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I hate watching people eat on the Tube. I am always seeing people peeling fruit, nibbling chips, gobbling sandwiches and even scooping up salad with their fingers and it makes me cringe. The germs down underground are out of control. In fact, when I first arrived in London, I’d blow my nose at the end … Continue reading »
It’s been a year since Chilli Marmalade was born, and it’s been 365 days of very indulgent food! Unfortunately, my waistline has expanded with my readership and I’ve impulsively decided to have a go at The Fast Diet, or The 5:2 Diet. You may have read about it – this diet, designed by Dr Michael … Continue reading »
Basil cream chicken with mushrooms is a dish I used to throw together for friends when I was a poor uni student – it’s impressive enough for entertaining, cheap enough on a shoestring, and tasty enough to please everyone. I find that it’s essential to serve this chicken recipe with some steamed greens, otherwise you … Continue reading »
The internet is a treasure-trove of interesting information and I’ve found that there’s so many creative and wonderful food-related things to be found online. I’ve decided to start compiling a regular round-up of the best I could find to share with you! The First Taste: This gorgeous clip of little kids trying foods like olives … Continue reading »
How do you like your roast pork? The answer for most people is probably tender and succulent – but with a crackling skin like thin, tasty, salty glass. For me, a good crackling is key. I mentioned in my post about my Chinese twice-cooked sticky pork belly that I had plenty of left-over pork ready … Continue reading »
Is there anything better than a well-cooked steak? Simply done, seasoned and grilled, it can be amazing. Add a sauce, and the meal can be taken to another level. I asked Mr Q this week what he’d like me to cook for his birthday dinner, and he requested steak and chips. I was pleased with … Continue reading »
Now that the weather is improving, there’s no excuse to spend time indoors on the weekends. The best (cheap) activity? Pack a picnic! One of my very favourite picnic spots in London is Epping Forest. According to the City of London website, Epping Forest is London’s largest open space, at approximately 6,000 acres. The forest stretches … Continue reading »
It’s finally beginning to feel a little bit like spring around here, and the local shops are filling with beautiful fresh new-season produce. Spring to me means an overhaul of the regular recipes I have on rotation – out with the warm and hearty, and in with the fresh and zingy! Here’s my top 10 … Continue reading »
I’ve always loved curry – from my mother’s curried sausages I ate as a child, I soon discovered a more diverse range of curries – creamy, nutty Indian lamb kormas, spicy fresh green Thai curries, and earthy Malaysian rendangs. It was a few years ago now that I tried my first Japanese katsu curry, at … Continue reading →
On a visit to my favourite Asian supermarket, Hoo Hing, I picked up a whole pork belly. At just £2.50 a kilo, it was a bargain, and the entire belly came to just under £8.00. I brought it home, sliced off the ribs and split the remaining meat in half. Three meals for two people … Continue reading »
On a visit to my favourite Asian supermarket, Hoo Hing, I picked up a whole pork belly. At just £2.50 a kilo, it was a bargain, and the entire belly came to just under £8.00. I brought it home, sliced off the ribs and split the remaining meat in half. Three meals for two people … Continue reading →
Want to jazz up a hunk of brie? …add some sophistication to a toasted cheese sandwich? … or give a gift that doesn’t cost the earth? Go ahead and make a batch of red onion marmalade with this recipe and you can’t go wrong. The combination of beautiful spanish onions with red wine, port, and soft … Continue reading →
When I moved to London from Australia two years ago, I thought: “I can handle the winter, I’ll just need to invest in some warm coats and sturdy boots!” What I didn’t take into account is just how the weather makes you feel, not physically – I can deal with shivering and sniffing – but … Continue reading →
Cooking on the cheap is never easy when you’ve got a taste for the finer things in life. There’s only so many times you can enthusiastically tuck into a plate of baked beans on toast without craving something a little more complex. With this in mind, I headed to Waitrose to scavenge in the cost-price near-expired section … Continue reading →
Although I’m still full-to-bursting from the dim sum I enjoyed to celebrate the Chinese New Year, I’ve still got the taste for Chinese food, this fact never seems to change. As a treat, my mum used to take me to a dingy little charming Chinese restaurant in the Tasmanian suburb I grew up in for … Continue reading →
Happy Chinese New Year! To kick off the Chinese New Year, Mr Q and I thought we’d drop into London’s Chinatown to take a look at the festivities. Unfortunately, the rain and the cold drove us from crowded, noisy Gerrard Street to the more sedate area around Carnaby Street. For our Chinese New Year’s dim … Continue reading →
Jianbing (??), typically eaten on the streets of Beijing, are sweet or savoury crêpes made from wheat flour that are sold straight from the hot pan by street vendors. I’m a big fan of French crêpes, and have been keen to try the Chinese version for a while now. Today, while strolling through London’s Chinatown, I … Continue reading →
I love farmer’s markets. Browsing stalls offering all manner of fresh and handmade ingredients is my favourite way to spend a Sunday. Chatting to producers, you’ll always learn new tricks for using ingredients to get the very best from them. My favourite farmer’s market is at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally, to the locals) in North … Continue reading →
I’ve been eating a lot of red meat lately due to my new job working as a marketing manager for a steakhouse, so when it comes to cooking at home, it’s strictly been chicken or fish. Tonight, I thought I’d conquer my fear of deep-frying by tackling a recipe my mother used to cook from … Continue reading →
I’ve taken a brief hiatus from chillimarmalade.com while I search for a job, get sorted for Christmas (can you believe it’s only two weeks away?!) and recover from a crippling case of the sniffles. But, now I’m back! I’ve been feeling a little homesick for Australia (always happens when I’m a little under-the-weather), so I … Continue reading →
