This is the long-awaited pudding which according to the opinion of many has beaten Alex’s bread & butter pudding (which he made last night for dinner, yea you bet) hands down. Made this today to pair with a meal for Sam & I (which I will post about tomorrow because I’m too knackered now). Was really tired from shopping in town after my paper but there’s nothing like making pudding to calm the nerves and relax from a hard day at work, etc.

According to Nigella, a grunt is a different take on the cobbler which is an American take on the crumble. A cobbler has either a biscuit-y or cakey texture. A grunt has instead a scone-like texture and because of the double cream it uses, it’s absolutely gorgeous, creamy and warming. Think warm scones on warm sugared rhubarb with a healthy serving of lovely heavy cream. There! That’s it.

The sultanas are a great add as well and add a little more sweetness to the tartness of the rhubarb. I do not recommend going any more than 200g of sugar as you want to keep the general flavour of the fruit and not some intensely sweet cooked fruit.

This little doodle was done in the library during our 7hour revision session. Indeed Hans and I were reaching near breaking point and so a little entertainment break was needed.

To all who have wished me luck for my exams - thank you! It went well. One left to go before party time.

To sum this up, the meal and pudding was lovely and a great way to unwind. Great way to start the weekend and recuperate before revision for the last paper.

On insistence of Sam, here’s a little quote that he’d love to see on here…

Sam, rubbing his furry belly, says: “Fantastic!”

Rhubarb Sultana Grunt
Ingredients

For the filling:
650g rhubarb, cut into 2-3cm pieces
200g caster sugar
1/4 cup sultanas
50g salted butter, cut into small pieces

For the topping:
100g plain flour
50g whole wheat flour
3 tbs caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
250ml double cream, whipped

Preheat oven to 190d Celsius.
Spread out the fruit and sultana over the bottom of the overproof dish and sprinkle the sugar all over. Drop the butter pieces over the fruit.
For the topping, sift flours, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Make sure the double cream is whipped till just before it is too stiff. Gently stir in the cream into the flour mixture until it forms a sticky dough. Spread the mixture over the fruit and cover the top in an even layer.
Bake for 45min or until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden.

Serve with the best vanilla ice cream you’ve got.

I have an exam in the morning tomorrow and I am on the verge of freaking out. Not my favourite module so my usual confident self is mentally shattered and a little panicky about everything. But by half twelve tomorrow, I’ll be able to say “2 down, 1 left!” so a little patience and perseverance should put me through our darned spring term exams. After which massive barbeque parties and lying in the sun are in order.

A little step at a time I say.

To give myself a boost of confidence (and luck!) and to get my mind off cramming of critics and quotations, I had to feed myself well. Oyakodon is one of the best comfort foods ever. It must be something about the egginess of it all and the sweet savoury sauce. It’s a pretty warming dish too - perfect for today when the sky is grey as heck and the house is a little chilly.

This is a very popular and easily found dish in restaurants but it’s so easy to make, you don’t need to make a trip out to the restaurant to have it. And the ingredients are all very basic things you should always have in your fridge, with maybe the exception of spring onions if you don’t use them too often, but that in itself isn’t like searching for a needle in a haystack. So thank the Lord, I was so relieved to have everything around and whipped this up in like 20min. Now that it’s all been gobbled them and nicely settled in my stomach, it’s back to work for me and an early night.

For anyone else who’s cramming for papers, struggling to meet a research deadline, bored with work or just pretty much stressed out with daily life — take a chill pill and have a bowl of Oyakodon. Nothing beats the comfort of having a bowl of hot, tasty, fragrant rice.

With no tricks up my sleeve, this makes a generous portion for 1 so make sure you’ve got an empty tummy for this!

Oyakodon
Ingredients

50-75g Japanese rice, depending on your preference
1 chicken breast, diced
1/2 cup onion, roughly sliced
1 spring onion, chopped into longer slices and little rings
2 eggs, beaten
olive oil for cooking
4 tsp soy sauce
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp mirin
2 tsp sake
1 cup/240ml water
beans, cooked and sliced for garnishing
white sesame seeds, for garnishing

Timing here is quite essential so be sure to have a watch on you or a clock in the kitchen.
In a saucepan, cook the rice. Depending on the type of rice used, you should start work on the chicken about 7-10min (depending on whether or not you’ve prepared the vegetables and chicken beforehand) to the end of cooking time.
Heat a wok with some olive oil. Add the chicken and sautee. Add the onions and let them cook a little.
In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, sugar, sake, mirin and water.
You won’t be needing all of it. Pour 3/4 of this into the wok and let it cook on medium heat. As it starts to reduce a little, lower the heat and let simmer until the onions become translucent.
When there’s about half of the sauce left in the wok, pour about 3/4 of the beaten eggs and the long slices of spring onion into the pan. Give it a a little mix, cover. Remove the pan from heat and let it sit like that for a few minutes.
Remove cover and pour the rest of the beaten eggs over the mixture. Cover for another minute.

