Petit Pois

2012 round-up

2012-12-27T18:48:00.002+00:00

Best new Brixton opening

There have been a few recent arrivals in Brixton which have garnered considerable press. By contrast, the chocolatier Paul Wayne Gregory, trained in Paris and maker of the Queen’s 80^th birthday truffles, just turned up one day in a little sliver of a shop in Market Row. There are beautiful desserts, highly credible salted caramels and some superlative passion fruit ganache, all a five minute walk from our door.

Favourite new products

Following in the wake of the hipsters, I’ve been dutifully tromping through the optimistically named “Bermondsey Spa” most Saturday mornings, finding a new way to get turned around each time, but also discovering both some great new vendors, and outposts of Borough favourites (particularly Neals Yard Dairy and Mons Cheese) which are far less crowded than the originals. Three highlights:

Heather honey from the London Honey Company

Lots of India Pale Ales at the Kernel Brewery

Chicken from Fosse Meadows at The Butchery

Most enjoyable read

Notes from Madras, Colonel Wyvern (1878). Wyvern wrote for Englishwomen abroad and their native cooks, explaining how to prepare both Anglo-Indian and European foods.

Greatest recipe

Lamb pizza from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s Jerusalem. This may be no better than the fish cakes in spicy tomato sauce, or the hummus or stuffed peppers—all superlative. It gets the nod for perfectly recreating the soft, pliable dough of the lahmacun I ate in Istanbul last winter, and pairing it with a topping that is at once sweet with caramelised meat, crunchy with fresh herbs and sharp with pomegranate.

Best eating moment

A breakfast of chilaquiles—eggs, refried beans and tortilla chips covered with a cooked red salsa, garnished with sour cream, cotija cheese, avocado and coriander (cilantro)—at San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Market, while watching the fog clear over the Bay Bridge.

Most memorable drink

Ruinart champagne at the Royal Opera House, just moments after receiving my engagement ring.

Sleeper hit

A custom mix of Formosa Lapsang Souchong and Higgins Breakfast tea from HR Higgins. We’ve been drinking their Creole Blend coffee for years; this is fast becoming the house tea: smoky, smooth and mouth-filling without being tannic.

Best evening out

A “Shambolic Sherry Tasting” put on by our local wine shop and held in a freezing upstairs room at the Dogstar pub. There were half a dozen non-sherry pours from natural wine importers, Les Caves de Pyrene, including a Savennières and a Jura chardonnay made in a vin jaune style, and quality nibbles aplenty. The sherries came thick and fast, and ranged from the merely very, very good to the absolutely exceptional (in the form of a rare Palo Cortado). We met a wine consultant working in Kazakhstan too, and heard all the gossip on the Brixton restaurant scene. And all for £7.50.

Brussels sprouts hash with eggs and sage

2012-12-16T15:50:00.001+00:00

Brussels sprouts yields are down in the UK this year, with a threat of needing to import so that the Christmas-celebrating population can buy the vegetable that no one likes, but someone would miss if they skipped.

Usually just (over)boiled, and served with butter, maybe with perfunctory additions of chestnuts and pancetta, it’s unsurprising that there’s little demand for sprouts outside of late December. It’s a shame, though, as their natural sweetness and crunch lends both to serving them raw and finely sliced in a salad, or keeping the slices equally thin and applying heat and seasoning to get them caramelised, even a bit charred.

David Chang (he of Momofuku) has a recipe for pan-fried sprouts doused in a punchy, fish sauce and chilli-laced dressing, which sounds like a great match for grilled fish or chicken. But for now, I’m stuck on this hash, which I’ve happily eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’d imagine bacon and/or bacon fat would work quite well here. Goose or duck fat, which I sometimes have on hand, adds a nice savoury note. As for cooking the eggs, you could also poach them separately and place them on top of the hash. The only absolutes: slice thinly, season well and don’t stint on the sage.

Brussels sprouts hash with eggs and sage

Adapted from Serious Eats

Serves 2 for a hearty breakfast (scale up for lunch or dinner)

Total time: 20-25 minutes; Active time: 10-12 minutes

250g Brussels sprouts

1 small banana shallot (or part of an onion)

6 sage leaves

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 eggs

Parmesan

Trim and finely slice sprouts into thin shreds. Dice shallots and half of the sage leaves.

Turn on the grill (broiler) to a medium heat.

Heat olive oil in a large, oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add remaining sage leaves and cook, stirring occasionally, until leaves are crisp, about 1 minute. Transfer to a paper towel.

Add the sprouts and shallots to the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are fully softened, and the sprouts have turned bright green, then begin to caramelise and lightly catch, 7 or 8 minutes

Create wells in the vegetable mixture and break in the eggs. Turn down fully, cover with a lid, plate or board and cook for a few minutes.

Place the pan under the grill, cooking until the eggs are just set. Season again, grate over parmesan to taste and garnish with fried sage leaves.

Jerusalem, and lamb meatballs with quince

2012-12-02T13:12:00.003+00:00

I’m very late in joining the Yotam Ottolenghi bandwagon, having been vaguely aware of his Guardian columns, cookbooks and beautiful, vegetable-driven cafes for years without feeling any particular interest in exploring further. It all seemed a bit too pretty, precious even. But a one-off TV programme he did last year, entitled Jerusalem on a Plate, suggested that I had been far too quick to dismiss him. In championing the food of his native city, he came across as fiercely smart, inquisitive and with an intuitive feel for food that was not just pretty to look at, but seriously tasty.

His new cookbook, Jerusalem, co-written with his business partner, Sami Tamimi, explores the city’s polyglot cuisine, taking in its Palestinian, North African, Central Asian, Levantine and Central European influences, amongst others. They highlight iconic local dishes like kubbeh (semolina dumplings stuffed with meat and poached in soup, served in luncheonettes in the Machane Yehuda market), Jerusalem mixed grill and chocolate kranz cake, while also playing with regional staples like topped flatbreads, dips and chopped vegetable salads, making them sharper and more interesting.

The cookbook is beautifully photographed and gently informative about Jerusalem’s culinary, social and political history. Almost all instinctively appealing, the recipes consistently deliver. From long peppers stuffed with herbed rice and lamb mince, to fish cakes poached in a spicy tomato sauce, a distinctively upgraded spanakopita and hummus made far creamier and airy than I thought possible (the trick is to blend it in a heavy-duty food processor for a full 5 minutes), the book is delivering winner after winner. Even a simple-sounding carrot salad well exceeds any I’ve made before. Although we’ve only had it for two months, Jerusalem is already becoming one of the most-used on our cookbook shelves, as well as the holiday gift of choice.

If only he did weddings.

Lamb meatballs with quince, pomegranate and coriander

adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem

Total time: 60-70 minutes; Active time: 30 minutes

Serves 4

Special equipment: large, lidded frying pan

400g minced lamb

1 garlic clove

Small bunch coriander

Small pinch Turkish chilli flakes

50g breadcrumbs (ideally soft and fresh)

1 tsp allspice

1 egg

Small knob fresh ginger

1 lemon

4 medium quince (about 1.3 kg)

2 onions

3 tbsp olive oil

8 cardamom pods

2 tsp pomegranate molasses

2 tsp sugar

500 ml chicken stock

Seeds of ½ a pomegranate

Additional coriander (optional)

Place the mince in a large mixing bowl. Mince the garlic and coriander add, along with the chilli flakes, breadcrumbs, allspice and egg. Finely chop about a tablespoon of ginger and add as well. Season well with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Roll the mixture into balls about the size of a squash ball and set aside.

Squeeze a bit of the lemon into a bowl of water. Peel the quince, core and chop into small cubes, placing them into the acidulated water as ready. Chop the onion finely, along with the remaining ginger.

Heat the olive oil on a medium flame. Add the onion and ginger, along with the cardamom, and sauté for 10-12 minutes, until the onion has softened and begun to change colour. Add the molasses, a good squeeze of lemon juice, sugar and stock. Season well. Add the meatballs and pieces of quince and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the meat is fully cooked, the quince soft and beginning to turn a peachy-pink, and the sauce is well thickened.

Serve over couscous, bulgur or rice, sprinkled with the pomegranate seeds and, if desired, more coriander.

