One of my favourite parts of cookbooks are the seemingly hidden recipes they often contain. Recipes snug into sidebars or at
read more Honey Saffron Custard, Rosé-Poached Apricots, Toasted Pine Nut Meringues
I did not have any particular reason to make these tartlets other than the fact that this past weekend was a bank holiday weekend and after a few busy weeks at work and weekends away I suddenly found myself not only with 1kg of rhubarb that needed taking care of but also with ample time on my hands. Time clearly best spent making pate sucree, poaching rhubarb, stirring pastry cream and whipping meringue (the laundry always takes care of itself, doesn’t it?). Also, there is hardly anything better than starting your Sunday with a large cup of coffee and a pastry. I don’t follow many rules when it comes to the recipes I share here. But one of my rules is that the recipes should have at least a hint of some inherent logic. So rhubarb is paired with buckwheat, as, botanically speaking, the two form part of the same family (together with sorrel and knotweed). In turn, buckwheat is
read more Rhubarb Tartlets with Sake Poached Rhubarb, Miso Pastry Cream and Buckwheat Meringue
I don’t normally pay much attention to the search terms people use to stumble upon my blog. Most are pretty self-explanatory. But a few weeks ago, I started noticing that more and more people found their way into this space looking for ‘chickpea meringue’. Colour me intrigued. At the same time, and purely by coincidence, I came across pictures of chickpea water foam on instagram. Soon enough, I also became one of those typing ‘chickpea meringue’ into google, curious to see what results would come back. As it turns out, the water left over from cooking chickpea and other legumes like beans or lentils, usually a slimy and slightly opaque affair, something I have been pouring down the drain for years without giving it much thought, can be whipped into a foam firm enough to rival beaten egg whites. Moreover, unlike flax seed meringue (which, although a wonderful alternative to eggs for certain applications, does not like heat much), chickpea foam
Dacquoise. A French cake traditionally made from three disks of nut-studded meringue, filled and frosted with a coffee custard mousse and decorated with chocolate ganache, clusters of caramelised hazelnuts and crushed hazelnut praline. I had been meaning to bake a dacquoise for a while but kept on putting it off because it sounded like a lot of faff. But a combination of seeing how manageable it actually is thanks to the Great British Bake-Off and just wanting to finally give it a go had me start this on a Tuesday night the other week, assembling the various components on Wednesday night, just in time to have a dessert to follow homemade pumpkin ravioli (another one of those recipes I had put off too long until I was desperate for pumpkin recipes to use up a monster of a pumpkin in my fridge). Someone’s tweet about breakfast (Coffee! Toast!) is what ultimately decided I was going to use breadcrumbs instead of
I am a walker, like my mother. We walk places, whether at home or abroad. We like to watch people
REAL SIMPLE FOOD 