Goats Cheese & Rocket Bread, Mini Yorkshire Puddings and Autumn Rolls

I get the sneaky feeling that summer is over. When you wake in the morning to find the room even darker than before you went to bed, you do tend to think that it couldn't possibly be morning, until you realise that cold, harsh, dark reality is staring you in the eye and it's time to kick off the 6 duvets and venture out into the wind, the rain and the cold. You can hear the wolves in the distance. You venture out into the cold armed and ready for the armies of the undead that await you. Zombies dragging themselves to zombie banks, Ghosts quietly floating out of ghost estates. You turn on the radio and all you can here is Jedward. You flick through your Ipod only to find all you music erased and Jedward the only option, playing on an continuous loop.

How did things end up like this? When was the last time you saw daylight? When is the last time you had human contact. You cough into a tissue and notice blood. It's beginning. It's happening to you. You are infected. Your only option now is to take a video camera and run into the woods.

You run. And you keep running. Filming all the time. Shouting out random names - people you know, maybe people you knew, maybe people you thought you knew.

You notice a wall ahead, you approach cautiously. There is something written on it but you can't quite make it out. You get a bit closer only to see written in large letters written with blood: 'I KNOW WHAT YOU DID FOR TAPAS LAST NIGHT!!!!!!'

Potato, Goats Cheese & Rocket Bread

Ingredients: 1 x goat and someone that can milk it and also make cheese. Alternatively about 150g of nice goats cheese should do. I used Ryefield; 4 x spring onions, thinly sliced; bunch of rocket mister!, chopped; 175g self raising flour, 1 x potato, peeled and grated; pinch of cayenne pepper; lots of black pepper, pinch (ouch!) of salt; T of mustard; one beaten egg, no witnesses; splash of milk

Sift the flour, pepper and salt into a bowl. Grate the potato into the mix and mix. Lots of mixing. Don't get mixed up. Add the rocket and spring onions, mix well (more mixing!) using the back of a knife. Beat the egg, milk and mustard together - and add to the (DEEP BREATH) mix and continue to - (HOLY MOSES!!) mix (I CAN'T STOP IT) well with the knife. Give it a good season of black pepper and (ah for gods sake!?!) mix. Add most of the goats cheese to the cursing MIX - AAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!. Turn out onto a floured tray when it formes a rough dough. Press the rest of the cheese into the mix (NOOOOO THERE MUST BE ANOTHER WORD!!!!!!), give a dust of flour and bake for 40-50 mins at 180c. Simple.

Steak With Mini Yorkshire Puddings and Pea & Wasabi Purree
(from the Ballymaloe Cookbook)

Ingredients: bunch of frozen peas; some wasabi; a dollop of creme fraiche; 55g plain flour; 1 egg, 150ml milk; 5g butter

Preheat the over to 230c. Sift the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Drop in the egg and beat or whisk drawing in more flour from the edges while steadily pouring in the milk. If you are and Octopus this is easy. Once you have mixed in all the flour and milk add the cooled melted butter and allow to rest for an hour or so.

Season your meat well and cook in a hot pan with some oil for a couple of mins each side for medium rare. Remove and rest. Don't be a donkey like myself and overcook the meat a little as you can see from the photos!

Heat your muffin type tray in the oven. Once hot, grease with a little oil and fill each half way with the batter. Pop back into the oven for 15mins or until crispy brown.

Vietnamese Autumn Rolls

Ingredients:
Rice paper squares; 1 carrot, thinly sliced; 1 courgette, thinly sliced; handful of oyster mushrooms, chopped; handful of bean sprouts; bunch of fresh, chopped coriander; some rapeseed oil for frying
For the dip:
juice of 1 lemon; 2 tbsp fish sauce; 1-2 tbsp sugar; 1 clove garlic, finely chopped; opt. 1 hot chilli finely chopped

Have a bowl of hot water handy. Dip each sheet of rice paper in to it to soften. Lay on your work top and fill with a little of each of the veggies and herbs. Roll tightly. Repeat until all the filling is used. Heat the oil in a pan and fry, turning until they are coloured each side.

For the sauce, just mix all the ingredients together.

In the glass
Basiano, Tempranillo, 2009, 23.5%

On the stereo
Pantha Du Prince; Basement Jaxx

Nachos, Sesame Chicken Wings, Prawns On Toast

Another week and another post - well apart from the fact that we didn't post last week, but who's counting? We are actually. We have also been struggling a little with time lately and as the Salty Squid ethos is something along the lines of only doing something that you love and enjoy, well we tend not to do a post if it's not going to be given 100% love and attention. But we will be trying so much harder not to miss any more postings!

Please bear in mind that the Salty Squid ethos is free to change repeatedly to suit us and be used as an excuse for whatever we need an excuse for. But lets not get bogged down in all this legal This is a food blog, by food eaters, about eating food so let's get to business.

Nachos With ....

Ingredients: Corn or flour tortilla; an avocado, good cheddar, creme fraiche, chilli - lots of chilli, beans or mince - I used chickpeas!; onion, garlic, paprika, fresh tomatoes, coriander

There is something very comforting about nachos. Surprising really considering that what we have here is heart-stopping amounts of melted cheese on posh crisps - with some salsa, guacamole, chilli straight from the mine and bucket-fulls of creme fraiche. Yep a real surprise.

Make the tomato and coriander salsa by chopping your fresh tomatoes, coriander, crushing a clove of garlic and giving it all a good mix and an even better seasoning. Refrigerate overnight if possible or until needed. This gives the flavours a chance to mingle. But I have bored a tiny hole in our fridge and spent many a night spying on such salsas and have never seen them mingle. A little bit of small talk but honestly, there is just awkward silences.

Cut your tortillas into triangles and fry until golden and crispy, sprinkle with salt and paprika and set aside. Repeat until all the tortilla has been fried.

For the guacamole, crush your avocado, and mix it with red onion and lime juice and a tiny blob of creme fraiche. Season.

To assemble, plate some tortillas first with a healthy topping of grated cheddar and pop into the oven to melt the cheese, Remove, add another layer of nachos, followed by more cheese, guacamole, salsa and creme fraiche. Sprinkle with sliced fresh chillies.





Darina's Sesame & Ginger Chicken Wings

Ingredients: 400-500g chicken wings
For the marinade: 30 ml soy sauce; 30 ml red wine ; 30 ml honey; 2 tsp (or as much as you can take) freshly grated ginger; 30g untoasted sesame seeds

Clean the chicken wings and separate joints if not already done. Mix all ingredients for the marinade together in a saucepan and bring to boil for 2-3 minutes. Allow to cool down and then combine with the chicken wings. Set aside for at least couple of hours, or overnight if you're better prepared than me.

Take the chicken wings out of the fridge and bring them to room temperature. Pre-heat the oven to 180c and bake the chicken wings for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown and sticky.

This recipe was robbed from the Ballymalloe Cookbook.






Prawns On Toast

Ingredients: Prawns, fresh or frozen; garlic; chilli, lemon juice

Clean the prawns if using fresh ones. A nice shower will do or a bath if time allows. Prawns do like a nice bubble bath - but be careful as they do tend to fart and giggle and try blame it on the bubbles. Don't believe them.

Heat some oil in a pan and add the prawns, garlic and chilli. Cook for a couple of mins until the prawns are done. Add a generous helping of parsley and serve on some toasted sourdough






In the glass
Chateau Cotes Du Gros Caillou, Saint Emilion, 2008

On the stereo
The Cure, David Bowie, retro baby