I had hoped to get this posted earlier today so that you could all make this delicious cake for your mothers, but the internet has been conspiring against me here in Denmark and I am only getting a chance to post it now.
But with the bank holiday tomorrow, maybe some of you will make this for your mums as an extra treat for Mothers' Day.
This cake recipe comes from Asda's monthly magazine. A work colleague happened to have a copy of the January issue, which contained this cake and a lot of other delicious orange recipes. Of course I quickly copied out the ones that most appealed to me, including this cake.
The really interesting thing about this cake, apart from being gluten free, is that the sugar is added to the egg whites before they are folded into the main mixture. I have made many no-flour cakes before, but I have never seen this method used. However, I can tell you that the result of this technique is a very light and fluffy cake. Though I would be very interested if someone can explain the science behind this.
Deep 23cm cake tin (Spring-form is best), glass bowl, saucepan, 2 mixing bowls, fine grater or zester, spatula, and whisk
Preheat the oven to 170°C.
Grease your cake tin thoroughly. If you think it needs it, line the base of the tin with parchment paper, though I didn't bother, I just went heavy on the greasing! A word of advice, don't use a silicone tin for this cake. I did the first time I made it and the cake broke when I turned it out. Stick to metal tin!
Break the chocolate into a glass or otherwise heatproof bowl and add the butter.
Make a bain maire by placing the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Make sure that the water does not touch the base of the bowl. Keep the heat low so that the chocolate melts nice and slowly.
While the chocolate is melting, separate the eggs into the 2 mixing bowls. Add the ground almonds to the yolks. You can watch a video of me separating eggs here.
Zest the two oranges and add to the yolk and almond mixture.
Juice the oranges and add 2 tablespoons of the juice to the mixture. Stir everything up together into a paste.
By this stage the chocolate should be melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a minute before adding it to the orange mixture.
Mix the chocolate in as thoroughly as possible. Leave the mixture to one side while you work on the egg whites.
Measure out the sugar into a bowl and whisk up the egg whites to soft peaks.
When the egg whites reach perfect peakiness, add the sugar a little at a time, whisking between each addition until it has all been added and you achieve a meringue-like consistency.
Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture a spoonful at a time. Use a gentle figure-of-eight movement to best combine the mixtures. While mixing, try not to tap the edge of the bowl with your spoon or spatula as it will cause some of the air to come out of the mix and you want to keep as much air as possible in it to help it rise.
Pour the combined mixture into the greased cake tin, smooth the top and put into the hot oven to bake for 35 - 40 mins, until a skewer comes out of the mixture clean.
When the cake is cooked, leave it to cool in the tin for 10 mins. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
Decorate the cake with either sieved cocoa powder or icing sugar or both.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! This year I am hiding out from the Irish extravaganza in Denmark, visiting relatives, but I still have a (somewhat) patriotic recipe up my sleeve.
We've just come to the end of the Seville orange season and therefore the end of marmalade season. Last year for my first ever attempt to make marmalade and I found this article by Felicity Cloake to be incredibly useful. In fact, it was so useful that it forms the basis of my own Tricolour Marmalade recipe, a three fruit marmalade that contains all the colours of the Irish flag (see the tenuous Paddy's Day link yet?)
In this recipe I've just put in the total weight for the citrus fruit needed. I made up my kilo of fruit with 3 Seville oranges, 3 limes and 4 lemons but you can try a different combination. You also need to add an additional lemon, which I listed separately to the rest of the fruit.
You can also try making a plain Seville marmalade or a three fruit marmalade made with grapefruit or even a ginger and orange marmalade. The choice is endless!
A large pot, sieve, a large square of muslin or muslin bag knife, elastic band, saucers or small plates, lots of jam jars and lids.
First assemble all your fruit (including the additional lemon) and cut it in half. Squeeze the fruit into your large pot, making sure that you have a sieve in place to catch the pith and pips.
Pull off the rest of the pith using your fingers and a knife, so that you're left with peel that has very little flesh left on it.
