It's Margarita Time.............

We're having a mexican themed evening at my brother in law's house tonight. This prompted me to volunteer to make Margarita Ice Cream, which I'd seen Nigella do on Nigella Express, and thought it looked good. On reading the recipe in her book, I noticed that it was a "no-churn" version of an ice cream recipe in Forever Summer. I've never made ice cream (churned or not) and having read both recipes, decided that I would splash out on an ice cream maker and have a go at the real thing.

I bought this Magimix, because:
a) it was the least expensive I could find and
b) it got pretty good reviews at Amazon and Argos

I'd always thought that one day I'd buy an expensive (£200+) ice cream maker, as I thought that the "freeze the bowl" versions weren't so good. Time to give it a try.

Making the custard for the ice cream was ok, Nigella gives very clear advice about that, and I do confess I had to plunge the pan in to the sink full of cold water once, to stop the custard splitting!
I made this at about 9am, and left it in the fridge to properly chill for the rest of the day. The bowl for the ice cream maker had been in the freezer overnight. The instruction book was full of warnings about the consequences of the bowl /custard not being properly chilled. No room for error here, this is being served up tonight!

Setting the ice cream maker up was a bit tricky - for some reason, the paddle would only churn when the lid was not on top of the bowl. I'm not sure why. I managed to keep it going by just placing the lid on the bowl, and not properly clipping it on. I'll try again, and if it still doesn't work, may take it back for replacement.

After that, all you do is pour in the custard, and wait 20 minutes. Well, I waited 30 because I wanted to be sure that the mix was as well churned as it could be. It was pretty soft, but after a night in the deep freeze in a plastic tub, it has set a treat. And tastes wonderful! More like Key Lime Pie than Margarita, but that'll do for me. The leftover Tequila and Cointreau will be put to good use in proper Margaritas this evening. We're also having nachos, enchiladas and tacos. And my sister in law has made a Key Lime Pie to accompany the ice cream.

I've also made a version of Nigella's choc chip chilli for tonight. But have just realised that I forgot to put the chocolate in! Doh! It will need warming up so I'll add it later........
Nigella's recipe uses chorizo sausage, but I skipped that, and to get the smokiness into it I used smoked paprika, and some of the Chipotle Chilli powder that I bought back from Florida. And a squirt of Heinz BBQ sauce!

There was custard mix left over, as the Glacier will only take just over a pint of liquid, so I had a go at baking it in some pre-bought M&S small pastry cases. My idea was to have like a lemon tart type of thing, but with lime. Didn't REALLY work. Both the custard and the tart base burnt on half of them, and those that survived were a bit messy looking, and the lime custard:pastry ratio was wrong. Most of them ended up in the bin.

And finally, I had to find some use for the leftover egg whites, and the raspberries/limoncello syrup from the other day. Mini-pavlova, anyone?

Trying something new.

I love pannacotta, so I had a go at making it for the first time this week. I had a load of leftover cream in the fridge from Christmas and I used a Jamie Oliver recipe, as I just happened to be flicking through his Happy Days book looking for a chilli recipe, and stumbled upon the pannacotta recipe. (Hmmm, I'm not quite sure why I was in the back of the book looking at desserts when I was supposed to be looking for Chilli ideas.)

Anyway, it turned out to be a lot easier than I'd imagined. Just a bit of heating, mixing and pouring, really. The recipe uses 2 vanilla pods and serves 4 people... I think in future I'd just use one pod, as there were loads of seeds (not that I mind, I love them, but one would have been more than enough). Also, I missed out the step of whipping some of the cream with the icing sugar as I'd already heated the lot up together by the time I noticed it! End result did not seem to suffer, though. This was really good. I didn't have rhubarb, and as the pannacotta was infused with lemon zest, which gave it a slight tang, I decided to make up some Limoncello syrup (boiled Limoncello, lemon juice and icing sugar for a few minutes then left to cool) and serve it with that and some raspberries.

Next time, I want to try a quite complicated coffee pannacotta with fleur de sel caramel recipe that I found recently...............

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/pannacotta-with-roasted-rhubarb

The quest for perfect mash....

I love mashed potato. Absolutely love it. To the point where I get quite upset if it is not done properly. We had two quite contrary experiences in Florida recently - one where I served the best mashed potato I've ever had in a restaurant, and the second where I was bitterly disappointed that the chef sent out lumpy mash. And this in what was supposedly Florida's highest rated restaurant - and one of the best in America. How hard is it to get your mash right?

Well, up until recently I'd relied on well boiled spuds, and a good potato masher plus a load of hard work to get mine right. And, they were pretty good. But I'd long wanted a potato ricer, and finally got round to buying one this year. I was impressed with the difference it made (and the mess I managed to make with it).

Back to those Florida restaurants. Cafe Lurcat in Naples sent out the most perfect mash - listed on the menu as potato puree. It was silky smooth and highly seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Perfect. Beach Bistro on Anna Maria Island sent out what they called a "side of chefs mashed". It had squash or something like that in it - plus the lumps I mentioned earlier. And was luke warm. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to mash, I'm not really into all those "flavoured" mashes, although I have been known to eat a bowl of it with tomato ketchup splodged on top on rare occasions. I prefer to let the sauces with my food add any extra flavour. In the mash itself I only ever add: butter (or olive oil), cream (or milk), nutmeg, salt and pepper. Usually white pepper.

After the Lurcat mash, I was pondering on what was the extra something that made it better than mine. Especially now that I have a ricer - my mash should be perfect! Then it stuck me that they were calling it puree... so that was the difference. I mentioned to Roy that they must have passed it through a sieve to get it so smooth. Little did he know that a few weeks later, he'd be acting as my commis chef and doing likewise.

So that's what I tried tonight. I made up the mash as usual and then passed it to Roy with a sieve, bowl and silicone spatula. 20 minutes or so later, he'd passed the lot through the sieve and I warmed it up in a pan (having seen this done on tv cooking shows). It was excellent. Although I'm not sure I'd bother with the sieve-ing part every time I make it. That's it in the photograph. Served with pork chop in mushroom sauce and brussel sprouts. Delicious.