The godfather of all New Year's Days

There are some things that are only acceptable on New Year's Day. Having the worst hangover of the whole year just gone. Having absolutely no guilt about not getting dressed. Telling yourself seriously that by this time next year you'll be two stone lighter/ tee-total/ in the perfect relationship/ have quit your job. Oh or watch almost nine hours straight of mafia-classic-epic The Godfather trilogy.

Yes, I'd never seen it, and, well, you could say watching it was one new year's resolutions that it was pretty easy to tick off the list. But if we were going to do it, we were going to do it in style. Italian style. Proper Bolognese, bottle of Chianti (hair of the dog, the only way through) and a huge portion of tiramisu. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

Authentic Ragù Bolognese
This Delia recipe is almost as epic as The Godfather so best make ahead and make lots, you can freeze the extra (makes about 8 portions)

450g lean minced beef
450g minced pork
around 225g chopped chicken livers
140g chopped pancetta or streaky bacon
6 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
4 fat garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
2x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
2x 200g tubes of tomato puree
half a bottle of red or white wine (Delia suggests red but traditionalists would go white...)
15g packet of basil
1/2 whole nutmeg, grated
And two off-Delia additions:
2 medium carrots, grated
250g packet of mushrooms, grated

First up brown off your minces seperately and add them to your biggest casserole dish (which is not on the heat). Then fry up the garlic and onions, add the pancetta or streaky bacon and cook until the onions soften and the bacon browns and cooks, lastly add the grated carrot and mushroom and continue stirring until cooked (left). Then add this to your casserole dish.

Finally add more oil to the frying pan and fry off the chopped chicken livers (add these even if you think you don't like liver, you can't taste them individually and it adds a secret richness to your bol sauce). Finally add these to your meat medley in the casserole dish (right). Add in your chopped tomatoes and tomato puree, wine and a very healthy seasoning of salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.

Pop this over the heat and bring to a simmer. Now this is where I've got to argue ol' Dels has got it wrong. She suggests putting the mix in the oven uncovered for 4 hours. We've tried this. It dries out. So you could put it in the oven partially covered to reduce. Or you could do it our way and cook it over a low heat on the hob for 4 hours. Yes and you have to keep stirring so it doesn't stick. It is painstaking method but boy is it worth it.




Spaghetti may be the pasta known for bolognese but fatter tagliatelle is far better (and what the Bolognese have with their ragu sauce) as it ropes in the sauce and gives it something to get hooked up on. Fresh egg pasta is best, so flash it in boiling water for a couple of minutes, drain, top with the ragu and a healthy shaving of parmasean, unplug the phone, pour a glass of Chianti, draw the curtains and settle down to a mafia marathon...

The three acts to The Godfather triology are perfectly timed to make the tiramisu between part one and two and for it to be set and ready to sweeten Sofia Coppola's wooden acting in part three.

Jamie does... Best Tiramisu
serves 12
(the Italians might kill him for messing with the classic recipe but this version has a kick of orange zest, richness for chocolate and an added lightness of egg whites through the mascapone)

200g good dark chocolate
50g diced butter
175g sponge fingers
400ml good hot sweetened coffee
Sweet dessert wine (Jamie suggests Vin Santo - however we went for Tia Maria...)
4 large eggs
100g caster sugar
750g mascapone
2 oranges
to garnish some crushed coffee beans, chocolate shavings or cocoa, orange zest

Melt your chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water, although make sure it isn't touching the water. Add the diced butter and a pinch of salt and melt and stir to combine.

Line a large deep dish with sponge fingers, then carefully pour over the hot coffee. Add some booze to your melted coffee, stir through and then drizzle over the fingers and spread evenly (in a bit messy style... left).

Seperate the eggs with whites in one bowl and yolks in another. Add sugar to the yolks and if you fancy another swig of booze an whisk with an electric whisk for 5 minutes until everything is mixed and pale and fluffy. Mix in the mascapone and the zest of an orange.

Clean the whisk and whip the whites with a pinch of salt to stiff peaks - using the old turning the bowl upside down trick again. Using a large spoon, add spoonfuls of the white mix to the yolk bowl (right) and fold each through.