Put all the pith and the pips collected in the sieve into your muslin bag or into the centre of your square of muslin and seal up with an elastic band.
Add the water to the large pot and put in the bag of pith and pips. Leave to one side while you prepare the peel.
Using a sharp knife shred the peel of the fruit into the size of pieces that you prefer. Personally, I like a mixture of fine and thick peel.
Add the peel to the pot and bring to the boil. Allow to simmer for 2 hours until the peel gets soft.
After the 2 hours, remove the muslin bag from the pot and allow to cool in a bowl. It will take a minimum of 30 mins for the bag to cool enough for you to handle, unless you have heatproof gloves or asbestos hands. At this point you can leave the marmalade to stand overnight.
While you're waiting for the bag to cool, prepare the jam jars as in my Apple Butter recipe.
Once the bag is cool enough to handle, squeeze it so that lots of goop comes out. You want to squeeze out as much of this as possible into your marmalade mixture. Do be careful during the squeezing that none of the rough contents of the bag escape.
Once you squeezed lots of goop into the pot, bring the marmalade mixture back to the boil and add the sugar.
Stir the mixture until the sugar has dissolved and bring to the boil. Do be careful during this part, as boiling sugar is dangerous. If you have a sugar thermometer, now is the time to use it.
While the marmalade is coming to the boil but a set of saucers into the fridge, so they get nice and cold. This is to help tell when the marmalade is ready.
When the marmalade reaches 104°C, or, if you don't have a thermometer, after the mixture has vigorously boiled for 15 mins, take a spoonful of the mixture and put it on to one of the cold plates and put it back in the fridge for 5 mins. If the marmalade is ready, the marmalade will wrinkle when you push your finger through it. After the initial boil, try the marmalade every 5 mins until you get the wrinkle.
Once the marmalade is ready, let it stand for 15 mins before ladling it into the warm jam jars you have in the oven.
Clean the jars and seal them. Leave the jars to cool and you can label them. Check out Jamlabelizer for cool labels.
You can eat the marmalade the next day, but it tastes much better if you leave it for a couple of weeks.
I have finally returned from my hiatus due to our house move. I never knew that moving into a new house took up so much time! We are now finally all settled in, though there is still a little sorting to be done in certain corners of the house. Once the kitchen is tidy, I will take some pictures to show it and my muddy garden off.
In the meantime, since today is Valentine's Day, I have a simple steak recipe with a twist for anyone planning to cook for their lover this evening. It is taken from Allegra McEvedy's book Bought, Borrowed & Stolen, which I got as a Christmas present from my friend Shelly, and is one of my new favourite cook books. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as the Beau and I did.
Sharp knife, mandolin or food processor with slicing attachment, measuring jugs, measuring spoons, frying pan, large lid to cover frying pan, spatula and timer
The best thing to do with this recipe is to have your entire prep ready before hand so that you can grab things as you need them. You will also need to have a timer nearby for cooking the steak. Just a note that I used striploin steaks in the pictures below as that is all I could get the other day, however, this recipe is much nicer with really good rib eye steaks.
First take out your steaks to let them get to room temperature and sprinkle with a little salt on each side.
Now prepare your liquids. Put the miso paste into a jug and cover with hot water (you can use cold, but it dissolves better with the hot). Stir until all the paste has been incorporated.
Measure out the sake into another jug. If you can't get sake, I've found that both dry sherry or Chinese rice wine make acceptable substitutes. I had to use the rice wine when I made it last as I could not find sake anywhere local.
The final piece of preparation is to slice your onion. You could do this earlier, but as I'm quite sensitive to onions (even taking the skin off sets my eyes to watering) I leave it till last.
First peel the onion. You then need to slice the onions very finely, so it is best to use a mandolin or the slicing option on a food processor as I did.
Now for the actual cooking. Heat the frying pan over a high heat and add the oil. Once the oil is hot, add the onions and cover with a lid for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove the lid and let the onions cook uncover for another minute. Put the cooked onions into a bowl and leave to one side.
Wipe the pan clean with a sheet of kitchen roll and heat up again. Once the pan is blisteringly hot, add the steaks and cook on each side for 1 minute.
