Archive for the 'Favourites' Category

Let’s get ready to rum baba!

Published on February 26, 2013 in Cakes, breads and baking, Christmas recipes, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, Failures and redemptions, Favourites, French traditional and Video recipes. 2 Comments

Rum baba, aka baba au rhum, is a sticky-sweet dessert made from a yeast-based cake soaked in, you guessed it, rum – after first being soused in a simple sugar syrup.

* Jump to the Rum baba recipe

We first tried rum baba in Montreal at a restaurant called L’Express when we were Crash Testing our way across Canada. After that we tracked it down in a few other restaurants in different parts of the world, but none of them were quite the same as that first baba, so we decided that one day we’d have to try making it ourselves. Continue reading ‘Let’s get ready to rum baba!’

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Bangers and mash recipe – with video

Published on June 21, 2012 in Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, English traditional, Favourites, Pork, Potatoes, Quick and easy and Video recipes. 2 Comments

* Go to the Bangers and mash recipe

Our cooking method for sausages adds extra flavour to the sometimes ho-hum “bangers and mash” by creating a chunky onion and tomato gravy out of the pan juices. Along with the obligatory mashed potato, this dish really does need some greens as well – green beans or broccoli, plunged into boiling water for just a few minutes. Perfect.

This is a reasonably quick dish – suitable for a weeknight dinner. It’s easy to scale up the recipe for extra guests – say, two sausages minimum per person. Continue reading ‘Bangers and mash recipe – with video’

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Pavlova recipe from the end of the oeuf

Published on June 5, 2012 in Cakes, breads and baking, Christmas recipes, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, Failures and redemptions, Favourites and Video recipes. 11 Comments

* Go to the Pavlova recipe

We’ve moved back to Australia and thought the first effort in our dowdy but spacious new kitchen should be pavlova. This is an Australian, New Zealand and, oddly, Norwegian dessert favourite that we prepare using a simple recipe that has a few special touches.

A pavlova is basically a giant meringue, but rather than being crunchy or chewy right through it’s meant to be crisp on the outside, with a soft and fluffy interior. A while back I was making ile flottante and encountered what Lenny and I have dubbed the ‘warm method’ of heating the egg whites before beating. We reckon it makes the pavlova mixture more stable and less likely to collapse when shaping and baking, and the inside more marshmallowy when you come to devour it. Continue reading ‘Pavlova recipe from the end of the oeuf’

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How to make Kung Pao Chicken

Published on April 5, 2011 in Asian/Oriental, Chicken and poultry, Cooking videos, Favourites, Quick and easy, Sauces and Video recipes. 9 Comments

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* Go to the recipe for Kung Pao Chicken

One of the dishes we returned to time and again when we were visiting our friend Cristy in Beijing a few years ago was the popular Gong Bao Ji Ding or Kung Pao Chicken (also called Kung Po or Gung Po chicken). Traditional Gong Bao Ji Ding is a spicy Sichuan dish, the westernised version of which is often very different from the authentic Sichuanese version. I’m sure there are many variations of the dish within China, as well. But it’s not usual to add other vegetables like onions, peppers (capsicum) or cashews (or even pineapple?!).

I like to call it Gong Bao Ji Ding, because it has such a lovely ring to it, and apologies to Mandarin speakers the world over for my terrible pronunciation. Perhaps, as I’m erring towards attempting to cook an authentic version of the dish, I should also be trying to pronounce it correctly. But the truth is, I simply don’t know how.

There are very few main ingredients in Gong Bao Ji Ding – just chicken, peanuts and spring onions (green onions), really. But, as with many east Asian dishes, the complexity is in the many flavourings. Continue reading ‘How to make Kung Pao Chicken’

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How to cook with truffles

Published on November 26, 2010 in Cakes, breads and baking, Chicken and poultry, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, English traditional, Favourites, Indian, Pasta, Quick and easy, Sauces, Vegetarian and Video recipes. 6 Comments

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Go to the recipe for Pasta with white truffle
Go to the recipe for Eggs in cocotte with white truffle

On “schoolnights”, when everything happens at helter-skelter pace, it’s always a rush to get home from work, throw a meal together and do the day’s housekeeping before crashing into bed. If I’m lucky Waz has been on an early shift and we can share the evening duties.

