Val de Loire

How can you possibly not like the Loire Valley? A place that has more castles that have been written about in Disney stories, where a salad involves rillons (pork belly cooked in lard and browned with caramel), lardons and ham accompanied by a few lettuce leaves (but at least it comes with a decent dressing, which is more than can be said for most salads you get in London....), where anything that isn't a salad is served with frites, where trying to get an outdoor table for lunch invites dramatic remonstrations from a waitress complaining "Mais c'est impossible! Voyez! C'est complet!", where turning up for dinner at a restaurant without a reservation is met with looks of disapproval from a dour-faced waitress and replies of "Vous n'avez pas reservé? Je ne sais pas, hein?", where you can have dinner in a troglodyte cave, where a quick lunch ends up taking hours, where it takes at least three hours to have dinner in a half-empty restaurant that will serve no more than five tables on a Saturday night?

Château at Saumur, where a castle has existed since the 12th Century

The Special K Challenge

It's been a while since I've had a good rant. I feel like one is coming on. I could bore you with a dissin' review of 'Wanted', which is a really dumb movie (a fraternity of weaving assassins who get their kill orders from a loom of fate?!? Gimme a break....... who thinks up this stuff?), but in this time of rising fuel prices and the escalating cost of grains, I feel like I should pick on Special K instead. Listen carefully now, here comes the science bit.... here is what Kellogg's thinks you should do for the summer:

• First calculate your BMI (Body Mass Index) which is a calculation related to your height and weight. In order to take part in the challenge it should be 25 or over.
• Eat up to a 45g serving of any Special K cereal with 125ml semi-skimmed milk for breakfast, have another for lunch OR dinner, with a third nutritionally-balanced meal for two weeks.
• Snack on fruit, vegetables and Special K bars and Special K Mini Breaks.
• Ensure a regular and adequate intake of alcohol free drinks.

So basically, you have to be classified as 'overweight' and eat 90g of Special K a day for two weeks, which clearly can't be that good for you, because if you look at what Kellogg's considers to be a 'nutritionally-balanced meal', roast beef should apparently be on your menu. I'm guessing that means there are a few things missing from your nutritionally dubious bowls of Special K. Not to mention that according to their nutritional information, Special K, Special K bars and Special K Mini Breaks are 17%, 35% and 27% sugar respectively. Three out of four people might be slimmer after two weeks, but they're probably well on their way to renal failure and diabetes......

Tortilla de patata

Spanish omelette

You won't be surprised to hear that in Spain there's no such thing as a Spanish omelette (there is a French omelette, which is just a folded omelette). In Spain, a Spanish omelette is called tortilla de patata (potato omelette). The basic recipe just has eggs, potatoes and onion, but you can make it more interesting by adding chorizo, spinach or roasted peppers. Contrary to what you might see on TV, a tortilla should never be cooked under the grill like a frittata. A tortilla is always turned over, which is, after all, the fun bit. No cheating now!

Ingredients:

7 new potatoes, thinly sliced
6 eggs, well beaten in a large bowl
1 onion, halved and then sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

In a 20cm frying pan with a lid, fry the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft and translucent and set aside (about 10 mins.). Next, fry the potatoes until soft. This takes a while, so you could aid things by adding some water at regular intervals and covering to steam them. You could cheat and microwave or parboil the potatoes, but I always find it tastes better if they're fried. Don't skimp on the olive oil now! And make sure they're fully cooked before you take them off the heat, as they won't cook much more when you add the egg.

When the potatoes are done, mix with the onion and garlic and pour into the beaten eggs. Mix well and pour the mixture back into the frying pan. Cook over medium heat, using a spatula to slowly work around the circumference of the omelette. When the egg has more or less solidified around the edges, the omelette is ready to turn over. Cover the pan with a lid and flip it over, then slide the omelette carefully back into the pan. Cook for another couple of minutes checking with a fork that the egg is fully cooked.

Eat hot or cold with some good bread, or slice in half and put in a sandwich.

Mangoes and Curry Leaves

Mangoes and Curry Leaves, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

If you ever wanted to make Indian food, but found it daunting, then this is the book for you. I got this as a Christmas gift from the G* and it's a fantastic book. It has recipes from all over the subcontinent, with anecdotes from the authors' travels, great pictures and some delicious, foolproof recipes.

A selection of tried and tested below:

Katchhi Village Potato Curry

Zinet's Chicken with Tomato and Greens
This recipe is fantastic. I wish I could tell you what it involves, but the G* made it, so I have no idea. I can only vouch for the fact that it tastes really good

Aromatic Slow-Cooked Chicken
On the face of it, this recipe looks pretty dubious. Anything that involves boiling chicken for half an hour makes me suspicious, but this is really tender and flavourful. The rice vinegar and fresh coriander make all the difference.