Pistachio and olive oil cake

2012-10-29T19:00:00.000+00:00

This is the kind of cake that pleases all comers, without being wholly predictable. It can easily stand alone, but would also take well to crème fraiche, a scoop of good vanilla ice cream or even some Greek yogurt, some raspberries, cherries or apricots at one end of the seasonal spectrum and citrus at the other.

I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t use almonds, but the colour and perfume of the pistachios is worth the admittedly small splurge.

Pistachio and olive oil cake

adapted (barely) from Diana Henry in the Telegraph

Serves 8

Total time: 70 minutes; Active time: 15 minutes

Special equipment: food processor or (clean) coffee grinder

150g (5½oz) unsalted pistachios
50g (1¾oz) soft bread crumbs
285g (7oz) caster sugar
2½ tsp baking powder
2 lemons

4 medium eggs
200ml (7fl oz) olive oil

Grind 115g (4oz) of the pistachios to a slightly coarse powder using the food processor or coffee grinder. Pour into a large mixing bowl and add crumbs, 200g of the caster sugar and baking powder. Zest one of the lemons and add.

Break the eggs into a separate bowl and beat lightly. Pour in the olive oil and combine, before adding this to the dry ingredients.

Scrape into an oiled and base-lined 20-23cm (8-9in) cake tin and place in a cold oven. Set the oven to 180°C/350°F and bake for 50 to 55 minutes. The cake should be well-risen and lightly browned, and the sides slightly coming away from the tin.

While the cake is in the oven, juice the lemons into a small pan. Add the remaining sugar and 100ml (3½fl oz) water. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for five minutes.

Turn out the cake, peel off the paper and place on a plate. While it is still warm pierce all over with a skewer. Slowly pour on the syrup and leave to cool and sink in.

Bash up the remaining pistachios by placing in a sealed bag and crushing with a can or mallet. Scatter over the top of the cake just before serving.

Kohlrabi slaw

2012-07-29T17:51:00.002+00:00

I was in a particularly suggestible mood at the farmer’s market last Sunday. It not only felt like summer, with temperatures warm enough in mid morning to make long sleeves unnecessary, but it looked like it too. Tomatoes were finally the right colour, and at a price that encouraged over-buying. Berries were abundant as well, likewise broad beans, peppers, courgettes and cucumbers. Aubergines made their first appearance.

Kohlrabi wasn’t an obvious fit in a basket of more Mediterranean ingredients, but it got a good talking up from one of the vendors, who compared its taste to radishes and affirmed it could be eaten raw, thinly sliced or grated. And at 70p apiece, it was hardly an expensive experiment.

Once home, a bit of reading confirmed my suspicion that kohlrabi takes well to all sorts of slaw-like treatments. The most popular approach seems to be to combine it with similar quantities of carrot and white or green cabbage in variations on a standard creamy, vinegar-based or mustardy coleslaw. (I think the last of these could be particularly good with an extra spoonful of caraway seeds.) I was also intrigued by a recipe in which it substituted for celeriac in a remoulade. Another well-regarded combination drew on the kohlrabi’s similarity to daikon and dressed it with rice wine vinegar and sesame oil.

I ended up swapping it out for the green cabbage (hard, crinkly or soft) in a Mexican-inspired salad and served it as a topping for black bean tacos. Should summer be making more than a fleeting appearance in your parts, I’d imagine it would also pair well with spicy grilled meats.

Kohlrabi slaw

Total time: 15 minutes; Active time: 15 minutes

Serves 2 generously

Special equipment: mandoline with a julienne attachment

1 kohlrabi

½ bunch coriander

2-3 spring onions

1-2 fresh chillies (preferably red for colour contrast)

lime

salt

Set your mandoline blades to cut julienne slices. (We used the middle of the 3 julienne blades, but any julienne width should do.)

Cut off the protruding stems from the kohlrabi and peel off tough layer of outer skin. Slice into chunks that will run easily across the mandoline. Using the hand guard, cut the kohlrabi into julienne slices. Add to a bowl large enough for the slaw to be tossed and served.

Remove the largest stems from the coriander and roughly chop. Top and tail the spring onions and cut into thin slices. Add the coriander and the spring onions to the kohlrabi.

Deseed the chilli (depending on heat and tolerance) and finely chop. Add to slaw.

Season to taste with lime and salt and mix well. Allow a few minutes for the flavours to combine before serving.

Jerk chicken

2012-07-01T10:44:00.000+00:00

While Brixton, the neighbourhood in which I’ve lived for 7 of the last 10 years, is home to Poles, Columbians, Portuguese and Anglophone Africans, its largest minority, and certainly its most prominent one—in both historic and culinary terms—is from the English-speaking Caribbean—the West Indies, Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica. The main square is named for the Windrush, the boat that brought Jamaicans to British shores in 1948. (The new arrivals were sent to temporary homes set up on Clapham Common, and came to nearby Brixton to utilise the Labour Exchange.) Dozens of green grocers and corner shops sell the staple ingredients of Caribbean food: scotch bonnet chillies, thyme, pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, coconut milk, curry powders and rice, while fishmongers have tall piles of red snapper and other tropical varietals and the butchers do a good trade in mutton and slow-cook cuts. There are some modest take-away joints, selling chicken stews, rice and beans and such unpromisingly named dishes as mannish water and hard food, and on dry, mild days, charcoal-filled oil drums let off a fug of jerk chicken-scented smoke.

Yet despite this proximity and abundance, we very rarely cook or eat any Caribbean food, nor, if I’m perfectly honest, have we expressed particular curiosity about learning more about its ingredients, variations found from island to island or which Brixton joints serve up the best versions of classic dishes. I don’t expect that this is all about to change, but some conversations with the owner of a new Brixton joint, Brian Danclair, about what he finds exciting about the food of the islands, prompted us to see what we could do, sans oil drum, to make a credible jerk chicken.

We picked up some pale ales from Market Row Wines (less authentic than Red Stripe, but arguably tastier too), chicken wings from the farmers’ market and got to work on the marinade. The next evening, we made coconut rice dotted with a mix of gungo peas, black eyed peas and kidney beans, sautéed some greens and put the chicken under the grill until it was well-browned and reasonably crispy. The result? Complex, spicy and a lot of fun to eat, all for very little cooking or shopping effort.

Next up? Brown stew chicken or, should Ginger Pig get back its supply of cubed goat, curry goat.

Jerk Chicken

Adapted from Food Stories

Total time: 25 hours; Active time: 30 minutes

Serves 3-4

Special equipment: plastic gloves; food processor

If you have a proper barbeque, by all means use it, referring to Food Stories or another good source for guidance. I relied on the grill in my oven, starting on a lowish temperature (say 150C), with the rack half-way down to get the meat cooking through, then raising both the rack and the temperature to get the skin crisp, and to encourage caramelisation. Particularly with larger cuts of chicken, you could also try roasting, then finishing off under the grill.

1 kg chicken thighs or meaty wings

4 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon thyme leaves

5-6 spring onions

3 scotch bonnet chillies

100g dark packed brown sugar

1.5 tablespoons allspice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Juice of 2 large limes

1 tsp salt

Black pepper

Rinse the chicken, pat dry and place in a large Ziploc bag. Peel and roughly chop the garlic cloves. Strip the thyme from its branches. Cut the spring onions into large pieces, removing the bottom core. Place these in the food processor.

Wearing plastic gloves, cut open the scotch bonnets and remove seeds. Place the chillies in the food processor. Add the sugar, spices, lime, salt and pepper. Mix to a smooth paste, scraping down sides as necessary. Pour into the bag with the chicken, seal and shake well to coat.

Refrigerate for 24 hours.

When you’re ready to cook, allow the meat to come to room temperature. If using a grill, preheat to 150C and remove the rack.

Shake or brush off the excess marinade from the chicken and place on foil or a foil-lined tray on the rack. Position the chicken in the middle of the oven and grill gently for about 10 minutes, until the chicken is somewhat cooked and the skin beginning to turn colour. Over the following 10-12 minutes, raise the temperature and rack height to finish. Good caramelisation is desirable, but watch carefully as the sugar in the marinade will make it susceptible to burning. Check that the juices run clear before removing.

Serve immediately with rice or rice and beans, and sautéed greens. Leftovers can be stripped from the bone and served cold.

