Simple Doughnut Balls!

Hi I'm Francis, the host of this show, "Cooking with Dog".

It's not what you think.

Today, we are going to prepare simple "doughnut holes" following a youtube recipe from Francis.

Sift 100 g of plain flour and 2 tsp of baking powder into a bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 egg, 2 tbsp brown sugar, roughly 1/4 cup milk and 1 tbsp melted butter. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix to form a batter.

The milk/flour ratio is important - you can adjust it so the batter is liquid enough to be mixable, but not runny.

(I tried this once with the 2 tbsp milk in the original recipe and ended up with what looked like dry chicken nuggets...)

Heat oil to 170 deg C. Drop a little bit of batter into the oil - it is the right temperature if it bubbles but not too vigorously. When ready, take a half spoonful of batter and scrape it into the oil to form small balls.

A little misshapen sometmies - the batter was slightly too runny.

Once the dough balls have grown in size and are browned on the outside (a few minutes), leave them to cool on a rack.

These doughnut balls are delicious when still warm and crisp on the outside. Eat as many as you like at this stage - they taste surprisingly like those asian fried dough things "haam jim beng???" (咸煎饼) or even "you tiao".

Once cooled completely, place them in a plastic bag and shake together with your desired coating (sugar, cinnamon, matcha etc.)

Identify the magazines for 10 points.

Serve with your favourite ice-cream!

Matcha doughnuts with black sesame ice-cream.

For a black sesame ice-cream recipe, it was basically the same as my green tea ice cream recipe, except with ground toasted black sesame seeds.

Trinity BA Feast, Michaelmas 2011

Good old Harry has his Christmas pants trousers on this evening...

BA Feast - the highlight of the Trinity culinary term. Five courses, sparkling cocktails in the Master's Lodge, ample wine, £22. Really £22??? 

I've always been sceptical about the cost of BA Feast, given that a normal Trinity BA formal costs £8.25. Does the food quality and overall experience really justify a more than doubling in the price? At my first ever BA feast, I decided to find out for myself.

Trinity College engraved knives... I'd seen the TCK silver cutlery, but this was new to me.

Starting with a collection of prosecco-based cocktails in the Master's Lodge was not a bad start at all - bucks fizz, bellinis and kir royale all went down well (bar a rather major scheduling error, ahem).

Fennel veloute (amuse bouche)

Upon arriving in hall, first off the bat was the amuse bouche of fennel veloute, served in (my favourite) charming little blue and gold Trinity coffee cups. Whilst there were claims of "this just tastes like chicken" from some, the soup was a very warm welcome opener after braving the cold Cambridge winter weather outside. Quite mild, very light on the fennel to be honest, but definitely pleasant and almost reassuring.

Tuna carpaccio

The starter was a tuna carpaccio - startingly large, beautifully thin pink slices layered on the plate topped with a Trinity's standard leafy garnish thing. I don't think this is standard for carpaccio, but the tuna was lightly seared at the edges with a herb/salt/pepper crust which worked really well. I was expecting more lemon and oil marinade, but actually the fish on it's own was great quality and best enjoyed as is! A rarity for Cambridge...

Beef wellington ; Honeyed baby carrots, roast kumara, green beans

For main course was beef wellington, which I've actually never had before. The meat was tender enough, perhaps slightly too well done, although with differing degrees of cooked-ness, depending on which cut you got. Still pretty delicious, although from all reports, it was more tender last year and with a more significant layer of pâté.

Molten chocolate souffle with strawberries and whipped cream

Inspired by the Shok's doppleganger, I decided to put molten chocolate souffle on the menu for dessert! Nitpicking slightly, the centre could have been even more molten, but I think the kitchens did a great job here, especially having to make 110 of these in one sitting.

After a special request to the Catering department, we managed to get a pretty nice selection for the cheese course. Of special note was the Saint-Marcellin cheese which was very mild but had a beautifully creamy texture almost like goats cheese. General consensus was that the black cheese platters were most impressive!

