Extreme Sushi

Perhaps, if you live in London or the middle of the city and wear black pumps and do yoga and read Vogue magazine, sushi isn't a big deal for you. Probably you go to sushi bars for lunch; maybe you order sushi without rice and watch your carbohydrate intake.

I do none of these things (well I do wear black pumps sometimes, but they're in about five pieces and should probably be replaced), and for me, sushi is a big deal. I live in a village consisting solely of about twenty pubs and thirteen old people's homes (no restaurants, or, you know, houses. Just alcohol and senior citizens. A deadly combination) and neither the pubs nor the old people are big sushi fans. So the first time I tried it was when I went to Japan last summer.

The idea of sushi existing in my village is quite radical, so in a rebellious, 'YES I'M EATING SEAWEED, MOO HAR HAR' kind of way I'm pretty proud of these. They're not fantastic in a London-sushi-bar way, and I didn't want to get ambitious with fillings or anything - firstly because their intended audience was largely vegetarian, and secondly because; old people, okay? They'd have had heart attacks and died, and that would be three quarters of the town's population down in one blow. Also thirdly because I would have FAILED. DISMALLY. and I couldn't bear the potential humiliation.

Hosomaki (Slender sushi roll)
Using guidance from Japanese Cooking at Home by Hideo Dekura

For the sushi rice:
150g medium or short grain/sushi rice
120ml rice vinegar
2 tbsp caster sugar
pinch of salt

1. Cook rice in a pan or rice cooker, then transfer it to a wooden salad/sushi bowl.

2. To make sushi vinegar, combine the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a bowl; you might need to nuke it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to help the sugar dissolve.

3. Gradually pour the sushi vinegar across the rice, and mix it evenly around the bowl using a wooden spatula or rice paddle in a slicing action. While mixing, cool the rice with a hand fan (I happened to have one!) or you could use a piece of stiff card or something. This helps the rice absorb the vinegar mixture and creates a glossy surface on rice.

4. When rice becomes lukewarm, cover with a damp teatowel.


To make the sushi:
Your rice, obviously
1 nori sheet, halved crossways (mine were half-sized, so I used two, obviously)
Wasabi paste (this is Japanese horseradish and not something we keep in our cupboards; I use regular English horseradish paste/sauce thingy.)
1/2 cucumber, cut lengthways with the soft bit cut off.

Use vinegar water to handle the rice (240ml water and 1 tsp rice vingear).

As a first time sushi roller, I'll point you to these two posts for rolling-guidance:
Soy & Pepper
Sushi Day

My first roll was not exactly sucessfull as I rolled it too loosely, and my knife wasn't sharp enough, meaning I couldn't cut through the nori very easily and everything got squashed X__X:

Oh dear. Please don't look at that too long.
Second attempt:

I was on a bit of a roll (*groannn*) and had been pleasantly surprised how low-stress the hosomaki was, so I also make smoked salmon nigiri-zushi ; basically rice with a topping. This recipe was in Good Food magazine, so I'm not vouching for it being, you know, genuine.



However, it's very simple: you basically prepare 300g of sushi rice as above (using 4tbsp rice wine vinegar and 1 tbsp caster sugar in this case, according to the article) and spread it into a 20x20cm baking tin lined with a double layer of clingfilm. You then cover the rice entirely with smoked salmon slices (200g, but I had a 100g pack cause it was reduced at Tescos, and I made it enough). Fold the clingfilm over the salmon to cover, pressing down well with your hands to mould everything together. To serve, just use a sharp knife to cut it into 16 (I went for 24) rectangles. ^__^

Crazy stuff.

E Is For Excellent!

You know the days when things are just so the opposite of excellent that you want to rip your Psychology coursework into twenty billion pieces and eat the bits? OK, just me. But yesterday was one of those days. So you can imagine my reaction when I logged into Statcounter yesterday night and found I had about five times more hits than usual (in case you can't imagine: basically, 'EH??' accompanied with lots of arm-waving).

An embarrassing amount of bewilderment later I found that the lovely Pixie of You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto had awarded me the above! (Cue a bit more flailing. I flail quite a lot, actually). What can I say; everything suddenly seemed so much... excellent-er. Both Tomahto/Tomayto and Pixie's sweet blog, A SweeTart are fantastic, so it really means a lot to be given something like this. I still consider myself a bit of a baby to food-blogging, and I don't have a huge readership, so - guh, basically ^__^.

