Slow cooked lamb curry with kitchuri

Nothing says welcome home to me as much as the heady perfume of a languidly cooked lamb curry, one that’s been muttering and grumbling away on the back burner for several hours. The scent immediately reminds me of eyeballing Mr Taj and his blood stained apron from behind the folds of my mother’s sari. I’d watch him, with the vaguely comforting smell of raw flesh in my nostrils as he’d casually feed a carefully selected leg through the electric saw, the searing whine of bone on metal a distant echo of the abattoir.

Several hours later my brother and I would relish the yielding velvet of garlicky flesh disintegrating beneath our tiny, greedy fingers, scooped up with hot flaky parathas. We’d fight over the precious pieces of rich bone marrow left in the pot, teasing them out with the ends of teaspoons and feasting on the spicy, buttery rewards.

I’ve made this with lamb but the spicing lends itself equally well to beef or mutton. Kitchuri (the origin of “kedgeree”) is a fantastic foil, a lightly spiced lentil and rice dish, it’s the ultimate comfort dish in Bengali cuisine, however it’s also one that I’ve never come across on any restaurant menu.

Lamb curry

Ingredients

400g bone in leg of lamb, mutton or beef diced

1 tsp each of cumin and coriander seeds

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

1/2 large tub of natural yoghurt

2 onions

1 heaped tsp blade mace

2 inches of ginger

4 cloves of garlic

4 cardamom pods

2 bay leaves

5 cloves

10 peppercorns

2 cinnamon sticks

1 heaped tsp salt

700ml water

method

- Grind the cumin and coriander seeds to a rough powder. Combine with the turmeric, chilli powder, yoghurt and meat. Allow the flavours to marry for at least an hour, preferably overnight

- In a blender/food processor blitz the onions, ginger and garlic down  to a paste

-Heat the oil in a large pan and add the whole cardamom, bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks and mace until they release their fragrance and the oil is sufficiently tempered

- Add the pureed alliums, ginger and salt and fry until just golden

-Add the yoghurt and meat mixture and continue to cook over a medium-high heat until the meat has browned somewhat,  this will take about 5-10 mins

-Introduce the water and turn the heat down low. Leave to simmer for approximately 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally and adding more water as necessary to produce a lush, aromatic gravy, the meat should just be slipping off the bones.

Kitchuri

Ingredients

50g  split mung beans

50g red lentils

50g yellow split peas

2 peeled cloves of garlic

100g basmati rice

1 cinnamon stick

1 bayleaf

2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large dice

1/2 head cauliflower, separated into florets

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp ground turmeric

1/4 tsp garam masala

1 tomato, diced

1 green chilli, finely chopped

1/2 tbsp butter/ghee

salt and sugar, to taste

1 litre vegetable stock

method

- Dry fry the mung beans, rice and lentils in a hot pan until lightly toasted. Add the  cinnamon, bay leaf and stock and bring to a boil.

- Add the whole garlic cloves, reduce the heat and simmer covered, for 30 minutes. Take off the stove and set aside to steam for a further 20 minutes

-Meanwhile, heat the butter or ghee in a separate  pan and  fry the potatoes, cauliflower florets and onions for about 6 minutes, or until the onions are tender. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

-Reduce the heat and gently fry the ginger, cumin, tomato and chillies. Season with salt and sugar and continue frying until aromatic.

- Return the  rice and lentils to a medium-high heat and stir-in the vegetables and spices.

-Once the mixture boils, reduce to a simmer then cover and cook for about 25 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Filed under: good times, lunch, tea , Bengali

Crisp Bitter Melon and Stir-Fried Bengali Greens

Crisp Bitter Melon

Bitter Melon, or Karella as it’s called in Bengali is a violently bitter vegetable. To temper this and extract those mouth-puckering enzymes a good long salting is required. Once broken down into paper thin crescents, fried up crisply with cumin, chilli and salt and eaten with mouthfuls of steaming rice, it makes a delicious dish, one that’s simultaneously salty, crunchy, bitter and ever so slightly sweet. These alien looking vegetables resemble warty, tubercle-ridden cucumbers and can be found in most Asian shops and markets. This recipe works well as a side with a mild dhal as a slightly sweet foil to the bitter edge, or as the palate-rocking prelude to a more substantial feast.

ingredients

3 small (approx 4-5 inches long) bitter melons

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

½ tablespoon mustard oil

½ tsp chilli powder

3 cloves of crushed garlic

1 chilli, thinly sliced

1 thinly sliced onion

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 heaped tsp cumin seeds

method

-salt the bitter melons about 45 minutes before you want to eat them: cut in half lengthways, scoop out the seeds and then slice as thinly as possible crosswise into crescents.