Add the sake, followed by the miso and let the steaks cook for another 1 minute on each side.
Remove the steaks from the pan and leave on a board to rest while you finish the sauce. The sauce should be quite thick, but if it has gotten a little too thick or has almost evaporated entirely, add a little water, a tablespoon at a time until you reach a consistency that you're happy with. Turn off the heat under the sauce.
Once the sauce is finished, cut up the steaks and move to warm serving plates. Scrape the juices from the steak into the sauce and stir in.
Drizzle the sauce over the top of the steaks and place the onions on top.
Serve immediately with a green salad on the side. Or my home made chips would also make a great side dish.
Before we get started into this recipe that I've been promising to write up for about a year, you might also enjoy reading a much easier bread recipe that I did as a guest post for the ever-glamorous French for Cupcake blog. The lovely Claire asked me to do a recipe for her website while she went off on her adventures, so I put together my very simple soda bread recipe for her. Let me know if you enjoy it.
This loaf is one that you might see some version of in churches across the country at this time year. A harvest loaf makes a striking centrepiece for a autumn display at an harvest festival or a harvest dinner in your home.
The recipe for this bread is very straightforward; the difficult bit is putting the whole loaf together. However it is worth the effort, if only for all the compliments you will get on your amazing loaf!
Large mixing bowl (you'll probably need the biggest you own), pastry brush, kitchen scissors, large baking tray or sheet, and wire rack
I'm going to work through the making of the bread first and then actual shaping, just as it was taught to me by Sylvia, a member of our local church. I advise that you read all the way through the recipe and method before you get going so that you can spot any potential pitfalls before you start. If you have any queries or find anything unclear please let me know, by commenting or sending me an email.
Measure out the flour and yeast into your roomiest bowl.
Add salt and sugar and mix together.
Put 600ml of cold water into a measuring jug. Add the oil and top up 900ml with boiling water.
Stir the water and oil together briefly and pour into bowl with the dry ingredients.
Time to get your hands dirty. Stick your hands in the bowl and carefully mix the liquid and dry ingredients together until you have a rough dough. Make sure you've removed any rings and that your hands are clean before getting stuck in.
Sprinkle a lot of flour on your worktop and tip out the rough dough on to it. Knead for 10 mins (about 3 songs on the radio), until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. You can be really rough with your dough, take out all your anger and stress on it. The more you pound it, the better the finished dough will be. You can watch how to knead the dough in the video below.
Clean the bowl that you made the dough in, unless you have a second giant bowl, and pour in a drop of sunflower or vegetable oil. Rub this around the bowl until it's thoroughly oiled.
Put the kneaded dough into the oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Put in a warm spot, like my mum's hot press (airing cupboard), and leave the dough to rise until it has doubled in size and springs back when prodded. This should take about an hour.
That's the dough made, now we're onto shaping the loaf itself, this is easier than you would think, though there is a little bit of counting involved.
While the dough is rising, prepare the baking tray that you're going to use for the loaf. You will probably need to use one of your shelves from the oven and the size of the finished loaf is very big. Cover the tray with tin foil, tucking it in around the sides. Add a drop of oil and rub it over the top of tin foil to grease it.
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Retrieve the, by now gigantic, bowl of dough from your warm place and knead it again for 2 mins until it becomes smooth and firm. Keep the dough you're not working with at any one time, in the bowl and covered with the cling film.
Cut off 450g of the dough and roll it out into a 20cm round. Place it on the baking tray at one end. Do use a weighing scales for this, as there is a lot of dough to measure off as we go along and you don't want to guess wrong and run out of dough.
Cut off another 450g of the dough and roll out into an oblong that is 18 x 10cm. Put this onto the tray, slightly overlapping the first bit of rolled out dough.
Now we are into the slightly complicated bit, cut off a third of the remaining dough and divide it into quarters. Put one quarter to the side and divide the other three quarters into 8, so that you have 24 pieces.
These 24 pieces are going to become the stalks of the sheaf. Take each piece and roll it out until you have a stalk approximately 20cm long.
