Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows

This month's Food 'n' Flix is all about Thanksgiving. The movie chosen by Deb at Kahakai Kitchen is called Pieces of April starring Katie Holmes (she of Dawson's Creek fame) as April.

The story centres around April and her boyfriend in their small, slightly run down apartment preparing a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner - they seem to know what they are doing even though Katie's sister later says she can't cook and is never in the kitchen. She also decorates and makes place cards for her family and has got up very early to put the turkey in the oven- it's clear that April is making a lot of effort. However, her family really don't want to go and talk about the disaster that is April's life as they make their road trip to see her, but her dad tries to defend her saying she has a job now and isn't going out with a drug dealer any more. We learn her mother is dying of cancer which is why April is so keen to get the family together for what may be their last Thanksgiving.

 

April's oven stops working and she has to go to the neighbours, who she doesn't really know, to ask to use their oven; a kindly couple who are initially hostile are moved by her story of how her mother is dying so they agree to eat their Thanksgiving dinner later so April can get started cooking hers in their oven. The couple are making all sorts of dishes from scratch whereas April is opening a can of processed cranberry sauce; April says she likes it from the can but the man says nobody likes it from the can. So they teach her how to make a proper cranberry sauce.

 

But after a while they need to use her own oven so April has to go round asking other neighbours,  most of whom don't want to help or who are a bit strange to say the least. She then finds a neighbour - played by Jack from Will and Grace- who has a fancy new oven and is happy for April to use it. He turns out to be quite strange too and for a while won't let April back into his apartment to get her turkey out of the oven; when she finally gets in she takes her half-cooked turkey and leaves.

 

When her family arrive they are horrified by April's neighbourhood and meeting her African-American boyfriend, who has been on his own mission throughout the film to get a suit so he can make a good impression. When April goes downstairs to greet them they have left and she breaks down in tears. They seem to have gone to a pub and are going to eat there instead, but when April's mum sees a little girl she is reminded of her daughter - even though we have been told earlier they never really got on- and she hitches a ride on a motorbike and turns up on April's door. Eventually the rest of her family follows and they have Thanksgiving together with all the neighbours who helped April.

 

This is described as a comedy but I didn't find it particularly funny; it's a bit depressing in places but also kind of heartwarming and it's nice how the neighbours and April's family finally come together.

So for Food 'n' Flix there was no question that I would make a Thanksgiving recipe - and there is one thing I've wanted to try for a while: sweet potato with marshmallows. Have any of my American readers (or anyone else) ever eaten this? I've seen it on TV and read about it as part of Thanksgiving meals but wonder if it is actually that common? I made it for some friends who had never heard of putting marshmallows on sweet potatoes and found myself repeatedly insisting "It's a thing! Nigella says so!".

The recipe is in Nigella's Feast - my copy of which is now signed by the lady herself after the event I went to last week. I didn't follow the exact quantities as I wasn't sure whether people would like this so wanted to make a smaller batch but the full recipe is here.

I used four sweet potatoes, which I wrapped in foil and put in the oven at 175C for an hour and a half, on a baking tray. When I unwrapped the potatoes I only had to make a slit in the skin for it to peel off, leaving me to scoop out the soft insides.

Spoon the sweet potato into a dish and add a spoonful of butter (I used vegan butter substitute), a glug of oil, a dash of lemon or lime juice, a pinch of salt and a generous pinch of cinnamon.

Mash together then spoon into an oven proof dish and smooth the top. Cover the top with marshmallows. I left a small section without marshmallows; the ones I used were red (OK, pink), white and blue star shaped marshmallows which my boyfriend's mum got me in America. So very Thanksgiving!

Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. The marshmallows melted - it did look a bit random and most people only wanted to try a small spoonful!

 

 

You can see here a spoonful of the sweet potato and marshmallow next to some meat loaf I made. The sweet potato tasted surprisingly good - but very sweet and some of my friends said it tasted more like a dessert than a side dish! It might have looked better if I hadn't used coloured marshmallows (see Nigella's picture) but I do think mine looks quite festive. It's not a combination that I expect I will make again, but I did enjoy it!

 

 

 

Less Sinful Smoked Mackerel Pate

smoked mackerel pate

Fish pate is something that always makes an appearance at Christmas, whether it's as a starter on Christmas day or as part of the Boxing Day buffet. We had a food tasting session at my Slimming World group this week which was an opportunity for me to try out another recipe from the Slimming World Christmas book.

Mackerel pate usually uses cream cheese or crème fraiche but you can cut the calories - while keeping all the taste - by using Quark instead. If you haven't come across Quark before you're really missing out - it's a very versatile curd cheese that has a very plain taste so can be used in both sweet or savoury dishes. It can be used in place of crème fraiche, natural yogurt or cream cheese and is virtually fat free. It is also quite thick so is good for dishes where you want a robust texture.

