Cake House

As I could not buy 2 pidgeons yesterday I went for a nice plump guinea fowl, but yes, the recipe is basically the same as you saw earlier for a pidgeon. Start a day in advance by with preparing a hot oven, 250 C is what we need. In the meantime remove both legs and breasts from the bird. Put the carcass in the oven till almost burned, about 10- 15 mins should do it. Take out and turn the heat to 80 C. Hack the carcass in 4 or 5 pieces and add them to a liter and half of cold water, in a big pan. The add 2 bayleaves, 2 halved onions (skin on, to colour the stock), 2 halved tomatoes, 2 carrots sliced into chunks, some thyme and a clove of garlic. Simmer for 6 to 12 hours. Put the legs in a ovenproof saucepan, not too big, they should just fit. Cover with duck- or goosefat and put them in the cooled-down ( 80C) oven for about 3 to 4 hours to make a confit. The breasts, in clingfilm,are left in the fridge Overnight leave the legs in the fat. The next day strain the stock trough a fine siev

Cut the salmon (or tuna) in bite-size cubes. Prepare the marinade: 3 tbsp soysauce, 1 tsp hoisin, 1 tbsp ketchup and a spritz of lemon juice. Marinade the salmon for an hour in the fridge. Then add 1 tsp wasabi to 1 tbsp liquid cream and mix carefully, then add 4 tbsp mayonaise. Fry some jumbo prawns, at the last minute add a glug of soysauce and use a wooden spoon to make sure every prawn is covered. Cool and peel, remove the intestine. If you can get samphire cook it for just a minute. Cool and mix with a few carefully selected and varied salad-leaves. Arrange salmon and prawns on the salad. Finish with the wasabi-mayo as shown

                                                        It was hot, 34 C outside. So I decided to                                                          cheat  a bit and opened a pot of readymade Tikka                                                         Masala. Cut half a yellow paprika into thin slices,                                                         diced a carrot. Cooked them in the curry with                                                         some yellow and green french beans. Whilst they  simmered I scored the fatty side of a                           duckbreast . In a dry high teflon sauce pan I  browned the duck, fatty side down for about 12  mins on a medium flame. Be careful not to burn  the fat. A lot of the fat melts, trow it away from  time to time. Then brown the other side for 2 to 3  mins. Wrap in alufoil and let the meat rest for  05 mins, to keep the juices in. Slice the  meat thinly and  warm in the curry.  Not having a mango I peeled some  apricot

Y ou all might be knowing that holy month of Ramadan has started and so is fasting. There are so many things that I love about this month, I love getting up early mornings for sehri, fasting the whole day and breaking the fast in evenings with our favorite snacks or else calling our friends and family for iftar party and most importantly reciting the quran.  This is the month where we will learn to be more self disciplined, self controlled, sacrifice and giving zakat to the poor and needy. On the first day of fasting I prepared our favorite dish. I know this will be very heavy for an empty stomach to have, but since I cannot resist any chat dishes, I thought of making this on the first day for iftar. This is my first attempt in making pav bhaji and was successful and tasted just like what we get from stalls outside. I made the pav bhaji masala powder and added that to the bhaji and it was perfect. I thought of making the pav, but time didn’t permit me so ended up with store bought pav.

Start a day in advance by with preparing a hot oven, 250 C is what we need. In the meantime remove both legs and breasts from the bird. Or birds if you have guests. Put the carcass in the oven till almost burned, about 10- 15 mins should do it. Take out and turn the heat to 80 C. Hack the carcass in 4 or 5 pieces and add them to a liter and half of cold water, in a big pan. The add 2 bayleaves, 2 halved onions (skin on, to colour the stock), 2 halved tomatoes, 2 carrots sliced into chunks, some thyme and a clove of garlic. Simmer for 6 to 12 hours. Put the legs in a ovenproof saucepan, not too big, they should just fit. Cover with duck- or goosefat and put them in the cooled-down ( 80C) oven for about an hour and a half to make a confit. The breasts, in clingfilm,are left in the fridge Overnight leave the legs in the fat. The next day strain the stock trough a fine sieve, discard the rest (or take the meat and skin from the bones and give it to your dog). Reduce the stock till syropy.