Salads for hot or cold

2012-06-03T11:59:00.000+00:00

Last weekend, the lawn in front of our building was full of people sunbathing, and the air smelled smoky from all the barbeques being lit. Today, the brave souls heading out to see the Queen’s River Pageant will have sweaters, umbrellas and, if they’re clever, flasks of hot tea.

English springs are usually variable, but this one has been more so than most: March temperatures in the high 20s, followed by the announcement of a drought and hosepipe ban and the wettest April in several hundred years. The last few weeks have featured elements of both. The plants are evidently confused too, with the first spring crops arriving weeks ahead of schedule, while others, like the asparagus, delayed and diminished by the endless wet.

Luckily, new-season potatoes and carrots seem to be readily available. They are the main ingredients in these salads, which are just as good hanging around in the sun at picnics as they are indoor alongside roast lamb or chicken or as part of a table of mezze.

Potatoes with cumin, caraway and harissa

Adapted from Moro 3

Serves 4

Active time: 15-20 minutes; Total time: 30 minutes

Special equipment: mortar and pestle

1 kg salad (waxy) potatoes

2 spring onions

1 small bunch coriander and/or parsley

½ garlic clove

½ tsp salt

½ tsp cumin seeds

¾ tsp caraway seeds

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp harissa

4 tbsp olive oil

Scrub the potatoes and cut into large bite-sized pieces. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and add the potatoes. Boil until tender, around 12-15 minutes.

While the potatoes boil, prep the other ingredients and dressing. Slice the spring onions and set aside. Pick leaves off coriander or parsley and chop. Peel the garlic and pound in the mortar and pestle. Add salt and spices and continue to turn into a paste. Finish by adding lemon juice, harissa and olive oil and adjusting seasoning to taste.

Drain the potatoes well and place in large serving bowl. Toss well with dressing and set aside until cooled slightly. Add spring onion and herbs before serving either warm or at room temperature.

Grated carrots with Turkish seasonings

Serves 4

Active time: 20 minutes; Total time: 20 minutes

½ kg young, tasty carrots

4-5 spring onions

Small handful ready-to-eat sultanas

Turkish pepper flakes to taste

Dried mint to taste

Salt

Juice of at least 1 lemon

2-3 tbsp olive oil

Coarsely grate the carrots with either a box grater or a food processor and place in a large bowl. Slice the spring onions and add, followed by the sultanas. Mix well to combine.

Season to taste with the pepper flakes, dried mint, salt, lemon and olive oil. The carrots will leach a bit of liquid when they sit, so it doesn’t need to be too wet. The mint is there to add a bit of freshness, the salt and lemon to counteract the sweetness of the carrots and sultanas, and the pepper flakes to bring complexity.

Keralan food at Thattukada, East Ham

2012-05-07T14:53:00.000+00:00

Another recent trip to outer edges of the Tube map took me to East Ham, home to one of London’s largest South Indian populations. (The other is in Wembley.) With a branch of the State of India bank, a large Bollywood cinema and a number of Hindu temples, even the non-food offerings on the high street were enough to make me feel like I had gone much further than to the edge of Zone 4.

As for the food, one could dine well without ever sitting down, grazing the stands on High Street North and nearby Green Street for chaat (combinations of potatoes, chickpeas and small hollow biscuits layered with texture-adding crisped rice or fried vermicelli made of gram flour, herbs, yogurt, spices and tamarind chutney), sweets, lentil or rice-flour steamed dumplings (vada) and what are likely far superior versions of standards snacks like pakoras and samosas. (Some particular recommendations can be found here and here.) And while the grocery stores and veg stands tend to be a bit smaller and less visually impressive than their counterparts in Tooting or Southall, they seemed to be well-stocked.

I had made the trip, however, with a very particular destination in mind: Thattukada, a small Keralan restaurant known for its thalis and fish dishes. When I arrived, the front room was filled with thirty or more women celebrating a birthday or reunion. Some women had ordered dosas, but there were also banana leaves being unfurled and waiters circulating with pots of rice, curry and dhal. I was escorted into an alcove otherwise occupied by men having a hurried lunch of idly (steamed rice cakes), chutneys and sambal.

Service was confused and confusing, but there was plenty to watch, particularly as the women began to get up to take photos, revealing jewel-coloured saris and lots of bangles. Rice arrived after a time, plumper than basmati and tinged rust red at the edges—apparently a Keralan varietal. Some minutes later, a mustard-coloured dhal, mild up front with a tickle of chilli at the back, was ladled out onto the banana leaf. A warm salad of green cabbage and shreds of toasted coconut followed, along with pakora-like clusters of what I later learned was karela, or bitter melon. This assemblage, elements of which were refilled several times over, would already have been enough for a sizeable, and very good, meal, but more followed: a dry curry of a vegetable resembling okra (sahjan or drumsticks), with a slightly stringy texture, and several wet, yogurt-based ones, possibly including green bananas. There were poppadums as well, and a sharp, sour chutney. A tiny banana arrived, which seemed to signal the end of the meal, even though the fish curry had not yet arrived. The latter did eventually make an appearance, though, and it was splendid—hot, sour, creamy with coconut and full of meaty flavours from the oily, tuna-like fish.

I left perplexed but happily full, having spent just over £5 (fish thali and chai) . A follow-up visit seems in order soon. On my list to try: netholi, an anchovy-like fish deep fried and served with onions and curry leaves and spice paste-rubbed fish roasted in banana leaf.

Thattukada now has two restaurants on High Street North. The menus are the same, but the one at 229 is intended to be more family-friendly and does not serve or allow alcohol, while the original at number 241b is licensed. Both branches are open daily for lunch and dinner. Their number is 0203 6024 303.

Turkish flatbreads and a trip to Green Lanes

2012-04-06T17:50:00.009+00:00

Much as marathoners carbo-load before the big race, I like to ensure that the meals before Passover contain enough bread products to see me through the next 8 days. Wednesday night there was homemade pizza, slathered with ricotta and wild garlic. Thursday, with a day off work, I made a much-anticipated trip to Green Lanes, a neighbourhood in Northeast London which is home to a large Turkish and Kurdish population, knowing that I’d find lots of things there that would soon be off-limits.

I began with a lahmacun, a thin, lamb-topped flatbread. One of the most popular restaurants on the strip, Antepliler, has expanded its operations to several other storefronts, one featuring casseroles and breads from an enormous open oven. Here, the young usta, or oven-master, rolled out a round of dough slightly thicker than a pita, then smeared it with a few tablespoons of a highly-seasoned minced lamb and garlic mixture. This was pushed into the oven on a long pole, from which it emerged several minutes later blistered but still pliable, to be topped with a salad of rocket, grated carrots and herbs and rolled up in a piece of paper. Not a bad (light) lunch for £1.50.

I ate it while inspecting the window display at a baklava shop, then headed several blocks north to Yasar Halim, a large, long-established bakery with well upwards of 100 varieties of cakes, cookies, breads and filled and topped sweet and savoury pastries. Amongst those I could recognise were tahinli, coils of sweet , yeasted dough layered with sesame paste, something I last had on a Golden Horn ferry ride and pide, canoe-shaped flatbreads topped with cheese and slices of beef sausage (sujuk). (The photo here is of a particularly good egg and lamb version which I had in Istanbul.) I came away with a spicy spinach pastry and a sweet one filled with pistachios and clotted cream—snacks for the late afternoon train ride up to Liverpool.

And to finish off, back to the Antepilier franchise for a bowl of spicy lamb and rice broth, served with a basket of warm, dimpled bread, crispy at the corners from a flash under the charcoal grill. I’ll be back soon for more breads, and photos, hopefully including the women who sit at the front of many of the restaurants making gözleme, almost like savoury crepes cooked on a concave griddle, with fillings of spinach, cheese, eggs and grated potatoes.

For now, though, it’s matzah time.

Antepliler

46 Green Lanes London N4

(020) 8802 5588

Tube: Manor House

Yasar Halim

495 Green Lanes

London N4 1AL

Tube: Manor House

Wine shop comes to Brixton

2012-03-23T04:14:00.002+00:00

For as long as I can remember, the only places to buy wine in Brixton have been the supermarkets and off-licenses more accustomed to selling cheap vodka and malt liquor. The House of Bottles has historically been better than some, particularly when it had for a few months some merchandise that bore a striking resemblance to the stock sold by Virgin Wines. But its staff was still not sure to do with well-dressed friends of ours who, on the way to supper at our apartment, stopped in and asked the bemused sales clerk if he could recommend a nice chardonnay.