Naan pizza

This was inspired by a recipe in Nigella Express. I say inspired, but in fact, I can take no credit for the inspiration, since G* made it all. It's super easy (especially when someone else does all the work), and works really well. Just get some naan bread, pour over some chopped tomatoes (or you can make yourself some passata (or have someone else make it for you), although that's not so express....), some cheese (buffalo mozzarella works well), and toppings of your choice (I recommend parma ham and rocket). Then warm in oven until suitably pizza-like.

Also works well as a substantial bruschetta with some farmhouse bread.

Recipe competition: Very crunchy granola

This was one of G*'s entries for the competition. Being rather fond of Lizi's granola from The Good Carb Food Company, I was shocked when my local health food shop hiked the price up by 14p in a week, so I refused to buy it any more. I've now resolved to making my own. This recipe, I'm told, comes from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Café: Breakfast Served All Day. So far, I've made it without the soy protein powder, since I only seem to be able to find the vanilla-flavoured stuff used by body builders. Apart from the oats and barley and oat bran (I haven't yet figured out what oat bran is, so I haven't used that yet), it has pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and almonds (although I've used ground cashews as I have a big bag of them in the cupboard). It's certainly very crunchy and even better than Lizi's. And you can try making it with different types of honey or maple syrup. Manuka honey seems to work quite well.

Serve with home-made yogurt for a perfect start to the day.

Apple and cranberry steamed pudding with sticky toffee sauce

For the filling:
4 eating apples, peeled, cored and cubed
25 grams unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
50 grams walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

For the sauce:
175 grams light muscovado sugar
125 grams unsalted butter
200 grams crème fraîche

For the batter:
175 grams unsalted butter
130 grams golden caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
150 grams self-raising flour

Apples, cranberries in a pan
Cook with butter if you can.
Add the sugar when they’re brown,
Leave aside to cool them down.

Crème fraîche now with butter and sugar
Over low heat melt together,
Bring to boil and shortly simmer.
Toffee sauce, not for the slimmer.

Add chopped walnuts to the filling.
Caref’lly now and without spilling
Pour some of the toffee sauce;
When a third’s gone you can pause.

Grease a basin with some butter,
Quickly now, you must not stutter.
Cream the butter and the sugar,
Gently add the beaten eggs.
Fold the flour and then the salt,
Steady though, no room for fault.

O’er the filling next pour the batter,
Think not how you’ll end up fatter.
The whole thing you must now seal,
Listen up, ‘tis a big deal:

Take some parchment and some foil,
This part’s worth the ensuing toil.
For the pudding to expand
I must now make a demand,
That you take the double sheet
And in the centre make a pleat.

Tie this lid down with a string,
Now the cooking can begin.
Put some water in a pot
Just to halfway up the top
Of the basin, lid up-facing.
Cover well until we stop.

Ninety minutes it will need,
A long time steaming ‘tis indeed.
But your guests will want some coffee
While you warm the remaining toffee,
And with this pudding you’ll succeed
To disgust them with their greed.

Santoku

On countless kitchen counters cutting
Plump tomatoes, new potatoes, slicing
Leeks and lettuce, beets and peppers,
Triads of scallion, garlic, ginger next,
There’s a dinner to be fixed.

Breasts of chicken now we mince,
Flesh gives way, but I don’t whince.
Giblets, joints and skin and bones,
Above his dulcet tenor tones
His artful skill my master hones.

Quickly now, the squash needs dicing,
The rest is there, ready for spicing.
Caref’lly next those herbs you’ll chop;
They’ll eas’ly bruise if my heel you drop.
My rhythm follow, never stop.

On you my virtues I bestow,
With time our mutual bond will grow.
And now we’ve done this one last task,
One final thing of you I ask:
A whetstone, please, my crimes to mask.

Ham in Coca-Cola

This sounds totally gross, but don't knock it till you've tried it. And you really have to make it yourself to appreciate this recipe in all its glory. There are few things more fun to do than to pour a two-litre bottle of Coke on a 2-kilogram piece of ham (or gammon, rather). There's a good recipe for this in Nigella Lawson's Nigella Bites (amusingly, under the section headed Trashy). Basically, you get a mild-cured piece of gammon (you can soak it overnight to remove some of the salt), put it skin down in a large stockpot with one onion, pour two litres of Coke (the normal version, not Diet or Cherry or Orange or Zero or any of that), bring it to the boil and simmer it for two hours:

When it's done, let it cool slightly and take the skin off. Make a criss-cross pattern on the fat with a sharp knife and stick some cloves where the lines meet. Then spread a couple of tablespoons of dark treacle all over the fat, some demerara sugar and mustard powder, and cook for about 15 minutes at 180C.

