Who doesn’t love pesto? It’s basically a rite of passage to live off of a pre-made pesto pasta for at least half of your time at university nowadays, but it’s actually very simple to make yourself.
This recipe takes the greatest of the pasta sauces – both pesto and béchamel and combines them in a super creamy chicken lasagne dish, where you won’t need to spend ages simmering a ragù sauce and ensuring the meat is cooked adequately, as leftover chicken works a trick here.
With the crunch of almonds on top, combined with oozy melted cheddar, this is a super comforting dish that looks even more impressive than a standard lasagne.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
For the pesto
30g basil
30g pine nuts
2tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
1tbsp grated parmesan
For the lasagne
125g shredded cooked chicken
50g cheddar
4 lasagne sheets
2tbsp butter
1 clove garlic
3tbsp flour
milk
nutmeg
handful of almonds
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (depending on your oven – use your own judgement).
Put all the pesto ingredients into a food processor and blend to a paste.
Boil some salted water and part-cook the lasagne sheets until very al dente.
To make the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the diced garlic and flour and mix well.
Add milk bit by bit, continuing to stir on a low-med heat until you have a thickened sauce.
Grate in the nutmeg and remove from the heat.
Mix the chicken and pesto in a bowl.
In a food processor, blitz the almonds into coarse crumbs. For extra flavour, don’t wash out the processor after making the pesto, as then your almond crumbs will suck up all the excess pesto left in there.
In a loaf tin, layer a lasagna sheet, then chicken and white sauce, then repeat twice more.
Top with the final sheet and sprinkle with grated cheese and the almond crumb.
Bake for 15 minutes until the cheese on top is golden.
This pasta recipe combines the fanciness of scallops, with the flavour of chorizo and the comfort of gooey melted cheese. Basically, it’s the best of all worlds.
Recently I did a big order of frozen fish and seafood from Bradley’s, a family-run business based in West London. They only sell frozen fish, with the concept behind that being that often, lots of the ‘fresh’ fish we eat isn’t actually fresh at all, and has spent a fair while being transported around before it ends up on our plates. Their fish however, is frozen within 3 hours of being caught, therefore ensuring that both the flavour and the nutrients are bound within the products from the outset, so they taste just as good whenever you choose to eat them later down the line.
Part of my order included the queen scallops featured in this recipe. The kilo bag has provided me with many meals so far, with plenty more to come, and texturally and flavour-wise these small scallops are pretty good quality.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
200g penne pasta
30g chorizo
½ leek
1 red chilli
2 cloves of garlic
150ml double cream
150ml fish stock
2 tsp sun dried tomato paste
small pinch saffron
1tsp chilli flakes
salt/pepper
200g scallops
chives
parlsey
50g cheddar (grated)
Chop the chorizo into tiny crumb/cube pieces then fry until beginning to crisp and set to one side.
Fry the chopped leeks with the chilli and garlic on a low-medium heat until soft and fragrant.
Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.
Add the cream, fish, sun dried tomato paste, saffron, chilli flakes, salt and pepper to the leek mix and continue to cook on medium heat for 15 mins until reduced slightly.
For a super smooth pasta sauce you can blend the creamy leek/stock mix at this point using a hand blender, although it isn’t essential.
Add the scallops, chives and parsley to the pan with the sauce then mix in the pasta.
Place in an ovenproof dish, and top with grated cheddar and the chorizo crumb. Put the dish under the grill until the cheese is golden and melted.
Sprinkle with more chives to serve.
I always like to include alternative adaptations of my recipes, and this one is no different. If you can’t get hold of, or don’t want to use scallops, other seafood would also work. Admittedly, if you’re desperate to showcase amazing scallops, you probably won’t be serving them in a pasta dish, so for me, the scallops aren’t actually the most important part here. Pasta + salty chorizo + cream/cheese + seafood is always going to be a success, whatever ocean-dwelling treat you choose to include!
Every time someone tells me they don’t like cheese, my eyes do a 360 roll in my head. Believe me, such people actually do exist, and there’s clearly something wrong with them.
I’m tempted to say that the best kind of cheese is always melted or baked, hot and gooey, an oozy cheese pull stretching from the plate to your mouth. But normal cheese, you know, hard cheese, soft cheese, basically uncooked cheese, is also a delight, especially when accompanied by gallons of wine.
The super successful Cheese Bar, located in Camden, have just opened their wonderful new project in KERB’s latest food hall/market in Seven Dials, Covent Garden. How no one’s come up with this before I’ll never know, but it’s basically like Yo Sushi, for CHEESE…
For anyone who’s not familiar with this set up, you basically find yourself perched on a bar stall, with a conveyer belt of cheese circling before you. Each cheese plate is contained within a little glass pod with a numbered tag, which corresponds to a number on the menu, explaining exactly what it is. The challenge here is finding the number of the cheese in front of you on the menu and deciding whether you fancy it or not, before it flies past and you have to wait for it to do another lap to come back to you.
