Ingredients

250g rock salt
1.25kg potatoes (I used ones for baking/Rosti/fries - we don't have the same names in CH as the rest of the world)
200g plain flour
1/4 tsp pepper
200g parmesan finely grated.
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
2 egg yolks
100g unsalted butter

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. scatter the rock salt on a baking tray and put the potatoes on top. Bake for 1 hour / until tender. This will depend of the type of potato and their size. Remove and allow to cool.

Slice the potatoes in half and scoop out the flesh. In a bowl mix the flesh with parmesan, flour nutmeg, salt, and egg yolk. Using a potato masher helps to also ensure there are no potato lumps. Mix into a lump and divide the lump into 4 smaller balls. 
Roll the balls out on a floured surface to form a roll about 2 - 2.5 cm wide and slice. See the picture below.  Use a fork to flatten, this also gives them the indents on top. 

In batches cook the gnocchi in boiling water until they float to the top (about 1 minute). Remove and plunge into iced water then transfer to a plate with kitchen towel to dry. 
Leave these to dry for anywhere between 1 - 4 hours. I put mine on trays in the fridge but you can keep them anywhere cool. 

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When you are ready to cook them heat the oven to 200 degrees.
Melt butter in a large fry pan and cook the gnocchi in batches turning them to ensure they are a nice light brown on both sides (about 4 minutes).
Transfer to a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 5 mins until they are puffed and golden.
Serve with a nice meat ragu or a mushroom stroganoff... whatever you feel like.
​I just use them wherever I would normally add potato or pasta to a creamy sauce dish.
If you want to freeze them you can do so at the stage where you have a dough. I did this and defrosted it, rolled them and continued from that stage and they were just as delicious. 

As part of my attempt to introduce new recipes into my kitchen I decided to try one of my husband's favourite Chinese dishes. Crispy Duck with pancakes. 

It needs a bit of time - a few days !!-  to do the prep, but its actually a fairly simple recipe to follow. 

Ingredients

2 - 2.5kg duck
50g soft brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp Chinese 5 spice
2.5 g piece ginger peeled and grated (I used ground ginger from a jar)
2 shallots
2 star anise

For the Brining solution
140g brown sugar
300ml Chinese rice vinegar

To Serve
hoisin sauce
2 spring onions cut into strips
1 cucumber cut into strips
Chinese pancakes

How to do it...

Clean the duck washing the inside and then drying with paper towels.
Using a sharp skewer prick the skin all over. 
Holding the duck by the neck pour boiling water over the skin. This tightens the skin and helps to produce the characteristic crispy skin.  
Dissolve the 140g brown sugar in 200ml warm water and add the rice vinegar and 700ml cold water. 
Put the duck in a large plastic bag and pour in the brining solution. 
Chill for 3 hours or up to 24 hours turning over a few times.
Remove the duck from the bag and pat dry. 
Leave the duck on a rack over a tray uncovered in the fridge overnight. 
Before cooking remove from the fridge for an hour to let the duck get to room temp.
Combine the sugar and salt and five spice and rub this thoroughly inside the duck.
chop the shallots roughly and put inside the duck with the ginger and star anise.
Close up the end of the duck using a skewer.
Cook the duck on the rack over the tray in a 130 - 150C degree oven for 2 hours 15 mins.
Increase the oven heat to 220C degrees and cook for a further 15 mins to crisp up the skin. 
If you want the duck even crispier you can heat some peanut oil until hot enough to cook a cube or bread and carefully spoon this over the duck. 
I made a mistake here, I forgot to buy peanut oil and thought I could just use the oil that had dripped into the roasting tray.... this left black bits on the skin of the duck (you can see it in the photos) It didn't change the taste, but it wasn't as visually appealing as I had hoped.

Serve rolled in the pancakes with a drizzle of the hoisin sauce, cucumber and spring onions.

I also fried some Bak Choi (called crispy seaweed in Cantonese restaurants) as a starter. I just cut the green part into fine strips and fried it in about 10 cm of oil. it cooks very quickly so fish it out as soon as it changes colour.

It was a huge success. The flavour was amazing, the duck was moist and the kitchen smelt like a Chinese restaurant. Hubby loved it, and there was way too much for just the two of us so my Brother In Law came over and had a take away too.  I'll definitely be making this again, especially since the duck was relatively inexpensive in the wholesale food store I'v started using. 
If you give it a try, let me know how you get on. Enjoy. 