So on the weekends we really like to give a lot more time and attention to creating lovely meals that we can enjoy eating at a slower pace.

I thoroughly respect the ideology of the Slow Food Movement – begun in 1986 to celebrate and enjoy local and regional cuisines. So when time permits I love to create meals that embody the Slow Food philosophy of creating the simplest of dishes, with the highest quality ingredients.

Chef Michelle and I recently treated ourselves with a whirlwind weekend trip to the centre of the white truffle universe – the Alba truffle festival in Piemonte near Turin, Italy. We ate a fantastic truffle meal at a Slow Food restaurant with some luscious local Barolo wine. We couldn’t believe our luck the following day when, while roaming the Alba hills, we ran into a local truffle hunter who sold us some white truffles that his little dog had just dug out of the ground. Continue reading ‘How to cook with truffles’

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Let the jelly roll: Swiss roll recipe from Waz’s Nana

Published on March 25, 2010 in Cakes, breads and baking, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, English traditional, Favourites, Quick and easy and Video recipes. 23 Comments

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Go to the recipe for Swiss roll, aka jelly roll

Swiss roll – or jelly roll to the Americans and Canadians – is what Lenny likes to call a store cupboard cake. Like my Mum’s teacake, this is baking at its easiest. You’ve probably got most of the ingredients already, and the results are sure to win you a disproportionate amount of praise from your guests. Continue reading ‘Let the jelly roll: Swiss roll recipe from Waz’s Nana’

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How to roast a duck, the slow and tender way

Published on December 7, 2009 in Chicken and poultry, Christmas recipes, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Favourites, Potatoes, Quick and easy, Sauces and Video recipes. 5 Comments

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Go to the recipe for Christmas duck

Let’s talk turkey. Actually let’s talk about something else this Christmas. Let’s talk turkey alternatives.

This is a first for Crash Test Kitchen. We’ve never done a Christmas episode before. So we thought we’d focus on two of the basic elements you want on your table: crispy roast potatoes and a lovely bird.

But instead of turkey, we’ve chosen duck. Continue reading ‘How to roast a duck, the slow and tender way’

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Our roast chicken recipe: hot and fast

Published on July 17, 2009 in Chicken and poultry, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Favourites, Potatoes, Quick and easy and Video recipes. 21 Comments Tags: brandy, butter, roast chicken recipe, roast potatoes.

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Go to the recipe for hot and fast roast chicken

People do fuss over a roast chicken, don’t they? Doing all sorts of things like draping bacon over the fleshiest bits to keep them moist, mucking around poking seasonings under the skin, stuffing all sorts of things inside them to add flavour, even insisting that you have to roast a chicken breast-down in the pan and then flip it over part way through cooking.

In our opinion, if you keep the cooking simple, getting a good result can be reduced to one decision: buying a decent chicken in the first place. There’s been a lot of publicity about chicken welfare lately, with the focus being on battery laying hens and intensively reared, fast-growing meat birds that can hardly stand up by themselves.

In our house we haven’t gone down the full free-range route, but have settled on buying slow-growing birds that are fed better food in more spacious barns endorsed by animal welfare authorities. In the UK the scheme is called RSPCA Freedom Foods and no doubt there are equivalents elsewhere in the world. Continue reading ‘Our roast chicken recipe: hot and fast’

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No-fuss fish pie

Published on December 19, 2008 in Cooking videos, English traditional, Favourites, Fish and seafood, Potatoes and Video recipes. 15 Comments

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While it’s nice to experiment in the kitchen and try exciting and slightly scary things like soufflé and partridge, it’s equally nice to build up a stock of really easy, favourite recipes that you can cook any day of the week. You know, the kind of recipes you don’t even a shopping list for, because the list of ingredients is in your head.