But now, after many years, a wine shop is coming to Brixton. The storefront is inside the main Brixton market (the one with Franco Manca and Wild Caper), further down that aisle in the direction of the Atlantic Road entrance. There’s not much inside yet except a few (fancy) wine crates and a sign proclaiming the imminent arrival of an independent wine merchant selling interesting parcels. The window sports an alcohol license application, with objections due in by early April.

After my little jig of delight, I’ve started to wonder whether local custom can sustain a (hopefully) gently-priced, but not completely mainstream, offering. There’s also the all-important question of whether our neighbours—and indeed the owner—like the same sort of wine that we do. Here’s hoping for lots of stinky reds, with southern France well represented, and whites with a passing familiarity at most with the inside of an oak barrel.

Any wariness aside, this could be a very good thing.

March odds and ends

2012-03-18T12:02:00.006+00:00

Today’s lunch was spaetzle with wild garlic pesto. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few garlic leaves find their way into tomorrow morning’s scrambled eggs, while on Monday they’ll be the finishing touch to a soup/stew made with some leftovers from tonight’s roast chicken. I’m hoping that over the next few weeks they’ll also be a play on a watercress-potato soup and lots of leaves to be mixed with soft, spreadable goats cheese. And if the spring lamb prices don’t get too silly, that pesto would be great alongside some chops.

Planning for this summer’s vegetable and herb garden has resulted in a (too) long list of things I’d like to grow—tomatoes again, more of all the usual herbs, plus maybe chervil, lettuces, peas, broad beans and courgettes. I’m toying with the idea of a cold frame or mini greenhouse (really more of an outside bookcase with a heavy plastic cover) that would allow me to start seedlings somewhere other than the bedroom floor and perhaps concentrate light and speed up growth enough to make it worth attempting some larger tomato varieties.

I’ve been rereading Julian Barnes’ Pedant in the Kitchen this week. It’s probably an unusual way into the work of a Booker Prize-winning author, but I’ve again enjoyed the wit and lightness of touch with both literary references and anecdotes. Plus it’s reminded me that I really should try to cook from Elizabeth David.

It seems that Franco Manca is offering pizza master classes on the first Thursday of every month. I assume this doesn’t include lessons on how to build a pizza oven.

Also in Brixton, the Heritage Deli has opened in Granville Arcade. The Canadian, Italian and Greek and Maltese by way of the Antipodes crew are serving up artisanal salume and all sorts of savoury pies. I’m partial to the feta and pumpkin combination, as well as any of the spicy ones, as they use some of the excellent red pepper flakes I brought back from Turkey last month (exchanged for some very tasty filled pizza with mushroom and truffle oil and a little crimped pie of rabbit and peas).

We cooked goat, which was nothing like mutton (far leaner and gentler in flavour) and absolutely delicious. (The Ginger Pig is occasionally bringing it over from France along with some poulet noir and other birds. It’s claimed that lots of what’s sold in this country as goat is actually hogget or mutton.) Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Easy yielded up a dish of Pakistani origin which was rich with (homemade) garam masala, cinnamon and cardamom and fantastically succulent after 3-4 hours of gentle cooking.

Turkish beans + a recipe

2012-03-11T10:40:00.006+00:00

Like the English caff, the Turkish esnaf lokantasi (tradesmens’ restaurant) is usually a daytime-only operation where lots of tea is served. For both, the core custom is local, male and looking to get some hot food without spending a bundle. But where the former might top out at a decent plate of egg and chips, many esnaf lokantasi feature up to a dozen or more home-cooked dishes: meat stews, stuffed vegetables, slow-cooked beans and homely desserts like rice pudding. This is meant to be cooking like Turkish mothers do, some recompense for spending the day in a shop or office

Ali Baba Kanaat Lokantasi’s location directly across from the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul’s Fatih district attracts some tourists, though most don’t make it past the large terrace. Inside, it’s all late ‘30s vintage (bar the steam table and the fountain serving aryan, salty drinking yogurt) with pride of place given over to the fasulye (bean pot). The beans, small and white, are cooked to a recipe from Erzican in the south—distinctively spicier, with more tomato and less meaty, buttery overtones (though some butter and lamb fat or stock definitely make their way into the pot) than those popular further north, along the Black Sea. It was recommended that I order the beans with pilau and cacik, the yogurt-cucumber mixture that can range from pourable to clotted cream-like. The pilau, dotted with pine nuts, was gently savoury, and the cacik was super-thick, a soft, sour counterpoint to the heat and richness of the beans.

Though I tend to cook from recipes rather than taste memories, my first try at recreating the beans I had at Ali Baba Kanaat Lokantasi was nonetheless a success. I made the sauce thicker, as they were intended to sit alongside lamb chops rather than on rice. And while the exclusion of lamb fat and butter was not authentic, the resulting beans were hardly abstemious.

Fasulye in the style of Ali Baba Kanaat Lokantasi

I happened to have two ingredients for this dish which might not be readily available: semi-dried white beans, podded last summer and stored in the freezer, and an open jar of a Spanish/Portuguese sofrito-like sauce called tomate frito. For the former, the best substitute would be small, dried white beans, pre-soaked overnight and, depending on age and variety, cooked for a bit longer. Any good-quality brand of chopped, tinned tomato can be substituted for the tomate frito.

Like any chilli products, Turkish red pepper flakes vary in flavour profile and heat. I think this dish should have a good prickle of chilli, but not more. I’m not sure the bay leaves are authentic, but they marry very well with most bean and tomato dishes.

The beans are initially cooked separately in order to ensure they soften properly, something which can be retarded by the acid in tomatoes.

Serves 2
Total time (excluding soaking): 90 minutes; Active time: 15 minutes

1 ½ cups semi-dried OR 1 cup dried white beans, pre-soaked if required
Olive oil
1 medium onion
Tomato paste
150 ml tomato frito OR ½ can tinned tomatoes
Turkish red pepper flakes (aci biber)
2-3 fresh bay leaves (ideally fresh)
1-2 cloves garlic
Small bunch parsley
Salt and pepper

Put the beans in a saucepan, cover amply with water and bring to a boil.

In another saucepan of a similar size, heat a thin film of oil on a medium heat. Chop the onion finely and add. Season with salt and pepper. Lower heat and sauté gently, until onion is fully soft and beginning to taste sweet. Squeeze in a few inches of tomato paste and cook for 3-4 more minutes.

When the beans reach a boil, turn down to a simmer and cover. Cook until soft but not falling apart. (In the case of semi-dried cannellini or lingot beans, this should be about 45 minutes.

Add the tomato to the onion. Refill the tomato jar/can to the same level with water and add to the pot, along with a good pinch of the red pepper flakes and the bay leaves. Chop the garlic and half the parsley and add. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook on a gentle heat until thick and integrated, 30-45 minutes.

When the beans are ready, drain, reserving some of the cooking water, and add to the sauce. Adjust seasoning and add a bit of the reserved water if the sauce is too claggy. Cook for a further 15-20 minutes to allow the flavours to fully combine.

Just before serving, chop the remaining parsley and add. Finish with another pinch of pepper flakes.

Simit

2012-02-26T10:55:00.008+00:00

Simit are to Istanbul what bagels are to New York City—the individually-portioned, ring-shaped breads not just an anytime staple, but an iconic part of what it means to be an inhabitant of that city, the object of habit, preference and memory.

Simit are made with a yeasted dough which is allowed to rise, then shaped into narrow rings. Following the second rise, the breads are dipped into water mixed with a bit of molasses (pekmez), then fully coated with sesame breads before being baked in a hot oven. The resultant breads tend to have a well-browned crust with a bit of resistance, giving way to a slightly sweet, soft yet chewy dough.

Just as with bagels, simit are not really made by home bakers. They are sold by bakeries and at a few new simit-specific chains. Most people, however, tend to buy them from one of the hundreds of carts located across the city. While the cart operators obtain a license to operate in a fixed location, there are also still some itinerant vendors, mostly in markets and some older neighbourhoods, who sell the breads from a tray balanced on their heads. Prices, while no longer government-subsidized, are fixed for both wholesale and retail; the maximum price which can be charged to a customer is 1 TL, or about 35p.

