Lorraine Pascale - Home Cooking Made Easy

Deep-fried Camembert with a cranberry, Burgundy & thyme sauce Deep-fried Camembert with a cranberry, Burgundy & thyme sauce This dish is so naughty – in every way. It comes in the canapé chapter, but it is mightily fine as a meal in itself, to be perfectly honest. For me, life is too short to make cranberry sauce from scratch every time (except at Christmas!), so I like to buy a jar of ready-made and give it a little help from some herby friends. Serves 4 4 tbsp red wine, preferably Burgundy Pinch of fresh thyme leaves 150g cranberry sauce 1 egg, lightly beaten 80g natural or golden breadcrumbs Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 x 250g whole Camembert, unwrapped Vegetable oil, for deep-frying Put the red wine in a small pan and boil it until it is reduced by half, this usually happens quite quickly. Add the thyme leaves and cranberry sauce, bring it to just below the boil, then take the pan off the heat and set aside. Put the egg in one bowl and the breadcrumbs in another, then season the breadcrumbs with salt and pepper. Cut the Camembert into four pieces, then dip into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs. Dip once again into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs. Have a slotted spoon and tongs at the ready along with a wire rack with some kitchen paper underneath it. Fill a medium, deep pan with oil to the depth of 6cm and heat over a medium heat until a small piece of bread carefully placed in the oil browns in 60 seconds. Carefully place the breaded cheese into the hot oil, one by one, using a slotted spoon. Put them into the pan from a low height so that the hot fat does not splash, then deep-fry until they are a lovely golden brown colour. Remove the cheese with a slotted spoon or tongs – whichever is easier for you – and place them on the wire rack. Putting them on the rack rather than straight onto kitchen paper means that they will not be sitting in their own fat and will stay nice and crispy. Once you have cooked all of the cheese wedges, place them on serving plates with the cranberry sauce and serve straightaway with a green salad.

Light & crispy tempura prawns & soy chilli dipping sauce

Prosciutto & Brie toastie

Satay chilli chicken

Breads

Sea salt & olive oil pain d’epi

Twenty-first century ham, cheese & chive bread

Old-fashioned English muffins

Hamburger baps

Puffed-up pitta bread

Mrs Stephenson’s dinner party bread rolls

Spring onion & red chilli cornbread

Really quick ‘Danish pastries’

Mains

Decadent rosemary & Worcestershire sauce shepherd’s pie

Lemon, tarragon & garlic quick roast chicken with oven-baked potato slices

Cracked black pepper pasta

Really slow-roast pork shoulder with crispy, crispy crackling & garlic roast vegetables

Five-spice baked ribs

Beer-battered fish & baked chunky chips

Pad Thai

Thai green chicken curry

Oven-roast salmon with a mustard & parsley crust

Rosemary & sage pork chops with caramelised shallots & cider

Quick brown sugar & spring onion chicken teriyaki

Stove-top haddock with fennel seeds & basil

Creamy pancetta pasta with mushrooms & Parmesan

Simple pan-fried lemon sole with parsley & browned butter

Warm & cosy coq au vin

Pot-roast beef with port & juniper berries

Rack of lamb with a rosemary & parsley pesto crust

Sweet potato & salmon fish cakes with chives & lime

My dad’s really very good lasagne

Heart-warming ‘boeuf bourguignon’ (with a touch of something Italian)

