Double-dipped Parmesan schnitzel

I've eaten schnitzel in some of the best beerhalls in Munich, and I love it. Just last week, I made my ersatz schnitzel, which is just eggs and flour around pork.

So when Barney Desmazery, the food editor of Good Food, tweeted: 'Double-dipped Parmesan crumbed pork schnitzel on Monday - sometimes you need to start the week as you mean to go on', I replied and asked for the recipe, because it sounded great. 'Watch this space', he said. I thought, 'there's a link coming', but, no, he replied directly to me with: 'make pork schnitzel adding freshly grated Parmasan to the crumbs and do the egg and breadcrumb bit twice.'

I have to make it now, I thought.

Any recipe you can tweet, when you think about it, has to be simple. It really was.

I misjudged the quantities and we had to whip up another egg, and then more breadcrumbs-and-Parmesan. This left Andy's schnitzel much more cheesy than mine, as initially I'd deliberately kept the Parmesan down to make sure it wouldn't over-power things.

I used the coarse grater for the cheese, which I had doubts about as soon as I'd done it, but the coarse-grated cheese and large breadcrumbs gave it a really chunky (beerhall!) feel.

Double-dipping the schnitzel is definitely worth it, and I think I'll introduce this for any schnitzel I do from now on.

It's not schnitzel without potato salad, though, is it?

I'm surprised, but it looks like I've never blogged my views on potato salad. Here they are: what's that mayonnaise doing there? Get it off my salad. In short, if it isn't German-style, and preferably hot, I don't want to know.

Here's the family recipe for potato salad, which I suspect comes from a 50s American cookbook. Boil chopped new potatoes (peeled or unpeeled - peeled's probably better) slightly longer than 20 minutes. Rough them up a bit. Pour over about equal quantities of white wine vinegar and olive oil - perhaps more olive oil. I always do this just by eye. Rough them up a bit more. Add chopped spring onion, and there you are. I believe you can add crispy bits of bacon, but Mum never does that, so of course I don't either.

I had concerns about the vinegariness of the salad and the cheese in the schnitzel. Because my schnitzel wasn't that cheesy, it was difficult to tell if they went ok, but the bite I stole from Andy's was fine, and he also said there wasn't a problem. A success, then. I'm awarding it the status of 'in the repertoire', which has just been launched.

(The photo is by Andy. He's the better photographer, but neither of us will ever shoot the cover of Vogue.)

Chocolate praline pancake cake

Learnings:

• further evidence website newsletters work
• don't let the boyfriend 'just do one thing' while sugar is at crucial stage.

C'mon, this is my second attempt with boiling sugar, I'm allowed to stuff it up.

Saw the chocolate praline pancake cake in a Good Food website newsletter, and it just looked so good, and as you can tell, I really like gooey, chocolatey desserts.

Again, the recipe split quite easily into segments, and I think dishes are easier to do that way. (Especially if you're making braised pork chops at the same time).

First, the praline. It's simply a sugar syrup with blanched almonds and sea salt tipped it. I panicked when after boiling it went completely dry and looked almost like dessicated coconut. But I remind myself that cooking is often a case of holding your nerve, and so eventually, the 'coconut' began to smell like burnt sugar - the good kind.

Just as it was all becoming caramel, Andy became worried about the sugar round the sides of the pan (probably because he'd have to wash it up) and began asking to push it back down. I knew it was stuck fast, but eventually let him have a go. I wish I hadn't - I knew there wasn't time with melted sugar, and I had to snatch it back pretty quickly. I think the caramel was ok, perhaps a little darker than ideal. There really wasn't much syrup around the nuts, and I think if I was doing this again, I'd perhaps go up to 150g of almonds and 200g of sugar. So there'd be more caramel, and more praline all round. We found it difficult to achieve an even 'blitz' with the food processor, so some of the praline was pulverised and some intact nuts.

Much later, after dinner, we went back to do pancakes and chocolate sauce. Now, after all my experience (and the fact it always seems to me much easier than I had thought it would be when I was younger), I reckon I could make chocolate sauce in my sleep. (How about it, sub-conscious? Slightly less running through rooms and more chocolate sauce?)

I am, for whatever reason, not great at things like omelettes and pancakes. However, Andy displayed a undiscovered talent for making pancakes, though where on earth the '12 pancakes' from this recipe came from I do not know. I think we got seven.

So we layered them up, poured the chocolate sauce over it (I am not a person who believes in moderation in chocolate sauce) and baked it.

