We had watched one of Gordon Ramsey’s cooking challenge shows where contestants made fish and chips using his technique/recipe. Aside: If you grow fresh English peas, you don’t need to add butter to your mushy peas. If you are adding butter, get a new variety of peas!

When we made the grocery list yesterday, Anya volunteered us to make fish and chips too. Interesting idea, it didn’t seem too difficult watching him do it So we picked up some cod, potatoes, and yams (I love yam chips, especially dusted with a little cinnamon … doesn’t go well with fish, but if I’m boiling a big pot of oil, figured I’d make some of these too).

Ingredients, per Ramsey’s web site:

• 4 175g thick cod fillets
• 120g plain flour
• 100g rice flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 130ml soda water
• 170ml lager
• Salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• vegetable oil for deep fryer

Dredge the fish in flour, then coat in the batter and fry at about 350 degrees F. I was worried that they wouldn’t be crispy and puffy like they are meant to be, but WOW. The batter was super puffy. Spewed oil all over the place too.

We made the fries using a method from Cooks Illustrated that starts with cold oil. I used carola potatoes. Wash potatoes, dry them, and cut them into batons (nice if they are close to the same size. I got some smaller super crunchy ones, medium sized ones cooked perfectly, and larger ones that didn’t crisp as much). Place in a dutch oven & fill with oil to just cover. Turn burner on high and bring to a boil (~5 mins) and then leave ’em alone for fifteen or twenty minutes to cook. When they start to get browned, scrape anything stuck to the bottom of the pan. When they reach the desired color, net them out with a slotted spoon or scoop. Salt immediately and eat.

We watched people making cannoli on MasterChef tonight, and Anya wants to make some now. I am trying to sort a good recipe.

Shells:

• 7 oz all-purpose flour
• 1 oz cocoa powder
• 1 oz sugar
• 2 eggs
• ¾ oz butter
• salt to taste
• 1 tablespoon Marsala wine

Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, melted butter and eggs in a bowl. Then add the Marsala. The dough will start out quite sticky. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth, about 15 minutes. Form into a flattened disk and wrap in plastic wrap.  and let it rest for half an hour.

Roll out the cannoli dough to about the thickness of a penny. Cut it into circles with diameter of about 2.5″ for smaller ~1/2″ diameter forms, 3.5″ diameter circles for larger ~7/8″ diameter forms. Wrap the circles around the metal tubes to shape the cannoli and seal with a little dab of egg white. Heat a pot of oil to 375 degrees F. Fry the dough, still wrapped around the tubes, for about one minute. Use a skewer to remove the form from the hot oil. Let the cannoli cool on paper towels. Once cool, slide out the metal tubes. Fill shells immediately before serving – pipe filling into center and top with chopped pistachios, hazelnuts, or chocolate.

Honey Ricotta Filling:

• 15 ounce whole milk ricotta, drained and squeezed dry
• ¼ cup honey
• ¼ cup powdered sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped
• 1 ½ cups heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks

Whip the heavy cream in the bowl of a stand mixer to stiff peaks and then set aside in the refrigerator.

Combine the ricotta cheese, honey, powdered sugar, and the scraped seeds of the vanilla bean.  Fold in the whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Chocolate Mascarpone Filling:

• 3/4 cup whole milk ricotta, drained and squeezed dry
• 3/4 cup mascarpone cheese
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips, plus more for decoration

Beat ricotta, mascarpone, confectioners sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt together until smooth. Fold in mini chocolate chips. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

I made, well not quite a stromboli (as I understand it, stromboli have tomato sauce inside, and this was completely without tomato sauce). The bread part is easy enough — you can use whatever pizza dough recipe you fancy. I had purchased KAF’s Artisan Bread Flour when it was on sale a few months ago. Or their French style flour and used a traditional baguette recipe (3c flour, 1t salt, 1c or so water, and 2 1/4t yeast kneaded for a long time to make a chewy bread. Normal bread process – mix/knead, sit until doubled in bulk). For additional flavour, I added 1T of Italian spices to the flour. Once the dough has finished rising, preheat the oven to 550 F.

Take a chunk (I used about a quarter of the dough) and roll it out onto a silicone baking mat. The dough shouldn’t be too thick – somewhere around an eighth of an inch. I made very large stromboli to be cut when served, so the rectangle of dough was about 12″ x 9″. Brush the dough with roasted garlic butter (1T melted salted butter, 1-2 cloves roasted garlic)

Spread filling in the rectangle – leaving some dough on either side to fold in, some dough on the bottom to seal the thing, and a lot of dough on the top to fold over.

Fold the sides along the line shown below — this will seal the ends.

Fold the large piece of dough down to cover the filling. Then stretch the small piece of dough up over stromboli and seal it to the other piece of dough.

Place on a half sheet pan seam side down. If a glossy, crunchy crust is desired, brush with egg wash (mix an egg with a splash of water), let sit for a minute, and then brush again with egg wash. For a softer crust, brush with roasted garlic butter or butter.

Using a sharp knife or bread lame, slice five diagonal lines along the stromboli. I sliced almost completely through the dough and allowed it to split open as it baked. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

What can you put in a stromboli? Traditionally, you cover the dough with tomato sauce, sprinkle on cheese, add Italian meats, then sprinkle more cheese. I wasn’t in the mood for tomato sauce. I made two fillings – 1c ricotta cheese, 1/2c shredded sharp cheddar, and 1c shredded broccoli (this is a great way to use up broccoli stems if you have some left over from another recipe). The other filling was 1c ricotta, 1/2c shredded sharp cheddar, 1c shredded chicken, and 2 diced peaches.

I had planned to make a curried egg salad (shredded carrots, diced onions, diced hard boiled eggs, Greek yogurt, and Penzey’s sweet curry powder) so we could use up the Easter eggs. Got the flatbread cooked. Everything was diced up & ready to go in a bowl. Got another bowl for the yogurt (when you use curry POWDER, mixing it into the yogurt first to make sure it’s all smooth & hydrated makes a really nice sauce. For some reason stirring in yogurt and then adding curry powder makes a mess. I think it’s because powder bits cling to the chunks of food & never get hydrated). Grabbed the yogurt container from the fridge … and it’s almost empty. Umm … hungry people, food ready for the curry sauce. So I decided to try making mayo again (that’s what the recipe calls for anyway). I’ve tried a few times, and never gotten anything vaguely useful.

So I searched for a never breaking mayo recipe and got something that actually worked for me:

http://www.inspiredtaste.net/25943/homemade-mayonnaise-recipe/

They add some Dijon mustard to the egg/vinegar mixture & uses the whole egg instead of just the yolk. Which means you don’t end up with spare egg whites that you’ve got to use somewhere (although they do freeze just fine). There’s certainly some flavour from the Dijon (and colour – it’s not a pure white cream), but it’s tasty.