Spoon the mix over the chocolate layer and smooth. Garnish with a dusting of coffee and/or cocoa powder (or grated chocolate). Then pop in the fridge to set for two hours and sit down to part two...

Feel the beet: Duck, beetroot and walnut warm salad

Sometimes the Boy does things I'd just never consider to do. Like buy a whole duck because it's in the reduced price section late on a Thursday night. But you know there is method to his madness. After he had hacked it to bits with a carving knife and distributed to various plastic bags... Duck legs baked with orange and other delights one night, duck stock turned into a richly meaty pumpkin and chorizo soup. And then this little discovery.

Warm salad of duck breast with beetroot and walnuts
serves 2

1 large or two small duck breasts (skin on and scored)

For the beetroot puree:

100ml sweet sherry

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

1/2 red onion, chopped

2 cooked beetroot

pinch smoked paprika

pinch brown sugar

For the beetroot dressing:

3 tbsp olive oil

1tsp Dijon mustard

pinch salt

pinch sugar

To serve:

2 handfuls watercress, spinach and rocket salad

1 handful toasted walnuts

reserved beetroot puree

Heat oven to 180. Season the duck, heat an ovenproof frying pan over a high heat, add the duck skin-side down and fry for 2-3minutes on each side until golden brown. Transfer to oven and cook for 8-10mins, until still slightly pink in the middle. Remove and set aside on a warm covered plate (reserve any juices from the pan too).

For the beetroot puree, add the sherry, vinegar, red onion and beetroot to a pan with the duck juices in it and sprinkle over that pinch of smoked paprika. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 3-4 mins until its reduced by a third. Keep a couple fo tablespoons of the mixture for the dressing and blend the rest with the brown sugar in a food processor to silky smooth.

For the dressing, whisk reserved beetroot mixture, olive oil, mustard and pinch salt and sugar, then strain and keep the juicy liquids.

To serve carve the duck into 1cm thick slices. Arrange leave in the centre of the plat , arrange duck slices on top. Drizzle over the dressing and sprinkle with wlanuts. Dot the beetroot puree around the edge of the plate. Voila. Looks pretty pretty as well as tasting damn good. Love an autumnal salad.

Blanc-ity Blanc: A taste of Le Manoir aux Quat'Saison

Sometimes my job takes me to some pretty nice places. I'm not going to go on about it, so I'll just leave you with the photos of a trip to heaven and back, to Raymond Blanc's famous Le Manoir. If I die this is where I want to go... As we swept through the gate in my old Clio, me a bit hungover clutching an empty coffee cup and ham and cheese panini wrapper from the service station (it revived me), everything else melted away. It was like we were entering a different world where everything moved just a little more leisurely, everyone was just a little more polite and everything was just a little more perfect. The grass, the house, the staff; all had that soft, understated yet exclusive cashmere finish. And as soon as I stepped blinking out of the car (mid-tweeting), was greeted, handed over my car keys and whisked straight to our room (that's right no check-in) it was like I was being wrapped up in the softest, warmest, most fragrant cashmere blanket. And I never wanted to come out of this cocoon.

A sweet introduction....

And to kick off the main event: Garden beetroot terrine, dill cream and horseradish sauce (served with Pouilly-Fuisse Clos Varambon 2007 Chateau des Rontets) Fresh, light and palette clensing to set the scene.

Risotto of wild mushrooms, mascarpone, truffle cream. I must be dreaming, Rich, flavours on amplified, smooth, this is what heaven tastes like...

Braised fillet of wild gill-netted brill, cornish assured oyster, cucumber and wasabi beurre blanc (served with Riesling 2008 Domaine Trimbach). A hint of Asia wooshed through this dish with the wasabi bringing out the fresh flavours.

Roasted breast and confit of Goosnargh duck, turnip gratin, yuzu curd; jasmine tea and ginger sauce - continuing the Asian theme. Although I have to admit that I had trouble concentrating on this dish as the man himself had joined our journo table for a chat and was sitting right next to me. Oh why, oh why had I not cribbed up on his biography first... maybe I would have asked some sensible questions then.