- place in a bowl, sprinkle on about 2 tablespoons of salt, combine well and leave for 45 minutes

- Rinse the bitter melon thoroughly, drain and squeeze out any excess moisture

- heat the oils in a wok or heavy frying pan over a medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and once they pop, add the garlic

- after about a minute add the chilli, onion and cumin, and stir fry until golden and yielding (about 10 minutes)

- add the bitter melon, turn the heat down a little and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

- Add the sugar and a pinch of salt (if needed) and stir fry for a few more minutes, until very tender, dark and crisp. Serve hot.

Stir-Fried Greens, Bengali Style

There are countless varieties of spinach available in Bangladesh, from ruby “lal” saag to the leafy tops of the jute plant; otherwise known as “Pat saag”. Pui saag or “Malabar spinach” is one of the more common (it’s sold in huge £1 bunches at Whitechapel market). Sometimes stir-fried with a few prawns for added flavour and texture, it has a slightly more “grassy” minerally taste compared to those plastic pillows of leaves so prolific in our supermarkets.

ingredients

1lb of pui saag, (or substitute with chard/spinach/bok choy/morning glory)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp panch phoran/Bengali five spice (made up of nigella, cumin, black mustard, fenugreek and fennel seeds – or a scant tsp of each)

½ tsp chilli powder

3 cloves of crushed garlic

1 onion, finely sliced

½ tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

method

-  wash the greens well, drain and coarsely chop

-  heat the oil in a wok over a medium-high, add the five spice and chilli and stir for a few seconds

-   add the garlic and onions and continue to stir fry. Turn the heat down and continue to cook them out for around 10 minutes until very tender.

-  turn the heat up high and add the spinach. Stir fry until the first signs of wilting, about 1-2 minutes (depending on which greens you’re using).

-  add the salt and sugar and continue until tender throughout. Serve hot.

Filed under: lunch, sides and salads, starters , Bengali

Coconut Prawn Curry/Chingri Malai Tarkari

In his fascinating book “An Edible History Of Humanity” Tom Standage identifies the origins of the Black Death in the lucrative fourteenth century spice trade. He deftly recaptures the way in which Jani Beg, the khan of the Golden Horde attempted to deter Genoese traders from exploiting the port of Caffa for trading slaves by catapulting them with the plague ridden corpses of his own army. As the few remaining survivors fled westwards they carried the plague home with them in their ships. (For some reason this struck a particular chord with me, quite possibly because my mother’s maiden name is Beg).

Ironically, popular Western belief dictated that spices or “splinters of Paradise” as they were called, could also purify the corrupted air and offer protection from the plague. Standage discusses the Muslim curtain which blocked European access to the East and the aggressive race to bust around this stronghold and be the first to form a direct link with precious exotica such as cloves and cinnamon. He recounts the way in which Vasco da Gama and his crew of thugs savagely looted unarmed Muslim ships off the coast of India, and used the prisoners for crossbow practice. How the hands, noses and ears of these prisoners were cut off and sent ashore while the mutilated captives were bound and burnt to death in their own ships. It’s so easy for us today to just stroll casually past the glorious technicolour bounty of little screw top jars on our supermarket shelves and forget that their relationship with these shores has a long and blood-seeped history.

Ingredients

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp chilli powder

1 lb peeled, deveined prawns

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp nigella seeds

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp ground roasted cumin seeds

3 tbsp chopped green coriander

1 fresh chilli finely chopped

juice of 1/2 a lemon

1/2 can of well stirred coconut milk

2 tbsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

3 shallots, finely chopped

15 fresh curry leaves or 20 dried ones

1 tsp methi/dried fenugreek leaves

Method

- combine the prawns, garlic, turmeric and chilli powder and marinade  for a few hours, or overnight if possible.