Most people don't see as much of the city they live in as the tourists who visit it. I don't have any statistics to support this, but just listening to friends who say.. 
                       'Oh, I've lived here for years and never seen that'  
                                                                             tells me that this is true.
​
In fact when we lived in NY we saw more of the USA than many of our American friends... we visited Mt Rushmore, Bryce County National Park, Drove from San Diego to San Francisco, went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and lay on a beach in Hawaii.... all in all we visited 23 states in 2 years, maximising our time there. I guess we are not 'the norm'.

I lived in London for 16 years and I did visit most of the sights. We had lots of visitors from Switzerland during the years when my husband and I lived there together so whilst escorting them around I saw a lot more than the average Londoner.
There were still LOTS of things I hadn't done though so when a friend from New York City was visiting for a few days I jumped at the chance to 'be a tourist' with him. Of course we weren't the usual tourists dithering at the ticket machine at the tube station and trying to work out how to negotiate the vast London Underground network, I made fabulous restaurant reservations and knew exactly the quickest way from A to B, but we still had a hit list of 'sights' to see. 

The list included some of the most popular, Tower of London, St Paul's, Westminster Abbey which of course I had already done, but also included the more obscure like the Silver Vaults which I had never even heard of. Ask how many of your London friends have even heard of The Silver Vaults and I'm pretty sure there won't be a lot.
There were also the predictable lunch and dinner spots. The only one I had been to before was the Gherkin... all of the others most Londoners avoid like the plague, but 'In for a penny, in for a pound' and all that... so The Goring, Claridges and the Savoy were added to the list. I added a couple of more local spots to keep a little balance. One of my fave spots, Berners Tavern was a firm favourite with my American friend as was Mr Foggs Gin Parlour.  

Here is a more detailed explanation of what we got up to, Maybe it will give you some idea for your next visit to the 'smoke'. 

The Goring 
Amazing service in an incredibly elegant environment. From the moment I arrived to wait for my friend in the bar the staff went out of their way to make me feel comfortable offering me a newspaper to read or the dinner menu. 
When my friend arrived the restaurant waiter took our food orders and the sommelier came to discuss wines and we were escorted to the dining room when dinner was ready to be served.  
Everything we ate was delicious. Starting with the bread and perfectly salted butter. 
The Cep risotto that we both had to start was perfect. Great flavour and well presented. My friend had Brill for the main course and I had cod, again both cooked perfectly. Desserts were equally impressive. You would expect noting less from a Michelin Star restaurant and The Goring didn't disappoint. 
The dining room is simply lovely. It's all very elegant - and the tables are spaced to ensure privacy. A great place for a special occasion dinner. I'd highly recommend a reservation here. 

The Goring   15 Beeston Place, London SW1W 0JW  +44 (0) 20 7396 9000  Website 

Westminster Abbey 
We were not able to make a guided tour as the times are not advertised on the website and we missed the last one when we arrived. This was really a shame as I love the interaction and being able to ask questions...Also i don't particularly like the audio guides. Despite this we stuill really enjoyed out visit. The Gothic Abbey has been the venue for many royal weddings and funerals and is also the burial site for many key figures in British history. 
The abbey is beautiful and there is a lot to see so it's worth allowing 2-3 hours. 

As a bonus just over the road is Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. 

Website 

If you are planning a trip to London I hope I have given you some ideas of places to eat and things to do during your visit. Have a look also at the Fabulous things to do in London 1 - 5 in the index on the right. There are some less tourists things to do if you have been to London many times. 
Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy London - it has a special place in my heart and I hope it finds a way into your heart too. 

Sometimes I feel like I am in the Import and Export business. I'm pretty sure this is a common feeling many Expats experience because there are always food things you miss from your old 'home' and things from your new 'home' that you are excited for friends in your old 'home' to try. Whenever we have house guests from overseas there is always a list of things we'd like them to bring too... I don't do all the work myself, I do delegate sometimes.

I started importing and exporting way before we even moved away from the UK. We would take potato chips and Indian food items from the U.K. to Switzerland and return with delicious Swiss Chocolate and Cheese for our U.K friends.
The quantities were never huge, often just enough for one meal... unless its chocolate - then the whole office wanted some, so I'm pretty sure no laws were being broken, and often one small packet of un baked Naan bread or a large pot of yeast could make you a welcome house guest.

