Most people know at least something about food and wine matching, even if it is just following the most basic rule of white with fish, red with meat.    For the novice wine drinker the first differences you learn are between red and white, light or heavy, dry or sweet.   As you drink more wine your palate develops and you learn to identify and label many different tastes.   It is very similar with both chocolate and coffee.  I have realised that both are easily as complex as wine, but I have been lazy about properly tasting them, I tend to munch and gulp rather than actually taste and think.

I have been to two amazing coffee events recently that have really forced me to think about my coffee, the first was with Union Roasted (the post is coming) and the second was with Cafe Direct who invited me to a food and coffee matching class and to taste their range of Fair Trade coffees.

Cafe Direct's Coffee Tasting Flavour Wheel

I was challenged to come up with a recipe for Cafe Direct’s Kilimanjaro coffee, which they describe as bright, lively with berry and citrus flavours.   I was given a bag of apples, lemons and limes, access to some basic pantry ingredients, and set to work.

I loved my lemon & lime posset which I paired with an apple filo strudel, but was quite disappointed in the filo pastry, the resulting strudels were heavy and soggy; frankly not worth eating.  I realised after cooking them that the packet of pastry had about a quarter of the sheets that my usual brand does, but weighed the same, so the sheets were 4 times the thickness!

Photo by Cafe Direct

I have tweaked and recreated the pudding, layering the posset on top of the apple.    Served in a wine glass I think this makes an elegant, and easy pudding that you can make up to 48 hours in advance.  Perfectly fuss free!

Recipe: Apple, Lemon & Lime Possets

Makes 4

Ingredients

For the Apple Compote

2 small apples – peeled and finely chopped (this will be about 8oz / 200g prepped apple)
30g / 2 tbs golden syrup
Juice of 1 lemon
Scant amount of water

For the Posset

284ml carton double cream
Juice of 1 lemon (reserve 2 slices for garnish before juicing)
Juice of 1 lime
75g / 3oz sugar

Place the ingredients for the compote into a small saucepan and gently simmer until the apple is soft.   Allow to cool (pouring something hot into a cold glass could easily crack it) and divide between 4 wine glasses.    I use a jam funnel to ensure the fruit lands at the bottom of the glass rather than sliding down the sides.

Put the cream into a medium sized pan and bring to the boil.  Add the juice and  sugar and simmer for a minute or two stirring well.   Remove from the heat.   Allow to cool, to avoid cracking the glasses,  and then pour over the apple compote.   Chill to set for a few hours in the fridge before serving.

For an extra indulgence pour a little more cream over the top of the possets before serving.

You may also like this recipe for elderflower and lime possets.

Click for a printable recipe for  Apple, Lemon and lime possets.

Thank you to Cafe Direct for a lovely and informative evening.

For a chance to win vouchers for £500 to spend at the famous London cookery school L’atelier des Chefs, and a night for two in a hotel, head on over to Cafe Direct’s Facebook page and come up with your own recipe to match with one of their coffees.   Closing date is the 25 November 2011.

Also sending this to Cook Eat Delicious Desserts, where this month the theme is apples hosted by Nayna.

Carbonara, is carbonara, is carbonara right?   Well, no actually.

This month’s theme for Sarah @ Maison Cupcake’s  Forever Nigella is Ciao Italia!, which reminded me of the carbonara off I attended last year but never got round to writing about.     With half a pot of cream in the fridge and some spare real British bacon, I decided to make Nigella’s carbonara. 

I am well aware that I can put a fair amount of food away, but I feel that with the quantities in this recipe Nigella has gone quite mad.  500g of pasta for two people?  The notes to the recipe state that she knows a whole packet is too much, but the recipe is for people in love and she wants “that whole panful lugged back to the bedroom“.   Frankly if I even attempted to eat that much spaghetti, the only action in my bedroom would be quiet groans of discomfort as I clutched my distended belly, there certainly would be no working up an appetite for leftovers as she suggests.

However, with a more measured amount of spaghetti, 75g per person, it was a pretty good carbonara.     I know that authentically there is no cream or wine, but Nigella’s version is delicious and perfect for a Friday night (to comfort after a long week at work) or Sunday (to commiserate for the long week ahead).    I left out the nutmeg, and used bacon in place of the pancetta.