Coeur de Guanaja chocolate gelee, star anis and pear sorbet. I have to admit I wasn't the hugest fan of this it tasted like watered down chocolate and the flavour of the sorbet was just lost in the wash-out. Sorry Raym..

But the dessert wine (Muscat de Lunel 2007 Cuvee Vieilles Vignes, Clos Bellevue) and make you melt petit fours more than made up for it. As well as grilling the editor of Restaurant magazine on his favourite restaurants... it was (unsurprisingly after their top 100 restaurants were announced) The Ledbury. Another reason to get myself there. So I went to bed to dream of food.

Althought there was still room the next morning for more. Oh it was a breakfast-buffet lovers dream. Cheese... Meats... Breads... Fruits... all of about ten varieties with little chalked on mini slate pieces name tags. I could have stayed all morning.

But there was just enough time to walk off breakfast and the food in the almost as famous gardens. My favourite: the Japanese tea garden.

And one hell of a vegetable patch...

Goodbye Le Manoir... Goodbye Raym. Thanks for the taste of the good life.

Home on the range: The Big Birthday Blow-out

So it's kind of become traditional that birthdays = Boy cooking like he's never cooked before (and me losing him for most of the day to Borough market). So on Saturday it was that day, and I was well excited.

I had no idea what I was going to get. After a pork and silton burger at Borough I was cast loose, while he sourced his supplies. I had a kiwi smoothie, do love a kiwi smoothie, and tried to re-ignite my hunger pangs... it was 3pm by now...

Back home and the scene was set: candles, flowers, Cinematic Orchestra CD on... I was waiting. And couldn't resist a nosey:

Mmmm. I was banished, the first course was up:

Fried Scallops with saffron potatoes, asparagus and samphire (courtesy of Ottolenghi)
serves 2 as a starter

200g potatoes, peeled and cut into little cubes

pinch of saffron

1 small tomato

20g samphire

4 asparagus spears

4 medium-large fresh scallops

For the aioli:

4 garlic cloves, peeled

50ml olive oil

50ml sunflower oil

1 free-range egg yolk

 1 tsp white wine vinegar

1/8 tsp Dijon mustard

pinch of salt

Make aioli first: heat oven to 150 and roast the garlic cloves wrapped in a sheet of foil for 25-35minutes. Remove, cool and mash with a fork. Mix the olive and sunflower oil. In a seperate bowl, combine egg yolk, vinegar, mustard, garlic, salt and a good grind of pepper. whisk by hand or in a food processor while slowly drizzling the oil. The end result should be thick (like mayo) so adjust oil accordingly and season to taste.

Put the potatoes in a medium saucepan, cover with cold water, then add the saffron and a generous pinch of salt. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer for 6-8 minutes so the potatoes are still slightly firm. Drain and cool. While the potatoes are on, cut the tomato into 4 wedges and remove the seeds, cut each quarter into a fine dice (about 1/2cm).

Wash the samphire then throw in a pan of boiling water for just 1 minute and scoop it out and rinse in cold water. Trim the asparagusand cut each spear into 3cm pieces - drop in the pan from the samphire and simmer for 2-3minute then drain and rinse in cold water.

To serve heat 2 large frying pans with 1tbsp olive oil each. When piping hot add potatoes to one of the pans. Toss them to get some colourand then add asparagus and samphire to warm them up. Taste and season. At the same time, give scallops a good season and pop in the other pan. Sear for 30-50 second til each side is just cooked (want to keep them good and let in the mouthy). Divide warm scallops and veg between two plates ans spoon a wee dollop of aioli, garnished with the tomato and a drizzle of oil. Definitely one to impress and impress it did. Especially accompanied with champagne...

 After I went to heaven and back with the first course, out came the wine from Artisan and Vine: Birichino Malvasia Bianca. It smelt like the breeze on some exotic holiday: eldeflower, jasmine, lime. But it was just teasing you, like a woman wafting her perfume, the first sip revealed it was pleasingly bone dry. But then I was distracted by the sound of roaring flames from the kitchen.

