On Brick Lane - where else? Wake up Suffolk.
We have just come back from lunch at The Dark Horse in Stowlangtoft, after hearing it had re-opened for business earlier this year. We went for the Dark Horse Breakfast at £6.95 and the Homemade Beef Burger topped with bacon and cheese at £9.95. Our verdict... the burger was better than the breakfast, because the burger was homemade. We finished with a Chocolate Brownie which was good - but shame about the discoloured mint garnish.
Our Thurston Community College Work Experience Student - Amy Bird
Written by Ruth
We really enjoyed having Amy, our work experience student from Thurston Community College, this week. She showed us her favourite recipe: Birdy's Brownies!
Birdy’s Brownies!
Ingredients:
- 185g unsalted butter
- 185g cooking chocolate
- 85g plain flour
- 40g cocoa powder
- 100g best dark chocolate
- 3 large eggs
- 275g golden caster sugar
Method:
- Cut 185g unsalted butter into smallish cubes and tip into a medium bowl. Break 185g cooking chocolate into small pieces and drop into the bowl.
Melt over a pan of boiling water. - Turn the oven on to 160C/conventional or 180C/gas, so it has time to warm up. Using a shallow 20cm square tin, cut out a square of non-stick baking parchment to line the base.
- Now tip 85g plain flour and 40g cocoa powder into a sieve held over a medium bowl until all lumps have gone.
- With a sharp knife, chop 100g of dark chocolate into chunks (rough squares) on a chopping board.
- Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip in 275g golden caster sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake
- Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse and gently fold together with a rubber spatula. Plunge the spatula in at one side, take it underneath and bring it up the opposite side and in again at the middle. The idea is to marry them without knocking out the air, so be as gentle and slow as you like – you don’t want to undo all the work you did in step 4.
- Hold the sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and resift the cocoa and flour mixture into it. Gently fold in the powder, in the same figure of eight action as before. Finally, stir in the chocolate chunks until they’re dotted all of the way through.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping every bit out of the bowl with the spatula. Gently ease the mixture into the corners of the tin and paddle the spatula from side to side across the top to level it. Put in the oven and set your timer for 25 minutes.
- Leave in the tin until cool. Once cool, cut into small squares or triangles.
...we have lost 48 feta and pepperdew muffins...! Did we sell them by mistake thinking they were cornmeal (but they had great big pieces of feta sticking out...hard to miss) Or are they still in Granny's freezer? We have no idea where they went. If you think you saw them - or even ate one, let us know. Unless of course you took the whole lot (we did have one teenager breaking into camp-kitchen looking for a 3am cheese scone) in which case - we hope you liked them.
We really need to post the recipe up for these because it's soooooo good, easy, cheap and very impressive. Here are some we are making for PettaFiesta. We put a shake of smoked paprika on the bottom and some grated cheese, then changed our minds and on the next bake put it on the top. Great with soup instead of bread - we will be serving them with the chili - and maybe for breakfast too.
Check out Gringo's Campfire Cafe menu at Petta Fiesta. Tickets still for sale!
So obvious really, mini-fish and chips (I know they do it at parties...) but I've only seen it once here on the street, and it was VERY popular. Why? Because you really really want some but you don't want to throw half of it away. Brilliant - and it won an award. The best ideas are the obvious ones.
Back to sunny-sun after lots of sunny-sun in the Caribbean. Just in time for Inspector X's fab birthday party - afternoon tea, treasure hunt, four-course supper - and she still had the energy to make scrambled eggs for everyone who stayed the night!
You can't beat a plate of Norfolk asparagus and our favourite place to buy is direct from Tim Jolly at Roudham Farm. During the months of April, May and June the farm shop is open and you can see the freshly daily picked asparagus being sorted and bundled, ready to go off to Covent Garden and Spitalfields markets. The crooked spears are always a bargain if you want to make some soup or a risotto. Follow the signs between the whisky distillery and the railway station in East Harling.
