KitchenAid Cooking Demo with Michael Moore

KitchenAid are known for their luxury free-standing food mixers (I have one in pink) - what I didn't realise is that the brand actually offers everything from kettles and toasters to fridges, ovens and dishwashers! I was able to see some of their products in action recently when I was invited to a cooking demonstration with chef Michael Moore.

The event was held at the KitchenAid showroom in London's Wigmore Street - a mecca of stand mixers with a beautiful display of them in different colours across one wall, as well as a showcase of other products and a full kitchen layout downstairs.

Upstairs there is a long counter where chefs can cook and demonstrate on one side while guests sip their drinks and watch on the other. I was late to the event (thanks to someone on the tube ahead of mine having a medical emergency meaning the train I was on was stuck in a tunnel) so I missed seeing Michael marinade some prawns but I watched him cook them on a skillet and they tasted delicious. The black rice was something I've never come across before and it tasted delicious.

Sipping Tattinger champagne out of the most beautiful 'open up' flutes from Chef  & Sommelier adding to a fun evening.

After the demo finished I got to meet Michael and have a chat with him - he's an effervescent, larger-than-life character who is well regarded in the industry and gives the impression of loving life and getting great enjoyment from what he does.

 

Michael Moore started out at the Savoy then moved to the prestigious Georges V hotel in Paris and has worked all over the world, in countries including Germany (at the Four Seasons in Hamburg, at the time the top-rated hotel in Europe), Italy, the Maldives, USA and Barbados, where his mother is from. He also spent three years at the Dorchester in the UK and later opened his own restaurant in Marylebone, London, which is now closed.

Michael's newest project is going to be The London Cookhouse - at the moment the details are shrouded in secrecy but Michael has announced this will be "a centre for gastronomic experience under one roof that will combine and complement each other providing interest and hands-on experience to all, despite their culinary knowledge and experience." I can't wait to go there!



The KitchenAid showroom

 

 

Homemade Peach Sherbert Ice Cream

Posted  on Caroline Makes.Net

After a very successful first use of my Kitchenaid ice cream maker with this triple chocolate ice cream, I decided to have another go and make something completely different. I had a punnet of peaches that I thought would work well in ice cream, and found a recipe in my Kitchenaid recipe book for 'minted mango sherbert'. It's called sherbert because it's not quite sorbet but not quite ice cream I think. I replaced the mango with peach and left out the chopped mint and the result was really good.

You need:
230g caster sugar
700ml whole milk
60ml cane sugar syrup - I used corn syrup which I bought in the US (I brought some back with me as I kept finding recipes that called for it) and it is referred to by this name elsewhere in the recipe so I think it's the right thing to use. A UK equivalent is usually golden syrup but I'm not sure how it would change this recipe!
punnet of fresh peaches, peeled, stone removed and diced
2 tbsp. fresh lime or lemon juice

In a medium saucepan heat the milk, sugar and corn syrup until very hot but not boiling, then remove from the heat and set aside.

Put the peaches and lime or lemon juice in a food processor and blend until smooth. Carefully stir in to the milk mixture then cover and chill for at least 8 hours.

Following the instructions I'd kept the bowl of my ice cream maker in the freezer overnight. Attach it to the kitchenaid and pour in the milk mixture while the mixer is on the slowest speed. Leave it stirring for 10-12 mins. I found the chocolate ice cream I made was lovely at this soft scoop consistency but this peach ice cream was a little runny; it's better served from the freezer and will keep in an airtight container.

 

I decided to serve this in cocktail glasses with a sprig of mint when I had friends over for a barbecue.

 

 

I'm sharing this with Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream, hosted by Kavey Eats, as the theme this month is fresh fruit.

Homemade Triple Chocolate Ice Cream with Kitchenaid Ice Cream Maker

My husband loves ice cream at any time of year but especially in summer; if I buy a tub he has some for dessert every evening until it's gone. So I suspect he had an ulterior motive when he bought me an ice cream maker at Christmas - and was probably quite disappointed that I didn't get around to using it until July!

With a wedding to plan I was too busy and also trying to lose weight, and I don't really like to eat ice cream unless it's hot anyway. I'd promised him that I would use the ice cream maker after the wedding so got it out as soon as I came back from honeymoon - it was probably a
good thing I hadn't used it previously or
 I definitely wouldn't have lost any weight before the wedding!

