Halloween Fondue

You're probably wondering what makes this fondue particular to Halloween.  Well, rather than using a fondue set or a bowl I decided to use a pumpkin!  Not only does this dish look really cool, it tastes awesome too!

The ingredients

Once you've carved a lid off the pumpkin and scooped out the centre, put the lid back on, place the pumpkin on a baking tray and bake in a pre-heated oven.  As my pumpkin was reasonably large it needed 1 and 1/2 hours in the oven, but baking times will vary.


While the pumpkin baked I peeled and chopped up the potatoes, par-boiled them for twenty minutes and heated some olive oil in a roasting tin in the oven.  When the pumpkin had fifteen minutes left I put the roast potatoes into the bottom of the oven.  I then turned them and transferred them to the top of the oven when I removed the pumpkin.

If, like mine, liquid has gathered in the bottom of your pumpkin scoop as much out as you can before adding the cheese and creme fraiche. I used cheddar, emmental and comte (but gruyere would work too).  I also added a crushed clove of garlic and a finely chopped shallot.  I also recommend adding a couple of tablespoons of white wine to give it a little something extra.  I used a white Rioja but most dry white wines would work well.



Return the pumpkin to the oven and bake it for another 30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling.  Remove the pumpkin and the potatoes from the oven, season the cheese, grab some slices of some nice crusty bread and dig in!

The fondue

One Year On

I know it's been a while but I'm still here and still cooking!  The last month has been a little hectic and I just haven't found the time to write a post.  I guess I'm writing this post to update you and give you a snapshot of my life at the moment.  At the moment I'm sitting in my living room overlooking Southampton water, a beautiful view except for the odd passing container ship.

I can't quite believe that my blog is now a year old, the time has gone so quickly and so much has happened.  I've not only graduated but in the last month I've got a job, moved to Southampton and started work.  I'm still moving around a bit, but hopefully I'll have sorted out a more permanent home by Christmas.

Now that I'm no longer in Cambridge I debated whether to change the name of my blog, but after much consideration I've decided to keep it.  For one thing 'Little Southampton Kitchen' doesn't have quite the same ring to it! For another, by keeping the same name it will always remind me of where I started.  Since I now have the luxury of an oven, a grill and more than one hob I'm going to start attempting some more adventurous recipes which I couldn't really have made before and where possible I'll suggest simplifications.

In the last month I have become a huge fan of 'Jamie's 15 Minute Meals' as they are perfect weeknight meals.  I generally get home between 7 and 8 and the last thing I want to do is spend ages cooking, so these meals are perfect as they really are super quick (if not quite manageable in 15 minutes).  They normally take between 15 minutes and half an hour to prepare (especially the first time you try a recipe), but they are simple to follow and you end up with delicious and healthy food.

My only criticism would be that the portions are a little on the small side (especially as my job is quite active and the days are long), so if you're cooking for 4 as the recipes suggest you may want to bulk up the portions with a little extra pasta if you can.  I tend to cook the full amount, which tends to make 2 good portions for our evening meal and leaves enough for a couple of smaller lunches to take to work later in the week.

I've tried quite a variety of the recipes from this book, so the photos below are just a snapshot of the meals I've prepared over the last few weeks.

Prawn Linguine

This is a great dish, seriously simple, yet delicious.  I especially love the use of saffron and cinnamon in the seasoning.

British Burgers with salad pickles "and things"

I love Jamie's burgers so much I've made them twice!  The burgers themselves are so simple to make and taste heaps better than anything you can buy pre-made in a supermarket.

The "and things" refer to the tomatoes, pickles and yoghurt dressing.  Having spent a year in Germany I am a massive fan of pickles, so any recipe that includes them is a winner with me!  As for the yoghurt and Worcestershire sauce, it makes a lovely change from the usual ketchup or mayo.

Next up is a chicken caesar salad.  This is possibly my favourite style of salad and I love making the dressing myself as it is always tastier than the ready-made sauces you can buy.  I didn't stick to the recipe on this one as I had some bits and pieces to use up but it actually worked out quite well.  I thoroughly recommend the addition of some roasted red peppers to the salad.