Like most breads, simit are at their best when fresh. While the carts have unmistakable charm and convenience, bakeries present the obvious advantage of happening upon a just-baked batch. Beyond that, some prefer their simit a bit sweeter (likely a product of more molasses in the dipping water), with a harder crust, or with slightly saltier dough.

Simit vendors keep a box of processed cheese triangles (like Laughing Cow) for those customers who believe that the first meal of the day must contain a bit of cheese. The new chains use them, much like bagels, as the basis for filled sandwiches, while cafes serving breakfast platters of cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, olives and cucumbers often throw a few segments into the bread basket.

It was snowing on my last morning in Istanbul. The local simit vendor was standing inside the vestibule of a nearby bank to keep warm, but dashed out when he saw me. That simit may not have reached the acme of ideal texture or flavour, but it’s the one I remember best.

Morito

2012-02-19T15:51:00.003+00:00

A brief respite in the Istanbul-induced reveries to report on a fantastic meal much closer to home.

Tickets to see the flamenco virtuoso Carmen Cortes at Sadlers Wells put us just a few blocks away from Morito, the tapas bar opened by Sam and Sam Clarke of Moro fame. By barrelling down the stairs at the end of the performance, we managed to arrive just in time to secure two seats at the bar.

Located on the ever-gentrifying Exmouth Market (where I noted, however, that the tattoo parlour and pie and eel shop seem to be just hanging on), Morito is carved out of what was once a Spanish deli, Brindisa. It’s a tight squeeze, maybe 35 covers, with a fair amount of jostling and rearranging required for servers to get through. The benefit to this, though, is that it’s very easy to see dishes as they come out of the open kitchen. Those sitting at the bar can practically reach over and help themselves.

The menu mixes tapas standards—pimientos de padron, tortilla, salt cod croquetas—with an unusually wide selection of vegetable-driven options and some North African and Eastern Mediterranean selections. This more or less mirrored my expectations, the mother-ship having widened its reach in recent years to take in ingredients like pomegranate molasses, freekah and harissa, while retaining a focus on Spanish flavours and seasonal produce.

Our order came quickly, and we consumed it nearly as fast. The tortilla was textbook standard, creamily-textured, with yielding bits of potatoes and some slippery peppers. Salt cod croquetas with aioli also contained no surprises, but were completely without fault. Fried artichokes gave another chance to eat more delicious aioli, while the combination of smoked paprika and perfect frying made the vegetables utterly moreish.

Cauliflower was sautéed with pine nuts, raisins and a good pinch of saffron, melting on the interior and crispy-crunchy outside. A Turkish salad combined super-fresh tomato, cucumber and herbs with a slick of excellent yogurt. But the best dish—the one that has you asking the waiter how on earth they made it, and vowing to return post-haste—was simply described on the menu as “spiced lamb, aubergine, yogurt and pine nuts.” What it turned out to be was a sublimely rich and smoky baba ganoush-type dip, made creamy with yogurt, topped with shreds of lamb shank that had been slowly braised, then stripped off the bone and sizzled with warm spices and what the waiter described as “lots of butter.”

We scraped the plate with two types of bread, chunks of the excellent sourdough from Moro’s wood-fired oven, and char-edged flatbreads with the slightest bits of orange flower water. To wash it all down we had a very drinkable, crisp white, at £16 one of the best-priced bottles of restaurant wine I’ve seen in London for a long time.

Service follows the Moro model, informal but switched-on, and both knowledgeable and passionate about what’s coming out of the kitchen.

This may not be a place to linger, but it was warm and welcoming, with uniformly delicious and interesting food and very fair prices. It’s hard to think of many places which can match, much less improve, on that combination. And even with far fewer virtues, it would be worth going just for that lamb dish.

32 Exmouth Market

London EC1R 4QE

Tube: Angel or Farringdon

Open noon-11 pm Monday-Saturday; noon-4 pm Sundays

Bookings for lunch only.

Istanbul

2012-02-12T16:23:00.008+00:00

I arrived back from my trip to Istanbul less than 72 hours ago. Already, there’s only one piece of the sublime pistachio baklava left—supremely buttery but not overly sweet. The chewy, almond-orange biscuits from a sepia-toned bakery in the Besitkas neighbourhood are gone completely, and we’ve made considerable inroads into the pistachio-sesame halvah, bought from a shop that’s been in the same family for nearly 150 years. For folks who claim not to have much of a sweet tooth, that’s an awful lot of sugar.

In between, I’ve been cooking up some savoury dishes with my new stocks of grains and spices. Last night, we began with a winter salad of bulgur, celery, walnuts and pomegranate from the Moro 3 cookbook. Our main course was minced lamb kebabs, seasoned with fruity-hot red pepper flakes (aci biber), dried mint and oregano and garlic, and served with flatbread and a salad of onions, parsley and sumac.

For breakfast this morning, we used the rest of flatbread to scoop up a take on the Turkish scrambled egg and pepper dish, menemen. Lunch was somewhat more ambitious, a spinach and cheese borek, or savoury pastry. Some compromises were necessary: we used Greek filo pastry (the slightly thicker Turkish yufka only being available in a few North London shops), and a mix of feta and ricotta in place of Turkish white cheeses. The filling was made savoury with sautéed onions, to which I also added some more of the aci biber and dried mint. In a change from the Greek versions I’ve had, the remaining yogurt-oil-egg mixture used to moisten the pastry sheets was poured over the assembled dish, softening the crust but becoming almost soufflé-like in the oven.

I have plans for pilaus, other types of kebabs and lots more salads and dips, as well as most anything which will make good use of my ample dried mint supply. And as soon as I get my notes and photos in order, I’ll have plenty more ingredients, vendors and dishes to write about.

For now, though, my ambitions centre on that last piece of baklava.

January highlights

2012-01-28T17:36:00.009+00:00

Holiday

For the last few days, I’ve been wholly absorbed in planning for a forthcoming five-day trip to Istanbul. I imagine I’ll make it to the Hagia Sofia and Topkapi Palace, but what I’m really excited about is the food. I’ve even joined Twitter in order to survey expert opinion on the best place for manti, a lamb tortellini of sorts, served in yogurt sauce.

Winter fruit at Maltby Street

Tony Booth’s decision to move his eponymous fruit and veg shop from Borough Market to Maltby Street has added at least 30 minutes to my Saturday morning shopping routine. But damn it if the man doesn’t make it worth it every time. This week there was beautiful Yorkshire forced rhubarb, just over half the price of his Borough competitors. Oranges with flesh the colour of pink grapefruits were 5 for a pound, the Sicilian sanguinello not much more.

Chinese New Year

We celebrated the Lunar New Year last weekend with G’s brother and sister-in-law. There were 14 guests and nearly as many dishes, ranging from wasabi mayo-topped smoked salmon in filo cups to sweet-spicy chicken wings and homemade black sesame ice cream. Little was left of the pomelo salad, but S mixed us up another batch of the tangy, coconuty dressing. (It made an excellent supper when we returned to London, stirred through strips of grilled chicken breast, shredded Savoy cabbage and rice noodles.) And while she claimed that that the turnip cake, apparently an epic labour, was not up to her mother’s standards, chunks of it scrambled with eggs and spring onions at breakfast the next morning was good enough to bring back memories of a similar dish from our Penang food crawl.

Alice Medrich’s cocoa brownies

Had I known that two professional chefs would be attending the gumbo evening for which these were baked, I probably would have tried to find a way out of my hastily-made promise to bring dessert. But not only did these super-moist, fudgy brownies garner praise from all assembled, but I was able to make them in one bowl with the most basic of ingredients and at least half my attention on an unusually good television documentary. Job done.

Stichelton

2012-01-15T10:27:00.006+00:00

It’s not quite as much a seasonal product as turkey, 90% of the annual national consumption of which is said to take place on Christmas day, but the holidays are also high season for the East Midlands producers of Stilton.

I had the opportunity to taste Stilton from one of the remaining artisanal producers, the 99-year old Colston Bassett Dairy, a few weeks back. It was mellow but deeply-flavoured, creamy-textured but not cloying—in every way a great cheese. But it was edged, as I’ve found to be the case on a number of head-to-head tastings, by an upstart from just down the road called Stichelton.