The ice cream maker is easily attached onto the Kitchenaid but making the ice cream does take some forward planning. You have to put the bowl from the ice cream maker in the freezer for at least 15 hours and for the recipe I used, make something in a saucepan, make something else in a bowl, combine the two and return to the saucepan then put in the fridge for at least 8 hours. After that you put it in the ice cream maker - you don't actually put it in the freezer, as beating the mixture in the pre-frozen bowl with the Kitchenaid makes a soft scoop ice cream, and you then store it in the freezer where it will become more solid. But each stage and the chilling time in between means this is pretty much a three-day job - unless you always keep the ice cream maker bowl in the freezer in which case it's then two days.

After all that I was hoping the ice cream would be worth it, and it was - my husband, who is something of a connoisseur of chocolate ice cream, said it was absolutely amazing. It also makes a good quantity - almost 2 litres - so if you do go to all this effort it will last a while.

This is the recipe for the triple chocolate ice cream which I adapted to use an equal mixture of single cream and milk as you can't buy 'half and half' in the UK, and instead of a chopped 50g bar of milk chocolate at the end I used a handful of Hershey's mini kisses (which you can't buy in the UK either but I had bought some when I was in America). You might be able to adapt the recipe for your own ice cream maker or even to freeze the mixture and churn it by hand but this recipe is specifically written for a Kitchenaid.

You need:
450ml whipping cream
30g plain chocolate, chopped (the recipe specified 'extra dark')
30g milk chocolate, chopped (the recipe specified 'dark')
225ml single cream
225ml full fat milk (instead of the single cream and milk the recipe specified 450ml half and half)
230g sugar
40g cocoa powder
8 egg yolks
4 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
handful of Hershey's mini kisses or 50g milk chocolate, chopped

 

In a small saucepan heat 120ml of the whipping cream, the plain chocolate and the 30g milk chocolate until the chocolate has melted, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and set aside.

In another pan, heat the half-and-half or equivalent over a medium heat until not quite simmering, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Using the metal whisk on the Kitchenaid, whisk the egg yolks and gradually add the sugar and the cocoa powder. Gradually pour in the chocolate mixture and the half-and-half mixture, until well combined.

Return this mixture to a saucepan and heat over a medium heat, stirring frequently until the mixture is just simmering. Do not allow it to boil.

Transfer to a large mixing bowl and stir in the remaining whipping cream, vanilla and salt. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

When you're ready to make the ice cream, take the bowl out of the freezer and attach to the Kitchenaid according to the instructions. Turn it on to the slowest speed and carefully pour the ice
cream mixture into the bowl.

 

 Leave it running at the slowest speed for 15 minutes, adding the chocolate chips for the last two minutes; this will give you soft scoop ice cream that you can eat straight away. The rest of the ice cream can be frozen in an airtight container and served at a harder consistency later.

Five Ways with Capricorn Goat's Cheese

Last year I won a "best blog award" sponsored by Capricorn goats cheese, and my prize was... a year's supply of goat's cheese! I was very pleased and quite intrigued to see how much a year's supply would turn out to be, and whether they would send it all in one go... luckily they sent me vouchers instead. I received 24 vouchers, each for 100g of goat's cheese worth £2, which works out at a packet of goat's cheese every fortnight. Unfortunately it took me a little while to find anywhere that would accept the vouchers  - through trial and error I found that the only supermarkets which appear to stock Capricorn are Waitrose and Tesco and the vouchers could only be used in store and not for online orders. There was a small Waitrose and a small Tesco near my office (there is neither near my home) and for several weeks I went in only to find the shelf space for the Capricorn cheese empty. I'm not sure if they were having supply issues - this was near the start of the year when big parts of the west country suffered from flooding and Capricorn is based in Somerset after all. Eventually the goat's cheese came back in stock and I was able to use my vouchers, though Tesco told me I could not use more than one voucher at a time. Even so, it won't be hard to use them all!

I love goat's cheese, particularly the soft kind, and there are so many things you can do with it. Here I'm going to give you five ideas.

First of all here's an idea from my mum as I gave her a few of the vouchers: grilled mushrooms with goat's cheese. You need one large portabello mushroom per person, which you fry on both sides in plenty of oil to keep them moist. Slice the cheese and place on top of the mushroom, and place under a hot grill for a few minutes. These are great as a starter or as part of a salad.

