Down in Battersea town..

This ia bit overdue but a few weekends ago it was a beautiful day and so T and I decided to cycle down to Battersea and have an explore. We made a day of it too as we had tickets to the fabulous Battersea Arts Centre in the evening.
After a lovely cycle along the river from Aldgate East, it's just a hop over the river and even though the river is not the most direct route (probably is the easiest) it only took half an hour, which is about half as long as I was anticipating.
So, after a little basking in the sunshine in battersea park, we had to have lunch and we went to a lovely spot on Battersea Rise called Entrée. Now, it was a while since we went but it was fantastic. T had pork belly (I remember distinctly the food envy) and I had trout for the mains - both were great. The atmosphere is very nice for a late lunch as well and there's a cocktail bar downstairs which must be lively come the evening. The service was also excellent, very attentive. I was leaning to the side so I could see the kitchen past T when the waitress came over asking if we were ok as she thought I was trying to get her attention. I then had to explain that I was just being nosey and looking at the kitchen as everything smelled so delicious. Hey, at least I wasn't lying! Worth a look if you're in the area at any rate.
After a little shopping, a little mooching there was suddenly a need for something and that something was CAKE. We didn't have dessert with lunch after all (as if there's ever a need to justify cake).

I've wanted to go to visit Cake Boy for ages but it is totally out of my way. When I knew we would be going to Battersea though, how could we not go? I became aware of Eric Lanlard about 4 years ago, maybe? When a friend invited me to a wedding cake tasting at the shop where she was working at the time. The cake was absolutely amazing, and since then, Eric has had a tv show on channel 4 and released a book all about his fantastic cake creations, he was at the cafe the day we visited which was nice to see.
Although it is in a slightly unusual location, (it's back by the river away from the main shops in the bottom floor of a new block of flats). It's unusual in the sense that it's out of the way but it is worth the trip, the picture below speaks for itself. When we arrived, a cake class of some description was just finishing up and all the students had the biggest grins and had clearly really enjoyed themselves. I also overheard Eric give career advice to an aspiring baker which was so nice! It's a very chic cafe with something for everyone and the counter literally spills over with treats, both made at the cafe and a few others thrown in. It is a very hard choice I went for a chocolate walnut slice that was just so rich and decadent with amazing decoration including gold sparkles! This coupled with a beautiful cup of tea was perfection.

In the evening, it was off to the beautiful Battersea Arts Centre for a performance of Homer's Odyssey by The Paper Cinema. This will mark the fourth time I've seen them since I first became aware of their work in 2009 as a volunteer for the East London festival. Essentially, the team that is the The Paper Cinema create films out of beautiful ink drawn puppets and projects them live to live music and sound effects. That description doesn't really do it justice at all but the video below gives you more info. They'll be going on tour this year and I urge you to see it. It's just gorgeous, see anything they do for that matter.



What better way to spend a saturday in London than exploring a different area of the city? It's definitely something  I should do more often! What's your favourite way to spend the weekend?

Adaptation Station

Like a lot of people out there, I own quite a lot of recipe books. I like to flick through them and get ideas. I like to just look at the pictures of all the nom, many books are well designed for this exact purpose. One of the most recent additions to my collection has been ‘Jamie’s Great Britain’ the book that accompanies yet another successful TV show for The Naked Chef on channel 4.
More often than not, on flicking through the books I not only pick out the recipes I want to cook over the next week or so but I also use them as inspiration for my own twist on it. This, for me, is what cooking is all about and I’m pretty sure it’s how a lot of people go it. For me, adapting recipes in this way is as much about what ingredients I already have as well as personal preferences. More than that though, it's also a good way to gain confidence with unfamiliar ingredients which will enhance your cooking in the long run especially for those occasions when you do improvise.
I’ve had my eye on a particular recipe from ‘Jaimie’s Great Britain’ (JGB) for a while now and that is the baby Yorkshire puddings with Smoked Trout pâté. Although I missed the episode on tv where this was made, I saw the snippet on the trailer where he ate it and nearly cried with happiness. When any chef ends a recipe with the words “To. Die. For.” you know it’s going to be good!
So how did I adapt it? Admittedly, not significantly! This was for a midweek supper for me and T rather than a starter as is suggested in JGB (it would be a fantabulous starter) but although the change is not that big, I did want to see how this could work as a main meal. Firstly I only had cold smoked haddock, rather than hot smoked trout as stated in the recipe. I can’t say for sure that I’ve had hot smoked trout so I couldn’t really tell you the difference in flavour, but cold smoking leaves your fish or meat raw whereas hot smoking would cook it.
So firstly, we heated the oven so it was really hot for the Yorkshire puds. Make sure your oven is quite clean if you want to do this, or that your kitchen has a window. The oven gets very smokey otherwise, add to that hot, smoking oil and it’s really unpleasant. One task for my weekend? Clean the oven!

To cook the fish fillets (there were two), we melted a little butter in pan and added some milk and heated it through. Then we added a bay leaf and a touch of salt and pepper, added both fillets and simmered very gently for about 5 mins or so. Meanwhile, we prepared the pate mixture and yorkie batter and put some water on to boil for some peas to accompany it. My only issue is that the horseradish pate mix ended up being slightly too acidic. I think this is because I used really hot horseradish which is basically pure, grated horseradish in a jar as well as the juice of half a lemon as stated in the recipe. I didn’t need to add that much lemon with such an acidic horseradish but I wanted it to be a strong flavour, it turned out too strong, and a bit runny! It was still delicious though so a little tinkering here and there and it’ll be great. I was somewhat impatient! When the fish was cooked we removed the skin and flaked it into the horseradish pate mixture and set to one side while the yorkies cooked. Once the water was boiling peas were added and the pate mixture was returned to a very gentle heat to warm it through. This is one of those dishes where it all comes together at the last minute. As soon as the yorkies were ready, they were on the plate along with the peas, stick the pate in a big bowl and dig in. For me having the pate warm and not cold just made it a more warming dish. It was lovely to get the smokey fish, lemon and horseradish flavours just zinging away. We had about four mini yorkies each which was plenty and it’s great to spoon the mixture into them and shove it in your gob, you’ve got to love any chance to eat with your hands. If you’ve got a bigger crowd to feed, I would probably serve up some buttery boiled new potatoes and a spinach salad.
The great thing about this is that there are all sort of versions you could try out and it’s great to see the yorkie being used in such a way. I mean, we all know that yorkies and sausages go together like.. well what better combination? But it’s nice to see the humble yorkie coming into its own with more unusual combinations. T and I were talking about different versions you could do, prawns are up there that would be delicious. Watch this space!