Making this mackerel pate is really simple. The recipe from the Slimming World book was actually for smoked trout pate but I couldn't get any smoked trout, so mackerel it was!

You need
250g smoked mackerel fillets
125g Quark
3-4 spring onions, chopped
1 tsp horseradish sauce
couple of drops of Tabasco sauce

Dry-fry the chopped spring onions for a couple of minutes and flake the fish into the same pan and stir until combined.

Spoon into a large bowl and mix well with a fork into the Quark until you have a relatively smooth texture.

Add the horseradish and Tabasco. Mix well and transfer to a serving bowl. Serve with breadsticks or melba toasts.

Nigella Lawson on the Meaning of Food

 

  

 

Nigella Lawson is an icon of the food world. She is adored by her fans, who see her as the ‘domestic goddess’ personified; she is lusted over for her voluptuous beauty and seemingly innuendo-filled way of describing food and eating; she is held up as something of a martyr who has suffered personal tragedy and domestic abuse, though her halo slipped somewhat after she admitted cocaine use as part of the fraud trial of her former personal assistants last year.

 

Nigella is also unique among ‘celebrity’ chefs and cookery writers. Few are referred to by just their first name; the daughter of a peer, the former chancellor Nigel Lawson, she is technically “the Honorable Nigella Lawson”, but she does not use this title. Her mother’s family founded the famous Lyon’s tea rooms business. She has conquered the USA via the television programme The Taste; she has a successful cookware range and she remains a stalwart of British television despite making her first appearance 15 years ago.

 

I have most of Nigella’s books and her How to be a Domestic Goddess was one of my first cookery books, and something of a bible. I love her writing so when I saw that she would be speaking at the School of Life on ‘the meaning of food’, I immediately bought a ticket.

 

Nigella was interviewed on stage in front of an audience of what must have been about 800 people, and I was sitting right at the back, which was a shame – until it came to the book signing, which meant exiting the room at the back and going downstairs. So I was about tenth in the queue and dread to think how long the people at the front of the auditorium had to wait!

 

She was interviewed by School of Life founder and philosopher Alain de Botton. The interview therefore had a strong philosophical bent, and meant it was a bit different to a run-of-the-mill author talk. He didn’t ask Nigella about her career, but instead asked her to do things like free association around the idea of a lemon. So it was a little random in places… de Botton also interrupted and spoke over Nigella frequently, and while I think he drew some interesting (and very intelligent) comments out of her, I don’t think the interview went down all that well with the die-hard Nigella fans. A couple in the queue for the book signing ahead of me complained they had been to a lot of book fairs and never heard such a bad interview! I didn't entirely agree but I did think the line of questioning was a little esoteric at times.

 

There were large screens on stage but they showed the School of Life logo and not as I was expecting a close-up of Nigella; it did look as if the event was being filmed so I was surprised there wasn’t a live feed onto the screens. That would have been helpful for those of us who got lost trying to find the venue in the back streets of Westminster and ended up sitting in the back row!

 

Given the event cost £30 and was in a church building (which surely couldn’t have cost that much to hire) I was a little disappointed by the event as a whole, though I did like the programme that was placed on each seat containing ideas, reading material, a recipe and some ‘homework’ from Nigella (I will come to this later). But on the subject of seats, you could choose where you sat but this meant it was hard for latecomers to find seats and a few people were standing or sat on the steps – again, not great organisation when I assume they had not sold more tickets than they had seats available, and a better organised event would have meant these people had seats.

 

Having said that, it was really interesting to hear what Nigella had to say and to meet her in person at the book signing. I asked her what she thought about food blogs: read on for some choice quotes from the evening that I jotted down while she was speaking.

 

 

 

“I need to feel that everything I eat means something to me”

 

“I don’t feel any better for being able to cook my own food than I feel bad for not being able to sew my own clothes”

 

“When you are younger you have the starlet’s need to be taken seriously, thankfully I’ve outgrown that”

 

“People believe if you like cooking you are a wonderful, nurturing soul but actually for those of us who like feeding someone it is because we like being controlling”

 

When asked what are her guilty pleasures: “The only thing I can feel guilty about is not taking pleasure”

 

When asked what virtues make a good cook, such as discipline, patience: “The most important thing in becoming a good cook is having a palette and that is something that you either have or you don’t have”

 

“I’m not good with authority, when I cook from my own books I think ‘oh, she says put two spoonfuls but I don’t want to’, then I realise she is me”

 

“Roast chicken is the basic unit for cooking”

 

“Cooking isn’t cooking if you are just following a recipe”

 

“Salt is the only essential ingredient you add to anything you cook, it’s very unfashionable to say that but salt unleashes everything”

 

“In writing about food I felt I found my own voice”

 

“Food is a repository of memory and connections”

 

“I don’t believe in comfort food, it’s discomfort food using food as a narcotic. I do believe in comfort cooking”

 