- Combine the tomato puree, salt, sugar, garam masala, cumin, fennel, nigella, coriander, chilli and coconut milk.

- heat a frying pan and add the vegetable oil. When hot, add the mustard seeds.

- As soon as the seeds begin to splutter add the curry leaves, methi/fenugreek leaves and shallots

- Once the onions start to turn, add the prawns and stir fry until they start to turn a gentle shade of puce

- Add the  spiced coconut milk and continue until the prawns are cooked through

- turn off the heat, add the lemon juice and coriander. Serve hot.

Filed under: lunch, tea , Bengali

An Autumn Feast/Smoked Aubergine Dhal

I’ve been ordered out of bed on a Saturday morning to conjure up a Bengali feast for a posse of aunts, uncles, cousins and their adorable yet eternally hyperactive progeny. I usually relish these big messy get togethers; the preparation even more so.

This takes place with a casual sort of precision, all the women in the kitchen gossiping and joking at once. My aunt surveys me over her glasses whilst hacking at some pui saag (otherwise known as Malabar Spinach) and gives me the usual “so when are you going to start having babies then?” ribbing. I test the dhal and mutter something about one thing at a time but they feign deafness and chatter pointedly about my cousin Mitthu in Bangladesh who’s just had a beautiful baby girl. My other aunt tells me I look a lot more attractive now that I’m finally getting a bit of meat on my bones. What none of them can work out though, is why on earth I insist on cutting my hair short like a little boy. I turn a delicate shade of plum and defensively stroke my shorn occipital bone. They talk about how beautiful, plump and “fair” Mitthu is – “she has hair down to here!” my aunt pauses mid chop to hold the knife against her sari clad arse while everyone murmurs approvingly.

A very traditional Bengali feast consists of several courses, beginning with something bitter (to wake up the palate), followed by the lentil and vegetable dishes. Next comes fish, followed by meat or chicken and finally dessert. We aren’t that formal today, but nonetheless fry up crisp slivers of bitter melon simply adorned with cumin, turmeric and plenty of garlic to start. This is followed by the Malabar spinach sautéed in panch phoran (Bengali five spice) and smoked aubergine dahl, then a coconut prawn curry, a slow cooked beef curry and kitchuri. (the word “kedgeree” originates from kitchuri but instead of fish or egg, it’s made with a mixture of lentils, rice and spices). It’s more standard to make a biryani for these big gatherings, but there’s something informal and comforting about kitchuri and it goes perfectly with the beef. We finish with some Payesh, a rich, cardamom scented Bengali rice pudding.

It’s all finger licking good and even the fussiest child eats every last loving handful. There’s much boisterous laughter and yelling over one another, the little ones surge around, fuelled up on Vimto, while the uncles tease them and talk shop – everyone sated on the rich juices of family life.

Over the next week I’ll put up all the recipes, but for starters, here’s that smoked aubergine dhal…

Smoked Aubergine Dhal

There are literally hundreds of dhal recipes in the subcontinent, every village and family has its own. Traditional Bengali masoor dhal can be a simple and life affirming thing, but when entertaining it’s nice to make something more interesting…

The tender innards of blackened aubergines are often mashed with mustard oil, garlic, cumin, coriander leaves and finely chopped onion, to create a sort of Bengali “salsa” served with just rice, chillies and salt for a simple lunch or as a side dish. By adding the roasted nightshade flesh to a traditional dhal, the smoky flavours combine with the spices to a creamy, deeply nuanced effect made fresh with the caustic pop of chillies and lime.

ingredients

300g/10 oz channa dhal/yellow split lentils

300g/10 oz masoor dhal/red lentils

2 fat aubergines

Mustard oil (use olive if you can’t get hold of mustard oil)

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 cinnamon stick

4 cloves

A pinch of mace/grated nutmeg

1 dried red chilli

The seeds of 4 cardamom pods

2 bay leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

6-8 fresh curry leaves/about 10 dried ones

1/2 tbsp ghee/butter

2 onions, finely chopped

2 inches fresh ginger, finely chopped

3-4 cloves garlic crushed

1 litre Marigold veg stock/chicken stock

½ tsp Mr Naga chilli sauce OR fresh sliced chillies according to tolerance, taste and availability

1 tbsp natural yoghurt

Freshly chopped coriander

Wedges of lime

Method

1)  wash and dry the aubergines. Smear each one with a slick of the mustard/olive oil and place over a source of low and direct heat. Turn until a  crisp, ebony crust has formed all over. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

2)  Grind the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cloves, mace, cardamom seeds to a powder.

