Homemade lemon curd recipe

Homemade lemon curd

Lemon curd is a lovely thing. I love it's refusal to be categorised - not quite jam, not quite custard - curd is in a thick, luscious category all of its own. I made a batch for Lovefood.com as part of my series of homemade versions of store-bought favourites. Click here for the recipe.

Homemade toffee popcorn recipe

Toffee popcorn recipe

Don't fork out for pricey toffee popcorn when it's so easy to make your own. I've been working on another batch of 'Make It Don't Buy It' recipes for Lovefood.com - this popcorn is what your Friday Night Movie Night wants (I'm making a big bowl of toffee popcorn tonight before burrowing under the quilt to watch Silver Linings Playbook). Click here for the recipe.

Manchego and chorizo muffins recipe

Manchego and chorizo muffins. Copyright: Adrienne Pitts

With the possible exception of custard , chorizo makes everything taste better. Even a small hit of its intensely piggy, spicy flavour lifts stews, soups and all manner of eggy brunch dishes from average to incredible in the amount of time it takes you to dribble hot, ochre chorizo juice down your chin.

My current favourite way of shoehorning chorizo into even more dishes is adding it to savoury baked goods like these easy Manchego and chorizo muffins. Nutty, salty Manchego cheese makes a good partner for its fiery compatriot chorizo – two of Spain’s best exports reunited in muffin form.  

Fry the chorizo salami first and leave to cool completely so it doesn’t run amok in your batter.  I love the way chorizo salami spits angrily and noisily in the pan, turning to a blackened crisp at the edges. A little goes a long way, so you can dice up half a 110g salami to use in these savoury muffins on a Saturday morning and save the rest to dish up with scrambled eggs, pan-fried peppers, rocket and sourdough toast on Sunday.

Serve warm with salted butter and Membrillo, a sweet, thick Spanish quince paste.

Manchego and chorizo muffins

Makes 12

275g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder

1 large free-range egg
½ tsp smoked paprika
140g Manchego, grated

50g chorizo salami, chopped into a small dice
125ml sunflower  oil
100ml milk
150g sheep’s yogurt (or Greek yogurt if you prefer)
1 large free-range egg

Pinch of salt

Add a few drops of oil to a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the diced chorizo and fry until crispy. Remove the chorizo from the pan with a slotted spoon and leave to cool completely on a plate with a few sheets of kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil.

Preheat the oven to 200 C/fan 180/Gas Mark 6 and line a 12-hole muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.

Mix all the dry ingredients, including the grated cheese, in a large bowl, stirring with a fork or dessert spoon until just combined.

Beat together all the wet ingredients including the egg in a separate bowl until they form a smooth batter. Pour into the dry ingredients,and fold in with a large metal spoon just until the wet ingredients are incorporated. Don’t overwork the batter. Add the cooled chorizo and fold in again until just combined.

Spoon into the muffin cases and cook for 15-20 mins, or until the tops are golden.

Serve fresh from the oven with a dish of salted butter at room temperature and some Membrillo. 

Liked this recipe? Try my Mature Cheddar and chive muffins or Smoked paprika cheese scones.  

Cafe of the Week: New St Clair Restaurant, Brooklyn (RIP)

Image copyright Eater NY

Our Sunday mornings in Brooklyn started with a ritual. First, wander up and down Smith Street trying to find a copy of the New York Times (convenience stores and bodegas mostly don't sell newspapers, and the ones that do invariably sell out).

Second, repair to The New St. Clair for breakfast, doing a few bicep curls with the notoriously heavy Times on the way. We'd settle into one of the plush booths, and order the same thing every time - eggs over easy with home fries and a side of toast for J, and an egg-white omelette with tomatoes, peppers and onions with home fries for me. No sooner had our bums touched the seats then the waitress would be by our side with the coffee pot, pouring it into those classic white diner mugs - thick porcelain with a pleasing convex curve in the middle. Finding The New St. Clair made our new neighbourhood feel instantly like home. It made us feel like real New Yorkers.