Chicken Caesar Salad

The final dish I've got to show you is the falafel wraps with grilled veg and salsa.  People often think that vegetarian cooking is boring or not filling enough, this recipe proves them wrong.  It's super tasty, really filling and there's no meat in sight!  While Jamie says the pickled red cabbage is optional I would highly recommend getting hold of some as it really is the perfect thing to top off this excellent dish.

Falafel Wraps, Grilled Veg and Salsa

To top it all off - pickled red cabbage!

I think this post has pretty much summed up my life at the moment.  I'll try and write another post soon but I'm not making any promises.  I really want to get back into baking, something I haven't done nearly enough of recently.  I've got a few Halloween-themed ideas but any suggestions from you guys are very welcome.  Keep an eye out for my next post, until then Tschüss!

My favourite thing - Sunday roast

If you were to ask me what my absolute favourite meal was I would have to answer, roast lamb, with crispy roast potatoes, gravy and a pile of vegetables.  As I will soon be leaving home I am using my last few weeks here as a chance to learn some more useful skills from my mum and, of course, this includes cooking a roast dinner from scratch.

I chose to roast a leg of lamb as it's one of my favourite joints of meat.  The first thing you have to do is prepare the meat, cut away any excess fat and gristle from the edges of the meat.  Then score the meat, season with salt and pepper and stuff the slits with sprigs of fresh rosemary.  By wedging the rosemary into the slits the meat will take on its great taste, something which is often lost if you just sprinkle it on top.

The prepared lamb

Roasting times will vary depending on the size of the joint and you will need to allow some extra time if you aren't keen on eating your meat rare.  While the lamb was in the oven I prepared the vegetables.  I chopped up the potatoes into quarters before parboiling them for ten minutes.  I then roasted them in lard on the highest shelf in the oven for 55 minutes.  I also boiled some carrots, beans and broccoli.

Prepare the veg

When it came time to check the lamb I stuck a long skewer into the centre and removed it to check the colour of the juices.  They shouldn't be too bloody, but if you don't like your meat rare/pink then you should make sure they run clear.  Once I was happy with the way the lamb was cooked I removed it from the oven, covered it with tin foil and left it to relax for about fifteen minutes.

The roasted lamb

To make sure your potatoes roast nicely you'll need to remove them from the oven halfway through cooking and use a spoon to turn them over so that they crisp up on both sides.

Nothing beats crispy roast potatoes

While the meat is relaxing you should have enough time to make some gravy.  I made a red wine gravy which was really tasty and made a nice change from your everyday gravy.  Use equal amounts of butter and plain flour to make a roux - melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat then vigorously mix in the flour until you have a smooth paste.  Very gradually add some stock, stirring constantly to prevent the gravy from going lumpy until you have enough.  I then added some red wine, some of the meat juices from the roasting tin and seasoning to taste and left it to simmer for ten minutes or so in order to let it reduce and thicken.  Stir occasionally to stop it from forming a skin or sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Once the veg is ready all that's left to do is carve the meat and serve!

Heaven on a plate

A roast dinner may seem like a lot of effort, but with planning and practice it really isn't as hard as you think.

Foodie Film Friday - The Hundred-Foot Journey

This week's foodie film Friday is actually about a film I went to see only last week and is still on in cinemas.  After seeing a trailer for 'The Hundred-Foot Journey' I decided that it was definitely a film for me.  Just a warning that this review does contain some spoilers.

While it is a very enjoyable film, featuring some great food, I wouldn't go with high expectations as it is fundamentally a romance film with a rather predictable plot.

The film is based on an Indian family who set up a typical indian restaurant in a provincial French town right opposite a Michelin-starred restaurant.  This leads to some fierce competition and a Romeo and Juliet-esque relationship.  The cliché romance and poor French accents aside, I really loved this film for the food, from the sea urchins at the Indian market in the initial scene to the French markets later on, with their stalls piled high with fish and mushrooms, including my personal favourite - chanterelles.

