Been Cooking

I made two salads for my lunch today.
The first one, new potato with onions and the following dressing – salt, pepper, sugar, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin oil flavoured with lemon oil. Make the dressing in a large bowl then slice and add the potatoes (on which I leave the skins) whilst still warm and mix thoroughly. When cooled, add finely chopped or sliced onions.
The second salad, was tomato and spring onion with a dressing of – salt, pepper, sugar, lemon juice and cream. Leave the sliced tomatoes to marinade in the dressing, as some of the juice from them mixes in, and makes it slightly pink and really tasty.
I didn’t eat all of either salad and plan to have them again tonight, but this time I will add some tinned and drained beans (not baked beans) to the potato salad. I think it will be a choice of either kidney or Borlotti, although I could add chick peas. Actually, I might save those for some hummus at the weekend – made with some lemon olive oil it should be very good.

A note on olive oils and vinegar. I love olive oil and have a few favourites – top of the list is the one I used for the potato salad today – Colonna Granverde - extra virgin olive oil and natural zest of organic lemons. This can be purchased at the Italian Deli in the Oxford Indoor Market. Another very tasty one is Valvona & Crolla’s Fior’ Fiore Extra Virgin Olive Oil which can be bought from their shop in Edinburgh or by mail order. There are also two oils I use that can be bought in supermarkets – Belazu Unfiltered Early Harvest Arbequina (sold in a tin), and Il Casolare unfiltered sold in a bottle with a stopper like pop bottles used to have. As for the balsamic vinegar, I used Aceto Balsamic di Moderna Sereni which you can get at V&C.

Finely chop onion, gherkin and capers and mix with good mayo - I use organic. Leave to stand for an hour or two in the fridge, if you have time. If the capers are preserved in salt, wash them first.
I read about making Tartare Sauce in someone's blog, but I can't remember whose, or even what blog site it was on, so I'm afraid I can't credit it, sorry. Actually, theirs may have had more ingredients, but I find the ones I use sufficient. It's even fine without the onion (as I found out tonight when I discovered I had no onions).

Use any pototoes, other than floury varieties as they will disintigrate. Leave the skins on or peel if you prefer. Wash and then dry on kitchen paper or tea towel. Heat up some flavourless oil like sunflower or grapeseed until it's hot, but not hot enough to fry. Cook the potatoes in it, so that they are cooked through, but not browned. You can cook all of them, as at this stage it doesn't matter if they are crowded. Remove from pan. They can now be left until later if you wish. When ready to serve, heat up the oil until it is hot enough to fry the chips. Return chips to pan, but as they shouldn't now be crowded you may need to do this in two or three batches. Fry until they reach whatever shade you're fond of - this only takes a few minutes. Remove and drain on kitchen paper. Serve in the usual way.

It may seem odd, but this way of cooking ensures that the chips actually contain less fat, as the second frying forces it out of the potatoes. The outside is also more crispy.
I made some on 7th June 2006 and used large unpeeled new potatoes. A little salt and some lemon juice sprinkled on them, and they were absolutely yummy.

Avrilo http://www.blog.co.uk/user/avrilo/ has informed me of a refinement that has come her way via FatalAttraction http://www.blog.co.uk/user/fatalattraction/ - add a clove of garlic to the oil. Apparently Fatal discovered this culinary delight by accident, when a clove of garlic fell into the chip pan. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it sounds tasty. I think I would only keep the garlic in for the first frying though as it might get burnt when the oil is very hot and thus impart a bitter flavour to the oil. Avrilo saves the oil for another time, which is a good idea, although I never use oil more than twice as it's supposed to be unhealthy.

Since I'm always forgetting recipes when I alter them, I thought this would be a good place to write this one down for my benefit as much as anyone else's.

Baked Thursday 1st June 2006
Here are the ingredients as near as I can remember them (I know it was only yesterday, but my memory isn't always super perfect - see above):
150g bar of Green & Black's organic cooking chocolate, broken up
about 40-50 grams organic butter
2.25 cups of organic light brown sugar (can't you tell the original recipe was an American one?)
3 large organic eggs (at least I think they were large)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (actually, I think I may have used just one - this being one ingredient I forgot to double up)
1 cup organic plain flour + half or one teaspoon baking powder (the original recipe called for self-raising flour, but I hadn't got any).
Half of 125 gram tin of Green & Black's Organic Cocoa, so that would be around 62 grams.
About three handfulls of broken up walnuts.

I gently melted the chocolate and butter together in the microwave. (60% of full power for 30 seconds, stir and then another 30 seconds; stir again.)
Incorporated sugar and sifted cocoa and vanilla extract with balloon hand whisk.
Thoroughly mixed in sifted flour and baking powder (with a spoon).
Mixed in walnuts.
This made a very stiff mixture, which I baked at 150 degrees C in fan oven for 35 minutes. Quite crusty on the outside, but very soft (not runny) in the middle. Firmed up a bit when cooled. Another five minutes in the oven might have been better.

So, there you have it - enough chocolate brownies to feed the neighbourhood for a week. Actually makes about 40 brownies, although it depends how big you make them when you cut them up. I thought there was too much sugar, even though it was less than the original recipe called for, but then as anyone reading me for quite a while might know, I'm not too keen on sweet stuff.

In case you want to use the original recipe:
5 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
Half cup sunflower oil
1.25 cups tightly packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
.66 cup of self-raising flour
4 tablespoons cocoa
.75 cup chopped walnuts
4 tablespoons milk chocolate chips.
Bake at 170-180 degrees in ordinary oven.