3)  Melt the ghee/butter over a medium heat. Add the bay leaves and mustard seeds.

4)   When the mustard seeds start to spit, add the curry leaves, cinnamon stick, onions, garlic, ginger and dried chilli.

5)  Stir and fry until the aromas intensify. Add the ground spices and keep stirring so the spices don’t char.

6)  Just as the alliums are on the point of turning, add the pulses. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes.

7)  Pour in the stock and reduce the heat. Leave for about 30-40 minutes, until the lentils are plump and swollen.

8)  Mash the lentils lightly with a potato masher, adding more water if you prefer a more “brothy” dhal.

9)   Strip the aubergines of their blackened skins and roughly chop the flesh.

10)  Stir the aubergine into the dhal, along with the freshly chopped chilli/naga chilli sauce, the coriander and the yoghurt.

11)  Squeeze over the lime and serve hot.

Filed under: lunch, sides and salads, tea , Bengali

Bacchanalian Times

I fear the gout.

It all starts on Tuesday. One of those swan song days of summer when the sun drips golden Tate & Lyle tendrils and the air shimmers above the juddering road works in its glittering, maudlin way. I slip into Racine and am transported to Parisian bistro chic. The staff are kind and pretend not to notice that I have a man’s tartan tie in lieu of a proper belt for my Oxfam coat. PR and publishing women beam at one another in the private dining area and the air tinkles with light, pleasant conversation, as bubbly and sanguine as the citrus peel-infused champagne we delicately sip upon. I talk to Clotilde Dusoulier who has recently updated Ginette Mathiot’s tome “I Know How to Cook”. She is utterly lovely, and without a smidge of the jealous measuring up, so prolific in some of the more seasoned British food bloggers I have had the vile misfortune to come across. As we sit around the table Henry Harris talks us through what we are about to receive. I’ve heard much of his culinary prowess but this is the first time I’ve had the honour. As he describes veal bones simmered for long meaty days, I get the impression that eating here could well be the culinary equivalent of reading an Ian McEwan novel, i.e. I know I’m in safe and capable hands. He is reassuringly spattered with caramel sauce. There are ten of us – an assortment of broadsheet journalists and the fabulous women from Sauce and Phaidon. I am sat opposite Tim Hayward and next to Susan Smillie from the Guardian; I haven’t seen Susan for yonks and I suddenly realise half way through the meal how incredibly loud we are being compared to everyone else. At one point I am vaguely horrified to hear my own braying Sid James-esque laugh booming above the polite murmurs of conversation around me. As gout winks at me from the opposite table I blank him and eagerly sup down the most intense fish soup, deep, briny and a fine burnt orange hue. The bourguignon is served and as I spoon the soft, wine-blackened flesh into my cosseted cakehole I swear I can feel the purine begin its stealthy calcification in my joints. I finish with crème caramel and someone else’s apple tart – I’m a firm believer in rushing selflessly to the aide of my fellow diners when they appear to be struggling (I’m nice like that). My requests to take my leftover stew home (Susan’s encouragement fuels me on) are met with bafflement and “why not?” smiles, but I brazen it out as I cannot abide waste; especially not when the pickings are this rich. Gout grins at me as I leave, waggles his crystalline fingers.