“If the food is the most important part of a dinner party then things aren’t working. People would rather you were relaxed and phoned for a pizza”

 

“Writing and cooking are twins, so are eating and reading. I get a profound sense of whether I like the taste of a sentence or not”

 

“A peeled soft boiled egg on toast is incredible, so few things match up to it. If I write a recipe I think ‘is it as good as a soft boiled egg on toast?’ and if not I won’t write the recipe”

 

I spent much time deliberating over which book to bring along for Nigella to sign, and nearly went for Domestic Goddess but in the end decided Feast would stand the test of time as a cooking bible, and besides, it was a bit cleaner than my copy of Domestic Goddess! While she was signing my book I took the opportunity to ask Nigella a question on behalf of food bloggers everywhere – what does she think of the increase in food blogs on the internet, and that so many people are now writing about food whether it detracts from professional food writers?

 

Nigella told me that she loves food blogs and it’s just a shame she doesn’t have time to keep up with them all, and it’s great that so many people are taking an interest in food and writing about food. She came across as really friendly and interested, and from the talk and Q&A earlier very intelligent. She’s also incredibly beautiful up close – she has a porcelain skin, much thinner than she used to be but still a voluptuous figure and is really very striking. Unfortunately the security guard stopped me from taking a photograph.

 

 

 

I said I would come back to the programme and the ‘homework’ from Nigella. She suggested three books to read: Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin; Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton and The Table Comes First by Adam Gopnik – none of which I have ever heard of. She also recommends three films to watch – Babette’s Feast, Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Chef. Funnily enough those first two were both chosen by hosts of the Food ‘n’ Flix blog challenge- you can see what I made inspired by Babette’s Feast here and Jiro Dreams of Sushi here. Chef, the Jon Favreau film that came out this year, is already on my list of films to watch!

 

Nigella also advocates choosing one recipe and cooking it repeatedly over a month, fiddling with ingredients, so you memorise and perfect the recipe, which I think is a really good idea. Finally, we were given one of her recipes, for poached chicken with lardons and lentils, which I might have to try some time.

 

Some of my Nigella books

Double Chocolate Microwave Mug Cake

 

When I made the chocolate and pear mug cake for myself, I couldn't leave out my boyfriend, but he doesn't like pears. So I turned to the same recipe book, Mug Cakes by Mima Sinclair - well, if my dessert wasn't going to involve any washing up apart from a mug, I wasn't going to get out the mixing bowls for his!

I thought he would appreciate the triple chocolate cake from the book; having said that the recipe only seems to use two types of chocolate so I'm going to call it a double chocolate mug cake!

To serve one, you need:
2 tbsp. softened butter plus extra for greasing
40g dark chocolate, finely chopped
1 egg
2 tbsp. semi-skimmed milk
3 tbsp. caster sugar
3 tbsp. self-raising flour
pinch of salt
for the ganache:
6 tbsp. double cream
50g dark chocolate finely chopped

Begin by making the chocolate ganache; place 4 tbsp. of the cream in a mug and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Add the 50g dark chocolate and mix until the chocolate has melted.

Place the butter and 40g chocolate in another mug which must be able to take 350ml of liquid and microwave for 10-20 seconds on high until melted.

Using a fork, carefully mix in the egg and the milk and then the sugar, flour and salt. You then need to spoon this out into a third mug (OK, so this recipe does create a bit more washing up!) which you have greased with a little softened butter. This is important as you want to turn the cake out of the mug later.

Microwave for 2 minutes in an 800 watt microwave; add or subtract 10 seconds for every 100 watt difference. Allow to cool before eating; when you are ready to serve, turn the cake out into a bowl and pour the chocolate ganache over the top. It may not look the most attractive dessert but it tastes pretty good and is ready in a matter of minutes!

I am sending this to Cook Blog Share hosted by Lucy at Supergoldenbakes.

Restaurant Review: Bratislava, Slovakia

During our trip to Vienna we decided to go to Bratislava for the day. I liked the idea of visiting another country and hearing a different language, and I had read that it was only an hour from Vienna by train. We had wanted to go to Bratislava by hovercraft on the Danube, but we were there in November when the boat trips were no longer running.

The train was very easy and pleasant, and only cost 15 euros each return - about £10. Fantastic!

The weather wasn't great but nonetheless we enjoyed ourselves wandering around the old town. When it came to lunch, my ever-so-fussy boyfriend didn't fancy any of the traditional Slovakian restaurants - and in any case we couldn't see any menus outside. Instead there were huge laminate pictures of the food, which I suppose works across any language, but didn't really help when we couldn't tell what most of the pictures were!

We didn't want to eat in a Mexican restaurant or Scottish pub in Slovakia - we were starting to notice the extent to which the town centre is geared up to catering for stag groups. Instead we noticed a sign advertising Minerva restaurant through an archway into a courtyard, which we thought looked really pretty, and from the sign the restaurant looked quite upmarket.

