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Ah almost there now on the great biscuit adventure... this is the penultimate - I need to experiment slightly with the last one, so will have to wait til the weekend. Anyway, these are Larkhay Biscuits (aka custard biscuits, for reasons which will become apparent...).  It's very simple and takes about 30mins from start to finish.

If i remember rightly, this recipe was one that came from mum's time cooking school dinners, but don't let that put you off!  It is a classic, and the resulting biscuits are light, with a lovely creamy flavour. An optional extra is to dip or drizzle them in milk chocolate once they've cooled... but they are quite rich anyway.


Recipe
3oz icing sugar
6oz baking margarine
5oz plain flour
2oz (or one Bird's sachet, which is slightly more but not by much) custard powder

Method
Cream together the marg and sugar  - if you're doing it in a mixer, use the cover or drape a tea towel over it, cos the icing sugar will get very dusty and you'll like you're playing with dry ice!!  Add in the other ingredients and mix well, then turn out onto a floured surface, knead lightly into a firm dough and then form into a long sausage about 1.5" girth...

Slice the sausage into equal portions about 1.5cm thick, and spread out onto a couple of baking trays, leaving plenty of space around them - they will double in size. With a lightly floured fork, gently press the back of the fork twice on one side of each biscuit, then on the opposite (so the tines appear interlock like fingers), giving a nice pattern on the top.  Bake at 160 degrees for about 15 mins until golden, then remove and leave for about 10 mins before transferring on to a cool rack.

Biscuit overload

Spent a very productive Saturday afternoon in the kitchen this weekend, trying out some of my mum’s biscuit recipes – the ones she used to make when we were kids for Christmas and Easter, lightly spicy and warming.  She’s a great baker and they really stuck in my mind, so i thought, given that I’m now branching into baking, I’d give ‘em a bash.

The first one I’m going to share (will do them one at a time… good things and all that…) is a great recipe for Grantham biscuits – crunchy, ginger biscuits.  Other recipes will include Larkhay biscuits, Cornish fairings and Easter biscuits (with a Christmas twist).

Mum’s original recipe (from a Woman’s Weekly apparently…) used just powdered ginger, but I’ve pepped it up a little bit with some stem – so you get a lovely chewy piece occasionally.  Be warned, these are very moorish!  I’m trying to avoid scoffing the lot before Wednesday when some of the drama gang come round for a meeting…

Recipe

(makes about 16 biscuits – and in keeping with the traditional roots of the recipe, quantities are in imperial!)

2oz Butter

4oz Caster Sugar

4oz self-raising flour

1 tsp ground ginger

20g (ok most of the quantities… i can’t think in imperial…) stem or crystalised ginger, chopped up very small

up to 2 tbsp water

Method

Cream the butter and caster sugar together – this is easiest using a mixer, but works equally well rubbing the butter into the sugar in the same you would flour for a pastry.  You’re aiming for a light fluffy ‘dough’.  Sift the flour and powdered ginger, and add the stem ginger, then the water, and work into a usable dough, but don’t knead too much.

Divide the mix into 16 equal portions (half, half, half, etc…) and shape each bit into a ball, then flatten slightly on to a tray lined with baking parchment.  The spread quite a lot – almost trebling in size – so make sure you leave plenty of room round each, and don’t put them too close to the edge of the tray, or it’ll drop off onto your oven…

Bake on about 150 degrees C (GM2) for about 20 mins until lightly golden.  When done, take them out, but do not try and take them off the tray straight away.  They will be very delicate and soft until they’ve cooled and hardened.  Leave them for about 10 minutes until you can pick the tray up with your hands (though be sensible!! – if your daft enough to pick it up early, not my fault!) and transfer them to a wire cooling rack.

You don’t really need to serve these with anything – they should be slightly soft and gingery, not too hard.

Ah… breakfast…

Sadly didn’t think about taking a photo of this before I ate it, but will share the recipe anyway and stick a photo up next time i do it! So for now, here’s some nice mushrooms which are a key flavour in this dish…

Did this kind of by accident, but it’s a great breakfast recipe – bacon, mushrooms, hint of garlic and pancakes!

Recipe (makes two pancakes – depends how greedy you are how many that serves…)

100g plain white flour

1 medium egg

about 150ml milk (i tend to add it by eye to get the batter consistency right…)

pinch of salt, pepper and optional all spice

 

3-4 rashers of decent streaky bacon (you want plenty of flavour, none of your watery stuff…), chopped into lardons

40g butter

5-6 chestnut mushrooms chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Pinch of parsley

Good sprinkling of black pepper

splash of white wine

dusting of plain flour

splash of milk

 

Method

Dead easy.  Combine the batter ingredients and whisk until smooth.  Leave to one side for a couple of mins while you prep the filling.

Fry the bacon for a couple of minutes until starting to crisp, then add the butter, mushrooms and garlic, and fry until the mushrooms brown. Add the wine and cook off, then add the black pepper, parsley, then little bit of of flour, cooking it into the pan – you want it to combine with the fat, as if making a béchamel, so keep it moving, then add the milk, combine and then turn off the heat – you want some sauce, no lumps and no burnt bits.

In the midst of the above, i’d have a pre-heated frying pan, or tava (the indian flat pan, ideal for pancakes, used for dosas and chapattis), and start doing the pancakes – just a dash of oil, then enough of the pancakes mix to cover the whole surface of the pan.  Cook on one-side until the visible surface is set, then flip it over and cook for another couple of mins – check it’s done by flipping it again.

Serve each one with some of the filling, then rolled. Great start to a Saturday, all in about 15 minutes!