The following evening I go to the opening night of Koffman’s pop up. A starter of lobster with avocado cream feels like the closest thing I have had to vegetable matter in a long time. It’s silky and perfectly balanced with fresh bites of apple and delicate lemon jelly. My veal chop is impossibly tender, like biting into bovine butter and the famed pistachio soufflé is a pale green nimbus of perfection, the finest fairy fare. Our waiter offers us dessert as soon as we sit down and gets our plates muddled up. When we ask him to describe what we are eating he has to go and ask someone. But it’s the first night. My dining companions complain that £75 is a lot of money for this. When Koffman first executed these dishes they were cutting edge back in the day, they tell me. But now, the rest of the industry has caught up, and you can get these dishes at a lot of other places for a lot less money, they moan. I silently eat my way through the lot and feel immature and ignorant for being so utterly bowled over at the sheer quality. We chat to Claire, his wife, about potatoes and her beautiful son.

There’s much rubbernecking in the glamorous surroundings, it’s the perfect marriage of fleeting, flirty pop-up and Selfridges glam. We spot Brett Graham from the Ledbury and his lovely fiancé, Henrietta Green, Fiona Simms and gout is there too, sat by the window with his darling companion weight gain. I stick two fingers up at them and plough joyfully through my second dessert.

By Friday the lack of vitamins has clearly mussed with my mind because I decide to eschew meeting Gordon Ramsay on the London Eye in favour of making my little sister a birthday cake. She is very pleased about this. I wonder what I am doing, exhausted and dusted in icing sugar at 1am. I lie awake in bed that night fretting about the levels of uric acid in my bloodstream whilst simultaneously mulling over what a luxuriously decadent thing it must be to contract this “Disease of Kings.”

Saturday and it’s the gourmet odyssey, a day on a route master bus starting off at the almost ironically uncool met bar for champagne at 11am then to Sake No Hana for starter of sushi, followed by a melting main clod of veal at Hibiscus (the clod is the section just behind the shoulder) and the best bit of all, dessert at Wild Honey. I’m not really a pudding kind of person, but this was the highlight, a fudgy, praline fondant perfectly offset with salted caramel ice cream and the syrupy petrol of PX sherry. Then back on the bus to the Met bar followed by a friend’s birthday dinner at Franklins (I order a woefully abused cauliflower cheese, shrivelled, stingy and as wretched as hospital slops). I’m starting to feel like an ungrateful oink eschewing the finest freshwater beauties in favour of acorns but I have an inexplicable urge to lie for hours on the sofa with a good book and a big bowl of pomegranate seeds. Sunday is the highlight for me, a truly epiphanic talk by Simon Schama on the history of food followed by a hearty Sunday lunch with him, Fay Maschler and various notable others (more on this to follow). The whole experience is deliciously surreal.

The festival is rounded off with a brilliant awards ceremony at Shoreditch house with categories like “warmth and welcome”, “bravery” and “understanding of ceremony” followed by a feast at Pizza East. The place is filled to the rafters with chefs, PR, critics and industry folk. I tuck in to addictive meatballs in tomato sauce, chicken cacciatore, Caesar salad, churros and salted caramel tart. On the way out I clock gout eyeing me up again and laugh at him. Bacchanalian excess or not, this has been a week of sublime feasting – one I shall never forget.

The inaugural London Restaurant Festival ran from 8th-13th Oct

http://www.visitlondon.com/londonrestaurantfestival/

Filed under: good times

Who the hell is Ewan Venters?

I’ve always been a cynic, and lately like the rest of planet Earth; I’ve found myself feeling increasingly skeptical about those in power. The faltering liars who run our banks, our companies, our media and let’s face it our lives, seem to be unable to justify screwing up our society anymore. As we’re repeatedly choked and blinded by their smoke and mirrors I often find myself wondering whether or not the same chicanery lurks beneath the food and restaurant industry…

I haven’t come across any “Oz-like” figures yet, but have been introduced to a couple of key people and thankfully, the ones I’ve met so far are most definitely not a bunch of corrupt tosspots. Take Ewan Venters for example.

To some he’s just another nondescript man in a suit, the food and drink Director at Selfridges.

To others he’s the Scotsman with the big ideas, the brainchild behind the world’s most expensive sarnie and the credit crunch chocolate (cinder toffee enrobed in Valrhona) both ingeniously timed events, the chocolate arriving just after the Lehman’s disaster when many were craving affordable luxury treats. And to others still, he’s one of the most well-connected people in the industry, with the sort of friends who only require one name – Delia, Madonna, Marco, the Hoff and Hix.