Brush the oblong part of the base with water to stick down each stalk. These should cover the whole of the oblong part of the base and run over the bottom edge. Lay out all the stalks until the whole base is covered. It doesn't matter if some overlap as this adds to the illusion of a real sheaf of wheat.
Split the remaining quarter of dough from above into three equal pieces, and again, roll into strips 20cm long.
Connect the three strips at the top and weave them into a plait. This should be wrapped in cling film and left to one side for the moment.
Take the remaining dough, divide it into quarters, then divide the quarters in three, and finally divide the thirds into four. This should leave you with 48 pieces of dough.
Roll each piece of dough into a ball and flatten, so that it forms an oval about 4cm long. Then, with the scissors, snip two diagonal cuts on each side so that the dough looks like an ear of wheat.
Brush a little water on the top of the base and starting from the top stick down each ear of wheat. As you work down the loaf the new layer of ears should overlap the bottom of the layer above. Repeat until the whole top part of the loaf is covered.
If you are feeling particularly traditional you can retain one of the 48 pieces of dough and use it to make a mouse to sit on the stalks at the end. If you do make a mouse, whole cloves make great eyes and flaked almonds make good ears. I've not made one in this version as my mouse always ends up looking a bit deformed.
Once you have placed all the stalks and ears on the loaf it's time to unwrap the plait, brush some water across the divide between the two and place the plait on, tucking the ends around the sides.
Beat the egg in a bowl and brush over the whole loaf, making sure to get into all the crevices.
Put in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 160°C and bake for 40 - 45 mins until golden brown. If it starts to get too brown, cover it with tin foil.
When the loaf comes out of the oven, turn it over and knock the bottom, if it sounds hollow then the bread is done. Leave the loaf to cool.
Once cool your loaf is ready to eat or be part of a fantastic harvest display, while you sit back enjoy the compliments (or bread)!
With the changing of the seasons, my thoughts have started to turn to soups. I think this soup perfectly suits this time of year, it is warming but still light, and contains one of my favourite flavour pairings - chicken and tarragon.
The best thing about this recipe is that it takes no time at all to put together, and as with many soups, it is even more delicious the next day.
Chopping board, sharp knife, large pot, frying pan, spatula and blender.
First prepare your vegetables for the base of the soup. Finely chop the onions and cube the carrots.
Pour a little oil into your large pot, add the vegetables and cook over a low heat until the onion turns translucent.
Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and leave to cook while you prepare the chicken.
Chop the chicken thighs into bite sized pieces. I use skinned and boned thighs from my local butcher, if you ask yours I'm sure they'll have them. If not, you can always have a go at skinning and boning them yourself, which, while tricky is not impossible.
Heat a little oil to the frying pan, add the chicken and cook until just cooked through. Leave to one side.
Add the tarragon to the soup base, stalks and all. Let the tarragon soften in the hot liquid for a couple of minutes and then blend together. I use my trusty stick blender but you can ladle in into a standing blender too.
Once everything has been smoothly blended together add the splash of milk. This adds a slight creaminess to the soup that I like, but feel free to leave it out.
Add the chicken to the pot and season. Simmer the soup for 15 mins to allow all the flavours to mingle.
First, a little apology for the lack of blog posts this month, but myself and the Beau recently bought a house and we have been having it renovated. Therefore, I have been spending quite a bit of time picking my dream kitchen, colours for the walls and a million other things. The work is almost finished now and the blog will hopefully return to a somewhat normal posting schedule.
My new house
Back to business, this recipe was my contribution to the ever so long ago August cookalong of summer salads. It's a recipe that my dad had cut out from a magazine about 6 years ago. We think it might have been the Sunday Times, but nobody can actually remember.
This is a great salad to have for a brunch or as a light dinner as it has enough substence to it that you don't feel hungry after eating it. Perfect for any remaining summer days.
Saucepan, oven proof dish, frying pan, chopping board, sharp knife, and a couple of small bowls.