Speaking of salad, goat's cheese is a lovely addition to any kind of salad but one flavour it goes particularly well with is pear. For this salad I made some toast - Melba toasts would probably be better to use here - and used little gem lettuce as it's my favourite kind. Peel and slice a ripe pear and arrange on the plate and then place a portion of goat's cheese in the middle. This is particularly nice if you warm the cheese in the microwave for a few seconds so it softens and the inside is runny. Finally drizzle with balsamic glaze or balsamic vinegar and serve.

From salad to burgers... my staff canteen at work was advertising a burger with goat's cheese one day which I thought sounded lovely, and wasn't something I had eaten before. But when I got to the counter I found that while the sign said goat's cheese, what they put in my burger was most definitely stilton. Never mind... so the next time I cooked a burger at home I decided to try it with a slice of goat's cheese. If you haven't tried this particular combination then I recommend it!

Gnocchi
I don't often eat gnocchi and have never made it before but I do enjoy it, so when I came across a recipe on the BBC Food website for goat's cheese gnocchi I decided to give it a go. It's fairly simple to make but there is obviously a trick to getting it just right as mine was quite doughy. To make enough for three or four people (depending on appetite) you need:
2 large potatoes
200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
150g goat's cheese

For the sauce:
200ml chicken stock
150ml double cream

Peel the potatoes, bring to the boil and simmer for 20-25 minutes until tender. Mash the potato and gradually add the flour, mixing together to make a dough. Add the goat's cheese and mix in.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a long sausage shape and cut into small pieces.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and drop in the gnocchi. They only take a few minutes to cook and are ready when they float to the surface.

To make the sauce, bring the stock to simmering point in another pan, remove from the heat and stir in the cream. I made this to go with chicken breasts so I cooked the chicken in the sauce. Add the gnocchi to the pan with the sauce and serve.

Ravioli
On a similar note I decided to make ravioli. You can easily find a recipe for the basic pasta dough online; I have a pasta attachment for my Kitchenaid which is great.

Roll out the pasta and cut into squares and place a few pieces of cooked bacon and a bite-sized piece of goat's cheese on each pasta square.

Place another square of pasta on top and press the edges to seal. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil.

Boil for a few minutes until the pasta is cooked. I served these sprinkled with parmesan cheese - the ravioli parcels are quite uneven so I think I should get the special ravioli attachment for my Kitchenaid next!

Baked Beef Cannelloni and the KitchenAid mincer

There's no denying that KitchenAid mixers are expensive, and take up a lot of space in the kitchen, but I absolutely adore mine. It's baby pink and was a present from my boyfriend :-) One reason I love it is how versatile it is - you can get all sorts of attachments for it. I've already got the pasta attachment and for Christmas my boyfriend's dad gave me the mincer attachment. It's very easy to use - you just screw it on to the end of the KitchenAid and it's ready to go.

I usually shop in supermarkets for the convenience but I get to our local butcher when I can - a great place called Scott's. They have a catering service which my boyfriend's family uses for parties, particularly on Boxing Day, and they also have a deli and meat counter. I asked for some steak that was suitable to mince, and was given some chuck steak. I'm not sure how much it was by weight; I asked for enough to make a couple of burgers for two people and ended up making three burgers and a portion of beef cannelloni out of it.

Here's the mincer attachment on my KitchenAid. You simply turn it on, feed the steak (sliced into strips) into the top, and watch it come out the other end as mince. Don't forget to put a bowl underneath to catch the mince!

It took literally no more than a minute or two before I had a lovely bowlful of minced beef. I decided to keep it simple and seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and oregano.

When I've made cannelloni before, I've cooked the mince first, but then found it tricky to stuff the meat into the dried pasta tubes. I decided to try stuffing the cannelloni with raw mince - I checked on the internet that this would work and I wouldn't end up with raw meat, and it seems to be a perfectly acceptable method. It was much easier to get the raw mince inside the pasta though when it cooked it had turned into pretty much a sausage!

Place the filled cannelloni tubes in a foil-lined baking tin and pour over passata which you can mix with garlic or herbs and season to taste.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 20-25 minutes.

