Chef Wise

Dutchman and long term London-resident Steven Dotsch launching his Speculaas Spice Company at the BBC Good Food Bakes and Cakes Show taking place 25 – 28th October, 2014, at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London. StevenDotsch “The inspiration to launch my Dutch grandmother's recipe of delicious, warm and sweet tasting speculaas spice mix in the United Kingdom came from my love of eating truly authentic speculaas spice infused biscuits. Nothing comes close to the seductive experience, evocative taste and smell of freshly-baked vandotsch speculaas spice infused bakes, cakes and biscuits.” And don't take my word for it . . . . 2012 Great British Bake Off finalist Brendan Lynch “I am delighted to say that the vandotsch speculaas mixture of 9 spices proved a big hit in one of my trademark bakes, the Spiced Bundt Apple Cake. The vandotsch speculaas mix contributes a lovely combination of flavours that adds warmth and the urge to have another slice – ...

Right now for the first time I am actually responding to a request for so recipes to go out on this blog so Neal if you are reading this is for you. That sound rather grand as if I am changing some kind of rule that I have but it is not I just have never really and a direct request before. Right to get to make Thai food you need to understand a few basic thins and that is the main flavouring agents in the food.   The first is Galangal, this is a root from the ginger family it looks like a Jerusalem artichoke. Widely used in South-East Asian cuisine, particularly Thai cookery. Use it just like ginger peel the outside and dice it up or use it in pastes. Lemongrass, fresh is best cut the hard root base and chop it up.  It has a sweet, lemony scent, used in a lot of Thai and South East Asian cooking. Most of the flavour is in the thicker bulb end. Blachan is a pungent, dark-brown dried shrimp paste. It’s an essential ingredient in South East Asian cooking, p...

3 September 2012 The UK's first food tasting company are very proud to the first to launch a sweet seasoning mix which is included in the next of their range of Secret Spices. Secret Vanilla Pudding Spices cleverly combine vanilla with cinnamon, ground coriander seed, ginger and the secret ingredient, roasted cassia. Cassia – also known as Chinese cinnamon – has a similar appearance to cinnamon bark but with a stronger flavour. Roasting it also gives a wonderfully unique toasted flavour, and helps to make the Secret Vanilla Pudding Spices a must-have ingredient for autumn and winter comfort baking. It will add a tasty twist to puddings and desserts – and is especially awesome in a traditional English apple pie. Phil Moran, co-founder, commented “There are so many varieties of savoury seasonings in the market place, why not sweet? Our Vanilla Pudding Secret Spices help continue our quest to provide people with different ingredients that have a multitude of uses. You can us...

Garam masala is on of the most basic spice mixes that you find so often used in Indian cooking. It is a blend of five or six spice that really work well together in a way that you know will bring you the result that you require.   Now the list of spices below are the ones that I would sue to make the spice mix and once you have and a practice then you can start to add either more of one or the other to your own personal taste. For the garam masala spice mix you will need. 1 tbsp cardamom seeds 1 tsp black peppercorns 1 tsp black cumin seeds 1 tsp whole cloves 1/3 of a whole nutmeg A medium or half stick of cinnamon, about 5-8cm/2-3 inches Now to start with you might not find that you can get all of the above spices so if you have to you can do the following.   If you cannot get hold of Cardamom seeds, then just use pods and shell them yourself, If you can not be bothered with actually shelling them then add about 3tdsp of whole cardamom pods to the...

If you never have made your own curry paste before then I strongly suggest you give it a go. You can get one in jars that are very authentic and taste great but in the end of the day it will never be as good as something that you make your self . And if you make it is up to you, if you want more garlic use more garlic, more heat more chilli more line use more lime. For this curry paste 3cm/1in lemongrass stalk, finely chopped 2 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped 1 lime, juice only 1 red chilli, seeds removed and finely chopped, 1 medium shallot, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, finely chopped 2.5cm/1in of galangal or root ginger 10g/½oz fresh coriander 10g/½oz Thai basil A little oil. Now how you grind this up is up to you but I use a small hand blender. If you want the real experience then you can use a mortar and pestle. Chop up all the ingredients as fine as you can to start with. With the lemongrass, make sure that you remove the hard little root bit at the bottom...

Another of the really great curry paste that you can make at home and once you have made this you will never go out and buy a paste ever again. I strongly recommend that for any thing like this you make your own, be it Indian, Thai or any other kind of spice blend. Once you have the basic ingredients in you can make and mix them. Also like this one you can freeze it if you want and use it at a latter date. Alternatively, keep it in the fridge for a week or so cover in oil so it does not go brown For my version of red curry paste you will need 8 long red chillies, seeds removed 1 tsp ground coriander seeds 1 tsp ground cumin 2 garlic cloves 2 stalks lemongrass, 10g/½oz fresh coriander 2 kaffir lime leaves 2.5cm/1in piece galangal, 2 tsp shrimp paste Juice of one lime 2-3 tbsp vegetable oil Just make sure that you have removes all the hard out side leaves from the lemongrass and the hard root bit from the base. Then chop every thing up and I put it in a hand blender...