Am I gushing? I gush nearly as much as I flail. I'll start with the 'I'd like to thank's soon, if you're not careful.

Ah, go on. Massive thanks to Pixie for the ego-boost and cheering-up, and thanks to everyone who came over and commented and basically said all sorts of lovely things ♥.


The idea is to pass this award on to five other deserving bloggers, but I don't know a huge amount, haha. Despite this, I'm passing this on to some gorgeous blogs - some bloggers I know quite well, others less so, but I don't want my internet-reticence to get in the way X__X

Firstly one of my very favourite blogs is Kitchen Wench. I know Ellie doesn't go in for memes, and I don't know if this counts, but I her site is so excellent and I visit it so often that I'd feel wrong not offering this award to her. After all, I'd never have found this cheesecake without her...

What I love about Ovenhaven's blog, Epicurean Escapism, is that everything so obviously cooked with so much love and thought (macaroni and cheese from a cheese-phobic? That's dedication). Some fabulous baking goes on round here!

Want to know why I think A Whisk And A Spoon is so excellent? Take a look at Steph's almost-fudge gateau at the top of the page. Enough said ^__^.

Su Good Sweets is another blog I've made a cheesecake from, oddly enough (I'm seeing a trend here), but I think Jessica needs recognition for her gorgeous desserts. I'm a sucker for sweets, I admit it, and she does them brilliantly...


R Khooks is a site that I came across only very recently, but it's so delicious looking and the photos are so fantastic that I think it really deserves the title of an Excellent blog.

Thanks again for the award and for everyone who came over to say hi - I hope to keep seeing you all around! Here's a preview of my next post, but it'll have to wait I'm afraid - Torchwood calls ^__^

A Truly Great Pairing

You may have noticed that I casually overlooked Valentine's Day here on Happy Love Strawberry. Any February 14th post? Nooo. We don't have a 14th of February on this blog. No heart-shaped chocolate souffle sprinkle sundae gooey brownie cakes for two to share round here.
Actually that sounds pretty good. But no.

If I was going to bake something to represent my romantic endeavours, it would need to be something as bitter as I am, and so I'm sparing you from that. Instead, I'm going to celebrate a truly great pairing that I do appreciate. The old 'chocolate + orange = ♥' formula (yeah, that 'formula' may help you to understand why I'm so bad at maths. It apparently doesn't go down too well in exams).


I took this to our picnic the other day to help me and my friends celebrate our platonic love, and everyone seemed to agree that chocolate and orange go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong. Who's going to argue with that?

I don't make a lot of chocolate cake (I think I've mentioned that I prefer either chocolate OR cake) but this is a really good recipe as it's particularly moist though oddly, it doesn't look it in the sliced photo; I had to take that a couple of days after it was made as it was a leftover piece. Also this cake did NOT want to photo so you get a good chocolate hit.

Just what you need to sweeten yourself up when you're feeling bitter and resentful. I mean, hypothetically.

Chocolate Orange Layer Cake
Recipe from You magazine, 13th January 08
Makes 1 x 20cm cake

Cake:
225g butter
225g demerara sugar
175g self-raising flour
50g sifted cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 eggs
100ml milk

Orange buttercream:
220g butter
220g icing sugar
zest of 2 oranges
2 tbsp Cointreau or orange juice
1 egg yolk
orange or yellow food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 190C/170C fan/375F/gas 5 and butter a 20cm x 9cm cake tin.

2. Cream all cake ingredients together (helpful if you have a kitchen aid or mixer or boyfriend to stir for you whatever here) until all smooth and mixed in, then transfer it to the cake tin, smooth the surface, and bake for about 45 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. To be honest I only needed about 30-35 mins but I'm a bit paranoid about undercooking cakes - it's happened before - and I think it would have been moister if I'd taken it out earlier. Run a knife around the outside to loosen, and leave to cool.

3. For the buttercream, blend the butter, icing sugar and orange zest together in a big bowl and whack it around a bit until really pale and fluffy. Add the cointreau/juice and whisk for a minute longer, then the egg yolk and colouring and mix it all in until even. Naturally I chose cointreau, to drown my sorrows in alcohol.