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Smart Casual - jacket not required. Smart - no jeans, no trainers, no shorts but ties not necessary. Casually Smart - jeans and trainers acceptable, jacket and standard shirt collar, tie not required. No sneakers... I do not want to be told what to wear when I eat out. Daft dress codes in dining rooms make me mad. A scruffy suit, an un-ironed shirt and a bad tie can look far worse than a smart pair of jeans and sneakers. There are many different pedigrees of jeans and sneakers and who is to tell me if mine are acceptable?
We called in at AquaShard last week - you don't need to book to get into to the bar on the 31st floor! We made it through the welcome party on the door to the fast and direct lift up to the bar. 'Sorry, I can't let you in' said the Maitre D' at the door. 'You are wearing sneakers'.
'Young man', I said in my best Suffolk dialect, 'there are people inside wearing sneakers'.
'They booked a table' replied the Maitre D'. 'If you had booked, we wouldn't turn you away, but as you have not booked, I cannot let you in wearing sneakers'.
We thought for a minute, then went up one more floor, in our sneakers, to Oblix, the bookings-only restaurant. We told them we had diamonds on the soles of our shoes. They let us in.
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Delia isn't very happy as Norwich are relegated from the Premier League this week, but us Tractor Boys are. We are also happy that there is now a monthly street food event at The Forum in the centre of Norwich - who are ya?
Treacle, Ginger and Orange Bundt Cake
200g/7oz butter
200g/7oz dark muscovado sugar
175g/6oz black treacle
2 tbs ginger syrup from the jar of stem ginger
250ml/9floz milk
2 large eggs (beaten)
330g/12oz plain flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
75g/2½ oz stem ginger (chopped)
zest of 1 orange
4tbs orange curd
for the icing
zest of 1 orange
4tbs orange juice
140g/5oz icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 160C/140C/Gas 3
Grease a 10” round Bundt tin and dust a little flour in to ensure a non stick finish.
Place the butter, sugar, treacle and ginger syrup in a saucepan and melt together over a very low heat, until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool.
Whisk the milk and the eggs together.
Weigh out the flour and add the bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger, stem ginger and orange zest.
Whisk the milk and eggs into the cooled butter, treacle and sugar mix, stirring well.
Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, a little at a time, mixing to a smooth batter.
Pour into the cake tine and bake for 45 mins, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Leave to cool a little in the tin then turn out onto a wire rack.
Slice the cooled cake into three layers and spread the orange curd between the layers and sandwich back again.
In a small bowl mix the orange zest and orange juice and heat in the microwave to warm.
Stir in the icing sugar (you may need to add more icing sugar or more orange juice) to get the right drizzling consistency.
Drizzle over the cake and decorate with stem ginger or crushed sugar crystals.
At the arty Alde Valley Spring Festival we found Henrietta's Pop-up Patisserie which was tucked away inside White House Farm at Great Glemham. Tea and cake for two cost £6. Wow!
Thank you Mrs Bennett for sharing your Mango Chutney recipe with us. Keeley Bennett makes pickles and chutneys from her home in Polstead, Suffolk using recipes handed down through four generations of the family. You will find Mrs.Bennett's Pickles and Chutneys at Lavenham Farmer's Market or look out for her products in farm shops and local deli's. Keeley says that she finds most people like a mango chutney with their poppadoms even if they don't like a chutney with their cheese!
MANGO CHUTNEY
Ingredients:
900g ripe mangoes - peeled, stoned and chopped
300ml of cider vinegar
225g cooking apples - peeled, cored and chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic (or two small ones) - crushed
200g demerara sugar
5cm root ginger - peeled and grated
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
Method:
1. Prepare the mango and place in a bowl with the salt. Set aside while
you prepare the rest of the vegetables.
2. Place the vinegar in the pan and heat gently (do not boil). Add the
sugar slowly until all of it has dissolved.
3. Add all of the remaining ingredients to the pan and bring to the
boil, stirring frequently so that the ingredients do not catch on the
bottom of the pan. Reduce the heat and simmer for approximately 1 hour,
stirring occasionally and until the chutney is thick.
4. Place into sterilised jars*. Leave for approximately 3 weeks to
allow the ingredients to mature.* You can easily sterilise jars by placing clean jars (and lids) into a hot oven for 10 minutes. Obviously taking care when handling them.