Stichelton is simply raw-milk Stilton, produced, bar a bit of technology, as this very old English cheese had been made for centuries before a listeria scare in 1989 led to mandatory pasteurisation. It’s said to have come out of a conversation at a Borough Market pub between Randall Hodgson, owner of Neals Yard Dairy and long-time champion of English artisanal cheese producers, and an American cheesemaker, Joe Schneider. They tracked down an ‘80s-era culture and convinced owners of a Holstein farm to partner with them with their quest to recreate the complex creaminess and sweetness of pre-pasteurisation Stilton.

To achieve this, Hodgson and Schneider have reintroduced traditional flavour-deepening methods, including the use of only minimal amounts of starter and rennet, hand-ladling the curds and allowing yeasts and bacteria to form a natural rind. The resulting cheese can’t be called Stilton, as EU regulations now prescribe both counties of production (Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire) and the use of pasteurised milk. (It takes its name instead from that given to Stilton village in the medieval Domesday Book.) And with far smaller production capacity, it can’t aspire to capture more than a tiny segment of even the top-end Stilton market. But it’s a real treat for those who are able to try it.

Stilcheton devotees describe the cheese as having a gentle nuttiness on both the nose and palate. The blueing is moderate and integrated, and the texture lush without becoming sloppy. I find it to be both quite savoury, almost meaty, and moreishly sweet. The finish can be fantastically long.

In London, Stilchelton can be bought at Neals Yard Dairy, La Fromagerie, the cheese counters at Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason, and several other independent shops. You can follow the cheesemakers on http://twitter.com/sticheltondairy.

Radicchio, fennel and orange salad

2011-12-29T16:27:00.004+00:00

With each passing year, bitter flavours are featuring more prominently on our table: strong black coffee and marmalade on a weekend morning, Campari or gin and tonic to begin a leisurely dinner and endive or radicchio salads to sharpen the palate. Endive tends to feature when we have French meals, tossed with a mustardy walnut oil dressing and, on occasion, some toasted nuts, pears and blue cheese. Radicchio usually gets an even simpler treatment—just a sprinkle of good balsamic vinegar and a smaller one of Maldon salt.

This fall I tried growing radicchio from seeds given to me by an Italian colleague. The resulting leaves, while speckled with maroon streaks and tasting agreeing bitter, in no other way resemble either of the main varieties (one round and crinkly, the other with long, stiff leaves) available locally.

Unable to harvest enough leaves to serve friends coming for Sunday night pizza supper, we bought some particularly handsome radicchio di Treviso at a local greengrocers. The plump, unblemished fennel bulbs also on display gave us the idea to adapt a southern Italian recipe for fennel, orange and olive salad, using the radicchio both as a colourful base and to add bitterness. Laid out on a large white platter, the salad looked festive and elegant, so much so that our photographer friend snapped this quick shot with her iPhone.

Pizza will still be appearing through the abstemious month of January. But in the interests of continuing to fit into the new clothes I just bought in the States, large helpings of this salad will be as well.

Radicchio, fennel and orange salad

1 medium-sized radicchio, any variety

1 large fennel bulb

1 large orange

Lemon

Olive oil

Salt

Chives

Tear or slice the radicchio and arrange on a platter. Remove the core from the fennel and slice into thin moon-shaped pieces. Remove the peel, pith and interior membranes from the orange (preferably allowing any juice to drip onto the salad) and chop into small segments.

Place both the fennel and orange onto the radicchio bed. Dress with lemon juice and olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Chop or snip chives on top and serve.

Best of 2011

2011-12-18T12:20:00.009+00:00

Ingredients of the year: corn tortillas and kalamansi limes

Tacos have made it into the bi-weekly dinner repertoire. Fillings vary: there has occasionally been spiced-up leftover brisket or shoulder of lamb, more often some beans. A cabbage salad is a new and popular addition to the table. Whatever the individual components, this is always fun to eat, its quality underpinned by proper tacos (ordinarily from here, though there are some being made in Brixton now too).

Amongst the many foolish things that the European Commission has done is to forbid the importation of these limes, far more intense and aromatic than anything I’ve come across. Bottled concentrates bring back at least some memory of drinking sweet-sour lime sodas across Malaysia, but I remain on the lookout for contraband.

Method: curing

When I lived in France, I would have no more made confit de canard from scratch than I would have baked my own croissants. But measured by an input-output ratio, this delivers an astonishing amount for very little effort: one pan, about 15 minutes of active time and a bonus jar of duck fat at the end.

Most exciting Brixton opening: Lab G

Our local maestro di gelato is a generous soul, a creative genius and a perfectionist, particularly when it comes to his exceptional pistachio and salted caramel flavours. This is the place we take people when we want them to appreciate just how astonishing the Brixton food scene is.

Best meal (London): Pied á Terre

I was lucky enough to eat at this Michelin 2-star twice in 2011. The food was beautiful to look at, and the kitchen is creative while still turning out plates that are hugely enjoyable to eat. The service was a surprise too: well-informed, generous and far from starchy. At lunchtime, it's not even shockingly expensive.

Best meal (everywhere else): Tek Sen

One of the few disappointing moments of our trip to Penang was finding this restaurant closed (some kind of temple festival) when we tried to make a return visit. This was revelatory food: astonishingly fresh yet amazingly complex in flavour. If there’s a single reason why we’re cooking and eating so much more Asian food now, it must lie in the effort to recapture what was on those plates.

Most-used cookbook: Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Easy

We had this out from the library on and off for the last 6 months; our permanent copy should be arriving in time for the beginning of Hanukkah. It’s yielded crispy, spicy chickpeas which are perfect with a G&T, our first proper dhal and introduced us to curry leaves. But the biggest game changer has been making our own chapattis, far simpler and tastier than I would have imagined possible.

Most enjoyable food shop: A & C Co Continental Grocers

I’m spending more time in the local Asian grocery these days, and I still make a trip to Borough Market most weekends. But this is the place that I stop into nearly 6 days a week, whether for some olives or nuts to start off dinner, to top-up store cupboard basics or for the things that no one else sells locally, like quinces or fresh bay leaves. These are the people who’ve held onto my extra keys, make me laugh at the end of a rotten day and are eager to have taste me the new cheese that’s just come in. I don’t think most people have a shop like this; I’m very lucky that I do.

Best experiment: growing tomatoes

Flowers and shrubbery may still hold very limited interest, but I’m now beginning to understand why people like to garden. I’m not sure that in the midst of the root rot saga of August and September, or when I was hauling home 40 litres of potting soil on the bus, that I wholly appreciated how satisfying it could be to grow my own food. But it gave me occasion to talk to my neighbours, and was a far better use of time than more Internet surfing. And I learned that even basic cherry tomatoes taste great when picked as the table is being set for dinner.

Black beans, eggs and salsa

2011-12-04T19:41:00.009+00:00

Along with a whole range of dishes which used multiple parts of a pig, the 90s-era Cuban diners on the Upper Upper West Side of Manhattan did potent cafes con leche and plates of scrambled eggs and black beans which were big enough to make the next meal redundant. As well as being exotic and cheap, I was told by those with experience of such things that food like this was also very good for hangovers.

For the bright young things of Brixton, who seem to suffer with the same affliction on weekend mornings, the neighbourhood’s multiple Columbian cafes—which do a comparable line in vast servings of assorted meats, eggs and beans, washed down with lots of caffeine—appear to fill a useful niche. But even for those of us whose closest experience of a late-night party is the one that takes place far too often in the apartment upstairs, beans and eggs—minus the mixed meats—is also a popular weekend meal, easy, tasty and admirably inexpensive.

Canned black beans, a rare commodity in much of the country, can be bought in any of the dozens of the small Caribbean grocers nearby. Cooked down with onion, garlic, cumin, fresh coriander and a spoonful of chipotle en adobo (still not locally available; Brixton’s Latino population is probably the largest in inner London, but it’s largely Ecuadoran, Columbian and Venezuelan rather than Mexican), they make a fudgy, mellow partner for eggs of any variety. We’ve scrambled the eggs and used the two to fill leftover corn tortillas. Though my own fried eggs are variable at best, I think that a well-made one plopped on the beans provides nice textural contrast.

