London E8, London Fields
w: www.broadwaymarket.co.uk

I was too bleary-eyed to see the notice telling me that the London Overground line was disrupted for the weekend and ended up on a replacement bus that took hours to meander its way east, the smelly drunk who sat next to me with his eyebrow pierced by a rusty nail wasn’t the best appetite stimulator either.

My queasiness evaporated within seconds of getting simultaneous blasts from the buskers playing blue grass and the scent of hot truffles and mushrooms. Broadway Market includes crafts and vintage stuff but is very much all about the food – and not just any old food, this food is superior food in every way – the stalls are very competitive on this issue; Wild Beef from Devon trumpets that the dead cow they are selling is ‘More than Organic’, the mutton seller gives precise details of the age of his animals and the rhubarb I purchased had been to finishing school … ok that last bit’s a tiny exaggeration but you get my drift.

Far outstripping the stalls selling raw ingredients are the ones selling prepared food, stuff you can take home like handmade pasta and homemade sauces, there’s charcuterie from all over Europe and there are acres of cakes and bread as far as the eye can see, as a bread fetishist I dithered around several bread stalls before finally choosing a Californian sourdough with a perfectly golden and blistered crust.

And then there is all the food you can scoff on the spot – or while you’re walking along getting an anxiety complex about whether you chose the best thing; the first stall I looked at was run by a talented and far too popular chef who is pushing the boundaries of Scotch-eggdom with a range that includes Smoked Haddock Scotch Egg, Black Pudding Scotch Egg and Thai Scotch Egg??? he also had a range of sweet pies that looked divine beyond belief, I couldn’t decide between the chocolate, lemon or egg custard pies so I wandered off to look at other things – that chocolate pie stayed in the front of my brain, I had to have a piece, I came back for it, but it was all gone.

A huge section of the market is given over to chefs cooking on the spot with their hot plates and boiling pans offering food from every part of the globe; stews of African, Indian, French and Portuguese persuasion, gourmet hamburgers and hot sausage rolls, crepes, rissotto, pies and pasties. The only way to deal with this is to take as many greedy friends as you can muster – and make sure they like sharing.

We’ve visited an Indian restaurant, again! This was sheer coincidence as we had no choice but to surrender to the hunger pangs from our stomachs. We were back after visiting an aunt in Camden and decided to take the bus instead of the tube, since we love watching the London life pass by from the upper deck.

We jump off at Waterloo and wander around trying to figure out where to take the next bus from, and come across this restaurant called ‘Bangalore Express.’ By then our stomachs were growling and without a second thought we decided to explore.

The interiors are tastefully done with pale green and white symmetrical designs, and there is also an interactive kitchen. The booths are set to resemble the insides of a train back in India, or so I thought. There are ladders to go up to the top booth and are a bit scary if you are sitting down. The waiters tactfully hold their serving trays in position while climbing up the stairs and you can’t help but cringe in fear of it toppling all over you. Nah, I’m just exaggerating a bit here, but on a serious note, I think it’s a brilliant way of saving space and accommodating more people at the same time.

The menu is not so elaborated, but to the point and not so expensive. I ordered the mango lassi which came in a tall glass, enough to last me through the whole meal. I would have personally preferred it a little more sweet, but it didn’t bother me that much. They also have a fully licensed bar with cocktails and the like. If you prefer that, go ahead, but I must admit they were on the expensive side.

16 Broadwick Street, Soho, London
t: 02074948888
w: www.yauatcha.com

Let me start by admitting that dim sum is something of which I know little, so this write-up is purely based on taste, atmosphere, and the nuggets of expertise channeled my way by two well-versed companions. My experience so far stretches to pre-pub/bar filling-station chains, Ping Pong (I do it a disservice, it’s really quite decent), and Dim T.

We were booked in to see A Prophet at The Curzon in Soho, at the awkward time of 6:30pm on a Sunday night, so dinner had to be very early, or very late. Dim sum in China is traditionally eaten either in the morning or afternoon (not the evening), so that afternoon was the perfect opportunity to try out Yauatcha, Soho’s Michelin-starred dim sum restaurant, founded by Alan Yau, the man behind Wagamama, Cha Cha Moon, and the first Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant, Hakkasan.

