Month: September 2018

Posted on in Blog, Recipes

Easy Chocolate and Coconut Cake

Ingredients

  • 250 g butter
  • 115g cocoa powder
  • 225g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 90g desiccated coconut
  • 337g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 180ml milk

Equipment

  • Round cake tin 20 cm
  • Large mixing bowl
  • Sieve
  • Wire cooling rack

Other

  • Baking paper

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 160℃ and line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.
  2. Melt butter. Sift cocoa, flour and baking powder into a large bowl and add the coconut, caster sugar, eggs, milk and melted butter. Mix to combine.
  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and place in the oven to bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
  4. Allow the cake to cook in the tin for 15 minutes before putting it on a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Posted on in Blog, Recipes

Stewed Octopus

Ingredients

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  • 2 large octopus, cleaned and chopped
  • 1 onion, peeled and diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
  • A handful of black olives, with pitts
  • 800g chopped tomatoes
  • 500g passata
  • 300ml cooking red wine
  • A handful of capers
  • Fresh mint leaves
  • Fresh thyme leaves
  • Sunflower oil
  • Sea salt &  crushed black pepper

Equipment

  • Large pot
  • Wooden spoon
  • Knife

Method

  1. Prepare a large pot on medium heat and add some oil. Add onions, garlic, mint and thyme. Give all a stir and leave to cook for about 5 minutes.
  2. Add the chopped tomatoes, passata and red wine. Fill the tomato tin with water, give it a swirl to wash away any left over and add it to the pot. Cover the pot and bring to the boil.
  3. Add the octopus (raw, as it is), the olives and capers to the pan. Lower the heat and leave it to simmer gently for about 1.5 hrs.

Suggestion:

Use the salsa to create a lovely pasta dish or to simply enjoy dipping in some fresh crusty bread.

Posted on in Blog, Recipes

Best slow-cooked Lamb Stew Recipe

Ingredients (serves 4)

IMG_E2951[1]

  • 800g diced neck or shoulder or leg of lamb (we used the neck)
  • 2 medium onions, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and leave as whole
  • 4 medium carrots, washed, unpeeled and roughly chopped
  • 5 medium potatoes, washed/scrubbed, unpeeled and roughly chopped
  • 200g frozen peas
  • 300ml cooking red wine
  • 400g chopped tomatoes
  • 500g passata (tomato juice)
  • 140g tomato puree
  • 3 stalks of fresh rosemary
  • 6 bay leaves
  • Sea salt
  • Sunflower oil

Equipment

  • Deep non-stick frying pan
  • Wooden spoon
  • Knife

Method

  1. Prepare a deep frying pan on high heat and add some oil.
  2. Once the pan is very hot, add the lamb, rosemary, bay leaves and season with some salt. Leave the lamb to cook until it gets a nice golden colour. Give it a gentle stir as you go along.
  3. Add the onions, garlic and carrots to the pan and stir. Let it cook for another 4-5 minutes.
  4. Add the tomato puree and mix thoroughly. This will give us a nice colour and will help to thicken the stew. Make sure that you cook the tomato puree as much as you can, until it almost sticks to the bottom of the pan as this will help to reduce its acidity.
  5. Add the wine, give it a stir and let it reduce by half.
  6. Add the chopped tomatoes, passata and  potatoes. You can top it up with a little of water and give a good stir. Bring it to the boil and reduce the heat to leave it simmering gently for about 2hrs.
  7. Finally you can add the frozen peas, give it a stir, cover the pan and and after about 10 minutes you can serve.