W henever I go for any parties / get togethers, there are these cute little things sitting in a beautiful palette, from which I cannot take my eyes off and they will be smiling at me and asking me to “pick- me- up”. These cute little cupcakes are so easy to make and are so moist and fluffy. Cupcakes were not my cup of tea till my kid started liking them like heaven. From then on  I try to make different varieties of cupcakes for her. A standard cupcake uses the same basic ingredients like the butter, eggs, sugar and so on. Some will be having different flavors or some kind of additional nuts or raisins are added to it. Because the cupcake are smaller than the normal cakes, they bake very fast. Once they are cooled enough they can be topped with frosting or any other decorating sprinkles. Here I have used the icing frosting and dora waffles of which my daughter is a big fan. Ingredients: All Purpose Flour / Maida- 1 ½ cups Baking powder- 1 tsp salt- a pinch Butter- ¼ cup Egg- 1no Sugar-

220 gr Tenderloin/fillet 2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped 1 tbsp shallot, finely chopped 1 tbsp capers 1 tbsp gherkins, finely chopped 1 tbsp Dyon mustard 2 tbsp ketchup 1 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp Tabasco 2 tsp   Worcester sauce 2 egg yolks (from very fresh eggs)                   Go to the best butcher in town and ask for his best cut of tenderloin/fillet, nicely marbled with some fat. Then ask him for a sliver to taste and keep one eye on the other customers. See them taking a step back when they see you eating raw meat! Back home use your sharpest knife to slice the beef very thinly. Then the slices into strips and finally the strips into very small cubes. Mix all ingredients except the egg yolks, taste and add salt and pepper. Use a serving ring to plate and finish with the egg yolks.                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Mini tortilla from potatoes, mushrooms and mozarella 'Hamburger' from grilled aubergine, leftover macaroni and topped with basil-oil Goat's cheese (l), Brie (r) and girolles Beetroot, goat's cheese, honey, chives Leftover curry, duck, seasonal veg and fruits, coriander Cucumber, shrimps, wasabi-mayo, peach

Peel 20 shallots and boil them in 500 ml red wine, 1 bay leaf and 5 tbsp of  honey for  45-55 mins. Then, keeping the shallots apart, reduce the red wine till syrupy. Put puff pastry in 4 baking forms and pre-bake in a 180C oven for 10 minutes. Pack each one with 5 shallots. Back in the oven for another 10 mins. Cut the duck liver in 2 cm thick slices and dust lightly with flour ( put flour in a plastic bag, add the liverslices one at the time and shake). Fry in a DRY and very hot pan and brown on all sides. Discard the melted fat, dry the fois gras on kitchen paper. Whisk 90 gr cold butter (in small cubes) through the wine reduction, season with salt and pepper. Plate as shown above, season the liver with seasalt and pepper. 

M mmmmm..... I simply love the smell of freshly baked goodies, just as I love baking since the aroma of the baked items will linger around and also the taste of the freshly baked goodies is something exceptional which we cannot get anywhere in the market. Most preferably I like to bake cookies as the buttery taste and the “melt-in-mouth” cookies are very simple and easy to make without much effort and they taste heavenly. And that too if the cookies are made of coffee then nothing can beat those. On a very tiring day, these are a special energy boosters that we all love to have it with a cup of hot tea. But we should take care that the coffee shouldn’t exceed the limit as it will taste bitter. It happened to me, when I baked the first batch I added exact amount of coffee powder the recipe was demanding and it turned out to be bitter and then for the second batch as I reduced the amount of coffee, it was amazingly delicious. This is a really tasty treat in which instant coffee, flour, b