Today we played with an idea from another egg dish, shakshouka, where eggs are part-poached, part-baked in a thick sauce of tomato and pepper. We cooked the beans in a wide frying pan, leaving a bit of liquid, then made indentations for the eggs. The pan was covered, and the eggs left to half-set. We finished it all with a quick grilled salsa, made from some cherry tomatoes that improbably appeared at the farmer’s market. The result was somehow far better than the sum of its (simple) parts—and far too good for those neighbours.

No formal recipe needed, but a few notes:

I’ve found that cooking the beans on a low heat in a frying pan—rather than a saucepan—allows them to soften slightly without turning into mush. I use a good splash of water and simmer them for 10-20 minutes.
Toasting and grinding whole cumin seeds may seem unnecessary in such a simple recipe, but it makes a real difference to the flavour.
A bay leaf makes a nice addition to the beans.
Orangette has a good grilled salsa recipe.

Somerset and Potato Gratin

2011-11-27T19:49:00.006+00:00

You know it’s going to be a good weekend when you’re met on arrival with hugs all around and a glass of your favourite champagne.

We were in North Somerset, 30 minutes or so out of Bristol, staying with G’s first year university roommate and his large and very welcoming family. The champagne—accompanied by a platter of blinis and salmon mousse—began an evening of copious food and wine, good conversation and a level of relaxation very rarely achieved on a Friday night.

The next day, having slept well under the watchful gaze of Justin Beiber (we had poached the seven year old’s room), we headed off on a country tromp. There was mud, stiles to climb over, lush green meadows and lots of sheep: all the things that the city folk expect out of a country walk. We ended up at a restaurant so seasonal, rustic and organic that the well-heeled, left-leaning readers of the Observer named it the UK’s best ethical restaurant. Other than its name, the Ethicurean, it wears its credentials lightly; the food did its setting ample credit.

Set in the conservatory of an old walled garden, much of the food is sourced on site or from nearby suppliers. The menu is small: terrines, salads, pies and platters of cheese and meat, served with local beers and ciders. Highlights included fantastically piquant chutneys and piccalilli (a traditional English vegetable pickle), off-dry Welsh cider and an Eccles cake, a flaky pastry filled with a warmly-spiced and not too sweet currant mixture.

After lunch, we ambled through the garden, where I discovered how Brussels sprouts grow, then into the orchard of dwarf apple trees. Home was through a series of corn fields, our progress hampered somewhat by our haul of mildly intoxicating beverages from the restaurant’s small shop.

We had been asked to cook dinner, a daunting task for a family that has eaten in serious restaurants and has shown us such exceptional generosity on many occasions. The opportunity to repay their hospitality was a welcome one, and the menu planning a massive highlight in an otherwise forgettable work week . We wanted the food to reflect how we like to eat, to demonstrate some effort, but not so much as to impinge on the relaxed atmosphere, and, most of all, to taste good.

We began with the Union Square Cafe’s bar nuts, buttery and warm, the sweetness offset by cayenne and rosemary. A simple salad followed: mustard-dressed leaves topped with blue cheese and walnuts. The main was duck confit; little more than some fresh herbs and a 24-hour run-up required. With that, we served gratin dauphinois and sautéed mushrooms. We finished with quince which we had poached in vanilla syrup until it was almost ruby-coloured, vanilla ice cream (not home-made) and sablé biscuits.

The duck and the quince are two of our favourite dishes at this time of year, while the nuts and salad have both made previous appearances. Sablé biscuits were a bit of a risk, as I’ve probably not baked more than a few batches of cookies since I was a kid. But it turns out, that with good butter, a reliable recipe, and some sea salt, there wasn’t much that could go wrong.

I had wavered on the gratin. Though the obvious accompaniment to the duck, my only experience was with eating it. But I should have known better than to doubt Julia Child. Her version—as adapted very slightly here--was hearty but not too rich, perfectly soft through the middle and appealingly crusty and bronzed on top. It may even be good enough to earn us some more invitations.

Gratin Dauphinois (Potato Gratin)

Adapted from Food 52 (who in turn adapted it from Julia Child)

Serves 6

Total time: 50 minutes: Active time: 20 minutes

Special equipment: mandolin or food processor with a slicing blade; shallow baking dish (about 9 inches long and 2 inches deep)

350 ml whole milk

2 garlic cloves

2 bay leaves (ideally fresh)

Butter

1 kg waxy potatoes

200 grams grated Gruyere

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C. Put the milk in a small saucepan. Peel and smash one of the garlic cloves. Add it to the pot along with the bay leaves. Heat the milk gently until it comes to a simmer. Remove from the heat and let steep.

Peel the second garlic clove, cut it in half and rub the cut side around the inside of the baking dish. Rub butter inside the dish.

Peel the potatoes and slice with a mandolin or similar implement. Layer about a third of the potatoes into the dish. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle a third of the cheese on top. Make two more layers in the same way.

Remove the garlic and bay from the milk and pour the milk over the potatoes. Bake the gratin for about 30 minutes, until it's browned and bubbly and a knife cuts through the potatoes easily. Let the potatoes cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Mussaman beef curry

2011-11-13T14:41:00.004+00:00

It’s always a pleasure when the first foray into a new cookbook completely vindicates its purchase. We had talked about buying Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey for a long time, but I had thrown up all sorts of objections: that the recipes wouldn’t be as good as the two from the book we had already tried online, that they would be too complicated to be made regularly, that we should buy cookbooks written by life-long experts in particular Asian cuisines, not a catch-all associated with a (admittedly hugely informative and enjoyable) TV show, that our cookbook shelf was already full.

We may need to impose a one-in, one-out policy, but on the basis of last night’s dinner alone, this book well deserves a spot on the shelf. After this summer, I was particularly excited about the chapters on Balinese and Malaysian food, and had already bookmarked recipes for the fish curry with okra and tomato that was a favourite in Penang, and the different satays which I ate across Bali. The main dish we ended up choosing, however, was a Thai classic: beef mussaman curry.

The preparation began with a method I’ve never come across before: an initial two hour cooking of the meat with just coconut milk, cinnamon bark and black cardamom, the last of which lent a smoky, almost funky aroma. The fattiness of the coconut milk kept the meat moist, while the liquid reduced and took on a nutty flavour and hue. With about 45 minutes to go, cubed potatoes, fish sauce, tamarind, palm sugar and a curry paste were added. Combining relatively mild heat with warm spices such as coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon and mace, pungency in the form of shrimp paste, and freshness from ginger and lemongrass, the paste’s unusual mix of ingredients is explained by the dish’s apparent roots in the spices brought to southern Thailand by Indian and Indonesian traders. (The traders would seem to have brought their religion as well, as southern Thailand has a large Muslim population.) Roasted peanuts were added before serving.

Served with rice and a deceptively simple but delicious cucumber, chilli, shallot and coconut salad, this was a truly astonishing plate of food, the flavours ricocheting from richness and sweetness to sourness and heat, and back again. Unlike a Western stew, it’s not something I could just throw together: the spice paste alone had 14 ingredients, requiring stops at a local Chinese supermarket and Indo-Caribbean shop, and the use of a pan, the mortar and pestle and the food processor. But even the resident dish washer agrees that a little extra work is worth it if the outcomes continue to be this good.

Thai mussaman beef curry

Adapted from Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey

Active time: 45 minutes-1 hour; Total time: 4 hours

Special equipment: mortar and pestle OR spice grinder and food processor

The curry paste recipe will make enough for a second, slightly smaller curry (using 600-650 grams of meat). The paste can be kept sealed in the refrigerator for several days or frozen.

Curry paste ingredients and method

10 dried kashmiri chillies (I used hotter dried Thai chillies and decreased the number used by at least 1/3)

20 cardamom pods

2 tbsp coriander seeds

2 tbsp cumin seeds

16 whole cloves

5 cm cinnamon stick (If you are using a mortar and pestle instead of a spice grinder, leave out and add extra to the curry instead.)

2 pieces mace blade

200g shallots or onion

3 tbsp vegetable oil

25g garlic (3-4 large cloves)

1 tsp shrimp paste

25g ginger (thumb-sized piece)

2 lemongrass stalks

8 tbsp coconut milk

Seed the chillies and remove the cardamom seeds from their pods. Heat a small, heavy frying pan over a moderate heat. Add the chillies and all the dried spices to the pan and turn until they begin to smell aromatic, 1-2 minutes. Pour into spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind to a fine powder.

