Fastest cake in the world

I felt a bit domestic goddess-like this morning - up and about very early and in the mood to fuss aeound in the kitchen. I was also starving by about 10am so I decided to rustle up some scones, one of the easiest cakes to make.

To start I rubbed 60g of slightly salted butter into 220g of self-raising flour. This is the messy bit where you need to take all the rings off your fingers and end up with something resembling breadcrumbs. Next mix in 50g of golden caster sugar and a handful (your hands or mine? Who cares?!) of sultanas. Then use a wooden spoon to mix in 150ml of semi-skimmed milk until it makes a soft but held-together dough. If it's too gooey to lift out of the bowl in one piece, add a sprinkling of flour.

Knead it very lightly for hardly any time at all on a floury surface, then roll it out to a thickness of about 2cm. I prefer square, rustic-looking scones so I used a bread knife to cut it into 8 pieces. I baked them on a non-stick tray for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

Of course, the real reason for making them is the joy of butter or spread sinking slowly into hot, crusty scones. And to use up the last of the Fortnum and Mason luxury cherry jam from Christmas!

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Not just snacks

It's tapas time again. Well, it was for me on Saturday. A friend and I cooked up a storm using recipes from The Book of Tapas.

This meaty tome, by family act Simone and Ines Ortega, is a bit of a tapas bible. It cuts straight into business-like and easy to follow recipes for everything under the lovely Spanish sun.

We made patatas bravas, potato salad with tuna, crab and tomato bites, asparagus and ham toasts, spicy chicken brochettes and some delicious stuffed potato skins. All within an hour and a half while avoiding an 18-month-old baby playing with cars underfoot!

It's a pretty expensive book and perhaps not as visually appealing as some cookbooks, but well worth it. If you like tapas. Which I do.

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My favourite restaurants

We don't have much spare time where I work. But everyone needs a bit of down-tools, water-cooler time on a Friday afternoon. In ours just lately we've been talking trivia and making lists - top ten films, books, etc. A colleague suggested we listed our top ten restaurants, and some eyes glazed over slightly. Not mine, of course - that's a list right up my strada (as Gregg Wallace would say).

So here it is - my favourite ten restaurants. Not the greatest, highest-ranking restaurants or any kind of a recommendation - just places where I've had a great experience. And ones where I remember specifically what I ate.

1. Cocoon (near Piccadilly, London) - pretty tables, the best beef in town, great dim sum and an amazing sake list. The sommelier, Honami, is wonderful.

2. La Sacristia (Tarifa, Spain) - attractive, good service and interesting food with a Japanese influence.

3. Texture (Portman St, London) - too cool for school Scandinavian style place with the most exciting ice cream I've ever been served, and bacon-flavoured popcorn.

4. 21212 (Royal Terrace, Edinburgh) - a cutesy, cosy, Michelin-starred place that serves imaginative and complicated five-course meals.

5. Lemon Tree (Bishops Stortford, Herts) - comfy and reliable restaurant with great puddings and locally-sourced ingredients.

6. Cinnamon Club (Westminster, London) - refined Indian dining in a beautiful old building with delicious cocktails and a constant buzz.

7. Busaba Eathai (several branches in London) - essentially a chain, but I love their decor, welcoming incense smell, fresh food and tempting soft drinks.

8. Rhodes 24 (Tower 42, London) - fantastic location and comfortingly simple food from good old Gary.

9. Delicatessen (Tarifa, Spain) - a lovely outdoor restaurant with great salmorejo, ham, cakes and cava.

10. Marine Ices (Camden, London) - strangely genteel amid the piercing parlours, this Italian place has an impressive history, huge range of pasta dishes and fantastic ice cream.

Special mentions to the Albannach and The Chancery in London, the Village Inn and The Dogs in Scotland and Ma Salle a Manger and Les Fous de l'Ile in Paris.

Sadly, three restaurants that'd be right at the top of my list have closed down. RIP St Alban (Piccadilly, London), Brian Turner's place in the Millenium Hotel, London and 1893 (in Stansted). You're missed.

New year, new pie

So, it's a new year and we've all survived the Christmas come-down again. We're a few pounds heavier, a few pounds poorer. And what have we learnt?