On to the other carbonaras; way back in the mists of time (last November) I was asked to a Carbonara off between Jane Hornby and Marco Torri (Head Chef at Ristorante Semplice) to celebrate the publication of What to Cook and How to Cook it.  Both would cook their carbonara, (Jane’s recipe from the book) and a group of us would taste them blind and give our opinion.   Tough stuff and a real palate test!  The event has been sitting in my to be blogged queue waiting for the perfect time to write about it.

Both were very different, and Nigella’s is different again!

Firstly appearance.

Marco's Carbonara

Jane's Carbonara

Both tasted very different too:

Jane’s Carbonara – Far more al dente in texture, less salty and more porky, less sauce, sweeter.

Marco’s Carbonara -  Softer, cheesy sauce, sharp, peppery, smokey.

And the method of making them:

Jane’s Carbonara – used whole eggs, dry cured bacon, garlic (explains sweetness), all the bacon fat.

Marco’s Carbonara – egg yolks, pork cheeks, pecorino (explained peppery flavour), lots of finely ground pepper,  and added some pasta water for the sauce.

I was amazed at the difference!

Nigella also uses whole eggs – unless you are going to make something with the whites I think that this is sensible, otherwise it is just wasteful I can see lots of people sticking the egg whites in the fridge and then chucking them away a week later.

I think that here there is no winning dish, they are all perfect for different occasions.  Despite its simplicity, Marco’s pasta is a far more complex dish, as you would expect from a Michelin starred chef, that you need to think about the flavours whilst eating, one for an informal dinner party perhaps?  I am not going to be buying pig cheeks for a week night supper.    Jane and Nigella’s versions are both perfect for a simple supper, which recipe I use will depend if I have some white wine open or any cream.

I am also sending this to Presto Pasta Nights #207, hosted by the event’s founder, Ruth, at Once Upon a Feast.

This is the pudding that I came up with for the recent foodbloggers’ Masterchef cookoff with Miele.    When planning a menu it is perfectly normal and reasonable to come up with a pudding first and then plan a main course to go with it?   I wanted a very summery pudding using my homemade elderflower cordial;  it also had to be very quick to make, impossible to mess up and hopefully delicious.   I think that I have attained all 3 requisites here.   Looking back over my archives it would also seem that possets will freeze well too.

As these possets have extra liquid from the cordial added to them I used extra thick double cream to make sure they set.

Lime & Elderflower Possets (makes 4 – 6)

284 ml carton extra thick double cream
2 oz sugar
juice and zest of one lime
1tbs (15ml) elderflower cordial

Simply scrape the cream into a saucepan and bring to the boil keep a close eye on it as  it can very rapidly (and messily) boil over.  While the cream heats zest the lime into the pan.   Once it boils, add the sugar, lime juice and cordial.   Simmer for a minute stirring well until the sugar has dissolved.     Pour into serving dishes – 4 ramekins or 6 espresso cups.   Chill until set before serving.    I made these and they were set in under an hour.

I served with strawberries marinated in elderflower cordial and Irish lace biscuits (recipe to come)

Pure comfort food and perfect on ice cream. I am a great fan of piping hot sauces on ice cream I love the contrast of hot and cold, and the memory of when I used to go home for lunch in my first year at primary school my mother would; for a treat; give me vanilla ice-cream topped with hot homemade jam. All that sweet hot jammy goodness over the half melted cold ice-cream. Bliss.

This fudge sauce is unbelievably easy to make from just 3 ingredients and tastes wonderful and is incredibly moreish. I have made another batch of this immediately after scraping the pan clean on more occasions than I should admit. Any leftovers can be stored in a jam jar in the fridge and microwaved in the jar (minus lid) or eaten straight from the jar with a spoon.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Unsalted butter
Soft light brown sugar
Double cream 

I use my electronic scales and weigh straight into the saucepan.

Variations

Use soft dark brown sugar for a more treacly sauce, or add half a cup of espresso for a coffee fudge sauce, but the cooking time will be longer.