Roasted aubergine and red pepper dip

This is probably my favourite simple dip to serve with drinks or even as a light first course. It is always well received and everyone thinks it must be really complicated because the flavours are complex and quite layered.

Begin by dicing one aubergine, 2 de-seeded red peppers and a peeled red onion into roughly even chunks like below. Drizzle with a few tablespoons of garlic infused olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Spread everything out on a baking sheet and roast at 180 degrees celsius (fan oven) for about 40 minutes, tossing half way through until soft and slightly charred on the edges.   

After a few minutes of chopping there is very little to do to make this delicious dip

Place the roasted mixture in a food processor fitted with the steel blade, add a generous tablespoon of tomato puree and pulse until coarsely chopped. And that is it! Check for seasoning and chill until required as the flavours get better over time. Bring to room temperature before serving though.

I like the dip with some texture so don't puree it too much

You can add a little bit of fresh or dried chilli to the mix if you want it more spicy and some chopped flat leaf parsley and lemon juice make a nice addition too but I like it just like this. Very Italian and utterly delicious served with toasted baguette slices.

I cut a baguette into thin slices, drizzle with olive oil and bake them for 8-10 minutes in a hot oven until crisp and lightly golden.

Spring flowers

After the dreariest, wettest winter I have ever seen, it was a delight today to experience some lovely, warm spring sunshine and enjoy the many early flowers bursting into colourful life all around.  The garden sustained some significant damage in the fearsome storms of December and January - including the loss of my honeysuckle arch and it would appear the honeysuckle itself - so it was especially heartening to see the primroses, pansies, daffodils, and hellebore below blooming apparently unscathed after the winter deluge.

I'm afraid I have been driven to apply slug pellets, visible in some of these pictures.  The slugs have already begun their savage attack upon the fresh new flowers and leaves and the pellets were the only weapon I had to hand.  I will be ordering slug nematodes this week and intend to apply wool pellets this summer.

An Evening at the Savoy Hotel

I was very lucky to spend a quiet Friday evening at the Savoy with a friend of mine this weekend. I had been reading about the Beaufort Bar in William Yeoward's American Bar cocktail book and was keen to go. Having visited the amazing cocktail bar at the Connaught Hotel a few years ago, also on the recommendation of this book, I wanted to progress to the next chapter and carry on with my explorations of these glamorous cocktails.

Here is the iconic front of the hotel with its art-deco lettering and imposing frontage.

The bar is built into the stage of what was once a ballroom and provides the perfect setting for these amazing mixologists to shake and stir their creations.

Part of the fun is watching the drinks being created. One comes with a silver cup holding red roses which cascades dry ice over your table. Quite stunning!

I was very interested in this cabinet of vintage and antique glasses and books by the bar. The hotel serves some amazing rare and vintage spirits and champagnes at quite eye-watering prices!

The room is decorated in black and gold which makes this large space feel cosy and comfortable. A pianist and singer provided the melodic and relaxing music later in the evening.

This was a pine-apple julep beautifully presented in the traditional silver cup.

And this is The Association, made with champagne and a salted cassis caramel. This was my favourite.

We had salted broad beans, olives and fiery peanuts to go with our drinks. This is my friend's drink, Embankment Gardens.

You can sample the Savoy's cocktail menu by following the link here.

If you are able to sample drinks in The American Bar at the Savoy whilst you are there this is also highly recommended - but everything in moderation of course!

A make-ahead dinner party

A Happy New Year to you all (even though it's February!) I wanted to share with you a dinner party that we gave for friends a few weeks ago. January can be a bit dull after the buzz of Christmas so this was a great opportunity to relax and socialise with close friends.

The menu consisted of some new dishes that I want to share with you. Most of them can be made ahead so stress levels for the host are kept to a minimum. Click on the name of the dish to see the recipe.

We started by sharing a magnum of Prosecco served with the marinated feta canapes that were featured a while ago on this blog. My friend made these and although there were a lot of them they all vanished very rapidly!

The table was laid in quite a formal way.  I love this way of displaying napkins - it's so simple but looks very elegant I think.

A new acquisition is this stag candle holder from culinary concepts which I adore.

The starter was a mushroom and port 'faux gras' with chestnuts and tarragon. This delicious pate was served with lightly baked baguette toasts on the side. It is better made at least a day ahead and I served it in these individual lidded ramekins which make a lovely presentation I think (below).

The pate looked very pretty in these dishes. Bring them to room temperature for about 15 minutes before serving. I let people take any pate they hadn't eaten home for lunch the next day on the condition that I got the pots back!

