Ching-He Huang's Yin And Yang Evening At Harvey Nichols Manchester

Eeeeeee! I've had such a great time tonight. I went to Harvey Nichols for an evening of food and demonstrations from Ching-He Huang and she is lovely, really, so nice! I'm writing some of this now and I'll add photos but I'm not going to post this until the morning (before mum arrives) because I think I drank too much to effectively spell check and photo edit. Suffice to say it was an incredible night. I was a tad concerned about going on my own but the people at my table were so nice and I have had an incredible evening. I ate far too much incredible food - as I was alone I received 2 persons portion for each course as they were sharing dishes - and I ate most of them! Starters reminded me i'm not keen on tofu but that I will now eat and love cashew nuts. Mains included the best spring rolls I've ever had - so fresh and not greasy, duck with rice and cashews, poached chicken, and I tried crab balls and prawn and scallop wontons - sadly confirming I don't like shellfish but they still tasted great - my table mates gladly ate what I couldn't. In the morning I'll add a photo of the menu for you. SO GOOD. Sleep now though.

Spring Rolls

Well, it's the morning after the night before and I thought I'd leave the bit that I wrote last night as it kind of conveys my excitement after the event, even if I was right about my spelling abilities - apparently I received potions instead of portions! I arrived slightly late, as we were being seated but got noticed, and complimented, by Ching-He Huang for my hot pink Chinese jacket. I received a Happiness cocktail on my way to my table (lucky number 7), which was, according to the menu, a twist on a Kir Royale with rhubarb, ginger, lychee and plum liqueurs instead of cassis, happily for me, it didn't really taste of ginger, and was in fact very tasty. Whilst enjoying my cocktail, I watched Ching demo spring rolls and I learnt to throw away the first few layers of wrappers as they would be too dry - very useful as I just bought some gyoza wrappers for when I don't have time to make them myself.

Peanut Butter Brownies and Apparently CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!

Yes, you read the title right; Harvey Nichols has just sent me an email telling me that Christmas is just around the corner and I need to book Christmas drinks there ASAP. I know that it's now September and Christmas is in about three months (or 110 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes and 30 seconds away if you really want to get technical - thanks http://www.xmasclock.com - although that might be for a different country, I'm not sure!) but let's celebrate Halloween and Guy Fawkes night first!!

For a not at all christmassy, but maybe a just right for the start of  Autumn, snack I wanted to make David Lebovitz's dulce de leche brownies but didn't have the titular ingredient, so, after a bit of googling I hit upon the idea of peanut butter brownies (recipe from Good Housekeeping). Yummy! And I have about a kilo of peanut butter at home. Swirling the two mixtures together made it look so pretty and they tasted fairly good (apart from the edges as I forgot to set a second timer whilst chatting to a friend). In the future I would set another timer and cut the peanut mix by a third as it almost made two complete layers instead of marbled swirls. I used my Callebaut 54% chocolate in this recipe plus their cocoa powder and it made for a intense but not too strong/bitter chocolate flavour (NEWSFLASH I just got the Callebaut milk chocolate chips and the white chocolate ones and both taste good but the milk chocolate is divine, more chocolaty than high street brands and so moreish!)

Marbled Brownie Recipe

Oven at 180˚C

Baking tin required - I normally use an IKEA tin or a rectangular sandwich tin which lets me remove all bar one side of the tin for easier cutting. Whatever you use make sure it's well greased.

Cut as many slices as you want

Ingredients

175g butter

125g dark/milk chocolate

250g sugar - the original recipe says "light brown soft sugar", which has one too many adjectives for my liking! If you have muscovado sugar then use that, if you don't then regular sugar should be fine.

2 eggs - again, the original recipe says medium but really whatever size you have to hand

125g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

Peanut Butter Marble (this is two thirds of the original recipe)

17g MELTED butter (stick it in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time)

27g icing sugar

67g smooth peanut butter

¼tsp vanilla extract (not essence - essence is terrible as it is a synthetic flavour and not really real vanilla)

Method

Melt the butter and chocolate in a big pan on the hob (if you're concerned about burning it then use a bain marie - a bowl suspended over pan/bowl of hot water so that it doesn't touch the water but that the heat melts whatever is in the top bowl).

Take off the heat and stir in the sugar followed by the eggs and then the flour and cocoa powder. This is your brownie base.

For the peanut butter marble you need to combine all the ingredients in a separate bowl until smooth-ish.

Spread ⅓ to ½ the brownie mix into the bottom of your greased pan and dollop half the marble over the top.

Repeat the above step with the rest of the brownie mix followed by the peanut butter marble and then swirl the tip of a knife through the dollops to create a pretty pattern, but try not to over mix it!

Cook in the oven for 20-35 minutes, depending on your oven. I would start at 20 and then check before putting another timer on for five minute increments. You want the brownie to have a crisp/cracked top but still move slightly in the middle, so it's a bit gooey and lovely to eat but not to runny you need a spoon to eat it with (I have had to do that before and it's not great!)