Tag: recipe

28Jul

Cajuzinho (almond fudge)

My grandma left Italy in her early twenties to move to Brazil with her fiancé, my grandad. My grandad never stepped foot in Italy again, my grandma only went back a few times.  Although my grandma’s accent still has strong italian vowels, she has immersed herself  into the culture of her adopted country. She loves having papaya for breakfast, tends to her own jabuticaba trees and watches telenovelas. Her cooking has retained strong Italian roots, but most of her original recipes now often take typical Brazilian ingredients. I am now going through that same process, like her I moved to England still young, and I rejected the culture when I first arrived, but after a while I hated being and outsider. I made a big effort to refine the British accent, watch local shows, read the news, ask questions (beans for breakfast?!?!?). I now get the dry sense of humour and how to add just the right amount of milk to breakfast tea. A lot of natives now tell me they wouldn’t even be able to tell I wasn’t English, if it wasn’t for my looks. You would think that after 16 years of effort I would consider this a compliment, but it actually makes
3 mins read
985 Views
05Jul

Classic vinaigrette

Let’s not talk about Brexit today. Let’s talk about how to make classic vinaigrette.  I have always been confused when I have searched for vinaigrette recipes I get a liquid version of it, like a salad dressing. That’s not the version I grew up to love. I decided to recreate my family’s version of vinaigrette after I got a whiff of cheiro-verde.  Cheiro-verde is what we call the mix of parsley and coriander leaves in Brazil. You’ll often find the market sells this mixture together. The smell is a throwback one for me, if you add cumin and the noise of a pressure cooker, I am right in my grandma’s kitchen. So this is the recipe with the classic vinaigrette I have always known, with cheiro-verde. In my opinion it’s better than a salad dressing, you can add it to anything: rice, couscous, quinoa, salads and even as a side to grilled sausages. Classic vinaigrette (serves 4-6) 100g cherry tomatoes  1 small red onion  Bunch of flat parsley  Bunch of coriander  Juice of 2 limes 30ml olive oil Salt to taste 1. Finely chop the onion, tomatoes and herbs and place it all in a bowl 2. In a separate bowl
2 mins read
750 Views
06Jun

Easy roasted tomato sauce

I recently heard a radio interview with Diana Henry, an irish food writer (you can listen to the interview here). Catching her interview on my way to work was one of those happy coincidences, and I actually wished my work commute was longer so that I could have listened to it all. She talked very frankly about how her love of food started with good irish food and how that love flourished when she lived in London and Paris. She was very frank and humble about constantly learning about new foods and trends as a food writer and I identified with so many of her views. Especially when she talked about the fetishisation of certain food, a word that I will be using very often from now on. A trend she says she doesn’t understand. And neither do I. Example in point: avocado on toast. Two years ago no one was doing it, now everyone is.  So I stay away from avocado. I was never big on it and I would feel like a huge hypocrite if I started jumping on the bandwagon. Food, just like fashion, should be about knowing what suits you rather than throwing all the trends
3 mins read
679 Views
24May

Blueberry muffins with lime streusel

When people ask if I have a hobby I answer “baking”. Sounds like a cop out but I really don’t have the want to put my time into much else. My husband is a diver, which is a genuine hobby in my eyes, and one that requires you to have genuinely expensive equipment. Sure, the type of diving equipment you buy can make a life or death difference, but I have argued with his diver friends that baking trumps diving when it comes to cost. Obviously they rolled on the floor laughing after I said that, but until you become a serious baker, you’ll never understand how expensive it is to trial new recipes. Sure you can eat the products of your hobby, but all the testing I have done recently makes my freezer look like a cake morgue. In this muffin recipe I like to lightly poke the blueberries, I find this is a nice trick so that your blueberries don’t sick to the bottom. This recipe developed from a cherry cheesecake muffin that ended up exploding in my oven (currently in the freezer). Don’t you agree baking can beat many other hobbies in the money stakes? Blueberry muffin
3 mins read
687 Views
06May

Applesauce banana loaf [Dairy Free]

I am sitting here trying to describe how I have been feeling in these last few days. Tired is the first adjective that comes to mind. At first I thought the word was so salient in my mind because of how the physical side of my job had left me sore in my legs and arms, with 5 am starts thrown in the mix too.  The first course of action for me to counteract this was to dive into a diet of spirulina smoothies and sugar free snacks. The food has given me an energy boost, but on my days off I can’t shake off the wanna-be-in-bed-all-day feeling, so I had to think a little harder about what else I was be doing wrong. Thinking being the key word here, I was in my head too much. I have an emotional job, where you make decisions about people’s lives, and that is something that can be highly rewarding at times, but on the other hands it makes me over analyse every decision I make. It leads to a very judgemental cycle in my head and by the time i get home I am in this deep emotional pit, no one can rescue
3 mins read
749 Views
21Apr

Cold brewed coffee

It was October when I first moved to England, and one of my earliest memories was the changing colours of the leaves…and the shocking amount of tea people drink here.  The stereotype is real, it is the land of tea, dare I say more than India itself. The etiquette around tea is also something the British don’t joke about, it is close to a crime here to get up to make yourself a cup of tea and not ask whether anyone else in the room wants one. I think this strong tea culture froze the progress of coffee. Literally, freeze dried coffee is what you’ll get if you ask for one.  It looks like they left that for the continent to deal with. Growing up in Brazil there were no other alternatives but to have coffee in the morning and a little shot in the afternoon to keep you awake in the heat. I only drank tea when I was ill, and to this day I cannot get on board with the drink. I felt I had little choice but to give in to instant coffee and I couldn’t stomach it. But beggars can’t be choosers and grew to accept
3 mins read
760 Views