Well, I've learnt that chestnuts are delicious and that a jar of them at Christmas will leave me with a few left over in January. Cue frantic hunting through my recipe books and files for interesting ways to use them up. And just look what I found (erm, and adapted)! Yes siree - it's pie-shaped.

The pie-ness of it is actually beside the point. What I made to begin was a rich and creamy mushroom and chestnut sauce/filling. Chop a few shallots and fry them in a large pan until they're going a bit transparent. Add a good slosh of brandy and let it reduce a little before adding plenty of chopped mushrooms. Any kind will do - I used half chestnut mushrooms and half shiitake. Add the chestnuts themselves to the pan, broken into pieces. Finally add a little double cream to bind the whole thing into a creamy whole. You'll probably need a decent old grind of black pepper in there too.

With this base the world's your lobster. I piled it into an ovenproof dish and topped with readymade puff pastry*. Bake it for 20 minutes and eat it with steamed broccoli, sugar snap peas or asparagus (or all three). I think filo pastry may work instead, if you prefer it.

If pies aren't your bag, baby, stir it through some penne pasta. Or serve it with grilled polenta. Or heap it on topp of jacket potatoes. Like I say - world, lobster. It's fereezable for a couple of months, too. And if I screw up my eyes and go 'la la la' I can probably ignore the calories in the cream, too!

*Twee pastry decorations, as depicted, are optional.

Spanish food for Christmas

Christmas time, ho ho ho. I'm quite traditional about the whole yuletide thing, particularly when it comes to food. Each year I fend off suggestions of a goose, chicken, pheasant or duck for Christmas dinner because turkey's just what you must have. Similarly, satsumas, sprouts, chocolates and cheese are the order of the day (not necessarily together, but certainly in rapid succession).

This year, however, we decided to create our own hamper for Christmas full of indulgent things we love. And for me that means breaking slightly from tradition. The things I love includes Spanish ham, olives, marcona almonds and cava.

So, this afternoon I went to Brindisa in Borough Market to stock up on luxury Spanish food for Christmas. I've never been there before - clearly a serious oversight! It's the best shop in the world, bar none. I mean, I love Fortnum and Mason, particularly at Christmas, but they don't feed you samples of ham, cake and olives the second you walk through the door!

Brindisa smells like a delicatessen in Spain and every surface is heaving with bottles of olive oil, pulses or nuts. There's an obliging young man expertly carving a leg of delicious ham on one side, a young girl handing out cake on the other and a stack of chillies in the middle. My eyes were on stalks the second I arrived. I bought some of the delicious ham, carved for me and lovingly wrapped. I also bought melt-in-the-mouth olives, almond cake and some plan marcona almonds. Simple food, not messed-with or fussed-over.

So, this year we'll have a little slice of Spain in with our ever-so-English Christmas fayre. Feliz navidad.

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Floret. The best a man can get.

I've been awfully busy lately and busy often means little time to cook or eat out. I haven't had many particularly noteworthy food experiences for a while.

This evening, though, I stumbled upon an unexpectedly delicious find. A recipe in Waitrose Food magazine caught my eye and I did my usual adaptation jobbie.

I love cauliflower, so I'm always tempted by cauliflower cheese. But this had the added bonuses of broccoli and bacon lardons too.

So, steam some broccoli and cauliflower florets (fairly small ones) for 3 or 4 minuted - or longer if you prefer vegetables a little bit mushy, like I do. In the meantime fry bacon lardons for a few minutes until they start to brown. Drain the vegetables and put them in a big ovenproof dish with the lardons and plenty of black pepper. Pour over some cheese sauce (you could make the sauce, but it isn't really a particularly rewarding thing to make and shop-bought ones are pretty good). Top it all with some breadcrumbs mixed with loads of parmesan shavings. I sprinkled even more parmesan on top as well, because I was in a cheesy mood. And that's it - stick it in the oven for 15 minutes.

I ate it with a roasted chicken breast, but I bet it goes well with loads of things. Ok, I know it isn't haute cuisine but it was completely delicious - try it!

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Snap happy

By the way, you've probably noticed that I've started adding photos. My new fancy phone makes life a lot easier: when I take a photo it asks if I want to blog it! Simples.

If you hadn't noticed, do keep up, please!

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