Place hot cooked rice in a bowl. Pour the chicken and egg mixture all over the top of the rice. Garnish with the spring onion rings, cooked beans and sesame seeds. Breathe in all that yummy steaming smell of the oyakodon. Now tuck in like a real girl (or guy).

15 MAY SHOUT-OUT

The deadline for Beauty & The Feast Challenge is just around the corner on 2 June 08 Monday. There’s still loads of time to take part and join in the fun of seeing what others are going to whip up with their beauty/cosmetic/skin-body-haircare products as inspiration. For more details & challenge requirements, click here.

Till the next post, Diva out!

xxx

I can with great ease wax poetic about prawns: king prawns, tiger prawns and littler shrimps (in fact, anything of distant relation like the crab and lobster all pretty much are seafood I adore), but if I did I might be accused of bordering on psychopathic/obsessive/taking on a pseudo-romantic stance about and on (respectively) shellfish. Maybe even compared to the likes of Grenouille of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer on the level of a perturbing and deeply frightening obsessiveness. Not one to ever fear for being eccentric (I doubt I really am, or am I?), that’s not a reason to stop me but more like the fact that I don’t think people will understand insanity — my insanity to be specific and some might even call me mock heroic if I would devote the language to the adoration of something like prawns. So, let’s chuck that ambitious side of me away for a bit and focus less on the main ingredient of the day but the overall outcome of the salad of yours truly.

I was slightly disappointed with the king prawns I’d purchased from Sainsbury’s. Suppose I should’ve gone somewhere else if I wanted massive king prawns but these were alright for a student budget and not too tiny (I’m just greedy and over-demanding). Flavours were great together and once again, very light and citrusy. The herbs all work great together for a Vietnamese tastebud journey. When I was preparing this, I suddenly thought of my uncle’s wife who is Vietnamese and they have the cutest daughter! She has an American accent too (she gets slightly confused when I speak to her since I ramble on in Brit speak) and is ‘in love’ with my nephew. They are the best of pals and I think she secretly likes him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she proposed to him at, hang on how old is she?, 7? Kids these days. I would like to let out a theatrical sigh right now but I’m no one to talk since I’m a young adult myself.

I haven’t been getting too bored with whipping up Japanese-inspired dishes but I realized I’d somehow had way too much coriander and spring onions in the fridge. To use as much as I can of it in an omelette seemed a right shame to me so it was great to veer off into something refreshingly new. I’ve had Vietnamese food before but I’ve never prepared it myself since I really like hanging about in my comfort zone of Japanese, English, Italian and Chinese dishes.

This dish is more Southern Vietnamese than Northern as again, it’s quite a fusion one. Cuisine of Southern origins are usually influenced a little by Chinese cuisine due to the Chinese immigrants in the region and so things like wrapped food and dried salted fish is quite popular. If you want to find out more about Vietnamese cuisine and the differences between the regions, check out this link for more info. I quite like my salads a little sweet most of the time. The sugar and sultanas help bring out a lot of flavour, and in this case the flavour of the prawns. I reckon I deserve a good pat on the back because this was delicious, if I can say so myself.

If you’re a light-eater or on a diet (which I know, makes everything dreadfully stressful ain’t it?), this might seem a little big a portion for 1 person. I was hungry and it really isn’t so much a light salad but a cold noodle dish that’s great as a salad so you can adjust the recipe as to however you like it just try not to cut anything out because I swear these flavours were pretty SPOT ON! Also, it’s not really a great big of a deal to use green spinach noodles. I thought it worked well with spinach leaves and the colours were a great green combo so it was hard to resist. If you are finding it difficult to source it, use any other noodle you have around - pad thai noodles or preferably white rice vermicelli. I do not recommend egg noodles or spaghetti as it might border on the heavy side. If you’re willing to up this baby and not too worried about calories and all that shizzle, try garnishing this with toasted bashed peanuts. Gives it a great Southeast Asian twist.