It was very pleasant, but didn't quite belie its origins as a pancake dish; the pancakes themselves made it sort of bland. I think I'd make up a set of chocolate sauce and praline and have them on hand for spare pancakes. Or, as I suspect is the idea, to impress friends if I had them over on pancake day.

Buche de Noel

Things I learnt from a buche de Noel:

• icing hides a multitude of sins
• the time to learn about hard crack, soft crack and other stages of boiling sugar is not while the sugar is boiling

No one in my family likes Christmas pudding. In years past, my mother would buy a 100g pudding and split it between four of us. Then we'd crack on with the Yule Log.

I signed up to Saveur, an American food magazine that's a little too highbrow for me. They started their New Year's buffet with caviar. That's highbrow.

Anyway, one of their rather-too-gorgeous emails had Christmas-desserts-from-around-the-world. I have a dim memory of some lemon pudding, but the one that stood out was the buche de Noel. That's a Yule Log.

So I emailed Mum and in a moment of madness said 'I'll come over Christmas Eve, and we'll make this'. Mum, in an equal moment of madness, said yes. I figured getting snippy with each other somewhere round about the hour mark was a given, along with possibly a shattered log.

We ditched the meringue mushrooms, as I didn't fancy eating even fake mushrooms on a dessert.

First up was the icing in a double boiler. Then we left it to thicken while we did the Christmas shop. I forgot, however, that my parents' kitchen is about the same temperature as a fridge, and it was solid when we get back.

Then we made the roulade. Perfectly easy, but by this time I was rather fed up of melting chocolate and stirring it.

The filling, which includes a hot sugar syrup poured into egg yolks, was rather more tricky. Mum has a sugar thermometer, but doesn't use it a lot. I haven't ever made jam or candies.

The recipe says the syrup should be 236 degrees, or 'soft crack'. I got a little worried when the boiling syrup began to brown.

Now the great thing about the Joy of Cooking, at least the old edition, is that it contains EVERYTHING. That includes the different stages of sugar syrup, including how to tell without a thermometer. (It also includes how to make a champagne fountain, and, dammit, I'm using that information some day). Some frantic running around later, and a glass of ice water told me what I already knew - the sugar was too far gone.

So, of course, we did it all again. Second time went fine, and, frankly, I was quite pleased to not be dealing with chocolate.

And now the bit I'd been worrying about all along - the rum and roll-up. We'd invested about two hours into this thing, and I really wanted it to work.

The recipe calls for two tablespoons of rum. We were using a pan smaller than the 16inch one the recipe called for, because they appear to be impossible to get here (*scribbles note for next trip to France*). Two tablespoons of rum actually translated to a thin sheen of rum over the entire roulade.

I wouldn't have wanted to roll up the roulade two-handed, and I'm glad we iced it (including the corner that, uh, basically fell off). I even decorated it carefully with a grooved spatula.

Imagine my disappointment when I went on Twitter and writer Charlie Higson had done a much better looking one with his twelve-year-old.

Also, I fear we may have started a tradition, which I'll somehow have to fit around the traditional Christmas Eve pub crawl...

Bread

Nothing makes me feel as if I've achieved something like making bread.

Bizarre, because I have never screwed up bread. Except the time I wondered if I could use rock salt instead of table salt. (Logical - sea salt works fine). And the time it wouldn't rise because the hot water tank wasn't on.

But that's it.

I wonder why. I think it's the epitome of 'I'm properly a baker' (sssh, don't mention pastry), and it's relatively frugal. And it tastes so much better than store-bought.

I started making it when I got fed up with either paying 75p for white polysterene to carry Marmite, or 1.45 for something that tasted decent.

I initially used the Joy of Cooking recipe, and like all Joy recipes, it works, but boy does it take a long time to get there. So I switched to one from Allison's, which they've helpfully now converted for a breadmaker, so I can't link to it.

I don't see the point in breadmakers. I can make bread in 12 mins, plus rising. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I could make it in my sleep.

Shall I cut to the chase?

The recipe. This makes two loaves.

900g white bread flour

3tsp sugar

3tsp salt

41/2tsp yeast (proper active dry stuff in a tin)

180ml sunflower oil

450ml warm water (not hot, not cold)

Mix. I usually use a spoon because it's messy, but I have been known to use my fingers, in a move that's totally unrelated to all the spoons being dirty.