Belt dish prices range from £2.95 to £6.10 and you can find out the price by looking at the colour of the dish and checking that against the price guides dotted around the restaurant bar in front of you.
Upon arrival I was told there’d be a 30-40 minute wait, which I’d kind of anticipated seeing as it’s new and there’s still a lot of hype surrounding it. They take your phone number and text you when a table is free but you can opt out of this at any time, and there’s loads of seating throughout the food hall where you can sit and wait.
It probably ended up being about half an hour, so really not too long at all.
There are 3 or so off-belt menu items, plus some desserts, but the vast majority of the dishes you can just help yourself to from the belt. There was only one that they didn’t have available as everything is fresh from their various suppliers and on this occasion the supplier wasn’t able to provide it.
Service was friendly and staff were enthusiastic and helpful.
It is honestly so hard to whittle it down to just a few dishes because I was desperate to try everything, but as per, I still gave it a pretty good go.
Plate number 1: Kingham with Walnut Fudge
My ability to articulate the subtleties in cheese flavour and texture is limited, so I’m going to settle for a ‘This was good.’ The cheese was pleasant, described by suppliers as having ‘a buttery, strong flavour, with a Gruyere-like texture.’
That fudge though…
I know it’s not supposed to be the star of the show but it was beautiful. Weirdly, one of the highlights. It was smooth, creamy and absolutely delicious.
Plate number 2: Rachel with Sun Dried Tomato and Basil Pesto
It was the Pesto that appealed with this one, and although it was nice, I found this to be the least exciting. The cheese was still decent, with a kind of manchego-y appearance and texture and a slightly nutty taste, and the pesto did complement it well but the best is still yet to come…
Plate number 3: Fellstone with Sherry Baked Cherries
Definitely one of my favourites here. Although technically a hard cheese, it still has a thick, creamy feel and taste to it. The sharpness of the cherries alongside it worked perfectly. The ultimate example of sweet and savoury working together in harmony.
Plate number 4: Stilton with Chocolate Oat Cookie
Now I had to try this one, as weirdly, it’s made in Cropwell Bishop, the tiny village in Nottinghamshire where I went to Primary School. They actually have two cheeses on the menu but I went for the Stilton as I absolutely LOVE blue cheese. It took me a while as a teenager before I was willing to stop turning my nose up in disgust and actually try it, but now I can’t get enough. So honestly, if you’ve always avoided it, you really should give it a chance, as it’s a lot tastier than its mouldy appearance might lead you to believe.
I’m not entirely sure why they decided to pair it with a chocolate chip cookie (am I missing something obvious?) but regardless, I’m not complaining, it was a softly-baked (random) side treat.
(Wine also excellent and inexpensive)
My friend tried the other Cropwell Bishop cheese which was the Beauvale with Sticky Pear Jam so I had a tiny bit of this one too. Super soft and creamy with a the sweet, sticky jam, I would definitely recommend it.
Plate number 5: OFF BELT
You CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT, visit Pick and Cheese without ordering this dish which appears on the menu but not on the conveyer belt.
Whole Baked Waterloo with Basil Stewed Blackberries and Bread
Remember when I was talking about baked/melted cheese being unbeatable at the beginning? Well…
LOOK AT THIS. JUST LOOK AT IT. Not only does it look massively exciting, but it was one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten in a while. There’s actually quite a bit more to it than appears here, and it’s definitely more of a sharer.
The sharpness of the blackberries with that gooey baked goodness was heaven. Can’t say I was getting much basil from it other than the giant tree-frog-style leaf but I didn’t want the basily vibes anyway. The bread is unexciting but entirely necessary for dippage.
Honestly, when I go back (and I 100% will), I’m getting this just for myself. No sharing.
Just as a side note, they do also have a few charcuterie dishes but I wanted to stick exclusively to the cheese this time round.
Overall, I was super impressed with Pick and Cheese. It’s not just a meal, but a fun dining experience. For all the above dishes plus the glass of wine and service I think I paid about £35 which I thought was really reasonable. Waiters add up the prices based on the colours of the piled up dishes that you’ve accumulated throughout the course of the meal.
I love that each cheese comes with a unique, complementary side, and I’ll be honest, this often influenced my choices more so than the cheese itself!
This place is wonderful. It’s situated within a buzzing (but not overwhelming) food hall environment, has a sophisticated feel to it and produces some excellent food. I, for one, can’t wait to go back with other friends and family.
It may not be a hidden gem, but it lights up London’s food scene all the same.
¡Comemos! 