Someone was getting a bit enthusiastic with his flambéing. Round two was up:

Chicken with tarragon sauce (courtesy of John Torode's Chicken and Other Birds), served with a roasted garlic and carrot mash and green beans

Serves 2

2 chicken breasts skin on

100ml brandy

100ml creme fraiche

handful chopped parsley

handfull torn tarragon leaves

Heat a heavy frying pan over a medium heat and add a little olive oil. Season the chicken well and pop skin-side down into the pan. Cook for a good 8 minutes, then turn and cook the same. Check it is cooked through, then remove it from the pan and keep warm.

Crank up the heat on the pan to very high (everytime I read this instruction I hear Jim Carrey in the Mask: 'Smoooooooooooooookin' It haunts me). Add the brandy and carefully (uhum) flame it to burn off the harsh alcohol taste. Shake or stir to get in the good pan juices and sticky bits on the pan. Stir in the creme fraiche then taste and season. Bring to the boil and reduce by half. Add most of the parsley and tarragon. Serve the sauce with the chicken pouring over the brown juices that come with the rested chicken. Sprinkle with the remains for the herbs and serve. Voila!

And that was were the cooking ended and we moved on to Waitrose's apricot tart, ice cream, cheese, more cheese, port... well the Boy couldn't stay in the kitchen all night after all.

Gone fishing: Smoked mackerel and bacon cakes

I'd never had fish cakes until a couple of years ago. Really. I'm not sure why or how, I guess I was more a battered fish and chips kind of child, but they are a midweek meal revelation. Meat and potatoes in one dish! You don't even need a side, it's all there self-contained in one plump little pattie. Weaning myself in on M&S ones, it was high time to graduate to making my own, step in Nigel Slater's...

Smoked mackerel and bacon cakes

Serves 4 (here I halved quanities for 2)

400g floury potatoes

150g smoked streaky bacon
3 spring onions
1tbsp olive oil

250g smoked mackerel flesh

oil for cooking

flour for dusting

lemon halves to serve

Peel and pop the potatos on to boil. While they're simmering away put the bacon and roughly chopped spring onions in the food processor and whizz until they look soft and sort of crumbly (left).

Once the potatoes are boiled, drain and mash away. Fry up the onions and bacon mix in oil until golden and tasty smelling and then tip them into the mashed potato. Flake the mackerel flesh into the mix and stir through, seasoning with a bit of salt and pepper.

Now for the fun part, flour up a backing tray and with floury hand shape your patties and leave on the tray in a cool place (I went for by an open window) for 20 minutes.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a frying pan. dust each cake with some of the flour from the tray and pop in the hot oil. Fry for a about 4 minutes on each side until they are crisp and golden, mmmm. Serve with the lemon half, some salad and, if you are feeling well crazy, some creme fraiche or tartare sauce. Yum.

Beef it up: Mango, avocado and steak salad

Looking at me today eating, well, anything that doesn't still have a pulse, you'd never know how much of a fussy eater I once was. Bananas? No, funny texture. Apple crumble? Ew, hot fruit. Red meat? Yuck, chewy (my ten-year-old self had a bit of a thing about BSE). It caused many dinner time row and almost a whole primary school career of no lunchtime playtime as I was forced to stay behind in the dinner hall eating rice pudding grain by grain in protest until that bell rang. So fruit in a salad with red meat would have never passed my tight lipped seal of approval, but trust me it's a winner and the perfect summer combo.

I ripped Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's mango, avocado and beef salad out the Guardian Weekend back in February... the lush red, yellow and green photography almost had me stuffing the page in my mouth. Rolling it out again this week for the second time with the sun shining, it really hit its stride.

Mango, avocado and steak salad

(serves 4)

For the marinade

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1tbsp oyster sauce

1tbsp dry sherry

2tsp soy sauce

1tsp light muscovado sugar

1tsp grated frsh ginger

black pepper

For the salad

350g sirloin or filllet steak

1 large, ripe mango (or if you are a cheater like me, 2/3 a pre-prepped pack)

1 large, ripe avocado

2-3 hanfuls rocket leaves

1 small bunch coriander

For the dressing

2tbsp Thai fish sauce

1tbsp sesame oil

juice 1 lime

1tbsp soy sauce

1tsp light muscovado sugar

1 small chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely minced

salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients for the marinade, add steaks and rub it up and leave for 30mins to 1 hour.