That wasn't actually the case at all. In the courtyard we found we had to go down some stairs, along a corridor and push a door marked 'welcome'; through the door the first thing we saw were the toilets. It was as if we had come in the back way, but I think this was the only entrance. The restaurant had large tables and benches with plastic-looking tablecloths - so not actually upmarket at all. But we were served quickly, and my boyfriend could have a burger which is what he wanted, and I could try some Slovakian food.

I can't remember the name of what I ordered but it was basically gnocchi in a sauce made of goat's cheese (so tasty, but a little salty) with two sausages on top. It was hearty food and very good value, and my boyfriend only paid about £5 or £6 for his burger so he was happy.

After that it was a quick stop to buy a fridge magnet (I collet them from each country I visit), a few more photographs and a taxi to the station to get the train home. I think we were ripped off by the taxi driver though as we were charged 20 euros for a ten minute ride when we had only paid 15 euros each for a train journey from another country!

Restaurant Reviews: Vienna, Austria

 

Filled with images of Mozart, opera houses, Sachertorte and hot chocolate I booked a few days’ trip to Vienna with my boyfriend. I was a little underwhelmed by the Spanish riding school (as we watched a practice rather than a performance but it turned out to be just exercise for the horses) and the boat trip we went on, but really enjoyed walking around the city centre, standing on the top of one of the cathedral towers and visiting Schonbrunn Palace and the zoo. At Schonbrunn I watched an apple strudel demonstration which will be a blog post for another day!

  

We ate in some very good restaurants but at the same time found it difficult to choose places to eat. Vienna doesn’t seem to have chain restaurants of the kind we have here – I don’t mean fast food, of which it has the usual suspects of McDonalds and so on, but the mid-market chains we have here like Ask or Zizzi. I think on the whole that’s a good thing but we felt we had little choice between hotel restaurants or random establishments advertising Wiener Schnitzel (all claiming to have the best one in town, funnily enough) and an awful lot of sausage-based dishes, and if you haven't looked at reviews on TripAdvisor in advance you have no idea which ones are good or bad. I saw a few restaurants from other cultures such as Chinese and Thai (neither of which my boyfriend likes) but again, comparing the town centre of Vienna to the centre of London with its myriad of restaurants was very different

Dstrikt

Schubertring 7, Vienna

 

The day we arrived in Vienna was the four-year anniversary of the day my boyfriend and I met (all together now – awww). I wanted to go somewhere special for dinner so looked at the top rankings on TripAdvisor and chose Dstrkt, a steak restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel. It was absolutely the right choice fantastic food, great service and the sort of experience you want for a special occasion.

 

The Ritz-Carlton is near the Stadtpark and was only a ten minute walk from our hotel. We went in the hotel’s main entrance rather than the restaurant entrance and were politely directed to where we needed to go – in perfect English. This was one notable factor of our trip – everyone in Vienna spoke perfect English. I speak near-fluent (but a bit rusty now) German but my boyfriend doesn’t, so I often spoke to people in restaurants, ticket offices and so on in English so he would understand – and I was amazed at the command of English I heard everywhere. In Bratislava in Slovakia on the other hand, the only woman working in the train station spoke neither English nor German!

 

We were greeted at the restaurant in the sort of way you would expect a high end business traveller would be – not two slightly bedraggled tourists as we were. I had contacted the restaurant in advance by email to ask if there was a dress code as I was a bit worried we were only bringing casual clothes to Vienna and they replied right away and assured me that was no problem. As it was, I managed to pack a nice frock but my boyfriend was wearing trainers and nobody batted an eyelid. As we were shown to our table near the window my only complaint was that the subdued lighting was so subdued that I needed to use the torch on my mobile phone to read the menu!

 

There were several cuts of steak available, mostly in 300g portions, or 600g for two to share, but the filet also came in a 180g portion. I ordered the 300g and wished afterwards there had been something in between – 225g or 250g perhaps – as 300g was a bit much but I don’t think 180g would have been enough! There are several other main courses such as a burger, lamb, veal cutlet, perch and trout, and two vegetarian options- butternut pumpkin risotto and vegetable gratin. The restaurant does advertise itself as a steakhouse so it probably wasn’t ever going to have the biggest choice for vegetarians.

 

I was impressed at the variety of side orders on offer; my boyfriend had fries and béarnaise sauce and I went for spaetzle, a sort of pasta half way between a noodle and a dumpling – it tastes a bit like gnocchi. I used to eat it a lot when I lived in Germany many years ago and loved it. It came in a separate small bowl in a cheese sauce and was so filling I had to leave half of it.