Growing up in Fife, Ewan discovered a love of baking at the tender age of 14. He enrolled on the Sainsbury’s management training programme a few years later and has never looked back.

He’s young and ambitious; which makes me wonder why he’s kept himself so deliberately out of the limelight that so many of his industry peers are desperately clamouring for. When I meet him in his airy office tucked away in the Director’s building behind Selfridges, I find him to be impressively professional- he keeps his deck pressed very firmly to his chest. He comes across as more of a business man than some media “luvvy”.  However, talk to him about food and he becomes genuinely animated (he’s particularly passionate about Delia’s recipes). When it comes to the limelight, Ewan strongly believes that one ought to be selective about one’s successes, and conserve that energy for the job in hand rather than pursuing the short-term golden calf of self publicity – (an ethos that many of his peers might do well to abide by). The job in hand here is single-handedly turning Selfridges food into a relevant, vibrant and exciting brand. It’s been energy wisely spent if interest in the Selfridges Koffman Pop-up restaurant is anything to go by. Sold out within hours of announcement, the restaurant was extended for a further month, and this too sold out almost immediately.

He tells me he could have asked Koffman to update the menu but this isn’t what people want. People like himself and Tom Parker Bowles were both too young the first time around to sample the delights from La Tante Claire and it is this experience that he wants to recreate. Ewan believes that top-notch quality alone is not enough, that it’s important to go one step beyond, which is why Selfridges turn to small family butchers like Jack O’Shea’s for their meat.

His understanding of what people want is uncanny. He’s excited about a new product called “Easy, Tasty, Magic” that Selfridges Food have exclusively launched in conjunction with Laura Santini’s new cookbook, “Easy, Tasty, Italian”. I’m not sure about the name and can imagine a lot of “food elitist” noses jutting north at its very mention, but he explains that the idea is to sell the cookbook with a range of chemical-free flavour bombs, vaporizers, and sprays thereby solving the problem most people have of going out and trawling the shops for endless lists of ingredients when cooking a dish. These umami-rich flavours are infused with precious metals and sold in beautiful glass decanters, the ideal Christmas gift for the home cook. I can immediately think of several people this would appeal to; it has all the hallmarks of yet another well-timed triumph – the man with the Midas touch it seems; has struck again…

Filed under: Uncategorized

Hix Soho

A mobile of Fray Bentos pies gently twirls in the white high-ceilinged room as David Hasslehoff tucks into his hanger steak with baked bone marrow. A fluorescent finger part-designed by Sue Webster points the way to “Mark’s Bar” downstairs where Nicky Clarke, James Nesbitt, Joe Warwick and Monica Brown rub shoulders on mahogany leather sofas. They’re all sipping outrageously sippable negronis crafted by that mixological wizard Nick Strangeway. Mummified fish, that Damien Hirst has trapped in formaldehyde dangle from the ceiling of the Martin Brudnizki designed interior. You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stepped into a private members’ club, or an art gallery perhaps. This is in fact Mark Hix’s latest venture on Brewer Street, and it’s bloody brilliant.

It’s the third time I’ve been here in the past week and the place only officially opens to the public on Saturday. But when I drop in on Wednesday evening, the place is saturated with friends and family. Tonight it’s Friday and everything is half price, because they’re still not open, but nonetheless, it’s packed to the rafters. The menu reads a like a love letter to food, think Manx queenies (scallops) with wild boar bacon and herbs, ox cheek with mixed beets, horseradish and chickweed or pheasant, chanterelle and chestnut soup. And those are just the starters. Mark advises on a selection and we are soon tucking in to a luxurious Cornish fish soup, heaving with gurnard and red mullet and replete with Julian Temperley’s cider brandy. Even the bread and butter is spot on, a big rustic hug of warmth. Our cod’s cheeks, tongues and throats with girolles arrives and it is astonishingly tasty. It somehow manages to combine incredible delicacy with a meaty clout; the whole dish embroidered with a silky spring onion-flecked sauce. I shamelessly lick the plate clean.

