North African Shakshuka and Colombian arepas

I think I am becoming obsessed with Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi (and his crew). Every time I cook one of his recipes it turns out amazing, often leaving me confused as to how everyday ingredients can make something that tastes so good.

Today I decided to cook an exciting breakfast for us and my parents, who came to stay for the weekend. This resulted in the four of us sitting at the dinner table discussing how amazing and interesting Ottolenghi is.

The dish I went for was Shakshuka - a North African dish of onions, peppers, tomatoes and eggs with herbs and cayenne pepper, accompanied by arepas - Colombian maize patties.

The Shakshuka was really easy to make in one frying pan and it didn't seem to matter that I left the vegetables unattended for ages while I went and got changed. It was also really fun to make little wells in the vegetable mixture to break the eggs into before watching them slowly go white.

I predicted that arepas would be the perfect accompaniment to the Shakshuka. Me and Bailey have them almost every Saturday - they are really easy to make, the perfect hangover cure and really amazing with egg dishes. You can buy the "Areparina" arepa flour from Las Iguanas for £2 a bag and then you just have to add water, salt and pepper before forming into patties and sticking under the grill until toasty.

The final dish was absolutely scrumptious anyway. As usual with Ottolenghi stuff I couldn't believe how flavoursome the Shakshuka was, with a cayenne pepper kick to start the day out right, and the arepas were lovely with a few of the peppers and onions on top.

Recipe as I made it today (a couple of ingredients missing from the original, sorry Ottolenghi!):
Half a teaspoon of cumin seeds
90ml of oil
2 onions, peeled and sliced
1 red pepper and 1 yellow pepper, cut into strips
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 bayleaf
1 tablespoon of thyme
1 tablespoon of parsley
3 tomatoes
Half a tablespoon of cayenne pepper
A smallish glass of water
4 large eggs

Dry roast the cumin in a frying pan for 2 minutes. Add the oil and sauté the onions for two minutes. Add the peppers, sugar, bayleaf and herbs and cook on a high heat to get a nice colour. Add the tomatoes, cayenne and some salt and pepper. Cook on a low heat for 15 minutes, adding water to make it a saucy consistency. Taste it, and if it tastes awesome, then you are doing OK! Make four little spaces in the mixture and crack the eggs into the holes. Cover the pan and cook until the eggs are cooked. Serve immediately with delicious warm arepas.

Lal Qila

We live in the fortunate position of being within 5 minutes walk of over 40 Indian restaurants as The Curry Mile is just round the corner. Having tried a fair few of these we can safely proclaim one restaurant to be head and shoulders above the rest in terms of food and service and that place is the red neon fronted Lal Qila.

As a post work treat we nipped down on Friday night for a pint and a bite. Before we could get to the curry though there were the obligatory poppadoms and pickle tray which includes (on top of the standard mango chutney, onion, lime pickle and raita) a sweet and spicy green chilli dip which is amazing.

The curries were delivered before the second round of poppadoms could be finished. Jules had gone for the Saag Paneer, a chunky indian cheese cooked in a spinach sauce. Although I am no fan of Paneer cheese I tried the sauce and it was super tasty. Oddly (in my mind) Jules decided to have a salad with her curry but it hit the spot for her!

I went for my regular and dependable dish of chicken jalfrezi along with a pilau rice and a garlic naan bread. The chicken was tender and fresh (unlike other curries you can purchase on the curry mile which use lower grade chewy meat) and the sauce was just at the right level of heat. The pilau rice was sticky and sweet and complimented the curry perfectly as did the naan bread. Most naan breads are doughy and stodgy but Lal Qila's are light and crispy on one side and the garlic is not overpowering, great!

Lal Qila really is consistently good, we've tried lots of others local Indians and although they might be cheaper they really don't cut the mustard. Two things that you should know though is that the portions are not huge and the curries really are not the dryish healthy type of curry. The curries often arrive with a fair amount of butter or chilli oil running around the dish so if you are watching your waistline go elsewhere!

Amazing Pizza Rolls

I struggle to understand why Arndale Centre shoppers continue to eat at McDonalds and the like in the overcrowded Food Court, when the Food Market has such a wide variety of cheaper and tastier world foods. Whenever we go in, we have these amazing Vegetable Pizza Rolls from 'Fresh Olives' which has pizza by the slice and salads (doesn't look like they sell many olives these days).

Marketed as "diet pizza" (diet my eye!), they are warm cheesy rolls of spinach, basil, mozzarella and feta deliciousness which can be eaten on the go. For some reason today they were particularly gooey and amazing.

Vegetable Pizza Rolls are an absolute bargain at £2.50 a pop. I thoroughly recommend you give them a try!