Preheat the oven to 190°C. While you're waiting for the oven to warm up, prepare the potatoes by chopping in half and putting in a saucepan of cold water. Bring the potatoes to the boil. Boil for 10 mins, drain and leave to one side.
While the potatoes are boiling, prepare the red peppers. Cut the peppers in half and deseed them. place the red peppers in to an oven proof dish and drizzle with a little oil.
Season the peppers and put in the hot oven. Set the timer for 10 minutes.
When the timer goes off, mix the parboiled potatoes into the same dish as the peppers and put back in the oven for 20 mins.
While the potatoes and peppers are cooking, halve the avocados, remove the stones and cut the flesh into slices in the skins. Put the slices into a bowl. They must be ripe avocados, otherwise they're too hard to enjoy properly.
Squeeze the lemon over the avocado slices and season with a little salt and pepper. Stir gently so that the lemon juice coats all the slices and leave to one side. The lemon juice helps to prevent the avocados from going brown while you make up the rest of the salad.
Remove the outer skin from the chorizo and cut into slices. Cook in a frying pan over a gentle heat, until golden brown, being careful not to slightly overcook it like I did!
By now the potatoes and peppers should be ready, the potatoes will be golden and the peppers will just be starting to singe at the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.
While the potatoes and peppers are cooling, make up the dressing. Measure out the sherry vinegar, sherry and olive oil into a bowl.
Whisk the ingredients together and season. I use my handy little milk frother to whizz them up.
Time to start putting the salad together. Cut the garlic in half, and rub around the inside of the salad bowl. This gives a little hit of garlic, without having to add it to the salad itself.
Cut up the romaine and little gem lettuce into strips. Put into the salad bowl and add the potatoes.
Now that the peppers are cooler, remove the skins and slice into rough pieces. Add to the bowl.
Add the cooked chorizo pieces to the bowl and drizzle on most of the dressing, retaining a little for after the avocade is added. Gently toss the salad.
Finally add the avocado pieces and the rest of the dressing and very gently toss in with the rest of the ingredients.
A couple of weeks ago I left a wish on Gluttony for Beginner's blog post and as a result was visited by the magical, mystical Fairy Hobmother aka David from Appliances Online. The Fairy Hobmother has been floating around the blogosphere lately granting wishes left, right and centre.
I was kindly sent an Amazon voucher which I excitedly splurged on new cookbooks to keep me going while my own are packed away. I bought Michel Roux's three books on Pastry, Eggs and Sauces and Nigella Lawson's How To Eat.
The Roux books are beautiful and contain recipes from the simplest of egg dishes to the most complicated pastry creations. The Nigella book I've only skimmed so far but I've already got my on a couple of recipes to try out on the Beau and the rest of my family in the not too distant future.
The best part about the Fairy Hobmother visiting me though is that now you have the chance to be visited too! Leave a comment at the end of the post with a wish for the Fairy Hobmother and you too could have a sprinkling of fairy dust in your life.
To celebrate this I thought I would put up the recipe for that most fairy like of desserts, Pavlova, named for the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. This is Michel Roux's recipe taken from his Eggs book.
Just a quick note that I have almost halved the amount of cream that M. Roux asks for, as I thought that 400ml of cream would be a little on the heavy side. I have also allowed you to pick your own berries. Personally, I used a mixture of raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and red currants, but you can use whatever you have on hand.
Preheat the oven to 150°C. Whisk the egg whites into soft peaks. I used an electric hand whisk but you can do it by hand with a balloon whisk or in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
Measure out the caster sugar and gradually add to the egg whites, whisking all the time, until the egg whites are smooth, shiny and form stiff peaks.
Michel recommends that you whisk it for 10 mins after adding the caster sugar, but my mixer was in danger of overheating and dying so I only did it for 5 without any ill effects to the final product that I could detect.
Sieve in the icing sugar to the egg white mix and whisk together until it's thoroughly incorporated. Start slowly or you'll end up with a cloud of icing sugar in the kitchen.
Take a baking tray and line with parchment or greaseproof paper.