4. Use a bread knife to slit the cake into three layers. Divide the filling into three then spread the bottom and middle layers with filling and whack the rest over the top. I spread it round the sides as well, cause I prefer it that way, though there wasn't really enough buttercream for that. You could decorate it with chocolate orange segments if you had a chocolate orange, but I didn't have anyone to buy me chocolate, so I just crumbled a flake bar over the top. Et voila!

Who am I kidding with the misery act? I'll take cake over romance any day.

Houmous Is Hummous Is Hummus

Sometimes I say things like, 'you know what we should do? Go to a safari park!'. I then get attacked by wild animals and think better of it (photo on the right is the rhino that charged at our car on a day out with my friends yesterday -- 'SHIT, SHIT, THE RHINOS ARE CHARGING! DRIVE, DRIVE!!'). When we decided that everyone should bring picnic food for the afore-mentioned day at the safari park, I said something like, 'you know what the best food ever is? Houmous!'

Since buying houmous is apparently for lesser mortals, I bought a tin of chickpeas and decided to make it. I only had a vague recipe from Good Food magazine, but houmous is houmous is houmous.

Unless it's hummus. Humous. Hoomus? Well, anyway.

The recipe turned out to be not-so-great. I kept sticking spoons in my would-be houmous (hummus?) to try it, and concluding, 'not houmous'. I think where it had gone wrong was leaving out tahini (sesame paste), which other recipes seem to consider a bit of a staple of houmous-making; it did include a tablespoon of greek yoghurt and whatsit, perhaps thinking tahini was a bit of an ambitious ingredient.

I would have agreed, except I opened the fridge and found we actually had a giant tub of tahini there. Ah. Outwitted.
A bit of experimentation later, have a houmous recipe. It's wild and crazy fun, and takes about five minutes if you actually have a recipe and aren't just throwing random things from your fridge and cupboard in a food processor ('anchovies... can't hurt!').

Houmous
Pretty much my own o__O. Though houmous is houmous is houmous (unless it's humus?), so I'm not about to copyright it or anything.

400g can chickpeas, drained
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
juice of half a lemon (we actually only had half a lemon, so that explains that)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp tahini paste
Ignore the yoghurt, cause what was going on with that? Bah.

1. Whack everything in a food processor and whizz it to a paste. Mine was a bit thick, so I'd add a tbsp or two of water if I did it again, but I don't want to stick that in the ingredients list in case you don't need it. And you can drizzle another couple of tsp of oil over the top, if you like.

...Thassit.

What else can I say about houmous now? Make yourself a tub of carrot sticks. Take it to a picnic. Use it as bait to distract charging rhinos from your fragile bones. Here, I'll even show you how to dip it.
You can have some good times with houmous, you mark my words.

Bloggers who made this:

20.03.08 Pixie at You Say Tomahto, I Saw Tomayto

No Place Like London

I may not make cheesecake as often as I used to, but I have a definite weakness for it, and if I can get away with making one I will ^__^. This recipe is one I've had my eye on for aaages, but haven't been able to come up with an excuse to make; if it's someone's birthday, I make cake, if it's a picnic or something, we need cookies or bars, and if I'm just at home there aren't enough people around to eat it.

I find myself inventing occasions just so I can have people round to feed them. Does anyone else do this? Please tell me yes.

I had a big group of friends round on Friday night for a Disney sleepover (we get together and have a marathon of classic Disney films; Friday was our fourth XD) so I finally had a chance to give this a go.


I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this recipe because a) I'm very proud of the pictures, b) Ellie raves about this better than I do and c) I'm extremely tired and lazy and basically can't be arsed.

I'm therefore going to do this the quick way. This description is going to be to a blog post what a haiku is to a love poem.

Please make this cheesecake;
It tastes delicious, hooray
So my friends all say.

Was it just an excuse to make a cheesecake? Yes.

Was that just an excuse to write a haiku? Perhaps.

London Cheesecake

Recipe from Feast by Nigella Lawson

For American measurements, click here.