The main course was panko-crusted salmon with warm French lentils and green beans. Ina Garten provides two star recipes here that go together so well. The salmon is prepared several hours in advance and kept in the fridge, requiring only 15 minutes cooking in the oven. I don't pan sear it and it turns out beautifully - much less mess too! I serve the lentils in shallow wide bowls, topped with a piece of salmon and a lemon wedge on the side. I prepare the whole lentil recipe in advance then gently warm it through in the pan before serving, adding a little more liquid and seasoning as required. I serve the green beans in a bowl so people can help themselves.

Here is the panko-crusted salmon prepared in the dish it will be roasted in, ready to store in the fridge.

The base of the lentil recipe is carrots, leeks and garlic.

The magic ingredients are an onion studded with cloves and a sliced turnip which flavour the water the puy lentils then simmer in. It really does impart a fantastic flavour.

I wanted a colourful, cheery dessert so I made slut-red raspberries in Chardonnay jelly. Yes, it's better suited to a summer lunch but with a drizzle of double cream on top they were sublime and not a mouthful was left! A cheese board followed with port and then coffee and delicious petits fours provided by one of our guests. Great conversation and company made it a fun evening. I hope you try out some of these recipes as I think they are sensational for a make-ahead dinner party.

Believe me these are so easy and so delicious. Real grown up jelly!

Festive Shortbread

There is something very English (or Scottish I should say!) about shortbread at Christmas. It appears in beautiful tins and packages in every food store around this time of year but it is so easy to make yourself and so much better than anything you can buy. This recipe is from Martha Stewart. Apparently she made this at the request of Ralph Lauren many years ago as holiday gifts for his friends and he always adored eating it! If it's good enough for Ralph then it's good enough for me!

Here's the finished shortbread cooling on a wire rack.

  

My addition to the recipe is to add the seeds of one vanilla pod to the butter when it is creaming. The vanilla flavour makes them more seasonal I think.

240g of room temperature, unsalted butter is creamed for about 5 minutes, with the seeds added for the last minute. You should be able to make out the black flecks in the creamy butter here.

The dry ingredients are then added; 2 cups of flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons of salt and 3/4 cup of icing sugar, all sifted together first. Add slowly to the creamed butter with the mixer on slow speed too.

The mixture is pressed into a 10-inch, loose bottom, fluted tart pan using clingfilm until it is smooth. Chill for about 30 minutes, cut into 8 wedges, prick with a fork and bake at 150 degrees celsius for about an hour, or until the shortbread is golden brown and firm in the centre.

A video of Martha Stewart making the recipe can be found here. The shortbread will keep for a couple of weeks in an air-tight container bit it's so delicious it probably won't last that long!

Braised Red Cabbage

I could not contemplate Christmas dinner without braised red cabbage. I always make it well in advance because it freezes so well and reheats beautifully on the hob. This recipe is Nigella Lawson's and it is the first time I have made it. She loves to add pomegranate to everything at Christmas so this cabbage is braised with red onion, apples, all spice, pomegranate juice and a little red wine vinegar which was my own addition to balance out the sweetness. You can find the recipe here. The house smelt of Christmas for the 3 hours it was cooking. I popped the whole thing in the oven at just under 150 degrees celsius for just over 3 hours, stirring now and then, rather than simmering on the stove top. Either way, the first taste went down very well so I think this one should be a winner. One red cabbage will serve at least 10 people as part of a big meal, probably more, so it is also very economical. I freeze it in two batches so there is some for another meal early in the new year. I hope you give it a go!

The finished braised red cabbage after just over 3 hours in the oven.

A Christmas Outing

This Sunday we made our annual visit to Hinton Ampner, a National Trust property in Hampshire near where we live. Accompanied by friends who had never visited before we were looking forward to seeing the house decorated for the festive season and soaking up some Christmas atmosphere.

  

The house was lovingly rebuilt and restored by its owner, Ralph Dutton, after a devastating fire in 1960.

There is something beautiful about the Hampshire countryside as autumn fades into winter.

A wonderful choir sang carols on the grand staircase.

The house was decorated to reflect the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. Nine pairs of shoes represented nine ladies dancing.

Each pair contained a beautiful flower arrangement.

This stunning tree had twelve drummers drumming around the base.

Another tree, this time in the window of the dining room.

I was very taken with this impressive table setting of seven swans-a-swimming.

Exquisite flower arrangements added a very festive feeling to each room.

I like arrangements that include things you could find in the woods. They are very natural and unstructured.

By the main entrance a sparkling tree welcomed hundreds of visitors. It was a very relaxing afternoon.