This fish pie recipe is like that for me. It’s fairly quick, easy, tasty and you can substitute different kinds of seafood or vegetables, depending on what you’ve got in the fridge or what’s available at the fishmonger (or, let’s face it, the supermarket). Continue reading ‘No-fuss fish pie’

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Classic bolognese

Published on August 20, 2008 in Beef, Cooking videos, Favourites, Pasta and Video recipes. 20 Comments

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Spaghetti bolognese – it’s an old standby, and as such has become one of the most used and abused recipes under creation. Outside of its hometown of Bologna in Italy, bolognese has become a catch-all name for any meat-and-tomato sauce quickly slapped together and served over pasta, which is almost invariably spaghetti.

But start investigating bolognese and you’ll find out some interesting things. In traditional Bolognese cooking, ragu alla bolognese is rarely served with spaghetti (usually it goes with tagliatelle); it contains very little tomato (eschewing the pound can or two of tommies that many people dump into the saucepan); there are no herbs in it (so rack off home with your shaker of dried oregano); and one of the key ingredients is time (not the herb – the stuff in your wristwatch).

Most surprisingly of all – to me, at least – the key to a lovely rich bolognese is a goodly portion of milk.

Continue reading ‘Classic bolognese’

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Portuguese custard tarts recipe (pasteis de nata)

Published on June 13, 2008 in Cakes, breads and baking, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, Favourites, Vegetarian and Video recipes. 27 Comments

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Go to the recipe

I’m not much of a sweet tooth, and unlike Waz I’m not much of a coffee drinker. But when I do indulge in a proper espresso it’s always lovely to complement it with a sweet little morsel. Just like nata – or proper Portuguese custard tarts. These delicacies are made with a puff pastry base and a vanilla egg custard filling with a hint of orange zest.

They are by no means the only custard tart around. Waz and I are also huge fans of Chinese dan ta – those lovely little glossy-topped, flaky-based tarts you get when you have good yum cha (also known as dim sum). Continue reading ‘Portuguese custard tarts recipe (pasteis de nata)’

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About the soufflé

Published on June 4, 2007 in Cakes, breads and baking, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, Favourites, French traditional, Vegetarian and Video recipes. 15 Comments

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There’s an old Buddhist saying that goes something like: “When two paths open up before you, make soufflé.”

There are two main paths to soufflé, and in accordance with the true version of that Buddhist proverb, we chose the difficult one. Continue reading ‘About the soufflé’

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One chicken, three ways

Published on April 25, 2007 in Asian/Oriental, Chicken and poultry, Cooking videos, Favourites, Soup and Video recipes. 23 Comments

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What a month it’s been. Moving to a new address on the other side of London, getting to grips with a new kitchen (while mourning the loss of the behemoth stove at our previous address), and on top of that, work work work!

THEN, just as we got this episode – where we make Hainanese chicken rice – shot and edited, Apple decided to bring out their new set-top box, Apple TV. It lets you watch podcasts like ours on your telly. Cool gadget, but it posed some issues, because to make the most of it we’ve had to step up the resolution of our videos.

But more on that later. We decided on something simple for the first show at our new place – Hainan chicken, or as some call it, Hainanese chicken rice. Like many Asian recipes it’s big on fresh ingredients prepared in a straightforward manner. Continue reading ‘One chicken, three ways’

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Bones about it: Beef stock from scratch

Published on May 12, 2006 in Beef, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Favourites, French traditional, Soup and Video recipes. 12 Comments

We’ve set out to make authentic French onion soup, complete with crusty toasted bread and gruyere on top. And when you embark on such a mission, you simply must make the soup base – beef stock – from scratch.

This is one of those really rewarding kitchen marathons. The stock may take hours and hours to make, but most of that is simply the simmering process that seethes out the delicious juices from the beef bones and vegetables.

And the preparation is enjoyably crude: vegetables roughly chopped, roasted with the bones, then tossed into a pot with water and a few simple spices. Continue reading ‘Bones about it: Beef stock from scratch’

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Heart-melting chocolate pudding

Published on March 30, 2006 in Cakes, breads and baking, Christmas recipes, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, Favourites and Video recipes. 30 Comments

Go to the recipe for heart-melting chocolate pudding

I couldn’t help it. Lenny left those blocks of delicious dark chocolate sitting there in the cupboard for weeks and weeks. Late one night I just had to have a nibble.

