superior to that of supermarkets.

Fruit and veg shops I find are much cheaper than supermarkets and you also get more for your money. Butchers tend to be slightly more expensive but the quality of meat is much better, although I find lamb to be much cheaper than supermarkets. Another source of quality ingredients is farmers markets. I go to one in Partick which is on every second Saturday and at these you can get all sorts of home grown produce, fresh meats and lovely big eggs. You can also get some of the more unusual foods as well. Such as ostrich meat!

As I said I'm as guilty as most for shopping at the supermarket, purely because it is convenient, but when I have time I go to proper butchers and fruit and veg shops. Try it and see :)

Breakfast Pockets

Inspired by a suggestion from Caire, this makes a nice breakfast of lunchtime snack. In one pan scramble some eggs, in another fry off some onions, pepper and chopped cherry tomatos. Season both and mix together. I had these pitta pockets in the bread bin, but you could use normal pittas or tortillas. Stick the pittas in the toaster then stuff with the scrambled egg mixture. Easy as that! 10 mins for an enjoyable snack. Again you can experiment with adding things like mushrooms or chopped bacon.

Wilst making this I was listening to Lamb Of God! Rock!

Chicken N' Chickpeas

This is something I rustled up for Claire the day before Valentines day because I couldn't cook on Valentines day because I was working. Inspired by both Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson it turned out to be a success! All I did was mix up a basil butter using chopped fresh basil and butter (obviously!) and spread it in the middle of the chicken breasts. I then wrapped the chicken in bacon and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for half an hour. Below the chicken is a chickpea mixture. I started off by frying off some crushed garlic, then added 1 finely chopped red chili, and a finely chopped onion. Next I added the chickpeas and some of the chickpea water from the tin. When this was almost cooked it was seasoned with some herby salt from Lakeland and some of the juices from the chicken and cooked for another 2 mins. I did a corn cob to go with it just as something extra. As you can see the chickpea mixture was dished up in the centre of the plate with the chicken on top.

You can try and vary this in other ways. Try experimenting with herbs, tarragon goes well with chicken and you could use this instead of basil. You could add peppers to the chickpeas as well, basically let your mind run wild and experiment!

Pork Korma

This is a pork curry I made from a recipe in the Ashoka Cookbook. You can get the book here and the recipe is on page 62. The recipe is for chicken curry but I fancied pork as a change, something that is not often used in Indian cooking.

Spiced Onions

Spiced onions, mmmmm... so simple to do too. Nice with poppadums (bought from the shop, I can't make them yet!) or with a barbecue as a side. All you need is onions, chilli powder, tomato ketchup and mint sauce. Basically just chop the onions then add the rest to taste. Nothing fancy, just as simple as that. You could also add mango chutney too.

Lamb Samosa

I've impressed many people with my lamb samosa's. This one has been made with puff pastry although I've done if with filo pastry too. You will need:

1 tbsp oil

1 garlic clove

175g minced lamb

4 spring onions

2 tsp curry paste

1 potato diced

2tsp apricot chutney

2tbsp frozen peas

lemon juice

chopped coriander

Straight forward to do this, heat the oil in a pan then add the garlic and mince. Cook for 5 mins then add the spring onions, curry paste and potato's and cook for 2 mins. Add the chutney, frozen peas and a couple of tablespoons of water then cover and simmer for 10 mins. Stir in a dash of lemon juice, coriander and season. remove from heat and leave to cool. Roll out the pastry and cut into squares. Place the cooked ingredients into the middle and fold over to make a triangle. Brush with beaten egg and if you want (as I have here) sprinkle with cumin seeds. Place on a baking sheet and cook in oven for 20 mins. Perhaps I should have said at the start, preheat oven to 220 degrees centigrade! Once done, sit back and sample your handy work. If it tastes good eat them all yourself, if not, give it to your neighbours as a present.

In The Beginning...

... there was little old me who very rarely cooked apart from a fry-up on Saturday evenings and some Asda noodles now and again. Then things started to change, I moved in with my then girlfriend (now she's my beautiful wife :)) and I started to get more adventurous... in the kitchen! So on a diet of cookery shows on TV and then some cookery books, cooking became very interesting.

This blog is aimed to show what can be done both quickly, and if you've got some time. Also I hope it shows what can be done without being any sort of expert.

Some of the dishes will have been taken from recipe books so recipes will not be listed in case of some sort of copyright infringement, but I will tell you which cookery books the recipes are taken from in case you want to get them. The other dishes will be of my own creation or been inspired by recipes and where I can I will list the ingredients etc.

My influences? Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, Ainsley Harriot, Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa), Antony Worrall Thompson, Two Fat Ladies, I could go on but that's the main ones I think. Links for their websites will appear for all the inspirational cooks.

And the title of this blog? I'm an engineer, the complete opposite of a cook! And I ROCK! I'll probably list the songs I listen to whilst cooking each dish :) As I write this I'm listening to Dire Straits Sultans of Swing! (Not quite as rock as I normally am!)

Look out for my first post shortly