Not-so-Cornish pasties with sturdy shortcrust pastry

Mum’s chilli con carne

Lamb, chickpea & pear tagine

Chicken Paillard with herbed warm butter & crushed new potatoes

Minted lamb & coriander burgers with cucumber yoghurt

Paprika baked fish with chorizo, lemon & thyme

Rioja-braised lamb shanks with chorizo & garlic

Pan-fried balsamic pear salad with pancetta, Gorgonzola & a warm honey dressing

Hearty Spanish paella with sherry, chorizo & prawns

Mini beef Wellingtons with morel mushrooms, sherry & thyme

Prawn bisque with basil & brandy

Twice-cooked chicken Kiev

Not-so-slow roast leg of lamb with thyme & plum gravy

Vegetables & Vegetarian

Gruyère & mustard cauliflower cheese

Pan-fried asparagus with toasted flaked almonds

Hot buttered green beans with spring onions & pomegranate

Tarragon, parsley & mint crushed buttered new potatoes

Roast carrots with lemon & thyme

Red cabbage with pears & garlic

Paprika baked sweet potato wedges with honey-glazed bacon & herby crème fraîche

Oven-roast broccoli with chilli & mint

Hasselback tatties

Root vegetable rosemary rösti with a chive & cracked black pepper crème fraîche

Baked mushroom, chestnut & pea ‘risotto’ with truffle oil

Extra thin & crispy goat’s cheese tart with spinach & thyme pesto

Lemony basil spaghetti with mascarpone, chilli & chives

Roasted beetroot salad with orange, goat’s cheese, mint & toasted hazelnuts

Asparagus, tarragon & mint omelette

Spinach, rocket & Parmesan roulade with sun-dried tomato & pine nut filling

Stilton, pear & poppy seed tartlets

Desserts

Caramelised banana bread & butter pudding with toasted pecans

Shameless, flourless, moist & sticky chocolate cake

Sauternes, cardamom & ginger poached pears

A very spotted dick

My big fat tipsy trifle

Frozen raspberry ripple parfait ‘ice cream’

White chocolate mousse with crème fraîche & stem ginger

Extra gooey pecan pie with brown sugar pastry

Chocolate digestive cheesecake with white icing

Steamed chocolate pudding with warm Mars bar sauce

Cakes & Cookies

Party time chocolate fridge cake

Raspberry muffins with brown sugar topping

Caramelised pineapple, rum & vanilla upside-down cake

Chewy white chocolate fudge cookies

Winter Swiss roll bowl cake

Graffiti cake

‘Oat couture’ granola bars

Really very naughty chocky rocky road cake

Sweets, Jams & Other Good Stuff

Apple, blackberry & cinnamon chutney

Bubble wrap sugar

Chocolate marshmallow brown sugar fudge

Asian chilli jam

Peanut butter truffles

Peppermint creams sugar rush

The nutty brittle brigade

Winter spiced lemon curd with cinnamon & vanilla

Flavoured butters

Toffee caramel popcorn

Lollipops

Index

Acknowledgments

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

From scrumptious soups to sizzling lemon sole, cheeky cheesecakes and perfect peppermint creams, here are a hundred of my favourite recipes for relaxed home cooking.

I love nothing more than collecting recipes, testing them and sharing them with people – well, actually, I have to confess that eating the delicious results does give me a bit more pleasure…

Recently I’ve been like a mad food scientist in the kitchen; conducting culinary experiments using everyday ingredients and putting a wicked spin on some familiar traditional recipes. I’ve also drawn inspiration from my travels to Barcelona, Sri Lanka, Corsica and chilled-out Byron Bay, so be ready for a few surprises!

In this book are the kind of recipes that I like to cook on autumnal afternoons and cosy winter evenings. You’ll find comfort in duvet day chicken noodle soup when the dark skies seem just a little too foreboding, and braised lamb shanks with Rioja and chorizo will bring the warmth and passion of an Iberian summer into the nippiest of seasons.

At one in the morning, standing in the kitchen covered in flour, I came up with another of the recipes that I’ve included here. While making a sugar syrup for toffee apples, I rifled through the cupboards and found some red food colouring. As I dropped a few beads of the scarlet liquor into the sugar syrup the mixture fizzled a bit. I swizzled it around in a heatproof glass jug and through the fog of a sugary fatigue I started drizzling crazy shapes on a sheet of baking parchment. When I lifted the band of now warm and hardening sugar and wrapped it around a freshly iced sponge cake sitting forlornly in a corner of the kitchen, graffiti cake was born!