Turn out on to floured surface. Knead for ten minutes. I love this. Not just because, like everyone says, it's good for getting out stress, but because you get to feel the different textures changing underneath your hands. Eventually, you get to learn the stages, and when it's ready and so on. Like being a proper baker.

Roll out. Split in two (I just run a knife across the middle). Roll each one up into a Swiss roll shape.

Two important things I learnt from the Joy: the seam goes at the bottom, and both ends should touch the pan, to support the rise.

Lob in the airing cupboard with a tea-towel over the top.

Two hours in summer, four in winter. Till the dough is doubled.

Oven at 200C, down to 180 just before it goes in. Thirty to thirty-five minutes.

And the smell! Maybe it's the smell...

ETA: And possibly the time I put them too low down in the oven...

Sag aloo

I'm having trouble with Sag Aloo (spinach and potato curry).

I tried this recipe a while back, and knew without cooking it it wouldn't be great, because there was no sauce.

So I tried Indian spices brand Natco. It looks better, but it's still not right. It doesn't help that it tells you to put tomato in twice. Or that it says 'scant 1/3 cup'. Yeah, that'll be an American recipe.

There is no way the potatoes would done in 15 minutes, or that amount of tomato would be sufficient.

So, anyone help me out here? I suppose Madhur Jaffrey is the next logical place to go.

UPDATE: It really wasn't bad. I roughly halved it (probably a bit more spinach than would be quite right for that), and once I'd thrown more chopped tomato over it and left it a bit longer, it was pretty good. I might keep the spices the same, though, as there wasn't a lot. I'm now making courgette fritters. Mmmmmm.

I cooked chard!

What was it like? I'll tell you when I don't tip a ton of turmeric in it.

It was this couscous recipe, without raisins (another thing, along with nuts and mushrooms, which will be unceremoniously dropped from any of my recipes).

I didn't do the lemon oil, which I think may have been my major mistake. I detest it when people say things like 'I left out the chilli, and then it didn't taste of anything' in recipe comments, so I hold my hands up to that one.

I think I like the flavour of red chard stalks, but there was something in there - the green chard stalks possibly - that tasted NASTY. The leaves themselves I can take or leave. I do apologise for the pun.

But, as I said, I tipped far too much turmeric in by accident, so my reactions are coloured (oh, sorry, there's another one) by that.

Verdict on chard: jury still out.

ETA: Chard's like spinach, in that the easiest way to drain it is simply to squeeze it in your hands. I did look a little like I'd murdered someone, though, as the water comes out coloured a vivid red...

Also, if I had time to make courgette fritters to fill myself up, I totally would be. Not a ringing endorsement for chard.

I'm back!

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. A long time.

In which I have done so many foodie things: I started making my own bread (I seem to have got out of the way of that again), I've made pretzels, my first pies, baked several times for my choir, and just recently got a vegetable box.

I've done some non-foodie things, too, that might help with the blog: learnt more about blogging software, more about writing for the web, more about using Facebook and Twitter to publicise the blog. And I now have a digital camera, though I'm ambivalent about using it for food. I don't exactly prioritise presentation and if it's hot, dammit, I want to eat it. We'll see.

The vegetable box

The box (which is from Abel and Cole) is for two reasons. No, make that three. I'm working from home now, and it helps to provide a little bit of interest when it arrives. Two: it challenges me. I have chard, for crying out loud. I enjoy working out what I can do with it, and seeing if it takes me in directions I didn't expect. And three: it helps me eat healthier. I have all this veg, which I don't want to see go off, so I eat less meat and less all-round rubbish. I'm even snacking on carrots and celery. Mum would be so proud (hi Mum!). It seems to be working, though my actual weight will remain a closely-guarded secret until such time as I hit my target.

So I think it's only right that I kick off the resurrected blog with a recipe I never would have considered without the veg box, that reminded me there's really something very soul-enhancing about cooking, and that tasted absolutely fantastic.

Caldo verde

I first had this at my friend James' house, whose dad is an amazing cook, and so it was the first thing I thought of when I had kale.

I used the Hairy Bikers' recipe, cut down by about half (I'm a constant cutter-downer when it come to recipes). The old muddling-through you used to see on this blog in its Livejournal incarnation is still there. It calls for a potato masher, which I don't own (why mash potatoes when they are so lovely boiled?). Never mind, I'll use a spoon, I thought. Yeah, that was hard work. So it wasn't so much a potato base as lumps of potato. No matter; it made fantastic autumn soup. Try it. It will make you feel better.