 

I didn’t particularly want dessert but my boyfriend has a very sweet tooth and wanted the chocolate fondant, so I ordered sorbet. We were told his fondant would take 10-15 minutes to make and it was perfectly gooey in the middle. The restaurant didn’t have a huge selection of desserts and the special was cheesecake (plain) – I was warned it was a large portion and when I saw it arrive to someone else’s table I was glad I hadn’t ordered it! The pear sorbet was particularly good in terms of both flavour and texture though the mango was good but didn’t stand out. My boyfriend’s only complaint was that his chocolate fondant was too small!

 

Wine by the glass is served in 0.1 litre measures which is 100ml – very strange compared to the 175ml or 250ml I am used to getting at home. It feels like you have just a few sips in the bottom of a glass and does last longer than you expect – I was savouring a very good red – but invariably you have to order another to even feel like you’ve had a proper drink! This was the case in most of the restaurants we went to so I imagine this is typical of Vienna, but I was quite surprised initially and thought perhaps this was a wine tasting menu!

 

Overall we had a wonderful experience at Dstrikt. The bill came to about 150 euros so it is something to be saved for a special occasion, but I would not hesitate to go back.

 

 

Café Sacher

Philharmonikerstrasse 4, Vienna
 

I couldn’t go to Vienna and not have Sachertorte. It’s a chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam and covered in chocolate ganache, decorated with a chocolate seal bearing the name of the Sacher hotel, or the word Sacher piped in chocolate across the top. It was invented by Franz Sacher in Vienna in 1832 for a member of the royal family, and there is even a National Sachertorte Day in Austria – December 5.

 

The Café Sacher is part of the Sacher hotel, the hotel established by the son of Franz Sacher which has trademarked the name of the cake as the original. The café has a separate entrance to the hotel and when we arrived at midday on a Friday, it wasn’t at all busy. We were shown to our seats- bar stools at a high table, which I never like due to being quite short! We ordered two pieces of Sachertorte and two hot chocolates and our order arrived within just a couple of minutes – I imagine most people here order the same thing! We had wanted to eat lunch here but there were only a few savoury dishes on the menu so we decided to get a snack later somewhere else.

 

I was disappointed by the cake – it was a little dry, and I actually preferred the Sachertorte I’ve made myself before! It was great to taste the cake in its original setting though I drew the line at paying 30 euros to buy a whole cake to take home when I know I can make it myself!

 

Nordsee

Kartnerstrasse 25

After cake at the Café Sacher and treating ourselves to a star to go on top of our Christmas tree at the flagship Swarovski crystal store, I decided I was still a little hungry and wanted something savoury after all. Luckily my boyfriend wasn’t hungry which gave me the perfect excuse to go somewhere he wouldn’t like- Nordsee. Nordsee is a fast food café and takeaway with one key difference to the likes of McDonalds – they only serve seafood. You can eat in and enjoy fish and chips or a fried fish sandwich, or choose a box of prawns to take away.

When I lived in Germany more than ten years ago, I was a junior reporter for a news agency and usually helped myself to bread, ham and cheese from the free staff kitchen for lunch, but loved to go out and pick up something from Nordsee as the occasional treat. My favourite was always the box of breaded prawns and potato wedges, with seafood (cocktail) sauce on the side, and I was glad to find that more than a decade later they still offered the same thing, for less than 5 euros. They didn’t seem to have anything that wasn’t fish so it’s lucky my boyfriend didn’t want anything to eat at the time!
 

 

Figlmueller

Baeckerstrasse 6, Vienna

 

 

 

 

While the recipe for Wiener Schnitzel is believed to originate from Italy, it has been fully claimed by Austria as their national dish. A schnitzel is a piece of thin meat in breadcrumbs and deep fried – pretty simple, but very tasty. A Wiener Schnitzel has to be made from veal, but pork is commonly used as it is cheaper – though in that case, it can’t strictly be called a Wiener Schnitzel.

 

Figlmuller has been serving Wiener Schnitzel for over 100 years, and is said to be both the oldest and best Schnitzel restaurant in Vienna. For that reason I was keen to try it. I asked at our hotel reception one evening if we would need to book, and the concierge said they didn’t take reservations we should be OK as it was already 8pm. The restaurant on Wollzeile was only a ten minute walk but we were turned away as it was full. Instead, the woman at the door suggested we try the sister restaurant around the corner- which was opened in 2001, so it doesn’t have the same history, but at least it is the same recipe. Unfortunately, there was a long queue outside so we gave up and went somewhere else.

 

 

The next night we decided to try again, but at the much earlier time of 6.30. Again, the Wollzeile restaurant was full – we heard the woman at the door tell a pair of tourists that they were booked for the next three days. Booked? I thought Figlmuller didn’t take bookings? Obviously the information given to us by our hotel concierge was wrong (shame on you, Hilton!) – there is even an online booking button on the restaurant’s website. By that point we really wanted to eat here, and had trouble finding somewhere else to eat the night before and didn’t want to do that again, so joined the queue outside the Baeckerstrasse restaurant around the corner.