In the end, having not quite enough 70% cocoa dark chocolate to make these molten-centred puddings wasn’t such a big problem. Hidden away in another corner of the cupboard was some plain old Cadbury’s glass-and-a-half, and it probably took the edge off the cheek-puckering bitterness of the hardcore Green & Black’s Organic.

Lenny had been dying to cook this devilish delight after we had one at the rather posh St John restaurant in Clerkenwell, London. Continue reading ‘Heart-melting chocolate pudding’

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How to make cracking creme brulee

Published on March 8, 2006 in Cakes, breads and baking, Chicken and poultry, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, English traditional, Favourites, French traditional, Quick and easy, Sauces, Vegetarian and Video recipes. 23 Comments

We all want one of those chef’s blowtorches, don’t we? You know, the ones that you can use to blacken a capsicum (sorry, a pepper), blister a tomato … or make creme brulee!

I’ve had a serious addiction to this oh-so-unhealthy French dessert for years now – probably since I saw the movie Amelie, with that pixie-faced leading lady who rates “cracking creme brulee with a spoon” as one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Most restaurants have it on the menu, and I’ve eaten all sorts of variations – fruit flavoured and the like – in different parts of the world. Continue reading ‘How to make cracking creme brulee’

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Froth my milk up: cappuccino foam and how to get it right

Published on January 28, 2006 in Breakfast, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Favourites and Video recipes. 27 Comments

One of my pet hates is a cappuccino without good froth, especially one for which I’ve forked out my hard-earned readies.

After I dropped many a hint, Lenny gave me an espresso machine for Christmas. Determined not to replicate the work of dud baristas who have been fleecing me for donkeys’ years, I went to work quickly to perfect my frothing technique. Now Crash Test Kitchen is ready to go public with the cappuccino tips you’ll find in this episode.

Too many of the coffee chains get away with selling fraudulently priced beverages with coarsely bubbled, over-aerated scum on top that has absolutely no body to it. Carry a coffee like this across the room, or up the street to your job, and you’ll find the foam has burst its bubbles and collapsed into plain old milk again. Really, really bad foam will discombobulate under the weight of the mandatory chocolate powder or flakes alone. Continue reading ‘Froth my milk up: cappuccino foam and how to get it right’

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Chocolate cake like mum makes

Published on December 18, 2005 in Cakes, breads and baking, Christmas recipes, Cooking techniques explained, Cooking videos, Desserts and puddings, English traditional, Favourites, Vegetarian and Video recipes. 24 Comments

I have never found a chocolate cake as good as my mum’s. Actually it’s my grandmother’s recipe, and a great one at that.

I didn’t know until I asked mum for the recipe that it’s a “boiled” cake. You don’t actually boil it to cook it – but you simmer some of the ingredients before making the final mix. Continue reading ‘Chocolate cake like mum makes’

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Chicken soup from scratch

Published on June 11, 2005 in Chicken and poultry, Cooking videos, Favourites, Soup and Video recipes. 16 Comments

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Go to the recipe for chicken soup

When Lenny’s feeling a little bit under the weather she gets a craving for soup. Actually, pretty much ANY excuse to make this simple, hearty chicken soup will do. You just start with a whole chicken, remove the skin and simmer it with tasty vegetables until the flesh is tender and comes away easily from the bone (Lenny calls this the “fall-apartability” test.

Removing the skin as Lenny does in this video might a familiar process to people who’ve basted a “chook” by getting their hands under the skin to rub a mixture of butter, garlic, herbs and what-not on the flesh. Continue reading ‘Chicken soup from scratch’

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Archive for the 'Favourites' Category

Let’s get ready to rum baba!

Bangers and mash recipe – with video

Pavlova recipe from the end of the oeuf

How to make Kung Pao Chicken

How to cook with truffles

Let the jelly roll: Swiss roll recipe from Waz’s Nana

How to roast a duck, the slow and tender way

Our roast chicken recipe: hot and fast

No-fuss fish pie

Classic bolognese

Portuguese custard tarts recipe (pasteis de nata)

About the soufflé

One chicken, three ways

Bones about it: Beef stock from scratch

Heart-melting chocolate pudding

How to make cracking creme brulee

Froth my milk up: cappuccino foam and how to get it right

Chocolate cake like mum makes

Chicken soup from scratch

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