We have “heaven and earth” which turns out to be a gigantic fluffy meatball of black pudding with apples and potatoes, it breaks open in a fug of steamy herbal goodness. Wild duck with salsify and elderberries is pure sex on toast, and my lamb and oyster pie is easily the best I’ve ever had. The salt marsh mutton, kidney and oysters combine to magnificent effect, the meat sits dense and tender in its intensely lamby gravy, under a flaky, buttery lid. It immediately falls apart upon contact with the spoon, the oysters dripping with Neptunian juices and the plump kidneys making the whole dish rock. I am temporarily possessed by the ghost of the former restaurant that occupied this site, Aaya, and find myself wanting to down the gravy from the bottom of my pie dish ramen style. The deep fried Pollack with chips and mushy peas is crisp, greaseless and spankingly fresh. It’s served with a boat of home made tartare sauce and a bottle of Sarson’s vinegar. I love that. It’s the tiny touches like this that make it feel personal and not like just another stuffy restaurant.

We drink Les Foulards Rouges, Soif du Mal, which is 70% Syrah, 30% Grenache and 100% delicious. It’s rough and cloudy with some incredible strains of apple and pear. Stuffed to eruption point, we order pudding. The stomach is begging me to stop but my tastebuds are demanding that I press on to culinary Moscow. The lemon trifle is lush, creamy and light, the limoncello notes sashay over the tongue. Defeated, we head downstairs where people are chilling out, drinking gorgeous cocktails and generally having a ball.

It’s here that we pick up on one very major problem with this place and it’s a rather serious predicament that I very much doubt they are ever going to be able to iron out. In fact, I can predict that this fault will only gradually worsen… You see, the thing is, there’s a definite hex about Hix, and once you’re in there, I’m afraid it’s very, very difficult, if not impossible to ever leave.….just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Filed under: lunch, tea

Brick Lane Curry Competition

I never win anything. And to be honest, I secretly prefer it that way. Maybe it’s the raging Brit in me, but I’m always elated when it rains and my money’s on the underdog every time. Winning just seems like something vulgar competitive types might do. Not real people. Not real people like me.

So when I was selected to judge the Brick Lane Curry Competition I was fairly incredulous. I too was going to get my turn to be a little smug one. As the next few hours descended into a hyper real parallel celebriverse, I had a hasty sip of the frankly insane world of being papped and gawped at like a prize pakora. I was duly lined up with the other judges, Nina Wadia, Andy Varma and the Mayor of Tower Hamlets (A-listers every one of them) as we ploughed through 36 curries in what felt like no time at all. Nina suggested we pair up and it was interesting to note that our likes and dislikes were so obverse. I sensed that she hailed from a more Northern part of the sub continent as she seemed drawn to the more robustly spiced chicken and lamb dishes, but appeared to be less enamoured with my favourites the platters of vegetables and curried fish.

Despite living within gobbing distance, I’ve been put off most of the curry houses on Brick Lane in recent years. More often than not I’ve been served some generic tourist fodder, rudely spiced and adrift in its very own floatation tank of ghee. And of course, the entries included a fair representation of these pappy confections gilded with sugar or fruit, (pineapple?!?) and engineered to dulcify a timid and pusillanimous Western palate. I always find this bizarre, as most of my non-Asian friends can out-Scoville me under the table any day. Having said that, the authenticity of most of the dishes was truly “incroyable”.

Drop dead delicious plates included succulent bay and cardamom infused kofta spheres, sopping with stout, beefy gravy. The spices were almost charred and the subtlest touch of naga chilli muttered away in the background, just enough to form a deeply smoky flavour. I also swooned over a traditional fish curry, each delicately spiced steak of ruhi brimming with curried roe, the kind of grub I’ve only ever witnessed at big family get togethers. Overall the standard was up there, some of the seekh kebabs were chop and chop with the Tayyabs hallmark. However we also tasted a truly retch-inducing tandoori lamb dish. Squatly floating, Jabba-like in a lake of its own horrid juices, we both gagged simultaneously upon oral contact. It bore hardly any seasoning and tasted of nothing more than tepid, liquefied lamb fat. It was mystifyingly bad. My immediate reaction was to spit it out, but I realised the perpetual artifice that constitutes celebrity life as Nina insisted that we smile and look cheerful while desperately trying not to vomit as the cameras clicked away.