 

My boyfriend really wasn’t happy – he hates to queue for anything, and dislikes restaurants that don’t take bookings (it was lucky he wasn’t with me the time I queued for nearly three hours in the early days of Meatliquor!), and he had never eaten Schnitzel before and didn’t even really know what it was. Oh, and it was raining. Luckily, as he hadn’t seen anywhere else he wanted to eat on our previous walks around town, and I shot down his idea of returning to Dstrikt due to the price, he begrudgingly agreed to queue. Thankfully, we only had to wait 20 minutes for a table, though in that time several groups came past and sat down who had obviously had a reservation (once again, thanks Hilton!).

 

I ordered the Figlmueller Schnitzel, which was pork, rather than the more traditional but more expensive Wiener Schnitzel; the main reason was that I understood it to be their speciality because of the name. The Schnitzel was absolutely huge – it covered my entire dinner plate and hung off the edges! My boyfriend ordered the chicken Schnitzel which was almost as big. He chose fried potatoes from the list of sides and I had the traditional boiled potatoes with parsley, which were delicious. The Schnitzel was very tasty and my boyfriend is definitely a convert; mine was so large that I couldn’t eat half of it though which was a real shame. I think it would be good if they offered a smaller portion!

 

The meals are well priced – around 11 euros for the Figlmueller Schnitzel and 19 for the veal. Our total bill came to about 45 euros with one glass of wine and a soft drink and tip. This is certainly Vienna’s oldest Schnitzel; whether it’s the best I really couldn’t say, as I didn’t eat it again while I was there, but it was very good and it was worth queuing to get in. I would phone ahead and make a reservation next time though!

 

 

Hilton Vienna am Stadtpark

Sightseeing is tiring, and combined with the fact that we visited Vienna in November when it got dark at about 4.30, it’s no wonder that we retired to our hotel room most days around 5pm for a rest (and usually a nap) before going out to dinner. One day I slept so long – partly as a result of having had toothache in the afternoon and taking painkillers that made me drowsy – that it was nearly 8pm by the time I woke up. It felt too late to go out for dinner and remembering the amazing meal we had at a hotel in Amsterdam, my boyfriend suggested we order room service.

The menu seemed quite sparse – which wasn’t really the case, but I didn’t fancy steak or burger or Schnitzel. I really wanted pasta but wasn’t keen on the way that option was presented on the menu. It listed four types of pasta – spaghetti, penne etc – and then said ‘and choose your sauce’, or words to that effect, and had neapolitan, pesto, and two other options I can’t recall. What I really wanted was ravioli with a delicious filling and penne with pesto wasn’t really doing it for me. Instead I turned to the fish, but again it was quite plainly presented – I chose salmon, without knowing if anything had been done to it or if it would literally be a plain piece of fish (which is probably something restaurants should offer, for people on a diet!). In case it needed something more I chose two side orders, of parmesan risotto and seasonal vegetables. I think this was the first time in several days I had so much as seen veg!

For that reason it was a bit disappointing that the portion of vegetables was so small, but I can’t fault the presentation. Our meals – my boyfriend unsurprisingly ordered the burger, with a chocolate brownie to follow – was wheeled in on a trolley and the metal domes that were keeping our plates warm lifted off with a flourish. Rather than have two side dishes as I was expecting, the salmon had been placed on a bed of risotto with the vegetables carefully placed on top. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure what half of them were! There was one small carrot on the top, some tiny root veg that were a pale purple in colour and some that looked like baby onions but tasted nothing like onions. Very odd! The risotto was a little underdone with too much bite in places but other parts were excellent and the salmon was beautifully cooked.

My boyfriend said his burger was good but didn’t blow him away but he was most disappointed by the chocolate brownie, as it contained large pieces of nuts. He doesn’t like nuts and was surprised the menu didn’t mention it- I suppose people with nut allergies would ask before they ordered anything, but there are plenty of people who just don’t like nuts and would order it then find they didn’t want to eat it. So I had no problem polishing it off even though my boyfriend had been the one to order it! Don’t feel too sorry for him though – we had quite a haul of Ritter Sport and Milka in the room we had bought to take home!

We had breakfast in the hotel every day as it was included in the room rate. My boyfriend had a cooked breakfast some days – though he wasn’t that keen on the sausages which I think were veal, and he didn’t realise the ‘roasted potatoes’ were actually hash browns so he missed out on those. I prefer continental style breakfast and was pleased to see they had German Wurst and cheeses on offer, as well as various pastries. There was a cereal station with yogurts and fruit, and also an Asian breakfast area with dim sum and miso soup and so on, though I didn’t try any of it. What we were most excited about was the station where a chef was cooking waffles.
 