Mix together the ingredients for the dressing, slice mango and avocado.

Heat a griddle pan til smoking (does anyone else hear Jim Carrey in the Mask when they see that in recipes?). Sear the steak 2-4minutes per side to taste and thickness, you can probably take it a bit rarer than usually as it make the salad more tender and light. You want it crispy, BBQ style on the outside and gorgeously pink on the inside. Leave to rest for 5 minutes while you arrange rocket, mango and avocado on plates. Top with beef, scatter with coriander and dress. Mmmmmm...

Eat, pray... nah, stuff that, just EAT: Bali

In my travelling tummy experience often the best meal you’ll eat in a country is the simplest. Goo-y creamy mozzerella and you-can-still-taste-the-green-of-the-vine tomatoes in Rome, a bowl of steaming fresh mussels in white wine and skinny just-crisp-enough frites in Bruges, a so buttery-it’s-almost-melting warm croissant fresh from the boulangerie in Paris (not forgetting the Malboro Red on the side – there’s a reason why those French women are so skinny). Well, in Bali it was noodles, fried noodles. I was obsessed.

My new obsession ‘mie goreng’ literally means ‘fried noodles’- that’s it. Although, like its closely related counterpart ‘nasi goreng’ aka, you guessed it, ‘fried rice’, it was rather more than that. My Lonely Planet Bali and Lombok described it as ‘fried noodles with mixed goodies’ but like all the best recipes it depends on the chef. At the core is noodles fried in a piping hot wok with vegetables and a sweet soy spicy sauce, some warungs (roadside food stall-cum-restaurant) would add a fried egg or omelette on top and a variety of crackers – prawn, peanut, vegetable – on the side. Sometimes it’d be with pork, sometimes with chicken, sometimes just plain and simple but always great, and even better, less than £2. I’m sure there is usually shit-loads of MSG in it... uhum, sorry yes we’re calling it umami now. But who cares I was hooked.

We arrived in Bali at night after a long, long, long flight, thrust blinking into the humid darkness and then the bustle of the airport immigration hall. There was a small smiling Balinese man holding a sign with my and Choux Boy’s names, confused looking queues for visas and huge signs about the death penalty for drug dealers everywhere. Not that that was really an issue... I was there ‘officially’ to review some hotels and write about Eat, Pray, Love; unofficially, as always, I was there to eat, eat, eat.

First stop: Jimbaran Bay in South Bali and fortunately, given we hadn’t seen a bed in over 24 hours, only 15 minutes from the airport. Jimbaran Bay, I’d cribbed up from the Lonely Planet, which came to be known as ‘the bible’, is famous with locals and tourists alike for its string of seafood warungs that run the length of its golden arc. From lunchtime you can smell the smoky, salty smell of barbequing fish hauled from the colourful wooden fishing boats that dot the sea if you are up early enough to the ramshackle fish market at the north end of the bay. After sunset the tables stretch down the sand to replace the lapping waves as the tide retreats and candles ripple through the smoke.

The Boy turns from Choux Boy to Action Man on holidays. And he was a man with a plan for Bali – surfing, bodyboarding, sailing, snorkelling, scuba diving were all on our activity agenda. I was a little bit afraid. So day two and cooking school was perfect – an activity and I didn’t even need to get wet. Plus I get to ask a million questions about Balinese food, double win. This was the discovery of mie goreng, this was the start of the trip’s obsession. We start at 8am with a trip to the fish and produce market. The average Balinese day starts well before sunrise at around 4 or 5am with a trip to the market (which opens at 2am!) to get food for the day – no fridges equals daily trips. There was everything crabs, sardines, sharks, mullet all from the bay. Woven baskets full were bought and strung onto thick bamboo poles between two men to be run along the bay to a warung.

Most of Balinese cooking, we’re told, revolves around the key roots: galangal, turmeric and ginger which are on sale everywhere in the produce market along with chillis, Balinese limes (smaller and sweeter), bunches of Thai basil...