And to finish, coffee and chocolate truffles - definitely beats the regular chocolate mints they provide at regular formals.

Wow. Whilst the regular BA formals strike me as better value for money, the feast was definitely worth the money we paid for it. One major contributing factor was the atmosphere of the dinner - with a significantly lower number of people (110 vs 190), it really felt far more comfortable and relaxed, with no rush or competition for food and wine.

Definitely a great night, and still a little tipsy whilst writing this!

SMBC Season 1 Finale - Homemade Pasta

All good things must come to an end.

Move aside Epic Meal Time, this has to be the most epic video of pasta making you've ever seen.

This is SMBC time and we're making pasta from scratch. The Shok's bringing along a few of his mates and we're going to rock Blue Boar R top floor kitchen with some serious dough rolling. Wholemeal style.

There are no bacon strips in here.

Starting with 800 g strong flour (high protein content for pasta), 8 eggs and salt, we smash it all together into a proper dough. Easy as pie. Or pasta. PC can't find regular pasta flour so he goes for strong wholemeal flour instead. It's good for you.

Homage to Xinmei at Pudding Pie Lane

We're rolling Rick Astley style because we're students and never gonna give up. Who needs a rolling pin when you have empty wine bottles? In Cambridge, there are always empty wine bottles. And empty port bottles. And empty sherry bottles. And empty gin bottles. But gin bottles aren't cylindrical, and so would be bad for rolling dough.

When the wine bottle is useless, we throw it out the window. Defenestration is the only way to dispose of wine bottles. Then the dough goes through our brand spanking new pasta roller, increasing the settings until it's the right thickness.

Then we cut the dough like a boss. Are we finished? Think again. We cut the dough once more, this time with the pasta roller. Like a boss.

This is pasta madness.

It only takes a few minutes to boil as fresh pasta cooks quicker than the dry stuff. In the mean time, we blitz a ton of basil, extra virgin olive oil, parmesan, pine nuts and garlic into submission for a smooth pesto. We also heat through some passata for extra variety.

But wait, I bet you didn't see this coming.

It's the motherquacking Italian flag... buon appetito.

Next time on Epic SMBC, we roast a pig on a bonfire.

-----

If you were wondering why there hasn't been an SMBC in quite a while, it's because with the new academic year, the three of us (PC, Hangman and The Shok) have moved into separate housing...! OK so it's only like 3 minutes walk between all of us. We'll do something again soon!

Petrou Brothers, Cambridge

You can't get more British than a dreary grey sky and a plate of fish and chips.

The thing I never understood about fish and chips is why this dish is so strongly associated with British food. There's nothing about it that strikes me as particularly British.

On a similar note (that The Fastest Food Blogger also noted recently), it strikes me as unusual that Cambridge should have at least two dedicated fish and chip shops, yet it is so difficult to buy good fresh seafood for cooking...

Anyhow thanks to a tip from LL Cool J, n∈R and I decided to head to the mall outside the Grafton to lunch at a fish and chippie called Petrou Brothers. What were we there for?

Oh yes. When LL mentioned last week that you could get a "mini" (read: maxi) fish and chip meal for around £3, this was an opportunity that could not be passed up.

Objects in photo may appear smaller than actual size.

Maxi alright, he wasn't kidding. Out comes a rather generous portion of fish and chips, slopped with a pretty damn huge ladle of mushy peas.

The fish was actually pretty well fried, with a good crunch and not at all sogged with oil. I have to say I wasn't the biggest fan of the chips - they were quite good for British fish and chip standards I think, but still there was less golden crunch and more of a hardened skin to the outside of them, needing quite a bit of salt & vinegaring. (I miss Uni Bros chips for any usyd people out there. Mmm chicken salt.) Mushy peas are mushy peas ie. tasteless green volume that counts as one of your "5-a-day".

Verdict? Pretty tasty fish, reasonable chips, um yeah peas, and a bloody good price.

Petrou Brothers
12 Burleigh St
Cambridge CB1 1DG
http://www.petroubrothersfishandchips.co.uk/

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