The first day my boyfriend queued for us both, and the chef asked the 6 people in the queue what they wanted all at once, then cooked everything, but forgot my boyfriend until he was the only person left in the queue (even though he had been third of 6) and then said 'sorry,. what did you want again'? and only then started cooking ours. According to my boyfriend he also burnt someone’s pancake so had to make it again, which held up the process. The second time we had breakfast it was a lot better but I only realised when I was waiting that the man in front was having fried eggs that there was another option as I could only see the waffle maker. And when I left the breakfast room I saw someone eating French toast which I assume must have come from the same place, so I think they could advertise better what the freshly cooked options are. The waffles and pancakes were very good; I’m not sure what the hotel charges for breakfast and it I had to pay for it I would probably go to Starbucks, but since it was included we ate breakfast in the hotel every day and I thought it was good.

 

The hotel's location is perfect - just across the road from the Wien Mitte/Landstrasse U and S bahn station and where you can also take the direct train to the airport in 16 minutes. Also the hotel is only a ten minute walk from the cathedral and historic centre of Vienna. This was overall a very good hotel, and I would stay here again.

Restorante Enoteca Firenze
Singerstraße 3, Vienna

The night that we couldn't get into Figlmueller was pouring with rain so after deciding not to queue for the restaurant we headed into the centre of town towards the cathedral. We perused a few restaurant menus on the way, but as my boyfriend is very fussy, and I didn't want Schnitzel as I planned to have that the next day in Figlmueller, we were struggling to choose somewhere to eat. We also didn't come across a huge number of restaurants despite this being the tourist centre of the capital city - rather like walking between Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus in London, but there you would find dozens of restaurants and it didn't seem to be the case in Vienna.

Finally we saw a sign for an Italian and ducked in, shaking our wet umbrellas on the doorstep. We almost didn't take in our surroundings until we were seated. The restaurant is part of a hotel, though I didn't realise that at the time. It was very quiet - it was 9pm on a rainy weeknight - and the décor was interesting, with frescos on the walls and a statue in the middle. I later learnt from the website that it's designed to resemble a renaissance palace.

We didn't get off to the best start, as we waited about ten minutes for a menu then heard the couple behind us - who had already been seated when we arrived - ask the waiter for a menu with some degree of annoyance. He brought them a menu, and not us, and when I caught his eye he was all 'oh, would you like a menu as well'?

Luckily things picked up from there. We were brought a bread basket - actually, a wooden box - and the food was excellent. My boyfriend only ever orders pizza in Italian restaurants and was disappointed to find there were no pizzas on this menu - it was posh Italian. He didn't know what to order, but I'd made us spaghetti carbonara a few weeks before - literally the first time he had ever eaten it - and he enjoyed it, so he ordered that. He said it was very good and the portion was very filling.

I had cappelletti pasta (like ravioli), filled with ricotta cheese in a creamy sauce with parma ham rolled up and placed on top. It was delicious but not a big portion; I didn't want a big meal at that time of the evening and we declined the dessert menu but I would think normally eating here I would want two courses.

Having stumbled across the restaurant we had no assumptions that it would be any good but the food was excellent and on the way out, we noticed a wall full of photos of people who had dined here - presumably famous people, though I didn't recognise any of the names apart from Jose Carrera. I guess a sign that this place serves high quality authentic Italian food.

Kulinariat, Vienna airport

We had a late lunch before getting our flight home and decided to have a more substantial meal than just a sandwich. The breadth of the menu here appealed; my boyfriend was able to have a burger (as usual) whereas I had bratwurst with sauerkraut. It came with a few boiled potatoes so was a fairly plain dish but still nicely presented, and it tasted very good - a real taste of Austria.

 

Meal Planning Monday 2014 - Week 48

I'm having all four wisdom teeth out under a general anaesthetic this week which I am really not looking forward to - I've never been in hospital before so am terrified. Also, I won't be able to perform the Carmina Burana with my choir as the concert is only a couple of days after the operation and I don't think I will be able to sing. I was planning on having friends over at the weekend which is still going ahead providing I don't feel too bad, though I might not be able to eat properly still by then!


There is plenty of food in the freezer my boyfriend can have whatever he wants to eat this week.

Monday
Schnitzel with sauerkraut - on the menu plan for last week but we didn't have it. Inspired by our recent trip to Vienna.

Tuesday
I can't eat after 11am becuase of my operation so I will have a cooked breakfast and then won't be able to eat for the rest of the day, which won't be fun - I don't like to miss meals!

Wednesday
soup...

Thursday
soup...

Friday
soup....

Saturday
Hopefully I will feel better by now but I'm not going to specifically plan meals until I know whether I will be able to eat properly! Today is my choir concert but I've had to drop out; even if I am basically OK by today from Tuesday's operation I have been told to expect stiffness, soreness, bruising and swelling for up to two weeks so I don't think I am going to be able to sing. It might be OK but I can't really wait until I am on stage in front of hundreds of people to find out!