Serve with vegetables of your choice

The ham has a deep, smoky, caramelized flavour. Be sure to keep the cooking stock, which you can use as a base for stews (in small doses, as it's very sweet!).

Recipe competition: wasabi seared tuna

This is another one from SN. Must be from her fusion collection. Tuna steak marinated in wasabi and soy sauce, seared (it helps if you have one of those griddle pans, so you get the grill marks, like proper chefs do....), and served atop butternut squash mash. Great winter dish, and you don't have to worry too much about your heart giving out.

Recipe competition - Black Midnight Cake

This entry was submitted by SSR. It's a rich chocolate cake, kind of fiddle to make, as it requires two cake tins and some surgery if the two halves rise too much in the oven. The icing recipe supplied by SSR was also a bit dodgy and requires a rather lengthy period of stirring, for which I clearly didn't have enough patience. I have to thank G* for fixing it...

All that aside, the cake is fantastic and the unorthodox icing quickly improves on cooling. It tastes much better after a day in the fridge.

Stirrin' icin'

Black Midnight Cake

Macondo

Macondo
8 & 9 Hoxton Square
London N1

Could Macondo be the best café in the whole of London? I think so. Exposed brick walls, cozy leather sofas, this is a great place to while away the Sunday morning hours. If you while away enough hours, you might as well stay for lunch. Despite my initial apprehensions, the place does actually serve authentic tortilla de patatas and paella, as well as a variety of other appealing foods, which yesterday included mushroom stroganoff, some aubergine bake-type thing, lasagna, and the infamous broccoli with cheese, which was a bit random. But forget all that, this place has the BEST cakes ever. They have REAL cheesecake. None of this Philadelphia fridge cake nonsense, I mean proper baked cheesecake made with fromage blanc, drizzled with honey and served with whipped cream. Their coffee's pretty darn good, too, and they serve an interesting array of drinks, including mint and lime iced tea (highly recommended).

Service can be a bit flaky, though. You have to order at the till and it's all slightly chaotic when it gets busy. I ordered and paid, and then they forgot our order, and then they forgot I'd paid. It seems a bit strange given that the food is actually on display in trays sitting atop shelves. I mean, you could just give me a spoon and I'd have no problem serving myself, since it all looks so yummy! But anyway, our server was having kind of a stressed out day.

Watching the Hoxton crowd is part of the experience. They can certainly be, well, let's say "expressive" in their fashion sense, and they range from continental chain smokers to doctorate students conducting interviews about cross-cultural ethnicity for their humanities dissertation.

And that Nutella cake.... it's just waiting to be tried...... maybe next time.......

Proper, baked cheesecake (bottom) and carrot and orange cake (affectionately described to us as "squidgy" cake (it's drenched in honey, so mind your kidneys.....)

Recipe competition: Chocolate pud

For those of you sending recipes for my recipe competition, you can follow progress here. I'll be reproducing all the recipes and posting them so you can see the final product. I should stress that what I write on here is not an indication of the recipe's chances of winning, since the final judgment will be made by an independent panel of jurors. Also, I'm not posting the actual recipes here, since I'll be compiling these in a recipe book for y'all.

So, let's begin! To start things off, here's a recipe from SN. A yummy chocolate pudding that takes minutes to make. Crisp on the outside, deliciously gooey on the inside, but not excessively heavy. A great ending to any dinner party. With thanks to GK for help with the faithful reproduction of the original recipe.

funkynewwords

So I was described by AR yesterday as a "superachievingnerdybutloveablemonkey". I don't have an official definition for this new term, but it's sort of self-explanatory. I like this great potential to develop new words by stringing lots of adjectives together. It's almost germanic. AR also coined this new term: "ninjafoodtennismusicetc". I can give you an official definition for this: "A class of recreational activity that comprises watching a movie followed by a meal of a complementary cuisine. Tennis and/or music, with particular reference to 20th Century Soviet composers, may be directly or indirectly involved. The term is particularly associated with Japanese films and cuisine."

