It’s been a busy few weekends and there’s no way I’m going to catch up on all the posts so here’s a quick overview of what I’ve been up to!

Pizza
I’ve talked about pizza before and I love my pizza steel – it’s perfect even if you’re doing a ready-made pizza. My ‘go-to’ recipe is Heston Blumenthal’s, but I’ve never managed to exactly copy his tomato sauce. Now that I have a (very shiny) pressure cooker, I thought it was worth a shot!

It certainly makes a difference, the sauce is wonderfully simple – it’s just tomato, but the pressure cooking brings out the sweetness far more than conventional methods. I’m a convert!

Stock
One of the biggest revelations of cooking Koffmans’s signature dish was the difference good stock made. Since I was spending a weekend making ramen stock anyway I whipped up a couple of batches of beef and chicken stocks. I followed the ‘Modernist Cuisine’ method and used my pressure cooker. The results are great with a rich, clean flavour. The chicken stock saw almost instant service as a delicious chicken soup!

Pancakes
While I was busy on Shrove Tuesday, that didn’t stop me making pancakes the weekend before. I used Michel Roux’s crepe batter which though thin, adds a nice richness in the form of cream. The pan you use is important too – I’m a big fan of cast iron and my De Buyer crepe pans sees a lot of use for frying things the rest of the year. Cast iron gets hot and stays very hot so you can cook lots of pancakes very quickly while getting a lovely crisp edge. Heaven.

Pulled Pork
I had some leftover slow-cooked pork so I did the only logical thing. Cooked it up with some barbecue sauce and stuffed it in a baguette with some coleslaw and pickles. This is the lunch of champions.

Jewish Honey Cake

I’m not jewish and it’s completely the wrong time of year for this cake, but don’t let it stop you. It’s rich, spicey and has a lovely gooey texture. I’m particularly grateful to a lovely friend who gave the me the appropriate tube pan.

Chinese Spicy Beef

This is another great recipe from ‘Every Grain of Rice’. It uses a couple of chinese ingredients to drive a fantastic flavour. It’s rich, it’s savoury. Magic. I’ve switched to steaming rice and i’m never going back – the texture is far superior to simply boiling it, even if the clean-up is a pain.