Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Went to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs last night.

The gig was in St Georges Market (Belfast).

First the venue. It's a wierd venue as its a covered market (d'oh) so essentially a very big, rectangular, high roofed space with a lot of windows. As a venue is was great - very airy, lots of space (they got chippy vans in!). One gripe - beer queue. Instead of using all the mass of edge space, they set up a small bar and a big barrier enclosing queue. So, buy four at a time!

The music was fantastic; i should state that i didn't see the support band. Just the YYYs. They were epic. Karen O is fantastic on stage; brilliant vocals, theatrical and entertaining. The guitarist is a legend; top playing.

So, i guess you could say i liked it!

Heres a dodgy camera phone shot for posterity.

Fruit Pavlova

After making the curry (see previous post) I then rounded off an eating fest by making a fruit Pavlova (thank you Sunday Times).

Meringue

• 4 Egg whites


• 225g Cater Sugar

Used an electric whisk to beat the egg whites until it would yield stiff peaks.

Added a bit of sugar at a time until all mixed i, then whisk a couple of minutes more.

Spread out on a baking tray covered with grease proof paper - spread it so you have a bowl shape to put the filling in later.

So, put that into a preheated over (180C) - as soon as you put it in turn the heat down to 125C and let it cook for 1.5 hours.

After that, turn off the oven and let it cool.

Filling:

• Blend/Squash 100g of strawberries and add juice of a tangerine.


• add a tablespoon of icing sugar


• Sieve the sauce to remove seeds & bits


• Whisk up 350ml of double cream with a teaspoon of vanilla extract added until its nice and stiff


• Fill cooled meringue base with cream.


• Lay on slices of peach


• Pour over as much or as little sauce as you want

Heres the result:

Pavlova Picture

DIY Curry

The Holy Grail, for me, is to cook my own curry that comes even somewhere close to a good one in an Indian Restaurant.

Of course every ones got a favourite curry house, but in Belfast my favourite is definitely The Jharna

So, you keep trying in the hope it happens.

Anyway, went to St Georges Market; they have a market every Saturday with loads of food stalls, takeaway stalls, tat, rubbish and other bric-a-brac.

Anyway, by accident chatted to a guy running an indian ingredients stall and bought some of this:

Pickle

More Pickle

So, i tried some - OMG - how hot?! Excellent.

The guy also sold some ready mixed spices and chucked them in for cheap.

So, i bought some lamb, marinated it overnight in the pickle.

Next day:

• Sauteed onion and Scotch Bonnet chilli


• Added lamb and browned


• Added spice mix


• Added tomato and some water


• Leave to simmer for a couple of hours.

Flippin' gorgeous.

Other Favourites Curry Houses.

Manchester: The Kathmandu
London (North): Sunderban.

Chocolate Tort-ure

ok, so wife comes home and says she's promised a Chocolate Torte for people in her office. Is she going to make - my a*se she is.

So, handily, there's a recipe in latest edition of Delicious Magazine.

Excellent. Nothing too tricky; make sweet pastry, blind bake, make filling, fill, cook, job done.

So, the pastry recipe:

• Combine Butter and Icing Sugar 'til nice and smooth. Tick.


• Add a couple of egg yolks and combine. Tick


• Add some flour and combine. Tick

Now, at this point it sounds a bit odd. I'm no expert (no, really!) but it then says to add 250ml of water (bit at a time). Now, i could see this coming but i still did it, but that sounds like its going to be a sloppy mess. Yup, sure enough, cue one sloppy mess. So, i tried adding some more flour to get it back to a pastry type consistency, wrapped it up and put in the fridge for an hour.

Half hour later, remove from fridge, roll out between a couple of sheets of clingfilm, put into tart tin, back in fridge for half hour. Still not convinced.

So, out of fridge, put some baking paper and beans, blind bake for about 20 mins, remove from oven, take off beans and paper, prick base and cook for another 5/10 minutes.

The result can only be described as something between cake and biscuit.

Luckily, after making the 'pastry', i'd made a backup batch using one of Racheal Allen's recipes.

So, in between first batch disaster, i did the necessary with the second batch and it turned out perfectly.

Moral of the story; if something sounds wrong it probably is.

Do these people ever try these recipes? Luckily the filling was great.

Took ages mind you.