Gougeres with spiced cheese and chocolate mole recipe

This is one to impress your friends or have them reel in horror


Gougeres

100g butter
150g flour
325 ml water
4 med eggs
1 heaped tsp grain mustard
50g grated mature cheddar

bring water, a little salt and butter to a boil (butter melted) and fling in the flour (sieved). Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and cook out over a gentle heat, moving all the time, for a couple of minutes. Allow to cool for ten minutes.

I’m very lazy and if the next step goes wrong, don’t blame me. Put all the eggs, the mustard and the cheese in with the flour mix and beat. I use a hand mixer with dough attachment and blitz it with that for five minutes. If you have a stand mixer that is brilliant but I can’t be bothered with the cleaning. If you are doing it with a spoon, do it one at a time. Once all the egg is beaten in the mixture will be nice and glossy and is ready for piping (I use a teaspoon for speed) onto a baking sheet. This is just a choux pastry recipe and without the salt, mustard and cheese and the addition of a little sugar will make lovely éclairs and profiteroles.

Cook you teaspoons of mix in a 200c oven until nicely risen and brown.

Cheese: I used a mix of goat’s cheese, quark and greek yoghurt. To this add some peppadew peppers, parsley, coriander, lemon juice, lime juice and a little agave.

Chocolate mole: this baby takes some making.

Round one: cascabel, ancho and pasilla chillis, epazote and cocoa powder. Boil these up in some water and blend. Then pass through a sieve.

Round two: fry some onions in oil, add some nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts work best) and fry until golden. Add a tin of tomatoes, some veg stock and the round one chilli mix and cook out. Blend and taste for sweetness. Add a little chocolate (min 55%) and a little agave if necessary.


Plate: cut gougeres and re-heat in a med oven for a couple of minutes. Take out and fill with some of the cheese mix. Top with some mole and finish with a little salsa.


The last recipe is a response to a very nice French chef who came in on Saturday night. He worked at antony’s, a swish Michelin starred place in leeds and he was interested in the smoky element in our meze and was interested in its authenticity. For him

This is the base element in two of our starters, baba gannoush and baigan bharta.

Take an aubergine and place it straight on the gas flame on your hob. Turn once in a while, making sure to scorch the whole aub. Allow to cool and peel. This gives a very intense smoky flavour, you can adjust this by first cooking in the oven and then finishing on the direct flame.

Baba gannoush(this week’s): aubergines as above, yofu, salt, pepper, lots of lemon juice, tahini. Chop aubergine and mix everything together to your taste. Oh and parsley.

Baigan bharta: fry onion in oil. Add cumin seeds, black or conventional or both, chilli powder (kashmiri if possible) and turmeric. Add tinned or fresh tomatoes and cook until oil separates. Add green chilli, aubergine as above, and cook a little longer. One of the nicest curries we’ve made.


Another recipe from Canteen on Clifton Street, Cardiff CF24 1LR
For booking call 029 2045 4999

Satay sauce recipe

Onion
Thai red curry paste (a nice hot one, our recipe is lost among the blogs)
Palm sugar
Lime juice
Cashews
Veg stock
Coconut milk

Fry the onion until soft and then add some ground up cashews (200g say). Fry a little then add a small quantity of stock, 40g of palm sugar (or to taste), the coconut milk and lime juice. Taste all the time to judge the balance. Blend with a hand blender. You can also add sesame oil. It should be a pouring consistency. I prefer mine less sweet than the ones you can buy.



Another recipe from Canteen on Clifton Street, Cardiff CF24 1LR
For booking call 029 2045 4999

Fattoush & carrot salad dressing recipes

Lemon juice
Lime juice
Date syrup (we get ours from city bakery)
Agave nectar
Mint water (op cit)
Sumac (ditto)
Olive oil
Salt

Again, sorry no quantities, you need to balance the sweet and sour etc.

As I’m on a roll and golf is still an hour away and I still don’t have the ingredients for my breakfast this is definitely the last one. The recipe is from jill dupleix and it is the dressing for the carrot salad (hooray riverford are here, more muted hooray, no mushrooms)

Orange juice (reserve segments for the salad)
Lemon juice
Oil
Cinnamon to taste
Cumin to taste
Salt
Agave nectar

Blend together, ‘tis a beauty.


Another recipe from Canteen on Clifton Street, Cardiff CF24 1LR
For booking call 029 2045 4999

Vegan coeliac savoury pancake recipe

These could not be easier and they taste really good. In fact there’s a very good chance that I’ll be doing a mushroom crepe in the nears future. You’ll need (sorry no measurements, I play it by feel)

Buckwheat flour
Gram flour
Salt
No egg (optional)
Soy milk

Using a hand blender whisk the ingredients together to make a batter, not too thin. Cook over high heat in a heavy bottomed pan using soya marg. Stuff with the cheese mix (recipe in our recipe box on the web)

Fabada: when this was good it was excellent, but it could be too tomatoey (word tells me this isn’t a word)

Onion
Parley stalks finely chopped
Garlic

Sweat these together in a decent slick of oil.

Smoked paprika
Lemon juice
Agave nectar or sugar

Add the paprika and allow the spice to cook out. After a couple on minutes add the lemon juice and watch the colour intensify. Add the sweetener to taste. I like it very smokey so added lots of paprika.

White beans cooked
Veggie black pudding (recipe for vegan/coeliac on the website) Ask at the hungry planet and they’ll probably get some in or ask me and I’ll let you have one of the leftovers.
Stock

Add beans and stock to the base and cook out so that the beans start to absorb the flavour. Fry the black pudding in oil and then allow to cool. Add to the fabada mix at the end.

Tomatoes

Add some tomatoes(tinned or passata) add cook out. Do not add too much or all you’ll be able to taste is tomatoes.

Serve with spinach salad (French dressing) and spiced potatoes (chilli, onion, garlic, the parsley leaf and lemon juice)

Another recipe from Canteen on Clifton Street, Cardiff CF24 1LR
For booking call 029 2045 4999