First impressions of the modern space are favourable (we are in the petite but expensively decked-out basement), until we meet our surly waiter, who could not have appeared less keen to serve us. Giles Coren of The Times said, in 2004, that staff were in a “dopey minimalist trance”. Well, six years later, nothing much has changed. I’ll bring Jon here next time – he despises dim sum, some deception or physical force might have to be deployed – so he can try his ‘inappropriate’ restaurant jokes out on them, and crack their dead-pan composure.

Nina picked the dishes, a variety of steamed, fried, and baked dim sum, all delicately prepared, and beautifully presented. Perhaps this is due to my over-zealous dipping of chilli and soy, but I was left struggling to remember most of the fillings. Don’t blame the booze – I was strictly tea-total. Dare I say it, the seasoning and spice was perhaps a touch repetitive? I hasten to add, however, that they were all full of flavour, and deeply satisfying.

Our bill came to £20 each, which is on the steep side for dim sum, bumped up by £4 bottles of water, and jasmine tea at £3.80 a pop, which is cheekily charged by the pot, not refilled. Yet £20 for a fill of Michelin-starred food in London ain’t bad.

For someone who does know what they are talking about, seek out Helen Yuet Ling Pang’s London dim sum recommendations on her blog (sadly she has since retired from blogging). She loves the place. Book in advance.

This is a very versatile cake. It could be used to celebrate an occasion like a Birthday, or add custard and it becomes a delicious dessert.

You can alter the flavour with vanilla, chocolate, lemon or orange or you could even add the mixture over stewed apples to make an apple cake; this works well as a delightful winters desert, topped with custard!

Serves 10

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and grease a large cake tin.

Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer.

Sift in the dry ingredients, followed by the eggs, vanilla and milk. Beat it all together for about 10 minutes.

Spoon into your tin and bake for approximately 1 hour (you may need a little more time depending on your oven).

Remove from the oven. Turn out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.

My first attempt at making marmalade late last year was not a resounding success. It was Seville orange marmalade and took hours to reach setting point. I had to hurry it along by chucking in a muslin bag filled with lemon rind. Also, it had boiled down so much it was more a thick caramel syrup than a marmalade. The pieces of rind were as long as spaghetti, so it wasn’t an easy spreader.

This time around I tried Nigella’s Pink-Grapefruit Marmalade from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. It seems too simple at first glance, but works brilliantly as the basis for the recipe, with just a few tweaks to the method.

A few years ago I spent a summer in Nairobi, Kenya. To this date I will tell anyone who’ll listen that there I had the best curries I have ever tried. I don’t know what it is, but they just taste so much better!

During those three months my aunt and I had a habit of visiting the local curry house on a weekly basis and all I would order was butter chicken; a refreshing dish that bears no resemblance to the sloppy stuff I have tasted in the UK so far!

After much complaining a good family friend and chef extraordinaire, Adil Karimbux, kindly shared his recipe for butter chicken with me and it definitely is what I remembered this dish by.

Adil is a great cook and not just of curries and I’m thrilled he has agreed to let me publish this recipe he has taken and adapted from long-running family traditions for everyone to enjoy. Thanks Adil!

Serves 4-6

Day 1 – Marinating

In a food processor combine:

• 3cm long ginger, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic
• 80g blanched almonds, skin removed
• 170ml thick, Greek style yogurt
• ½ tsp red chili powder
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 4 cardamom pods, seeds only, slightly crushed or powder
• 400g canned tomatoes
• 1 ¼ tsp salt
• ½ tsp turmeric
• a healthy pinch saffron

Whizz this together and place 1 kilo chicken breast or boneless thighs cut into big chunks into this mixture, cover and refrigerate till the next day. Bring out of fridge at least an hour before use.

Day 2 – Cooking

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 large onions, thinly sliced
• 6 tbsp coriander leaves (fresh)
• 8-10 curry leaves (optional)
• 5 tbsp thick doubled cream

Preheat oven to 200°C

In a large saucepan over a medium flame place the butter and oil together with the onions stirring till golden brown – do not burn!

Add the chicken mixture and sautee for 4 minutes.

Add the fresh coriander, curry leaves and cream. Mix well and place in a baking dish.

Cover with foil and bake for about an hour.

Skim off the extra fat carefully (sometimes using kitchen rolls helps).