Pour out the meringue mixture onto the baking tray into a rough circle approximately 20 cm in diameter and 5 cm high. Place into the oven for 30 mins.
After the 30 mins turn down the oven to 120°C and bake for another 45 mins.
After the 45 mins, turn off the oven and leave the meringue in the oven for at least 6 - 8 hours or overnight. According to Michel Roux the perfect pavlova should be:
...half-cooked in the middle, crisp on the outside, and the edges should be slightly cracked.
After a minimum of 6 hours or, in my case the next day, take the meringue out of the oven, carefully remove the paper from the bottom of it and put on the serving plate you want to use.
Whip up the cream until it forms soft peaks.
Spread the cream over the top of the pavlova and start decorating with the berries.
If you are using strawberries; remove the green top and chop into smaller pieces before adding to the top of the pavlova.
Once you have added all your fruit to the top of the pavlova, serve in generous slices this is not something you can just eat a small bit of.
Don't forget to leave a comment for the Fairy Hobmother, who may come and visit you next!
This is the last of my summer party cookalong recipes and it is for one of my favourite foods.
I've been eating this chocolate ice cream for as long as I can remember, as it was regularly made by my Danish grandmother when we visited. There was always great excitement after dinner to see if there would be chocolate ice cream and 'kissses' (small meringues) and stomachs would be examined with a probing finger by Granny to see if there was a hole that would accommodate just a little bit of dessert.
The ice cream would be served on its own or with the above mentioned 'kisses', it would also make an appearance to accompany stewed pears and my grandmother's famous layer cake.
I now make this ice cream as a special treat for visitors, generally served with something like a chocolate brownie. There is generally very little left to put back in the freezer by the end of the meal but it does refreeze quite well, especially if you have stirred it enough during the inital freezing process.
Now before all the pedants jump on me, I will point out that technically this is not strictly an ice cream, however, I'm of the opinion that if it looks like ice cream and it tastes like ice cream, it is bloody ice cream!
You will notice that the chocolate flavour in this is added from hot chocolate powder rather than cocoa powder. The reason we use this is three fold; firstly the hot chocolate powder (and we use Cadbury's or Green & Black's for preference) tends to not form lumps, so it doesn't need to be sieved and won't form lumps when you fold it into the mixture, and secondly you can very easily go from not chocolatey enough to too chocolatey very quickly with cocoa powder, and finally the cocoa powder can have a very bitter taste while the hot chocolate powder tends to be sweet.
The ice cream takes a minimum of 5 hours to freeze so I tend to make it the evening before I intend to serve it. This saves a lot of panic. But do remember to take it out of the freezer about 15 mins before-hand, letting it melt a little so it's easier to serve.
I hope you enjoy this ice cream as much as I do and that it brings you as many happy memories.
3 mixing bowls, whisk, spatula, tupperware box with lid,
Weigh out the icing sugar and seperate the eggs. I've embeded a video below showing you how to do it, if you've never tried before. You pass the egg yolk carefully back and forth between the two pieces of shell, letting the white drip into the empty bowl below. Once the majority of the whites has dropped into the bowl you place the yolks into the bowl with the icing sugar.
Using the spatula mix the egg yolks and icing sugar together until they form a smooth paste. Leave to one side.
Pour the cream into a third bowl and whisk it until it has soft peaks.
Fold the whipped cream into the egg yolk and icing sugar mix. It should be a very pale yellow in colour once you have mixed it all through.
Time to add the hot chocolate powder. Fold it through a couple of tablespoons at a time. Make sure you taste it occasionally so that you get the level of chocolateyness you prefer. The 8 tablespoon measurement I've used in the recipe is based on Cadbury's hot chocolate powder and gives the level of chocolate flavour I enjoy the most. But feel free to experiment to find what you like the best
Whisk up the egg whites until they have stiff peaks when you pull the whisk away.
Fold the egg whites into chocolate mixture.
Pour the finished mixture into your tupperware container. Smooth out the top, put on the lid and place in the freezer for 45 mins.
Now comes the slightly tedious bit, especially as while I do own an ice cream maker, I've not tried it with this recipe yet so don't know what time to give. If you want to try it out and let me know that would be great.