Cold Vietnamese King Prawns & Spinach Noodle Salad
Ingredients

1 serving of dry spinach noodles
1/2 cup king prawns, peeled & deveined and cooked
2 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp sunflower oil
2 spring onions, chopped
a handful of coriander, chopped
a handful of spinach leaves
2 tsp sugar
1/4 lime, sliced into 2 wedges
2 tbs sultanas
black pepper for seasoning

Place the cooked prawns in a bowl. Add the fish sauce, 3/4 of the chopped spring onions, coriander, vinegar, oil and sugar. Give it a good mix. Squeeze one lime wedge into the bowl. Mix. Add the tiniest bit of fresh ground black pepper and taste. If more lime juice is needed, do go ahead and adjust this to your taste. Cover in clingwrap and leave in fridge to marinate about 30min.
Heat a saucepan filled with water till it boils. Add the noodles and let it cook. When done, drain and return to saucepan. Leave a little of the water in the pan so the noodles do not dry out as they cool.
When it’s cool enough, remove the bowl of marinating prawns from the fridge and mix into the noodles with the fresh spinach leaves. Add the sultanas and give this a good stir. Place in a bowl and leave it to keep chill in the fridge. It should be ready for eating in about 20min.

Serve with the reserved wedge of lime and some coriander leaves. Just before tucking in, squeeze that lime wedge all over then slurp it up.

Whoever thinks salads are for Ms. Skinny-Wannabes is partially right and also a dooch-bag. Pardon my French but salads are amazing appetizers and tastebud-teasers. They’re easy to put together and always very flavourful no matter what you use. You hardly need to think about the prep work either because you can use just about everything that you’ve got in the fridge, with dressing or no. Lately, we’re all really big on salads. The weather has been calling for a salad meltdown and there’s nothing like clean, crisp flavours that’s cooling and comforting enough for spring.

It’s hot, like unbelievably warm that you are in tanks and bikini (or shirts and shorts for the lads) all week (indeed that’s summer clothes for you - everyone gets so darned flashy). You crave something cool and light because something heavy and cooked weighs you down a lot. Also, a summer body is in order so everyone’s pretty much watching what they eat. But honestly, all I really want is a great big jug of iced tea with lots of lemon. Maybe a touch of Pimm’s would do that iced tea a bit of good too. Pair that with this salad and you’re set for a nice evening meal, possibly out in a well-groomed garden. I have neither of that, so this salad is pretty lonely and looks rather sad as well. Not the best presentation I agree, but this dressing is very good and dirt easy. So it’s definitely going to made again and again.

The dressing doesn’t require too much effort and is a great base for warm seafood like squid and prawns or a light sauce base for noodles. Never assume that salad dressings are only meant for salad dressings! They’re brilliant with loads of other stuff too. This is quite similar to one that’s found in Jamie’s Cook with Jamie but I’ve tweaked that a little. If you’re worried this is alcoholic, don’t worry - it only contains 1 tsp of sake in 1 serving. And if you’re still worried about that, you can use cooking sake instead which has a lower alcohol content that normal drinking sake. Although it’s quite warm lately, I want to try this dressing again with the addition of chilli oil. I think that might ruin the sake but I don’t know. I think it’ll be worth a try. Who knows?

Also, if you’re thinking to cut out the grapes because you don’t do sweet and savoury then that’s fair enough. But if you aren’t too fussy about sweet and savoury combinations, please please I beg you do give this a try. The grapes go very well with the slightly biting taste of the dressing. It’s just lovely and I was mildly surprised at how well it went. The grapes were simply an afterthought. I usually have my fruit after my meal and I was too lazy to make 2 trips into the kitchen for the meal then my fruit. So I just combined both. By golly, I’m one lazy chipmunk now aren’t I?

Alright then. Before I forget, a thank you to those who’ve sent me little messages of ‘good luck’ and ‘all the best’ for my exam today. It went alright and I’ve done my best. Did consume quite a lot of Starbust sour sweets during that three hours of writing though. Hopefully, all that ‘intelligent bullcrap’ I spilled out onto 2 exam booklets will yield great rewards. So phew, that’s done. One down, two to go. In between these two exams, I hope to post as much as I can because not posting and not making something cool to eat that I can put up on me blog makes me feel slightly empty.

So till the next post, here’s a salad serving for 1!

Tuna on Grape & Peppers Salad with Japanese Sake Dressing
Ingredients

handful of green grapes, washed and patted dry
a serving of salad leaves, preferably rocket, spinach and watercress
1/4 cup of tuna (get one that’s been canned with springwater)
1/4 of a pepper, thinly sliced

For the sake dressing:
1 spring onion, chopped
1 tbs teriyaki sauce
2 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp grapeseed oil (optional)
1 tsp sake
1/4 tsp sugar
pepper for seasoning

To prepare the dressing, combine everything together and give it a stir with a whisk or fork. Or you can multiply the amount according to the number of servings you’re preparing in a jar, cap it and give it a good shake.
Prepare your salad in a bowl, top it with tuna. I’ve used tuna from springwater to reduce any interferences of flavours from olive oil or brine. Pour dressing all over from the top. Throw the grapes on and serve.