Pancake Recipe

It’s Pancake Tuesday, and I thought I would share the recipe I use most often. I will state at this juncture it is not my recipe, full credit has to go to Ray D’Arcy (Senior) father of Ray D’Arcy who presents on Today FM.

 

Every year, Ray has his father on the show on Pancake Tuesday to go through the recipe with listeners, and once I tried this recipe I never looked at another.

 

Ingredients:

8 oz flour

2 eggs

Pinch of salt or sugar (depending on whether they are to be savoury or sweet)

1 pint of liquid (Two thirds milk to one third water)

 

You sift the flour and the pinch of salt/sugar, beat the eggs, and then add the eggs to the sifted flour. You will get a crumby mix. Now slowly add the liquid, a little at a time, whisking constantly so you get a consistent mixture with no lumps. Then let the mixture sit for 15/30 mins. Whisk before use.

Use a little oil on some kitchen paper to grease the pan, and cook on a medium to high heat. Enjoy!

What do you like on your pancakes? Comment below!

Mushroom, Asparagus and Spinach Risotto

Ingredients: Serves 2:

1 tablespoon of olive oil

25g butter

1 small onion (finely chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

150 g of Arborio rice

150ml white wine

500ml stock

4 x asparagus stalks (chopped)

8-10 x button mushrooms (chopped)

1/2 bag of washed spinach

Parmesan to serve.

Risotto is one of my favourite comfort foods, and can be adapted for any season by varying the ingredients. The basic recipe is the same no matter what you put in, so if you wanted to change it, you would substitute your preferences in for the vegetables I have listed.

I would like to deal with the hype about how risotto is insanely difficult to make or it can go wrong easily.  It is an easy dish to make, but I feel there are three success factors.  First, have all your ingredients, stock etc, measured and ready to go, so that you can concentrate on the cooking. As many of my friends will testify, this is not my normal style of cooking- but I feel it pays dividends here.

Of course by cooking I meant stirring. You need to constantly stir the risotto. Do this gently, but make sure you are scraping the bottom of the pan and mixing thoroughly. Thirdly, have the risotto at a constant low heat so that when the liquid is added it is just bubbling gently.

 

First heat the olive oil and the butter in a deep pan. After they have heated add the onion and sweat it off, until it softens a little. At this stage add the garlic and fry for another while. Before the garlic gets too coloured, throw in the chopped mushrooms and asparagus and toss in the mixture. I recommend chopping these into bite-size pieces. Fry for a minute and then add the rice. Make sure everything is well mixed. Continue to cook for another minute while the rice lightly toasts, but make sure that you stir constantly so that it doesn’t stick.

Next add the white wine. I would advise buying a whole bottle- not a small one- this way you get to pour yourself a glass while cooking and have one with your meal.

Stir until the wine has been absorbed by the rice. If it smells a little acrid, don’t worry, the alcohol will burn off leaving a great flavour in the rice.

At this point add in the first third of the stock- I would recommend vegetable or chicken. Keep the risotto barely bubbling and stir until all the stock has been absorbed and the mixture is thick and slightly heavy to stir.

Add in another third of the stock and repeat the process until the stock is absorbed. Add in the final remainder of the stock and repeat.

As the final third of the stock is close to being absorbed- add in the spinach and stir in. Once the mixture has thickened sufficiently, turn off the heat and serve into heated bowls immediately. Serve with some grated parmesan and that glass of wine.

For the carnivores amongst us, you can serve this risotto alongside some grilled meat. I recently enjoyed it with some steak. Another option is to shred some cooked chicken in at the spinach stage- and just heat the chicken through.

Enjoy.

Prawn linguine with chilli and garlic

 

 

Ingredients:

olive oil

1 x red chilli

2 x cloves garlic

1 x tin chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon of tomato purée

10 prawns (peeled and de-veined). Cooked or raw.

6 oz linguine

 

Start off by heating some salted water for the pasta. Then heat some olive oil in a big pot (I’ll explain later). To that add the finely chopped chilli and garlic. Add as much or as little chilli as you like according to personal preference/ strength of the chilli.

 

Once the garlic and chilli have gained some colour, add in the tin of chopped tomatoes and tomato purée. Throw your linguine into the boiling water at this stage. Let the sauce gently simmer while the linguine is cooking. About 5 mins before the linguine is ready, put your prawns into the sauce. If they are already cooked, you just need to warm them through. If they are raw, like mine were- cook until they have changed colour and cooked through, this does not take long. Flip them so both sides cook and are covered in the sauce.

 

While the linguine is still quite al dente- drain. Then add the linguine to the  sauce pot and toss so the pasta is evenly cooked. Much easier to do- if the pot is big!

Serve with a nice glass of red wine and some lightly toasted ciabatta. Equally you can heat a pan, with a little olive oil, and gently toast the ciabatta in that.