Coarsely chop the onion or shallot. Heat the oil over a gentle heat in the same frying pan, add the onions and cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until fully softened and turning a dark golden, about 20 minutes. Add the shrimp paste and ground spices and fry for a few more minutes.Peel and roughly chop ginger. Remove tough outside pieces of lemongrass and cut into small chunks. Add these, along with the fried mixture, to the food processor. Pour in the coconut milk and process to a smooth paste.

Curry ingredients and method

850 grams beef stewing meat

400 ml (1 can) coconut milk

3 -4 black cardamom pods (replace with green if not available)

5-7 cm cinnamon stick

200 grams waxy new potatoes (use a bit more to feed an extra person)

2/3 quantity curry paste

1-1/2 tbsp fish sauce

2-3 tbsp tamarind concentrate

Scant 1 tbsp palm sugar

Handful roasted peanuts

Put the beef and just over half of the coconut milk in a heavy, lidded pan. Add the same amount of water, the cardamom, cinnamon and 1 tsp salt and bring to a simmer. Mostly cover and cook on a gentle heat for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, by which point the sauce will be thick and well-reduced and the meat almost tender.

Cut the potatoes into chunks. Add those, along with the remaining coconut milk, curry paste, fish sauce, tamarind and sugar, to the pot. Taste for sweet-sour balance, adjusting the last three ingredients as necessary.

Simmer uncovered on a gentle heat for another 30-45 minutes, or until the beef can be broken apart with a fork, the sauce is integrated and the potatoes tender. Check seasoning, add peanuts and serve, ideally with a clean, tangy relish on the side.

Coulommiers

2011-11-06T14:29:00.005+00:00

We’ve been eating mostly English cheeses recently, as the range and quality at our standard weekend shopping destinations (Borough and Maltby Street) are just fantastic. But a different itinerary yesterday brought me to La Fromagerie, probably the capital’s best source for perfectly-aged French cheeses. Somehow I managed to bring home only two: a small slab of St Nectaire that was escaping its rind but balanced mellow sweetness with a certain dirtiness, and a half of Coulommiers.

Even in Paris I didn’t often see Coulommiers, despite it being made in a town only 40 miles or so to the east. Here in London, I’ve found it only in a few high-end cheese shops. It may be that production is relatively small, or that it tends to get overlooked in favour of the not wholly dissimilar and far better known Brie and Camembert.

Depending on the version of the story, Coulommiers is either the progenitor of Brie or its descendant. Indeed Brie de Melun, the less popular of the two main Brie varieties, is produced just down the road in the town of the same name. Like Brie, Coulommiers is semi-soft, with a butter-coloured interior capable of becoming almost liquid when very ripe, and a bloomy white rind. It has the earthy, mushroomy tang of a good Brie, but alongside that there’s also a gentle nuttiness. Some find it a bit creamier and richer on the palate. It’s smaller than Brie too, with a whole cheese averaging just 500 grams.

Oddly, although it’s long-established and rooted in a particular town, Coulommiers hasn’t received AOC status. While this means that variation on the recipe is technically allowable, the only distinction seems to be between semi-industrial production, which uses pasteurised milk and ages for about a month, and artisal production, where the milk is raw and the maturation time doubled.

A final reason to seek it out? Even at the fancy-pants place where I bought it, a 250 gram piece was only £5. Given the prices of proper cheese (English or French), finding a tasty (relative) bargain is always a boon.

For Coulommiers in London, try La Fromagerie, Paxton & Whitfield or the financial district outpost of Parisian cheesemonger, Androuet.

October Round-up

2011-10-30T10:56:00.003+00:00

Dosa n Chutney

Revisiting our London favourite for dosa and uttapam this weekend, I was relieved to discover that it measured up even post-Malaysia. The chutneys were fantastically fresh and sprightly in the mouth, the rava dosa—extra-lacy and crispy around the edges—was a great new find, and the service was as friendly as ever.

Rowley Leigh's Financial Times column

Intelligent food porn.

Muscat grapes

Oddly, these are a plummy, dusky purple, not green, as muscats are meant to be, but the tiny French grapes at Tony Booth’s greengrocers (formerly at Borough Market, now happily resettled at Maltby Street) are nonetheless delicious. I’m tempted by Amanda Hesser’s recipe for adding them to a foccaccia-like bread dough, and by this suggestion of roasting them with thyme, but that would leave fewer to just eat now.

Jamie Oliver’s new food programme

I know the man became ubiquitous a long time ago, but his new show on British food is both winning and informative. The producers have clearly employed some good researchers—hence the visit to the burger pop-up which was a big hit on Chowhound, and the accurate explanation of fish and chips’ origins with Jewish immigrants to London’s East End. Refreshingly, there’s no preaching, just enormous enthusiasm for British ingredients and recipes new and old. And the food looks damn tasty.

Venison

Advocates for eating more venison like to point out that it’s local, sustainable and low in fat. All true, but I think the best recommendation is the taste. We splurged on some saddle a few weeks back, which we sealed in duck fat then roasted in the oven to a rare pink. Last night we sautéed some onions, leeks and carrots, added bay, thyme, stewing meat and a bottle of brown ale and cooked in a low oven for half the afternoon, throwing in some vacuum-packed chestnuts about an hour before serving. Next up, I think, a ragu.

Brixton

According to no less an authority than the Observer’s Jay Rayner, Brixton Village is the “most exciting, radical venture on the British restaurant scene right now.” And to think I live just three minutes’ walk away.

Eating Penang

2011-10-16T15:24:00.012+00:00

Penang (used to refer both to the island of the northwest coast of Malaysia and its capital), or George Town, as it is also known, is hot, crowded and almost disorienting in its concentration of sights, smells and sounds.

There are dozens of places of worship, ranging from the most modest sidewalk shrine to gilded temple complexes and spanning the city’s three major faiths: Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam (the last with separate Indian and Malay strands). Pedicab drivers tout for business, and there are far too many mopeds and motorcycles. The architecture encompasses British colonial relics, like the E&O Hotel and St George’s Church, touches of Art Deco and mid-century modern, and street after street of brightly-coloured, closely-packed shophouses (a building style popular across much of Southeast Asia, these were built in the nineteenth century as combined commercial and residential spaces.) The streets smell of joss sticks and cooking food. Much of the city looks a bit tumble-down and in need of a coat of paint; yet more and more buildings are being beautifully and painstakingly restored as shops, small hotels or homes.

Photographers, those with a yen for a history, or an interest in religious practices, all find plenty to satisfy in Penang. As for those who really like to eat: the quality, variety and sheer scale of what’s on offer is simply astonishing. It says something about how a city chooses to present itself to the world that maps of locations, days and times where several dozen iconic dishes can be eaten are prominently displayed at the airport. And even in a city which is changing rapidly, it’s striking that many of the best and most popular eating venues are ones which have survived the decades virtually unaltered.

With only three days available for our visit, we were almost always full but very rarely disappointed. To recount even the highlights is still a daunting task. A few stand-outs, in no particular order:

Steamed pomfret “Teo chew style” at Tek Sen, an open-fronted Chinatown cafe which has been serving Peranakan (also known as Nyonya or Straits Chinese, after the Chinese immigrants who married local women) dishes for the last 45 years. The mixture of pieces of tomato, black mushrooms, sour plums and some other unidentifiable items yielded a brothy sauce that was clean, sharp and phenomenally complex. The only place with a menu, much less an English-language one, the recent facelift has, according to those in the know, not changed the quality of food.

Mee goreng at Shahul Hamid. By far the most popular dish served in the rather dingy food court next to the seaside esplanade and eighteenth century Fort Cornwallis, the fried noodles cooked up by the stall’s owner are made to his father’s World War II-era recipe. My tin plate came piled with work-charred egg noodles, bits of peanuts, chives and squid fried with lots of chilli paste. In what was probably a quiet 20 minutes, no fewer than 2 dozen portions were cooked to order.

Assam laksa (sour noodle soup) at an unnamed cafe near the city’s business district. The broth balanced chilli heat with a strong punch tamarind, the fish was similar to sardines, meaty with a shredded texture, and the entirety was lifted with small chunks of sweet, acidic pineapple and fresh mint leaves. We could have easily finished several more of these small, orange bowls.