Corn Muffin, Tea&Coffee from H.R. Higgins in Mayfair

I tried a Corn Muffin Recipe introduced by a cool food blogger, 

Shinae Choi Robinson.

The recipe can be found:

http://pinterest.com/pin/499969996101952511/

In addition to the ingredients of original recipe, as a fan of corn, I added 1/2 cup of sweet corn in the dough.

 As a trial, I blended the sweet corn roughly with butter milk. 

 As I run out of "all purpose flour", I mixed plain flour and self raising flour. 

I shall try it only with self raising flour next time since the muffin became bit too light and spongy.

I topped a teaspoon of cornmeal on each dough.

The biggest mistake I made this time was, I put the muffin mold in a wrong layer (the top) in the oven. 

As a result, the surface was baked too quickly and didn't give the space for the rest of dough to raise. Therefore, it came out from the side!! 

Despite the funny shape, we enjoyed this muffin a lot!! 

The sweet flavour of corn, the hint of cornmeal, and the warm yellow colour, all were wonderful! 

It was sooo yummy!!

Thank you so much for introducing this recipe!

I certainly try it again soon!!

With the muffin, I served Ceylon tea from our cool tea&coffee shop, H.R. Higgins that I mentioned many times in this blog.

H.R. Higgins shop locates in Duke Street in Mayfair that has been the centre of luxury and traditional shopping area in London for centuries.

Given the chance to supply some coffee and tea to our table, I visited H.R. Higgins and took some photos there.  As I am one of their old customers, shop attendants were bit surprised of that I behaved like a typical Japanese tourist (taking photos). 

The emblem appeared in the top of coffee beans shelf says 

"By Appointment To Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II". 

This means the Queen Elizabeth II shops coffee here. 

Using a retro scale, they sell coffee beans or grounded coffee by measure. 

We usually get 500g beans of  "Honduras Pacamara from Santa Marta". 

 This is a tea section near the entrance. 

In the basement, we can have tea and coffee from the shop with some sweets. 

Of course, you can order their products by online. 

However, should you have a chance to visit London, don't miss this cute shop to drop in. 

It is cosy, tasty, friendly and traditional. 

Time to prepare muffin: 1 hour

Total cost of 10 muffins: 2.4 pounds (0.9 for Butter milk, 1.5 for the rest of ingredients)

Rolled Cabbage

This boiled cabbage roll with stuffing is a very popular winter dish in Japan. 

In my family there, they cook rolled cabbage pieces in chicken stock then top with ketchup to serve. 

I modify it slightly with the western infusion by using tomato puree and sour cream.

Rolled cabbage, miso cod, salad, rice and miso soup with aubergine

 Ingredients

• 8-20 large cabbage leaves (I usually use pointy cabbage)
• 50g of minced pork or minced meat
• 1/3 of round onion
• 1 tablespoon of cornflour
• black pepper
• 1/4 of carrot
• 1/3 bunch of shimeji mushroom or 3-4 large mushrooms
• 1 cube of chicken stock
• 200g of canned tomato puree (preferably without seeds) or tomato juice
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of ketchup

<toppings>

• Dill 
• Sour cream

Directions

1. Boil plenty of water in a large pan. Cook cabbage leaves for 15-20 seconds then take them aside to cool down 

2. Chop round onion as small as possible. Put chopped onion, minced meat, half cube of chicken stock, black pepper in a bowl and combine them well with hands

3. Remove the bottom edge of shimeji mushrooms and tear off into pieces. If using large mushrooms, slice them thinly. Slice carrot thinly as well 

 4. To make the core part of cabbage flat, place a leaf on a cutting board and slice the hard edge horizontally to the board from two sides as shown in photos. 
This makes the rolling up process easier

5. Put a bite sized portion of minced meat stuffing, pieces of carrot and mushroom on the flattened edge of cabbage leaf

6. Roll up from the edge and fold each side over to the centre. Then complete to the end. Entire parts must be done tightly

7. Place the rolled cabbage pieces on the bottom of semi-deep pan. Make sure the end of leaves are facing down on the pan

8. Add tomato puree, ketchup salt and the rest of chicken stock. Close the lid and cook them for 15-20 mins over medium temperature 

This seeds-less tomato puree was frozen stored from the occasion of Anchovy and Tomato Spaghetti

9. Serve the rolled cabbage topped with sour cream and dill.

By cooking cabbage lightly, we can use lots of cabbage at once. Also rolled pieces can be stored in the freezer.