One to avoid…

For the first time i find myself writing a mainly negative review… having for the time ever asking to speak to a restaurant manager… the villain of the piece?  Well, we thought we’d try Obento – touting itself as “Bristol’s finest Japanese Restaurant” - on Baldwin street in Bristol.  A mistake we will not be repeating… i’m not even gonna do what i normally do and post a map, cos i don’t want to inflict it on anyone! Go to Wagamama’s instead or stay home and order from Easton Express…

Initial impression was very good – seated immediately, and our drinks order was taken with 2 mins, and appeared quickly.  Then came the waiting… Our food order wasn’t taken for half an hour, despite waving and indicating that we were ready to order (no i didn’t wave or click my fingers, but everything but!).

The couple who’d arrived 20 mins after us ordered at the same time, and their food arrived first – leaving us waiting expectantly, but increasingly grumpily as takeaway orders and other food flew out of the kitchen.  20 mins later, still no food, so I asked one of the waitresses, and she replied two minutes.  10 later, still nothing, so i pressed again, and suggested that we’d be walking if nothing came out soon, to which an excuse was made that there’d been a problem in the kitchen – fine, but why not tell us and at least bring us something to keep us going…?

However, food duly arrived about 5 minutes after that complaint.  The food itself was passable – but by no means great, either on the Bento box front, or the sushi.  Didn’t compare to the fabulous Easton Express takeaway, and the sushi was akin to what Tesco serves up in little plastic trays… but at least it was food, and we were rather hungry by this time.

So we ate, with little explanation of what stuff was when it arrived (again at irregular intervals…) and i popped to the gents after – to be greeted with a pile of sick in the corner of one cubicle (from the previous day… i won’t go into detail, but it was obvious…), and the other in a less than pleasant state too.

So… for the first time in my life I asked to speak to the manager, who turned up about 5 minutes later.  Explaining our various issues, he really didn’t look bothered – and added that we hadn’t even been asked for another drinks order… the excuses were unforgiveable in a restaurant. “We’re busy”, with a chorus of “everyone ordered lots of sushi” – well duh! it’s a bloody Japanese restaurant and you have a 50% off offer on sushi! Not exactly a surprise, surely??

Suffice to say, after threatening to walk, then offering to pay only half, I finally agreed to a 20% discount on top of comp drinks – so yes it only cost us £24 for a meal for two.  But in comparison to some of the great food available for a comparable price elsewhere in Bristol, and given the service, cleanliness and lack of care, I think I’d have to be offered money as well as a free food to step back inside Obento.  Shocking.

My fave salad – duck, crisps and parmesan

This is a dish from a couple of weeks ago that is one of the only salads I like to do! – very simple, light, summery, lets the ingredients speak for themselves …


Ingredients (serves 2)
2 good sized duck breasts
2 –3 medium potatoes
Parmesan
Good bunch of mixed leaf salad (rocket, basil leave, spinach, etc.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Splash of balsamic
good slosh of sherry or brandy (whichever – rice wine works really well too)


Method
Season and then pan fry the duck breast, start by browning the flesh side to seal it, then flip it over on to the skin side, pour the balsamic vinegar over the flesh side and cook it slowly until all the fat renders off (this can be reserved and makes great roasties!) and the duck is pink in the middle but just cooked.

Finely slice the potatoes as thin as you can, or using a mandolin if you’ve got one (to get the ‘man crisp’ crinkle cut look!).  Fry until golden, then drain and shake off, then re-fry – you want them crispy.  Once they come out, season them with salt and pepper.

Once the duck is cooked, take it out, turn up the heat and cook off the sherry.  Slice the duck quite thin and serve on the bed of salad with the reduced sherry dressing over the top.  Surround it with the crisps/chips and shave some parmesan over the top.

Breakfast review – Tinto Lounge, Bristol

Right then, first bash at a review – met up with a friend for brunch this morning at Tinto Lounge on Gloucester Road.  It’s a nice, friendly little bar/cafe/eatery up in Horfield with quite a wide menu (burgers, steaks, all sorts, and brunch stuff served all day…), teas and coffees and some decent beer on tap – two very good ones today, Bath Ales Dark Hare stout, and nice lighter ale, also from Bath Ales, called Toga Man, which I particularly enjoyed as it was served in an old-fashioned pint pot!  Given that it was breakfast i also bowed to convention and had a coffee.


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On to the food.  Service was a wee bit slow today – it was quite busy with lots of families in, and not a huge amount of space.  The kitchen also seemed to be prepping for a later service, but the waiting and bar staff were friendly and apologetic (our food turned up at about 10 minute intervals…).  Trina and our friend Jason both had eggy bread (£4.50) with bacon and maple syrup – American stylee.  It looked really good and Trina managed to polish hers off pretty much before mine arrived! Reliably informed it tasted good and was great value.

I went for their standard Lounge Breakfast (£6.50).  Good quantity – gives two slices of bacon rather than one (which really annoys me).  But… what i’d assumed was a sliced sausage was a strange sausage patty, the bacon was a bit on the crispy side, and the toast was a bit underdone… they also appear to have left my baked beans under a heat lamp for a few minutes too long, as they had that lovely skin on… On the upside, the patty was actually quite tasty, the black pudding was nice, the egg was perfect (though served with a parsley leaf, which was somewhat redundant…) and the hash browns were… well… hash browns.  In all, it was good and filled a hole – good enough to require a pint of Toga Man to wash it down… – but if we go there again, i think i’ll join the fashionable crowd on the Eggy Bread.

Overall, i like Tinto – the staff are friendly and while it’s a little crowded (it could lose a table or two)it has a good buzz about it.  I have eaten there once before a few years ago, and the food then was also good quality – simple but nicely done.  Overall, 3.5 our of 5 i think – though the beer and service definitely helped that mark.
Cheers!