Coffee and Walnut Cake

Mmmm....cake.

The basic formula here can be used for any sponge cake. I love coffee cake and we had some espresso left over from breakfast and a spare 45 minutes so I thought why not?

I added some walnuts and sultanas that I found in the cupboard (I thought afterwards the sultanas might have been better soaked in rum or brandy but as I had neither of those anyway...nevermind). We only had one egg so this was going to be a small cake.

Ingredients:
1 egg
self-raising flour
butter
sugar
icing sugar
fresh(ish) made coffee or freeze dried granules
a handful of sultanas (soaked overnight in alcohol of choice)
a handful of walnuts

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Turn it to non-fan if you have a fan oven and the option, but it's not essential.

Weigh the egg then weigh out the same in flour, butter and sugar. Add to a mixing bowl and whisk. I did it by hand but you can used a blender, you just need to make sure you get enough air in.

If you are using coffee granules; put two spoons in a mug and add a little water (75ml max) or add one shot of espresso coffee. Whisk more.

Add the sultanas and half the walnuts and mix in by hand.

Grease a cake tin and add the mixture. Put in the oven and leave to cook until the cake has risen fully and the top is a little bit crispy, should be about 30 minutes. You can check if the cake is cooked properly by inserting a knife into the middle - if it comes out clean the cake is cooked.

In the meantime, make the icing.

Sift some icing sugar into a bowl, estimate how much you need, you can always make more if you don't have enough. Add some more coffee a little at a time and blend until the all the icing sugar is dissolved and you have a nice thick consistency.

Take the cake out of the oven, press out of the dish and leave to cool. Spread the icing evenly over the cake and sprinkle some more walnuts on top.

Sorry, no picture with this one, we ate it too quickly!

Lime & Coconut Chicken Marinade

This one was a bit of an experiment but nonetheless quite tasty. I know they use coconut in lots of Indian and Thai spicy dishes with chicken so what could go wrong? I had some leftover creamed coconut from the moqueca made in the week and some chicken drumsticks in the freezer, so decided to make a marinade.

A bit more effort required here with waiting overnight but the initial preparation is easy meaning you can prepare a meal for the following night - especially if you're taking the chicken out of the freezer anyway.

As a side we had sweet potatoes and a simple salad. I'm not quite sure the sweet potatoes were a good addition, it clashed a little with the sweet taste of the marinade. Perhaps new or mashed potatoes or simply white rice might have been better...still, this is the point here - just try it out...

Preparation time:
15 minutes + marinate overnight

Cooking time:
45-55 minutes

Serves:
2-4

Ingredients:
6-8 chicken pieces
200ml creamed coconut
2 tsp tempeiro baiano/cayenne pepper
Salt & Pepper
Juice of one lime + a little zest
2 garlic cloves
Yoghurt or cream

Method:
Season the chicken pieces with the salt and pepper and put aside in a bowl.

Put the coconut, tempeiro/pepper and garlic in a blender and pulse a few times. Cut the lime and add the juice to the mixture, add some zest as well. Add a dollop of yoghurt/cream and blend again.

Pour the mixture over the chicken, cover with clingfilm and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.

...

Turn the oven to 200 degrees. Put the chicken in a oven dish, and leave to cook for 45 to 55 minutes, turning once or twice basting the chicken with any juices that have come out, until the skin is a crisp golden brown.

Take out of the oven and leave to rest for 5 minutes. Serve.

Carrot & Coriander Soup

Carrot and coriander soup is a classic and I'm not going to deviate here, the nice spicy flavour of coriander goes perfectly with the sweet flavour of carrots. I just wanted to demonstrate how easy it is to make yourself a delicious winter snack.

Preparation time:
5-10 minutes

Cooking time:
15 minutes

Serves:
2-4

Ingredients:
4 medium carrots
250g of potatoes
1 or 2 tomatoes
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
1 cube/tbsp of vegetable stock
bunch of coriander
salt & pepper
milk or cream

Method:
Put about 1 litre of water into a pan and put on the heat.

Unless you are using new or pearl potatoes, peel the skins and chop into small chunks, add to the pan. Boil for 5 minutes.

Peel the carrots and chop into similar sized chunks and add to the pan. Peel the garlic cloves, take off the hard end and add to the water. Add the vegetable stock and boil for a further 5 minutes.

Take the leaves off half the coriander and add to the mix with salt and pepper.

Chop the tomatoes into quarters and add to the pan after 2 more minutes. Boil for a bit longer until the carrots and potatoes are soft(-ish).

Remove from the heat and put in a liquidizer. Add the rest of the coriander, a dash of milk or cream and pulse for a minute or so.

Serve with crusty brown bread, adding salt and pepper to taste. Awesome.

Crumbly Cluster Topping

This came about completely by accident - I was trying to make a normal crumble with oats but put a little too much butter in. I added flour to try to soak up a little of the butter, resulting in big clusters of oaty sugary goodness.

I used some of it but the rest I put in the freezer for a rainy day. We ended up just using it to add another dimension to loads of otherwise fairly plain desserts (yoghurt, ice cream etc etc) and this way it lasted for ages!

Ingredients: (change proportions as necessary)
150g porridge oats
75g softened butter
75g granulated sugar
20g plain flour
a spoonful of runny honey
strawberries or other fresh fruit
ice cream, cream or greek yoghurt

Method:
Basically put everything in a mixing bowl and work together with your hands until you end up with little clusters of mixture. I put the oats in first and work in the butter, then the sugar, then the flour and finally the honey.

Put the mixture into a plastic sealable tub and place in the freezer until frozen.

To serve, wash and chop the strawberries into halfs or quarters (depending how big they are), add a dollop of ice cream and add a spoon or two of crumbly topping, enjoy!

Moqueca de Peixe

Moqueca is a Brazilian fish stew originating in the North East region of Brazil, in paricular Bahia, but is popular throughout the whole country. Served with white rice and tabasco sauce this is a really colourful, flavoursome dish that is bound to impress.

White fish varieties such as snapper, cod, sole, haddock or flounder work best for this dish. I used haddock for my first attempt and have to say it worked very well. I also added atlantic prawns although this is by no means necessary. In Brazil it is very common to use a fish called cação, a type of small shark.

Preparation time:
20 minutes + 20 minutes marinating time

Cooking time:
25 to 30 minutes

Serves:
4-6

Ingredients:
500g of white fish fillets (skinless if possible)
200g of atlantic prawns (cooked)
white rice
1 lime
1 garlic segment
1 onion
3 tomatoes
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
250ml coconut milk
coriander
salt & black pepper
2 tbsp dende oil (or olive oil, I used olive oil this time)
tsp tempero Baiano (Bahian spices, if you can source it! Otherwise, cayanne pepper is fine or one hot red pepper finely chopped)

Method:
First prepare the fish. Cut the lime and squeeze the juice over the fish. Chop the garlic and place on top. Season with salt and black pepper. Leave to marinate.

Chop the onion and the tomatoes into round slices. Deseed the peppers and chop into either rings or strips. Roughly chop the coriander.

Rinse the rice well and put on to cook.

In a large casserole pot on a low heat on the hob, add most of the oil and place the fish on the bottom. Add the shrimps as a layer on top, followed by a layer with the onion, then tomatoes and finally the peppers on top. Add the rest of the oil.

Add the coriander and tempero baiano (or cayenne pepper etc) and leave it to cook on the low heat. The juices will flow from the fish and vegetables, leave boiling gently for five minutes then add the coconut milk.

Gently mix the sauce around without damaging the layers. Simmer for 5 more minutes and serve immediately with the rice, adding tabasco sauce for extra fire!