My favourite scene in this film has to be the one in which Hassan and Madame Mallory make an omelette with an Indian twist.  I love how something as simple as an omelette can be made into a tasty delight by adding a few carefully selected ingredients.  It's one of my go-to dishes when I'm hungry and want something quick to make and is a great way of using up leftovers.

You should definitely eat before going to see this film, as even on a full stomach you will find some of the scenes make your mouth water.  It's a shame about the predictability of the storyline, but what the film lacks in plot it more than makes up for in food and beautiful scenery.

I would give this film an overall rating of 3/5 - it was a lovely, light-hearted film
As for how serious the film was I'd give it a 3/5 (where 1 is serious and 5 is lighthearted) - although it was fundamentally a rom com there were some more serious elements highlighting the importance of keeping in touch with reality and your roots, an important message in my opinion.
This film scores a 3/5 for food content as it features a lot, but is not always the main focus of the film.

Truly Scrumptious

Just because I haven't been blogging much recently does not mean I haven't been cooking!  Yesterday was no exception.  I decided to do a spot of baking and finally got round to making macaroons, something which I have been wanting to try for ages.

My first macaroons

Having never made macaroons before I decided to keep it relatively simple, choosing this recipe for chocolate and raspberry flavoured ones.  In general it was easy to follow, however it was a little tricky in places as, this being my first attempt, I was not sure how thick the almond and sugar paste should be, nor what a macaroon looked like when it was ready to come out the oven.  So with a little bit of estimating and educated guessing I produced my first ever batch of macaroons.

I actually weighed out all my ingredients in advance, something which I often don't do, so that I knew I had everything ready to go.  Sieving almonds and icing sugar is easier said than done, although the point is to get rid of any bits of almond which are too large.  I managed not to burn my simple syrup and the meringue looked as it should.

When it comes to food colouring I will have to do a little more reading.  The recipe recommended 1/2 teaspoon of red food colouring which was certainly not enough to produce the bright colours shown in the picture.  A lot more would have been needed to get anywhere near that colour, however I'm not sure what effect that quantity of liquid would have on the mixture.

Folding the meringue into the almond paste was tricky as it took longer than I expected owing to the consistency of the paste (I may have needed to make it a little runnier by adding more egg whites) but it seemed to work out fine.

The meringue and almond paste mixture

Next came the fun part - piping the macaroons!  It is very difficult to pipe a circle just two and a half centimetres in diameter so some of my macaroons ended up being a little larger than planned but I don't think it mattered, I just made slightly fewer than the recipe suggested.

Before baking

They need to be left for half an hour so that a skin forms on the macaroons before they are baked in the oven for 14 minutes.  After taking them out I would definitely recommend leaving them to cool before using a knife to scrape them off the tray as hopefully they will crumble less.

Fresh out the oven

In the meantime I set about making a ganache.  Now, for my birthday I was going to post about a lovely cake I made with a ganache coating, but my ganache failed not once, but twice and while delicious it was not blog-worthy, so that was the end of that idea.  Fortunately I was able to produce a lovely ganache yesterday simply by using a chocolate with a lower cocoa content.  Previously I had used Lindt 80% dark chocolate which hadn't melted properly and caused the ganache to split and go lumpy.  This time I used Sainsbury's 53% dark baking chocolate and the ganache turned out perfectly!

The ganache

I needed less ganache and more jam than the recipe called for but that really wasn't a problem.  I got the piping bag out again and piped generous amounts of ganache around the edge of the macaroons and went back filling in the centres with raspberry jam.  If you want your macaroons to have a stronger taste then I would recommend adding some flavouring along with your food colouring, although not too much as you do still want to be able to taste the almonds.

Pipe a ring of ganache

Fill with jam

All that was left to do was sandwich the macaroons together.  I can confirm that macaroons are definitely best enjoyed fresh!

Delicious!