After 45 mins take the ice cream out of the freezer and stir thouroghly, especially into the corners. The purpose of this is to break up the ice crystals so that they don't get too large and ruin the texture. Once stirred pop the container back into the freezer for another 45 mins.
As before, after the 45 mins, stir again and return to the freezer for a final 45 mins.
This is the last time you have to stir the ice cream. You'll notice that the corners in particular on this stir will be quite set. After you've finished stirring, return the container to the freezer and leave until the ice cream has completely set (at least 5 hours).
Once the ice cream has set, remove from the freezer about 15 mins ahead of when you want to serve it.
Serve with fruit, cake, or pretty much anything you like. Raspberries are especially delicious with it. Enjoy!
This is quite possibly the tastiest way to eat red cabbage, which my mum discovered when dealing with a glut of red cabbage from her weekly veg bag. The sweetness of the apple works really well with the flavour of the red cabbage whilst the garlic somehow brings it all together.
Even if you don't normally like red cabbage I would encourage you to give this a go, it is very, very tasty.
A chopping board, a sharp knife, a blender, small frying pan.
Take a half a head of cabbage and using your sharp knife, finely shred it by cutting it in thin slices and then chopping the slices.
Put the cabbage into your serving bowl. Now peel, core and quarter your apples and grate them into the serving bowl on top of the red cabbage.
Now to make the dressing. In your blender put the two cloves of garlic roughly chopped, the juice of ½ an orange and 1 lemon.
Add in the olive oil and honey. Season with a little salt and pepper and blend together.
The final element of this salad is the toasted sesame seeds. Put the two tablespoons of seeds into a dry frying pan and heat until they start to turn golden brown. As soon as they start to change colour take them off the heat and add them to the salad bowl. You have to keep an eye on the sesame seed whicle they're toasting as they can burn very easily.
Pour over the dressing and mix into the rest of the salad, until everything is coated.
Serve immediately or you can make it ahead of time and leave it in the fridge until it's needed.
This is the only salad that the Beau will eat, this is probably because it has bacon in it. To be fair though, the bacon is what makes this salad extra delicious. I try and make this salad with new or baby potatoes, preferably of the waxy variety. The ones I used time were Maris Pipers, which were a little flourly, though just as tasty.
This is another dish that you can make ahead of time and, in fact, I think it is even tastier the next day when the flavours of the dressing have had time to mature.
Bowl, frying pan, chopping board, sharp knife, 2 saucepans, brush or potato spinner for cleaning the potatoes
Scrub the potatoes clean using a hard brush or using a handy gadget, such as I have, that washes and scrubs the potatoes with the turn of a handle, like a salad spinner for potatoes. Scrub the potatoes until they are very clean and have some of the skin missing.
Cut the larger potatoes into two and put into saucepan. Just cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for 15 - 20 mins until a knife slides through without resistence.
On to the green beans. Top and tail the beans by removing the stringy bits at either end. Put in a saucepan, again, just covering them in water and bring to the boil. The beans need to cook for about 10 - 15 mins until they are cooked but still retain a slight bite.
While the potatoes and beans are cooking, make the dressing for the salad.
Measure out the honey and mustard into a bowl (or jam jar)
Add a crushed clove of garlic to the dressing and mix together into a paste.
Add the vinegar and the olive or rapeseed oil to the mixture.
Season the dressing with salt and pepper and whisk together until it emulsifys. If you're making it in a jam jar you can just shake it up until it's all mixed together.
The potatoes and green beans should now be ready. Drain off the water and leave in the pots to cool for 5 mins.
Once cool, cut the potatoes into approximate quarters and place in your serving bowl.
Chop the green beans into lengths of about 2 - cms and add to the serving bowl. Mix the potatoes and beans together.
Time for the bacon. Place the lardons in a small pan and cook until golden brown. While they're still hot, add to the serving bowl.
Pour on the dressing and, using a spoon, carefully mix through the salad until everything is coated.
, 
and 
and Nigella Lawson's 
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