For the base:

150g digestive biscuits

75g unsalted butter, melted or very soft

600g cream cheese

150g caster sugar

3 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

1 and a half tablespoons vanilla extract

1 and a half tablespoons lemon juice

20 cm Springform tin

extra-strength tin foil

For the topping;

145ml tub sour cream

1 tablespoon caster sugar

half teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Process the biscuits until they are like crumbs, then add the butter and pulse again. Line the bottom of the Springform tin, pressing the biscuits in with your hands or the back of a spoon. Put the tin in the fridge to set, and preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4.

2.Beat the cream cheese gently until it's smooth, then add the sugar. Beat in the eggs and egg yolks, then finally the vanilla and lemon juice. Put the kettle on. Line the outside of the chilled tin with strong foil so that it covers the bottom and sides in one large piece, and then do the same again and put it into a roasting dish. This will protect the cheesecake from the water as it is cooked in its water bath.

3.Pour the cream-cheese filling into the chilled biscuit base, and then pour hot water from the recently boiled kettle into the roasting tin around the cheesecake. It should come about halfway up; don't overfill as it will be difficult to lift up the tin. Put it into the oven and cook for 50 minutes. It should feel set, but not rigidly so: you just need to feel confident that when you pour the sour cream over, it will sit on the surface and not sink in.

4. Whisk together the sour cream, sugar and vanilla for the topping and pour over the cheesecake. Put it back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.Take the roasting tin out of the oven, then gingerly remove the Springform, unwrap it and stand it on a rack to cool.

5. When it's cooled down completely, put it in the fridge, removing it 20 minutes before eating to take the chill off. Unmould and when you cut into it, plunge a knife in hot water first.Serves 8

Rather than the sauce Ellie made for her cheescake I halved a recipe for black cherry sauce from Vegetarian Supercook by Rose Eliot:

500g cherries, pitted (I used frozen ones that didn't need pitting)
75ml water + 1-2 tbsp
1-2 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp caster sugar

1. Put the cherries into a saucepan with the water and bring to the boil. Cover & simmer gently for about 5 minutes or until the cherries are tender.

2. Mix the cornflour with the 1-2 tbsp cold water, then add to the cherries, bring to the boil and stir for a minute or two until the sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in the caster sugar and remove for the heat. Set aside to cool and serve with the cheesecake.

Ellie made this cheesecake with the base coming up the sides and I think I'll do that next time cause otherwise the base is quite thick.

Tastes good though ^__^

Taking Tea-Drinking To The Next Level

I think it's important, before I begin talking about these biscuits, that I introduce you to a friend of mine. His name, for obvious reasons if you look at the picture on the right, is Beezelbub. Sometimes I have nightmares that he's going to suck out my soul while I sleep, but generally, we get on pretty well.

Beezelbub came free with a giant box of PG Tips teabags, meaning, naturally, that he likes tea. Lots of tea. Tea-drinking happens to be more or less my primary occupation (I average about six cups a day, and I don't mean small cups) so this works for me. But sometimes, a girl needs more than a cup of tea. On these occasions, Beelzebub tends to chow down on some soul, but as my tastes are somewhat less murderous, when I saw the recipe for Earl Grey Tea Biscuits on a food blog round here, I thought it sounded just the job.

I made these as part of a present for my friend Boy's birthday, since he's also a pretty intensive tea-drinker, but not before I snaffled about twenty of them fresh from the oven (they were SMALL, okay?). They don't taste strongly of tea, or anything much really, but it's the whole principle of Tea Biscuits that appeals to me mostly anyway, and they're gorgeous biscuits as they are.

This is ironic as I actually prefer normal tea to Earl Grey, which always tastes a bit like drinking pot pourri to me.

I halved the original recipe by the way, as it seemed to make billions, but my biscuits were very small, so I'd make them a bit bigger than I did. They're a cute size for dunking in a teacup, though ^__^.

Earl Grey Tea Biscuits

Found on Eat Me Delicious, but originally from Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies 2005.
This halved batch makes about 48 apparently, but I'd make them bigger and have fewer next time.

Quantities translated by me, and you know what that means.

For American measurements, use the Eat Me Delicious post.