The I&E business continued when we lived in Hong Kong.
Cheese was always high on the list of things to bring back. There was a miserable selection of cheese at the time and it was certainly one of the things my husband really missed. When we lived in Singapore it was wine. Wine was outrageously expensive. House guests would bring wine and leave with Laksa spice kits or Beef Rendang curry sauces.

In the USA it was trips to Canada that supplied us with proper back bacon... that streaky stuff is just not what Bacon Butties should be made with. Trips back to Switzerland ensured we had Gruyere Cheese and Chocolate as anyone European in the USA knows 'Swiss Cheese' and anything from Hersheys is completely unpalatable.
Trips to the UK would allow me to stock up on Coleman's Mustard and HP Sauce.
Requests for things from the USA often meant trips to Nike and Michael Kors before a flight to Europe.

My Last trip to the UK I managed to find the stash of goodies in the picture above. Thankfully I wasn't travelling alone as I would have gone straight over my luggage allowance...those tins of treacle are fairly heavy.
Luckily now in 2017 I can buy 'most' things in Switzerland but there are a few things that are so expensive that I always throw them into my luggage when returning such as Baking powder and yeast. In Switzerland they are only sold in sachets. These sachets are too much for one bake but never enough for two. In the UK I can buy tubs, for a fraction of the cost. Made by the same people but in much more user friendly sizes for a fraction of the cost.

But best of all is my current favourite import, Prawn (Shrimp) Crackers. I can buy these in Chinatown in London for a couple of pounds for a big bag but somehow these have never made their way to Switzerland even though there is a strong Thai community here.

They are by far superior to the puffy Chinese Prawn Crackers which I can buy in Switzerland but are not even a close substitute.
I buy as many of these as I can fit in my suitcase.....
Before a Thai curry and with some sweet chilli dip whilst enjoying a Tiger Beer there is nothing better.
​

I accept that we are completely spoiled and that this has lead to the movement of food around the globe in my suitcase. If we didn't travel so much I would have no idea that the tonkatsu sauce bought in the supermarket in Tokyo is by far superior to the ones I attempt to make myself, And once you have eaten proper Thai Prawn Crackers on a beach in Thailand, nothing else really hits the spot.  
So, whilst I am thankful that we get the opportunities to travel as much as we do...  it has made me an accidental international grocery trader.

​Before you begin to make sourdough you need to make your starter or Levain (as it is often referred to in other recipes)
It is an easy process, BUT you need to look after it everyday during these first stages so it is best to start when you know you are going to be at home. 
I LOVE the taste and it's really worth the effort it takes to make it. (it is quite time consuming - why I said in the title that it has taken over) 
This recipe makes 2 loaves, You can freeze one loaf if you need to, but I rarely have more than a few slices left after a weekend. I usually make it on Friday. It makes great toast to go with poached eggs for breakfast. 
It will last for about 4-5 days and keep its taste, but in our house it doesn't last that long, even though there are only 2 of us.
I tried a couple of other recipes that didn't work out and the one below has given me great results the last 5 or 6 times I have used it.

Making the Starter. 
Sourdough Starter replaces yeast. Its a mixture of flour and water and it uses the natural yeast in the air.
You can change the quantities but keep the proportions the same as I have used and you should be OK.
You need 125g organic wholemeal wheat flour and 190g slightly warm water.

Mix the ingredients in a glass container until smooth and then cover with a cotton tea-towel leave at room temp undisturbed until the next morning.

The Next Day. 
In the morning, give the mix a good stir and replace the tea-towel.

Day 3 - 8
The next morning pour away half of your starter and refresh with 125g organic wholemeal wheat flour and 190g slightly warm water. Repeat this everyday for a week.  
When it starts to bubble then you know things are going well. 
When it is bubbly with a 'yeasty' smell or its a bit frothy you can move on to the next step. If its only just starting to bubble, give it a stir, cover and check again the next day, or repeat the above step.
This could be 6 days or may even be 8 days. 

Feeding the starter.
Having a starter is a little like having a pet. If you don't feed it weekly you risk it dying. Your starter can be refrigerated with a lid on the glass jar and then before you use it the starter needs to be 'fed'. Bring it out and let it get to room temp before adding 125g organic bread flour and 190g slightly warm water and leaving it for at least 12 hours. It can then be used or returned to the fridge.

Whatever recipe you choose will tell you how much starter to use. always use the starter when it is bubbly. So don't forget to revive it a day before you need it. When you have used the starter, you also need to replenish it so there is enough for the next round of baking.