Things I learnt in Rotterdam

1. Dutch people don't jaywalk because they don't have to. Cars actually stop for them. You're more likely to be run down by a reckless cyclist than a bus.
2. Dutch adults drink milk in public.
3. Dutch people smoke a lot! This was rather unexpected, given #1 and #2. I suppose cycling/pedestrianism, milk drinking and smoking aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and there's nothing to say that those who do #1 and #2 are the same people as those who do #3, but still.
4. There are worse places than Holland to get a craving for Japanese food. That said, the 'best' (reputedly, from my extensive internet search) Japanese restaurant in Rotterdam, Sakura, is actually run by Chinese people. I'm not sure if this has been made clear to the local populace, although they must know that you're highly unlikely to get steak served with egg fried rice and stir-fried vegetables in a Japanese restaurant (but man, the steak was good!). Also, their wakame salad 'with special sauce' is, in fact, just a salad with thousand island dressing and some wakame strips on top.
5. There's good food to be had in Rotterdam, although not particularly cheap. Loos, despite the somewhat unappealing name, is a great, casual, if rather smoky, bar/café/restaurant. They serve a simpler menu in the bar section, which I would have tried had I been in the mood for smoked food. The raised restaurant bit at the back has a pricier, but excellent a la carte selection. I had the set menu, which came with a foamy, light mussel soup, leg of lamb with spinach and mustard sauce on mashed potato, and a coconut sponge cake with poached pear for 29 Euros.
6. I didn't get a chance to try any lattes, but their espressos aren't bad at all!

Chamonix 2007: Day 1

Oui, cette saison est encore arrivée. Fun, food and frolicking in the mountains.... actually, that sounds rather Rogers and Hammerstein-like. What I'm talking about is a gruelling, five-day marathon of hiking and stuffing oneself with fine French food.

En résumé, le premier jour:

1. Hiked up to Lac Vert:

2. Had a picnic:

3. Enjoyed the mountain view:

真是十分漂亮！

4. Had dinner at La Calèche, a museum of the rustic macabre, with a busy decor of copper pans, animal heads, musical instruments and, as the name implies, a big horse-drawn carriage, along with other random paraphernalia:

Tarte au reblochon

Potée savoyarde

Cappuccino de framboises, glace pistache

Petit café

Thai fragrant rice, ginger and garlic chicken pot

1 chicken leg, thigh and drumstick separated
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cm stem ginger, finely chopped
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup Thai fragrant rice
1 and 3/4 cups chicken stock
4 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked and sliced
1 spring onion, sliced

Wash rice and place in heavy-bottomed, non-stick pot. Add all the other ingredients, reserving the green part of the spring onion, and place the chicken pieces on top. Add pepper to taste. Cover and bring stock to boil, simmering over medium heat until rice and chicken are cooked (20-25 mins). Sprinkle the remaining spring onion on top and serve.

Saturday cooking

Butter bean, chorizo and wild Alaskan salmon soup-type thing

1/2 tin butter beans
1/4 cup brown rice
2cm piece spicy cooking chorizo, diced
1 handful curly leaf kale
1 large mushroom, diced
1/4 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
1 small fillet wild Alaskan salmon, cubed
750ml fish stock
A bunch of coriander, roughly chopped

Heat some olive oil in a heavy-based pot and gently fry the garlic, onion, chorizo and mushroom. When the onion is soft, add the kale with a couple of tablespoons of water, two capfuls of Shaoxing rice wine and cover for a few minutes until the kale has wilted. Add the beans and rice and mix well. Add the stock, cover and simmer until the rice is cooked. Stir in the cubed salmon until cooked (just a couple of minutes will do). Season to taste, throw in the coriander and serve.

Wild Alaskan salmon wrapped in pancetta with fennel and mushroom risotto

1 cup risotto rice
1 fennel bulb
2-3 slices pancetta/streaky bacon
1 large mushroom
1 wild Alaskan salmon fillet
750 ml stock

Trim the stalk off the fennel bulb, keeping the trimmed bits. Cut into halves lengthwise and cut leaves into medium-sized square pieces. Spread over a lightly-oiled baking tray and roast at 180 Celsius for about 20 minutes. Leave to cool slightly and cut into thin slices.

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-based pan. Add a small piece of butter. When the pan is hot, add the fennel and thinly sliced mushroom and stir-fry until the mushroom is soft. Stir in the rice and add one ladle-full of stock at a time, stirring constantly until rice is cooked.

For the salmon, remove skin from fillet and wrap the fish in the pancetta. Arrange fennel trimmings in the centre of a baking tray and place fish on top. Cook for 15-20 minutes at 180 Celsius. You might wanna put it on grill for the last couple of minutes to crisp the pancetta.

Mudéjar

Or, what happened when I tried something out of Claudia Roden's book, Arabesque. I got this as a Christmas present (thanks, Gungush!), and certain people had been bugging me about making something from it. Sadly, I didn't have much of an opportunity to do anything more elaborate than humous, babaganoush and try her method for fool-proof couscous (which involves first soaking it and then sticking it in the oven - it works!). The rest was me dressing up a chicken and making some gazpacho, hence "mudéjar". Anyway, you can see the results below. Oh, the cake was from Sam and Sam Clarke's book, Moro.