Stephanie Alexander's Moroccan-inspired chicken

About halfway through making this dish I thought I might have another Dalmatian disaster on my hands. Part of me was thinking what a waste of good ingredients, while the other half of me was eagerly imagining the comic potential of another culinary catastrophe. In the end I was left disappointed on both fronts; I was able to save the dish from disaster but not from the dull and the ordinary, the result being that I still felt I had squandered good ingredients on a dish that turned out to be perfectly pleasant, but rather plain and where is the comic value in that?

So why, you may ask, am I sharing it with you? Faith. And a lack of it. 

Faith: This is the first time I have ever been disappointed with a recipe from Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion. It seems so unlikely that a recipe with so many sumptuous spices could fall flat. Caroline Dewe of the Mostly Undaunted Cook certainly rates it (“Love this dish”) calling her post ‘Thank you Stephanie: Morrocan inspired chicken’.

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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Roast breast of lamb with fennel salt

Updated on Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 10:00PM by Vix

A colleague sent me an email last week asking whether I had any ideas for what he should feed his five flatmates on Friday night. My advice must sit within the following parameters: it had to be good and nothing “too crazily adventurous, just something I might be able to cook given my mediocre skills in the kitchen”. Well, where should I start? Are we talking one course or three? Animal or vegetable? Cold or hot? The possibilities are endless.

I wrote back to that effect and was given a few further pointers: meat yes, fish no, veg yes, mains only, and “wintery is cool though not anything too wintery like stew” (there goes that idea). This was slightly more helpful, though it still leaves the food enthusiast with far too many options than is sensible, particularly if you are not too bothered about the answer (I never did get a response).

Since he had not specified a type of meat (and as it gave me an excuse to deviate longer from the rather boring task I was undertaking at the time) I suggested a chicken, a lamb and a beef option, one of which was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Roast breast of lamb with fennel salt. 

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My new toy

The more avid of my readership (all eight of you) may have noticed that I have been a little slack on the posting of late. This is partly down to a temporary bout of sloth, but more to do with the fact that I have been spending much of my free time researching DSLR cameras, lenses and lighting. I have really enjoyed blogging over the last 3 months – I have no plans to stop anytime soon – so I thought it was time to take the blog to the next level, and the most obvious thing that I need (apart from a lot more content) is better photos.

After about a month of looking into the options, I have finally purchased a Canon EOS 50D. It gets great reviews on the key digital photography sites and many food bloggers whose photos I admire (and drool over) use cameras from the Canon EOS series. Also recommended by other food bloggers is the Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM lens. I was tempted to go with the cheaper option which many suggest as a substitute, but in the end I read too many quotes like this: “OK, listen up.  The most important component of your camera is the lens.  If there is a place to spend the money, it's on the glass” to buy the cheapest lens on the market.

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Amazing cake, how sweet and round...

Deborah Mele's Rustic apple cake with rosemary syrup

‘That cake was absolutely f**king …’

‘Amazing?’

‘Yeah’  

I made this cake a few nights ago and it was by all accounts ‘amazing’. Normally, when the boyfriend is around I am only allowed to take in enough cake to share with my team, but as he was away on business I was able to take the whole thing to work. I should do so more often; my colleagues are certainly more vocal in their gratitude and, hey, even if I am buying the attention, it is nice to bask in the glory of an amazing cake for a few hours. 

Luisa Weiss, of The Wednesday Chef put me onto the idea of using rosemary in baking, when she blogged about her new discovery in Kim Boyce’s cookbook:

I did not think I would ever be a fan of rosemary in cake. I like it on my potatoes just fine, but in my desserts? Nah, no thanks.

Silly me ... I don't know how she figured this out, but the fruity olive oil, the dark funk of the chocolate and the herbal, aggressive rosemary combine in the heat of the oven to produce the most astonishing thing: a simple tea cake that tastes complex and deep and delicious, with a flavor that is very, very difficult to put your figure on. It tastes so bewitchingly good, you will find yourself thinking about the cake the day after you make it, and the day after that as well, trying to find excuses to bake another round of it.

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Chanterelles a blanc, inspired by Child, Bertolle and Beck (and the mushrooms themselves)

This is another of the recipes I made in France. When I saw these glorious golden chanterelles on the market in L’Isle sur la Sorgue, I had no idea what I would do with them, but they just looked too delicious to pass by. I had brought my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking to France (paperback!), as I thought it would be fun to cook something from it while I was there and so I looked to Child, Bertolle and Beck for inspiration.

When I packed the book, I was thinking along the lines of something a little more challenging, like a soufflé or quenelles, but the chanterelles needed very little doing to them, they called for something simple, yet elegant and I thought the light and delicate flavouring in the champignons a blanc would provide just that.

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