Serve with warmed buttered naan bread or cumin rice – If you are like me you’ll have both.

Apologies for those of you who entered and won’t be winning anything! We’d still like to keep entrant’s recipes on the site for everyone to enjoy.

We have a lot more ideas for new competitions, so keep checking back for those!

Moules Marinieres is a classic way of cooking mussels in France and they are perfect at the moment. They are high in protein and low in fat, and what fat they do contain is rich in Omega 3. They are also a superb source of minerals and are great to share with a couple of friends; I adore any food that can be picked up in the fingers and eaten informally, it sets the tone for relaxed pleasure.

Everyone has their own method of detaching the mussel from its shell, my preferred way is to choose one half of a shell as a tool that I push under the “foot” and gently lever, then it becomes a spoon.

Park Pavilion, 40 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5FW
t: 0207 516 9145
w: http://www.wahaca.co.uk/

For those of you outside London, this is gonna be a boring, insignificant post. But I love doing restaurant reviews as it keeps me in touch with the job I miss terribly. I used to do restaurant, club, pub, hotel, boutique reviews for a living back in India.

Wahaca in Canary Wharf (SE London), owned by 2005 Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers aims at promoting Mexican street market eating. Like I have mentioned a zillion times before, I am a total sucker for Mexican grub and was pretty excited to try out this new restaurant so close to our place. I secretly hoped it would be kick-ass so I could quench my quesadilla cravings by just hopping over.

There is a ‘no reservations’ policy at Wahaca because apparently in markets in Mexico, you can eat whenever you want and at whatever time of the day. You also are told that you will be served as and when the food is ready. There is no deal of starters first, followed by mains etc.

We walked in at about 7.30pm and didn’t have to wait at all to be seated as the place was relatively empty. The interiors are quite swanky and spacious, although I didn’t really get the market feel. Its more like communal dining with strangers sharing a huge wooden table made of recycled wood and laid with hand blown glass. A very familiar practise I’ve noticed in a lot of Thai, Japanese and Chinese restaurants, the communal dining that is!

After we were seated (I wouldn’t say comfortable, since the seating was hard and there was no back rest which made it difficult to relax) our stewardess explained what the sauces were and the menu in general. There is a drinks and nibbles section, street food, mains and the desserts. We were told if we were just gonna go for the street food alone, it would be like tapas dishes, in small portions and would have to do at least 3 per person.

After scrutinising the cocktail menu my husband decided to try the Bloody Maria which was spicy and awesome. I had The Barragan- a Mojito-ish drink, but really diluted. I didn’t get the taste of tequila at all and they went on and on about how they used the best tequila and all that jazz on the menu.

We picked the Pork Pibil for starters – slow cooked Pork in a Yucatecan (a Mexican state) marinade served on a soft tortilla for starters. The pork was brilliant, just melt in your mouth but extremely oily, I must add. I am not sure what the Yucatecan flavour was. I got very Indian flavours instead. The Chipotle chicken Quesadilla was average, I think i make better ones at home.

Ordered a second round of cocktails. This time I went for the Tamarind Margarita only to be disappointed again. It didn’t have any hint of Tamarind which I thoroughly like and was actually looking forward to. The husband ordered ‘Day of the Dead’ cocktail and it tasted like Sangria. Nothing out-of-this-world there as well.

Mains were even more disappointing. I am not that much of a seafood fan and since nothing else seemed to excite me, I opted for the Classic Enchillada and Ro went ahead with the Chicken Burrito. Accompanied/stuffed with the same green rice, both were below average. The experience so far, not so great.

I decided to give dessert a last chance and they let me down there as well. Churros, seriously, how can anyone go wrong with churros? They were not sweet and crispy and hot and the chocolate dip was the only thing worth having. I think Taco Bell in the US serves better Mexican fast food than this for sure, but Wahaca, definitely not the best place to have authentic Mexican grub.

The only thing worth commenting was the service which was impeccable. The bill came up to a little over 45 quid which was pretty high I would say, for something very average like this. I may be wrong about the food and it probably would be better the next time. The question is ‘Will there be a next time?’. I’m not so sure.

These lovely little nostalgic treats bring back memories of party buns – really simple and scrummy. I have tried to make them a bit more adult and a bit more healthy by adding some seeds & nuts.