140g plain flour
2 bags worth finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves (mine were really fine enough without grinding, but I did a bit anyway)
1/4 tsp salt
115g butter
30g icing sugar (I was a bit like o__O over this, so I added a tbsp or so of caster sugar too. Okay, sugar junkie, but whatever)
1/2 tbsp orange zest

1. Whisk flour, tea, and salt in a small bowl; set aside.

2. Put butter, sugar, and orange zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture until just combined.

3. Transfer dough to a piece of baking paper and shape into a log. Roll in baking paper to 1 1/4 inches in diameter (*COUGH* OR BIGGER, IF YOU CAN'T JUDGE MEASUREMENTS), prsesing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow the log and force out air. Put it on a level baking tray in the freezer until firm, 1 hour (ppft. Half an hour. Impatient, remember?).

4. Preheat oven to 180C. Cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. They don't spread, by the way.

5. Bake biscuits, rotating sheets halfway through,until edges are golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. They can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

It's unavoidable. I'm going to put the kettle on.

An Expression Of Affection, And A Meme

So rather than aimless rambling today, I've been tagged to do a meme by Pixie at You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto! Thanks Pixie, and if you've not been on her blog, do!

These are the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). 4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

So here are a few things about me!

1. One of my more bizarre habits is looking at my friends, or other people I love, and thinking about all the things I want to cook for them. (I.e. 'Oh, she loves cheesecake, I'll have to make this one for her...'). I admitted this over lunch at school once, and after my friends stopped laughing (so, about twenty minutes) they told me it was adorable X__X . I think I just show affection through food - there are a few recipes that I'll only make for people if I really love them, heh. See below.

2. I got an interview to do English Literature at Oxford University at the end of last year. It went okay, but I didn't get a place (there were eight places at the college I applied for, and about fifty people had interviews. God knows how many people applied). So I'm probably going to uni at Southampton in October =]

3. I adore everything about Japan (I went there with a friend last summer) and want to live there some day. Occasionally I feel achingly homesick for it, which is pretty ironic seeing as I was only in the country ten days, haha.

4. I've been planning a novel since I was about twelve and want to get it published one day. Obviously it doesn't bear much resemblance to the twelve-year-old version, but it's grown into something I'm pretty proud of. I'm still not done planning though - it's turned into a bit of an epic, heh.

5. I hate the winter (I have SAD) and was obviously not at all pleased to get up yesterday thinking, 'ah, the first of February! The worst is over!' and open the blind on my skylight to find snow outside. Hopefully it'll get lighter soon and I won't have to wait til the weekends to have natural light for photographs!

I'd like to tag Ellie at Kitchen Wench, Ovenhaven at Epicurian Escapism, R Khooks at R Khooks, Jessica at Su Good Sweets, and Jennifer at Bake Or Break. Obviously you don't have to do it unless you want to!


This recipe happens to be one of the things I often think of when pondering what I'd like to make for someone. My gran used to make these (I'm going in for my gran's recipes a lot recently, aren't I?) so I like to make these for my mum, along with a cup of tea, or when I'm feeling nostalgic. Tea is pretty much the answer to everything, in my view.


Despite the name and appearance, these are NOT Bakewell Tarts, and don't taste anything like them - SO many people, when I offer them one, say, 'no, I don't like Bakewell Tarts'. This enrages me, haha, because they really really don't know what they're missing. TRY them. Give them away if you don't like them, but you will =P. These slices are pretty much the greatest expression of love I can give.


Almond Slices
Family recipe from my Gran

Base:
225g (8oz) plain flour
170g (6oz) butter
60g (2oz) ground almonds
60g (2oz) caster sugar
2 egg yolks
Raspberry jam

Top:
115g (4oz) ground almonds
170g (6oz) caster sugar
2 egg whites

1. Mix dry ingredients for the base in a bowl, rub in butter and mix with egg yolks. Knead together into a soft dough, then place in a flat tin, pressing flat and into the corners with your fingertips (she doesn't say what size, typically, but we use a rectangular slice tin).

2. Spread the base with raspberry jam (a couple of heaped tablespoons should be enough, but depends how much jam you want). Mix the ground almonds, sugar and egg whites for the base together and spread this over the jam, being careful not to get them mixed together.

3. Bake for about 20mins at 200C until the meringue-like topping turns golden. Leave to cool a little while before cutting into slices, but they taste best eaten still slightly warm ^__^

Now you see it...

...Now you don't!