The rich tomato sauce, sweet flavour of cabbage, the surprise of stuffing and the hint of sour cream and dill are all combined beautifully. The harmony of juice and texture of cabbage roll amuses the mouth!!

Total time to prepare: 40 mins
Total cost of 9 pieces of rolled cabbage: 1.8 pounds (cabbage 0.7, pork minced 0.8, other veggies 0.3)

Bond, James Bond, beetroot, pasta, etc.

We watched the latest Bond, "Skyfall" at Everyman Cinema in Hampstead. 

A cool Bond sign appeared in the entrance.

I totally loved this Bond film, especially the evil man as well as Bond himself.

Bond girl was also very sexy 

but she died too soon, I thought. 

I personally love From Russia with Love and the Bond Girl, Daniela Bianchi.

By the way, If I say Russia, always think about beetroot. 

Mr. Husband's mom made very nice salad with it when I visited her in Moscow.

I made deli style beetroot salad to go with Bottarga (karasumi) Spaghetti. 

Cooked beet root and beans were soaked in a dressing (olive oil, cider vinegar, mustard, salt, and grated garlic) then combined with other veggies (cucumber, tomato and parsley).

With beetroot, I also made pink, heart-shaped ravioli named as 

"Loveoli: From Russia with Love".

Directions can be seen in Instructables.com. 

Bond, pasta, beetroot make us happy.

Easy way to remove seeds from tomato: Anchovy tomato spaghetti

Anchovy Tomato Spaghetti was once introduced in this blog. I confessed the pain to remove out seeds from canned tomatoes.  

Mr. Husband's boss who read my blog kindly suggested Mr. Husband to buy Food Mill from OXO for me.

As following boss's suggestion, Mr. Husband brought this from his business trip to New York. 

Given the opportunity to make anchovy tomato spaghetti, I tried this!

I set a medium dense disk in the bottom of the mill and placed the food mill over a bowl. Then I put some tomatoes in the mill. 

Lets' see how it works... 
Wow, amazing!!  
Lots of seeds remain in the disk!!

Then the beautiful seeds-less tomato appeared in the bowl!

I sotred half portion of seeds-less tomato puree in freezer.

With the puree, I made anchovy tomato sauce. This time I add a tablespoon of balsamic glaze. It enhanced the sweetness of tomatoes while created some depth of flavour in the sauce. Also, it moderated the fishy smell of anchovy. 

I have been making this anchovy tomato spaghetti for several years. I thought the way will be the same forever. However, this time, I could improve a lot!! 

Thank you so much Dr. W (Mr. Husband's former boss) for suggesting the food mill from OXO!

I will explore more ways of using it!

Total time to prepare: 30 mins

Total cost: 1.6 pounds (0.7 for pasta, 0.5 for all veggies, 0.4 for anchovy)

Leftover tonkatsu remake: Tonkatsu omelette on rice (Katsudon)

 Katsudon is a popular rice bowl dish known as "donburi" in Japan. Seasoned katsu with egg is topped on rice.

Ingredients

• tonkatsu bites 3-4 pieces
• 1/2 round onion
• 2 eggs
• 150cc dashi (Japanese fish stock or 150cc water +dashi powder)
• 1.5 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1.5 tablespoons of mirin
• two bowls of cooked rice
• black seaweed paper to top 

 Directions

1. Slice onion as thin as possible. Add soy sauce, mirin and dashi in a small frying pan or shallow small pan. Bring them into gently boil over medium temperature until the onion pieces become translucent

 2. Cut tonkatsu into 1.5 cm width and add into the pan to boil

3. Beat eggs in a bowl and pour over tonkatsu in the pan 

4. Close the pan with a lid and gently cook the egg over small temperature for 1.5-2 mins

 5. Put warm rice in bowls and place tonkatsu omelette over each rice portion. Serve it with shredded nori.

I also made nachos chips salad. Just put some nachos chips, salad vegetables (lettuce, avocado, tomato, boiled carrot, boiled shimeji mushroom, dill) and one tablespoonful of mayonnaise and 1 teaspoon of vinegar in a bowl. Combine all ingredients well to serve.

Mr. Husband enjoyed katsudon.

Total time to prepare: 10 mins

Total cost: Extremely cheap