To serve, sprinkle with parmesan cheese. This is a pretty simple but tasty recipe and was a great way to test out my new KitchenAid attachment!

Fresh Homemade Spaghetti with Bolognese Sauce (using KitchenAid pasta attachment)

My boyfriend bought me a KitchenAid last year (in pink! I was over the moon) and this year (as per my suggestion) bought me the pasta attachment for it. I just used it for the first time and was almost bouncing round the kitchen with delight. It rolls the pasta so thin! Then it slices it into spaghetti strands! Which is kind of obvious but when you see it happening for the first time it's really cool. The KitchenAid does all the hard work for you and turns out perfectly and it's actually really fun to watch it all happen. I can see lots of pasta in our future.

First you need to make your pasta dough. I didn't realise there was a recipe leaflet included with the KitchenAid spaghetti attachment so I searched for a recipe online. I used this recipe from All Recipes, though I have since seen other recipes that use different quantities of the ingredients. Also, I was a bit worried that I couldn't get hold of 00 flour, which is usually used in making pasta; it's on my list for my next big shop but in the meantime I had to use plain. But the recipe I used didn't specify 00 flour anyway so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

To serve 6 - the recipe serves 8 but I'm not so sure - you need:
450g strong plain flour
pinch of salt
4 eggs
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil


Make a well in the flour, add the salt and mix in the eggs and oil. I decided to do this in my KitchenAid, though I started off using the dough hook (pictured) then found it was easier with the normal mixing blade.

When you have a ball of dough you need to knead it for about ten minutes (or as long as you can bear!). It ought to look rather smoother than this.

Here's the KitchenAid spaghetti attachment, it comes with three metal attachments - one to roll the pasta, one to make spaghetti and one to make fettucine.

It was easy to set up - simply unscrew the small round disc on the front of the KitchenAid and screw in the pasta attachment. Then when you turn the KitchenAid on, the rollers on the attachment start moving, and you can vary the speed as you would with the normal mixer.

Break the ball of dough into three pieces and flatten one piece. Put the rollers on their widest setting (1) then feed the dough through - it will be rolled out and get longer and flatter.

Change the setting to 2 and repeat - the dough will get longer and flatter

And one last time on setting 3

Here are the pieces of pasta - I had to cut each strip in half as I didn't have enough room on the worktop.

Change the KitchenAid attachment to the spaghetti cutter and feed each piece of pasta through. In a matter of seconds you'll have spaghetti!

I ended up with a large bowlful of pasta - probably enough for 6 people

You can dry the pasta to use later, in which case you need to separate the strands and hang them apparently, or you can cook it right away. As I wasn't sure how long this would take I made the pasta about an hour and a half before dinner, and made the mistake of leaving it in the bowl, so the strands did clump together quite a bit.

Still, it was great to be eating fresh pasta that I had made myself - though I would like to use 00 flour if I can get hold of it next time.

I also received the KitchenAid Recipe Collection for my birthday last year, from my boyfriend's brother and his wife as they knew I was getting the KitchenAid. It has several recipes with pasta and I used the classic bolognese sauce recipe from the book though I adapted it to leave out the chopped carrot and celery, as I knew my boyfriend wouldn't eat it.

You need:
1 tbsp olive oil
half an onion, finely chopped
minced beef for two people -I freeze two or three portions when I buy a pack so can't give an exact quantity
1 clove garlic
400g tin of tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
1/2 cup milk

Chop the onion and crush the garlic and fry over a medium heat

Add the mince and fry until browned

Add the white wine and milk and cook for about 10 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated

Add the tin of tomatoes and simmer over a low heat for about half an hour and season to taste.

I was so excited telling my boyfriend about the spaghetti attachment and serving the pasta I had made that I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish! You can probably imagine what spaghetti bolognese looks like though :-) 

This is only the second time I've ever made fresh pasta; the first time was several years ago at a corporate entertainment cookery class where I had a lot of help, so I was really pleased with this and am already looking forward to making it again.

I'm sending this to Pasta Please, a monthly blogging challenge guest hosted this month by Briciole on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, as their challenge this month is to make your own fresh pasta.

I'm also sending this to Chris at Cooking Around The World for his monthly geographical challenge; this month he has chosen Italy. What's more Italian than spaghetti bolognese?