Carrot cupcakes

Since Bailey bought me my Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery book for Christmas, I have been baking at every opportunity. However, last week when I didn't have time to make cakes for Blob and Aimee's visit, Bailey decided he would take the baking into his own hands. As it turns out, the caramel cupcakes he decided to make were a huge hit, not only with us but all the colleagues in his office.

So tonight Bailey decided to step up his game and try out Carrot Cupcakes with an orange cream cheese icing. It's the first time we'd made these and we were a bit unsure as to how they were going to turn out, given that they were so different to the other cakes we had made from the book - mainly due to the absence of huge amounts of butter. Also once the ingredients were all prepared Bailey was surprised at how very much carrot was actually in there. And it seemed unlikely to rise given that once ready the mixture seemed like a liquid gloopy mess!

However, thanks in part we think, to our new fancy deep muffin tins and muffin cases from Asda, these came out as probably the best cupcakes we have made yet!

We were also slightly concerned about the cream cheese icing because it was a lot gloopier than it normally comes out, but after an hour's stint in the fridge it seemed ok and iced quite well. Oh and absolutely delicious. In fact we are both feeling quite sick from licking out the bowl.

Anyway, just a sprinkle of cinnamon and voila!

Bailey is definitely becoming the master baker of the house, I think I am going to have to retaliate soon...

Recipe (our slightly less carroty version):

For the Carrot cupcakes
200g carrot, peeled and trimmed
2 large eggs
130g golden caster sugar
120ml vegetable oil
Half a teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1 orange (2 good teaspoons)
120g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the Cream cheese and orange icing
170g cream cheese
450g icing sugar, sifted
125g unsalted butter (room temp)
Grated zest of one orange

Stick the oven on 180 degrees C. Grate the carrots. Mix the eggs and sugar for five minutes then add the oil, vanilla and orange zest before beating well. Sift the flour, bicarb of soda, salt and cinnamon into another bowl. Mix them up before gradually adding to the egg and sugar, beating well all the time. Put the carrots in with the batter and mix with a wooden spoon. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases generously until two-thirds full. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes. Don't worry if they look quite dark, they're meant to be like that.

For the icing, stick all in the ingredients in a bowl and mix them until there are no lumps. Put in the fridge for an hour before icing.

The Metropolitan

Today we paid a visit to The Metropolitan in West Didsbury. Although this wasn't the first time we had dropped by this unique and cosy gastro-pub, it was the first time we had sampled its renowned award-winning grub. As expected the place was packed to its quaint, antique-style rafters and we had to wait around 30 minutes at the (unfortunately, rather overpriced) bar to be seated. As it turns out we didn't mind at all; the atmosphere created by the antique furniture, vintage prints and roaring fires make it a very pleasant place to relax on a Sunday.

Once seated by our friendly and helpful waitress, we decided on our starter of Grilled halloumi, pea and asparagus salad with sun blushed tomatoes and a green pesto dressing. 

It really was superb - fresh and tasty with its crunchy asparagus, juicy tomatoes and perfectly grilled warm halloumi. The cheese tasted almost creamy which was unusual. Everything worked excellently together. Certainly recommended! Main courses were roast dinners all round for meat eaters Bailey, Blob and Aimee.

The chicken arrived, sitting inside its large crispy Yorkshire Pud alongside a tasty sausage meat stuffing. The chicken was moist, flavoursome and perfectly cooked. The vegetable bowl, brought out separately, comprised perfect spuds roasted in goose fat, carrots, sweet onions, swede mash, broccoli and green beans. Bailey said this was "definitely in his top three roasts of all time", with his only complaint being the gravy which was a little on the thin side. I ordered a Grilled goats cheese and Ratatouille tart, which came with green and red pestos and a salad.

I absolutely love anything with goats cheese in and this puff pastry tart was delicious. I was really impressed with the pestos (the red pesto being more of a sun dried tomato paste), and the salad was really yummy - especially after I poured the green pesto all over it. I would perhaps have appreciated the salad more had it not been so similar to my starter but I couldn't fault the taste of the dish as a whole.

The portions were generous enough that we decided against ordering a pudding (just so you know, we would have gone for the cheese board). The meal for four of us (two starters, four mains, two desserts) without drinks cost around £65 which wasn't too bad considering you're talking about West Dids. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up!

Entrée...

Hello all!

Jules and Bailey here.

After many months spent talking about it, we have finally started our own delectable food blog. As great lovers of all things edible we plan to share all our food adventures including home-cooked triumphs and tragedies and the highs and lows of eating out.

Really we just want a place to document what we eat, what we like and how we cook. If anyone else enjoys reading it too then that's a great bonus!

Feel free to comment on any of our entries. Enjoy!