Motcomb Street

I already posted this on my travel blog here http://sid-sees.blogspot.com/2011/06/motcomb-street.html but here are some pictures!

Motcomb Street is a wonderful little street tucked away in Knightsbridge- it has restaurants, a chocolate shop, cafes, and eateries. And everything is wonderful.

This is just a roundup! You can find the whole post (with more pictures and writing- details!) on my travel blog here: http://sid-sees.blogspot.com/2011/06/motcomb-street.html

What I Love to Listen to When I Cook (and Eat!)

I was looking through my music today and started thinking about certain songs that I love to play while I cook. One of my favourite ways to unwind or destress is to lock myself up in the kitchen, play any kind of music that I'm in the mood for, and just create food to my heart's content! - And judging from the first picture below- you can tell that I love mixing music and food together- what better way to enjoy life than to have a wonderful sensory overload?

I always play music whenever I throw a dinner party- and like to stick to the theme. So Indian food goes with Indian music and French food with French music.... not very creative if you ask me, but it does set the scene.

One playlist that I love listening to is my "Breakfast Classical Playlist". I compiled it when I had a very floral and fresh themed breakfast party. I chose music that I thought was happy, uplifting, and reminded me of nature. Vivaldi's "Spring" definitely features on the list, and so does Boccherini's "Minuetto", and my all time favourite "Fantasia on Greensleeves" by Ralph Vaughan Williams

A second playlist is the one titled "Coffee Songs" which I love listening to even though I don't exactly drink coffee. For some reason, I remember the smell of coffee on a rainy morning whenever I listen to these songs- vivid imagination, I know. I think it's more the voices of the singers than the songs themselves which lead me to make this connection. On this playlist is James Morrison with "You Give Me Something" and "The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore". His voice is amazing. It's just so REAL. Also on this list is Rod Stewart with "Everytime we Say Goodbye"- another person with a very unique voice. I also find this the perfect slow dance song, but that's off topic. Another two songs are Marielle Colbert's rendition of "J'attendrai" and the all-time classic "La Vie en Rose" by Edith Piaf. And who can forget Michael McLean's "She"?

The last playlist that I've specifically created is just for when I'm cooking. The songs here kind of put a spring in my step and speed up my cooking process. On this list, I've got Michael Buble's "Everything" and "Just Haven't Met You Yet". Also, Aqualung's "Brighter than Sunshine" which is one of my all-time favourites ever since I first heard it five or six years ago. Also featured on this list is Jim Sturgess's version of "Across the Universe".

What do you like to listen to when you cook- or eat?

My Classics

As I've gone on cooking and baking I've come up with certain "classic" dishes of mine. These dishes are ones that were amazing successes, or ones that people have loved and asked for time and time again.

Here are some of savoury and sweet classics:

SAVOURY:

Fresh tomato and caper penne

Lamb and corn quesadillas

Vegetable risotto

Baked tortellini and vegetables

Rogan josh

Tomato soup with pasta and basil

Pumpkin and sweet potato stew

Fettuccine with rocket pesto and tomato

Lasagne

Shepherd's pie

Beef and eggplant bake with polenta

Chicken chilli stirfry

Spicy chicken fried rice

Satay noodle combo

Chicken cacciatore with polenta

Chicken and spinach pie

Spicy penne with peppers

Mushroom, spinach, and lemon risotto

SWEET:

Crackle cookies

Chocolate shortbread drops

Chocolate buttercream on vanilla cupcakes

Marble cake

Vanilla cupcakes with a lemony, glacé icing

Tiramisu

Triple truffle cake (a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and white, dark, and milk chocolate truffles!)

Chocolate self saucing pudding

Berries with orange syrup and mascarpone

These recipes are from cookbooks that I've been using over the years. :)

Food as Serving Dishes

This is something that I've always found beautiful. Soup served in a bowl made of bread, or salad served in a bread box or tray. I recently threw a small dinner party for some friends visiting Dubai and made a lemon, mushroom, and chicken risotto as one of the entrées. I sliced the top part off the capsicum (so that the top part looks like a little hat) and a removed the seeds and membrane from inside the larger, hollow part of the capsicum. I then spooned risotto into the capsicum and then covered the top with the part I had cut away. One thing that I found a challenge was finding capsicums that would actually stand on their own. If I'm not mistaken, capsicums usually have four points at the bottom. However, not all capsicums you get at the supermarket are perfect like that. Most had three or three and a half "legs". I had to really search to find some that would stand on their own, and still, I only managed to find around two or three. I then had to improvise and make the risotto-filled capsicums lie down on the dinner plates.

Speaking of improvising, as one of the dishes for dessert, I intended to serve a brownie topped with ice cream and caramel sauce (recipe taken from 50 Fast Desserts- Australian Women's Weekly). I spooned my brownie batter into the rose shaped silicon cases and when they were done, I took them out of the oven. I waited a few minutes for them harden, otherwise the brownies would break. However, when I started removing them from the silicon pans, they broke! My rose shaped brownies were gone! I, being the person that I am, made no attempt to salvage the rest of the brownies and took them out of the pans in any way I could. On the spot, I decided to make a parfait. I layered the broken up pieces of brownies in wide crystal water goblets and placed them with icecream and the caramel sauce that I made. Tasted quite good, albeit better than the stiff-brownie-on-plate-with-icecream.

The menu for that dinner was: tomato soup, risotto, lamb and corn quesadillas, baby potatoes, strawberry jelly with blueberries, and the brownie parfait.