But on to the Mie Goreng...

Mie Goreng
courtesy of Wayan Suratha head chef of Warung Mie at Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay (and the Four Seasons Cooking School – hence the rather precise measurements and obsession with julienning)

100g boiled fresh noodles
5g chopped garlic cloves
10g red chilli – julienned
25g carrot – julienned
10g spring onions – julienned
40g chopped onion
10g Napa cabbage
8g sliced leeks
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sweet soya sauce
3 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp Chinese wine
½ tsp sesame oil
1 tsp chilli sauce
1 tsp white pepper

To garnish
25g of sliced omelette
5g fried shallots

Heat up the wok and pour in oil. Add garlic and fry for 3 seconds before adding onions, napa cabbage, leek, red chilli, carrot, spring onions. Pour in fish sauce, soy sauce, sweet soya sauce, oyster sauce, Chinese wine, chilli sauce and seasame oil. Add noodles and toss well. Check seasoning. Serve topped with omelette and shallots with crackers.

After Jimbaran Bay we travel round the coast and away from the crowd to East Bali and Amankila. And my second Balinese obsession ‘salak’ fruit (don’t worry I was acquiring, not cheating on my food obsessions, I was still having mie goreng for lunch almost every day). I was immediately drawn to it because of its skin. It looks and feel exactly like snakeskin (how long would it last fashioned into a bracelet before I started smelling of rotting fruit I wondered...) The skin is thin and easily peeled away in satisfying strips to reveal the knobbles of the three of four segments of fruit beneath. Good ones were sweet, not juicy but crunched a bit like an apple. The best one I eat was off the basket on the head of a Balinese woman during a hike near the small village of Wates. Our guide Kawit said they were the best in all of Bali...

Goodbye to the mountainous jungle of East Bali, a speedboat and it is replaced by the flat, sand-circled tiny paradise isles of the Gili Islands. Gili Meno, Gili Air and Gili Trawangen, our home in an unairconditioned beach shack for the next five days – which in turn was home to some of the best banana pancakes I have ever eaten, but maybe everything tastes better in the sunshine.

In an island that you can walk around in two hours it will come as no surprise that on this leg the obsession was fish. Fresh, simple, barbequed fish. Sat cross-legged in a thatched-roofed, cushioned balé, large Bintang beer, grilled snapper – there’s not much else I could have asked for, well air-con in the beach shack...

Speedboat, minibus, Ubud. The cultural heart of Bali, but I was still thinking with my stomach. Across from our haven of a hotel, Uma Ubud, a smoking, tin shack with Nuri’s painted in huge white letters on the corregated roof.

(Inside Nuri's: Eat, Pray, Love - Tongue, in, cheek)

It looks slightly like it belongs in a war zone. The infamous Naughty Nuri’s. You’ve got to try the BBQ ribs, and lethal martinis.

Of course, we did. But they never quite beat...

(Nuri's Mie Goreng - me liking)

Plenty of Otto love

Hello my name is Filo and I'm a cookbook addict. I can't help myself. The pretty pictures, the promise of new and exciting meals, heading to the shops little scribbled list in hand to hunt out new spices and ingredients... I've run out of space for new ones. I had to buy a new bookcase. Some are, I hate to admit, hardly cooked from. Others well splattered and pretty much cooked out: Gordon Ramsay Cooking for Friends, and my favourite.... Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. Ok, so the baking section is pretty much prisine but the meat, the fish and, sigh, the salads have seen me from lunchbox to dinner party.

So, how excited was I when The Guardian (they know that Otto readers are their prime market) ran an extract from his new book Plenty this weekend? I admit, I gave a little squeal in the newsagent. Choux Boy looked at me oddly. The newsagent looked at me even more oddly. I dropped my change. I was hopping with excitement, hopping right into the kitchen. So first up on a sunny Sunday night:

We didn't have quite enough tumeric/saffron to get that intense sunny yellowy glow, but washed down with a couple of bottles of Waitrose English cider it just tasted of pure undiluted summer. Otto that wasn't Plenty at all: must shop, must Amazon, must... buy... new... cook...book.