The St.Clair opened in 1920 and was refurbished in the noughties. It called itself a restaurant, but was most definitely a diner. Comfy booths, endless refills, a leather-bound menu the size of a dictionary - definitely a diner. If Seinfeld was set today, Jerry, Elaine and George would live in brownstone Brooklyn and talk about nothing at New St Clair.

Along with the golden, crispy home fries and huge portions, my favourite thing about New St. Clair was the decor - maroon booths, Formica tables with A1 Steak Sauce and ketchup in plastic holders, and 60-style chairs in the windows. 100% pure Americana.

But sadly, classic New York diners and delis are a dying breed. The famous Stage Deli shuttered in November. And in January 2013, so did The St. Clair. It was open almost every day for 92 years and then...wasn't. By this point we were back in Britain, and news of the New St. Clair's passing came in buried near the bottom of an email newsletter. Just another horse on New York's ever-spinning roundabout of openings and closures.

The frustrating thing was...the New St Clair was popular. Maybe not 24-7, but on weekends its two rooms were filled with local families wolfing down pancakes and eggs. On a gentrified street of admittedly wonderful but oh-so-cool restaurants and bars, and an increasing number of chains, the diner stood out as a slice of pre-gentrified Brooklyn. The food wasn't exactly Michelin-star, but that wasn't the point.

But restaurants don't always close because they're unpopular. For the St. Clair's owners, as for so many others, a developer made them an offer they couldn't refuse. What was once a classic slice of Americana, is now a "world class retail opportunity" according to the hoardings. It breaks my heart a little that when we next go back to visit our old stomping ground, the New St. Clair will most likely be yet another new branch of American Apparel. Such is life, especially in ever-evolving New York.

Cafe of the Week special: NYC cafes for ELLE

The Fat Radish, Lower East Side

You wait ages for a Cafe of the Week and then five come along at once.

I've written a round up of five of the best New York City coffee shops for ELLE, including Joe and The Fat Radish. Click here for a read.

I've also written more ELLE guides that might be useful if you're planning a visit to the Big Apple...

Five of the best food trucks

Five of the best New York chocolate shops

The New York lowdown

Cafe of the Week will be back soon. Promise.

Two days in FDR's Hudson Valley

Springwood, FDR's home in the Hudson Valley

"All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you've seen or read about the new movie Hyde Park on Hudson, you'll know that in June 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth travelled to President Roosevelt's home in New York state to drum up his support for the impending war against Germany.

Being a US politics geek, I was keen to visit this historic home, so near to the city yet in a world of its own.We caught the Amtrak from Penn Station upstate to Poughkeepsie, the nearest station to FDR's beloved retreat in the Hudson Valley. Springwood was his childhood home, and his overbearing mother lived there with him even after his marriage. No wonder his wife Eleanor insisted on having her own cottage, Val-Kill, built two miles away.

As well as Springwood, which was modified to accommodate FDR's polio, the area is full of great stuff. There's the Culinary Institute of America,where we took a tour of the campus and ate dainty goat's cheese and Concord grape macarons in the student-run bakery. And the village of Hyde Park itself is a charming slice of throw-back Americana. There's a roller rink, a drive-in movie theatre, and a gleaming chrome diner. Here's some pictures...

Goat's cheese and Concord grape macaron

Eveready diner, Hyde Park

The CIA, training ground for America's top chefs

The Hudson 

Hyde Park roller rink and Eveready diner

Sunset view from Springwood

The Vanderbilt mansion, Hyde Park

Visit www.hudsonrivervalley.com for more information about the area.

Homemade garlic bread recipe (for lovefood.com)

Garlic bread recipe

Garlic bread is the latest instalment in my series of homemade alternatives to shop-bought staples. It's several times tastier than the bought stuff, and there's no cheap marg or unpronounceable preservatives in it either. Visit lovefood.com for the recipe.