My darling Mr Q loves ham. Just adores it. I’ll often find him crouched by the fridge in the dark, quietly folding ham into his mouth, trying not to be noticed. We probably go through hundreds of kilos of ham per year, it’s ridiculous. And expensive, if you buy the good stuff. This week, I … Continue reading →
Not many posts lately – I’ve been too busy to cook! Mostly, I’ve been spending the last few days working on a pop-up blog for London’s Steak & Co. restaurants. It’s still early days, but I’d love for you to take a look and let me know what you think! Filed under: Uncategorized
As a child growing up in Australia, there was no better after-school treat than fresh-cooked pikelets. The humble pikelet is a thick pancake of sorts, crossed with a Welsh teacake, I suppose – that’s the best way I can think of to describe them. Pikelets are best gobbled up straight from the pan, or if … Continue reading →
I’d say, especially in the colder months, I cook at least one curry per week. They’re so fast to throw together and a great way to get plenty of vegetables in. Instead of the heavier Indian-style curries, we favour lighter, fragrant Thai curries. Thai green curry (Kaeng khiao wan) is an absolute favourite at our place. … Continue reading →
I’ll go to any lengths to avoid running errands in the rain. Today was avoidance on a whole new level – I decided to bake bread so that I wouldn’t have to leave the house to pick up a loaf for dinner. And, as it turns out, this was the best idea I’ve had in … Continue reading →
I don’t like Starbucks much. I mostly think their coffee tastes like a lukewarm muddy puddle. Unfortunately, if I’m outside of London, sometimes I have no choice if I want a coffee on the go. The lovely Leah (from the blog Naturally, Leah) recommended I try the seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte, so today when I was … Continue reading →
I always have certain staples in the pantry. Different types of flour are handy (self-raising flour, plain flour, strong bread flour), as well as other baking bits like bicarb of soda, baking powder and dried yeast. The beauty of having so much on-hand is that it’s simple to put together some ingredients in a hurry … Continue reading →
There’s nothing beter than fresh eggs from happy and healthy backyard chickens. My mother-in-law, Wendy, carefully nurtures and dotes on six lovely hens who supply the entire family with plenty of eggs every week. Here’s a clip of Wendy’s chickens enjoying their luxurious pen: Happy hens = lots of eggs. They’re currently laying six … Continue reading →
I love bread. Who doesn’t? I can’t quit bread, no matter how serious I am about shrinking my waistline. When I was 15 I worked in a bakery and loved being surrounded by all manner of doughy delights: baguettes, sourdough, squat baps and fluffy sandwich loaves. There’s nothing quite like the scent of fresh baked … Continue reading →
I’ve never really cooked chilli con carne. It was never a standby in our family. In fact, the first time I tried it was when I had a British flatmate in my early 20s. She cooked up a batch and served it with fluffy rice – it was surprisingly delicious. I’ve since experimented with versions … Continue reading →
Chilli Marmalade is now on Facebook and I’d love to have you join in the conversation there. I’m really interested in discovering fellow food bloggers through Facebook, so please go ahead and give Chilli Marmalade a ‘like’ so I can check out what you’re up to! –> Visit Chilli Marmalade on Facebook Filed under: Social media … Continue reading →
The nights are drawing in here in London, and soups are what I’ve been craving in this chilly weather. My courgette, basil and parmesan soup with crispy bacon that I cooked last week was a hit, so I thought I’d try a different style of soup – an Asian-style noodle soup with plenty of freshness … Continue reading →
I’ve adapted this courgette, pea and mint fritter recipe from an old recipe, one of the first recipes I ever cooked from scratch – sweetcorn fritters. This fritter recipe is from an old Family Circle Kid’s Cookbook that sparked my interest in cooking when I was quite young, probably seven or eight years of age. … Continue reading →
My fabulous and very generous allotment-tending mother-in-law, Wendy, gave me a very large courgette last week. This courgette was so big that it sat on our coffee table for a week, intimidating me. Today, I got sick of looking at it, so decided to blitz it into a soup. A big pot of green, garlicky … Continue reading →
The cold change in the weather this week, paired with the come-down after my amazing summer working for London 2012, has brought on the familiar pangs of homesickness for Australia. When I’m missing home, it’s time to stop moping and get in the kitchen to whip up a batch of Anzacs, it’s therapeutic! Anzac biscuits, … Continue reading →
I’ve been rather excited about the release of Nigella Lawson’s latest recipe book masterpiece, Nigellissima, for a while now, and was so happy when the Daily Mail put out a two-part excerpt from Nigellissima with their Sunday edition this week. Basically, I want to cook ALL THE RECIPES, but thought I’d start with Nigella’s ‘Yellow … Continue reading →
Tony’s Pie & Mash Shop in Essex, (notably David Beckham’s favourite pie & mash shop) is literally around the corner from the flat Mr Q and I shared when we first got married, and I’d never been there… until now. We popped into Tony’s Pie & Mash Shop with our good friend Bronnie over the weekend … Continue reading →
Lup cheong, or lap chong (??) is to Chinese cuisine what chorizo is to Spanish cooking. That’s the best description I can muster for this gorgeous little dried fatty Chinese sausage. Lup cheong is all at once smoky, sweet and savoury, and is perfect as one of those back-of-the-fridge ingredients. I love lup cheong roughly chopped … Continue reading →
I’m a massive fan of meat. Every which way: oven-roasted, pan-seared, slow-cooked, fast-cooked, rare-bloody-gorgeousness and blackened charred sticky edges. Mostly, I like my meat barbequed. On my quest for the perfect barbequed meat feast, I paid a visit to London’s most popular barbeque joint, Pitt Cue Co in Soho a week ago and inhaled the most succulent … Continue reading U