Sunday
Hopefully I will be feeling better as I had invited friends around for a Thanksgiving dinner which I still want to go ahead! As there is a vegetarian and possibly a vegan coming I'm making several dishes. I've decided to do two versions of meatloaf as the main course as that's quite an American-style recipe, alongside sweet potatoes and potato wedges, with two desserts - pumpkin pie and chocolate cake. I hope I feel up to preparing all that food but with any luck I will be OK by Friday or Saturday and my friends won't mind if I look a bit bruised still on Sunday!

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Fluff

I have so many cookery books now that I tend to only buy ones or ask for them as a gift if there is a specific reason - either a brand or chef I like, such as the Hummingbird Bakery, the Great British Bake Off or Nigella - or because they are focused on a specific type of cooking, e.g. vegan desserts as I have a vegan friend I like to bake for. So the fact that I bought a random cupcake book in The Works was quite unusual, but I just couldn't resist.

The Works has very competitive prices - often better than Amazon, and there are plenty of books I want there at the moment that cost just three or four pounds. This one - called Make, Bake, Cupcake - was £5.99, reduced from £14, and it was just such a pretty book with some very inventive recipes. I'm sure I will be baking more of them at a later date!

When I first flicked through, I mentally bookmarked one for hot chocolate cupcakes, because I have a set of cupcake moulds that look like cup and saucers, and I thought this would work perfectly for that recipe. It had slipped my mind until I saw my Alphabakes co-host Ros, aka The More Than Occasional Baker, had made some hot chocolate cupcakes from a different recipe as her entry for Alphabakes, as the letter this month is H. So I decided to dig out the recipe I had been planning to use and make them today; they are a quick and easy bake for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

At least, they were easy because I didn't follow the whole recipe; the book explains how to use white chocolate to use an edible case for the cake which is a brilliant idea, but I wanted to use my cup and saucer moulds. Also, the cakes in the book are topped with chocolate ganache, but I wanted to use my marshmallow fluff (thanks to Ros for reminding me) that I received in my latest Degustabox.

Here's what I did.

To make six large cupcakes, you need:
60g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
pinch of salt
60g softened butter or margarine
100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 egg
4 tbsp. Carnation Cooking Crème (also in my last Degustabox) or 4 tbsp. milk
to decorate:
6 tbsp. marshmallow fluff
mini marshmallows (optional)



Preheat oven to 175C.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla and egg and beat until light and fluffy.

Add half the flour and the cocoa powder and the Cooking Crème or milk, and fold in. Then fold in the rest of the flour.

Spoon the mixture into six cupcake cups. I only had three of the cup and saucer moulds - there were four in a box but I think one got thrown away after a party as someone thought it was rubbish. I also bought these cute baking cases at the Cake and Bake Show; they look like little cups or pots.









Bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow to cool. When cool, top with marshmallow fluff and a marshmallow.

 

 

 

 These cupcakes are really chocolately and light and fluffy, and definitely remind me of drinking a cup of hot chocolate!

 

 I'm sending these to Alphabakes, which this month is hosted by Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker.

Why Are Food Start Ups So Popular?

It’s fair to say that the UK hasn’t always had the best reputation when it comes to food. However, over recent years the nation has witnessed something of a culinary renaissance. Now, Britain boasts many of the world’s best restaurants and most highly renowned chefs, and it offers a tantalising array of cuisines.

One of the hottest trends at the moment is food pop ups. These temporary eateries are springing up in towns and cities across the country, to the delight of discerning diners. If you’re in search of these contemporary restaurants, you’ll need to keep your ears and eyes open. Blink and they’re gone. Luckily, it’s possible to get the lowdown on these novel venues by visiting websites such as Squaremeal. There, you can find information concerning all manner of dining establishments.

 Meanwhile, here are just some of the reasons why people are flocking to pop ups in their droves.

Something different and exciting

One of the major draws of these temporary restaurants is the fact that they offer something different and exciting. Often, they’re advertised at the last minute and in unconventional ways. In some cases, a matter of days before the opening, word goes out via social media. This helps to create an air of secrecy and exclusivity that punters can’t get enough of.

 Menus are frequently kept top secret until the 11th hour too, and venues have included everything from disused hospitals to ballrooms and alleyways.

 Lower prices

Another reason why foodies can’t get enough of pop ups is the low prices they often boast. OK, so we’re not talking dirt cheap. After all, the dishes on offer can be high-end. However, compared with equivalent quality meals in conventional restaurants, they can be much more affordable.

 Great food

Some of the country’s best chefs are showcasing their skills in these short-term establishments. These talented individuals are keen to connect with different audiences and to show their food off to people who may not otherwise experience it. Also, pop ups give cooks a chance to try out different styles and to be more experimental in their approach.

This can all translate into tasty treats for hungry diners, who get to sample delicious, innovative culinary creations from uber talented chefs.

Given the popularity of these restaurants, you’ll need to be quick off the mark if you want to reserve tables at them. Some last for a few weeks or longer, but others are around for a matter of days.

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