Nina was lovely, she advised me to try just a tiny morsel of everything – she’d clearly done this before. We marked each dish on presentation, texture and of course flavour.  We talked and giggled our way through most of the dishes, but when I glanced up I was met with an ocean of jostling searching glances, all analyzing our every move, trying to decode the messages transmitted from our tastebuds to the scoreboards. It made me realise the gravity of the competition – for most of these entrants our decisions would make or ruin a livelihood.

The winning dish was a torso above the rest, masterfully roasted tandoori king prawns in a stunningly well-balanced masala sauce, speckled with the ivory and emerald of coconut and chillies, the creation of the brilliant Amir Uddin from the Eastern Eye Balti House.

Later, over dinner in the winning restaurant, the Somali Mayor tells me how he grew up in Bethnal Green. As a young boy in the seventies he would see hoardes of BNP members on a daily basis standing at the top of Brick Lane chanting about “whites first” while the police turned a blind eye. I glance out of the window and try to picture what the street must have looked like then. He’d never in a million years predicted the thriving, cosmopolitan guide-book destination it’s become today. He reminisces about stones and shit and petrol bombs through letterboxes. I notice a skinny blonde guy wearing lime green jeggings with a proper 80’s flick and a wedge; the sort I’d usually mock mercilessly, chatting away and laughing with one of the neighbouring restaurant owners. Perhaps those Nathan Barley types aren’t so bad after all.

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Istanbul

You’d think it might be easier to be a good Muslim in Turkey during Ramadan. Away from the seductive belly baiting on twitter, the forgetful friends who bolt bacon sarnies in front of you and the socialising that flabbily lurches from breakfast to lunch to dinner and drinks. And in a sense it is easier, what with everyone around you abstaining, the only people eating in the restaurants during the day turn out to be the other tourists, women on the rag and the sick.

However, I am on holiday and the long, sticky days tick luxuriously over. In Istanbul there are sweetcorn vendors, pide hawkers (the national version of pizza) and of course kebap shops at every turn. The bazaars are stuffed with folk offering Turkish delight in a rainbow of banana, apple, pistachio, lemon and coconut. Little boys shrilly advertise ice cold watermelon juice for just a lira (40p). The Turks know how to do mystical things to beef and lamb. I try not to gawp at the salamis and sausages, the ones that taste fiendishly porcine.

They say that fasting without the vertebra of spirituality simply equates as not eating and not drinking, very good for you physically but that’s pretty much it. Standing in the majestic Blue Mosque soaking up the reverberating call to prayer I feel ethereal and overwhelmed by waves of cleanliness and strength. Or maybe I’m just spun out from the lack of food? Either way, it’s a pretty special feeling.

@Gastro1, @MathildeCuisine, @harjmurria and @Istanbul_Eats offer some fantastic recommendations, all of which are way better than anything my crappy guide book proposes. The Lonely Planet rates a kebap joint near our hotel, which basically renders it rubbish – herds of tourists flock there for miniscule portions of fatty mutton and prices that have shot up to rival London’s. Next door however, it’s a fraction of the cost and sublime. The lamb heavily soused in garlic and herbs, toned by the thick, salted salve of the yoghurt and the crisp pickled chillies kicking in with a vinegary bite.

There are special Iftar (the fast breaker) menus everywhere. We dine outdoors at Antiochia as the sun descends. The menu is incredible, the mixed mezze slips down a treat. We eat fresh tzatziki, dreamy home-made yoghurt forked through with dill and cucumber, spooned up with chips of oven-fresh lavash flatbread. A portion of kerik salatasi – crushed olives with tangles of fresh thyme, oregano, garlic and pin pricks of chilli is outstanding. A dish of muammara, a scarlet slurry of walnuts, red peppers, spices and pomegranate is smoky and deep. The tender imam bayaldi* very nearly has me passing out with pleasure too.

We split an elegantly spiced veal chop, peppered with garlic, sumac and chilli and I sip on Şalgam Suyu – a spicy fermented turnip/carrot drink, just to register the expression of sheer disgust on my fiancé’s face when he catches a waft of it (it’s an acquired taste). He cries out as if physically attacked when I convince him to sample a bit. The owners find this hysterical. It’s a sibling run place, Jale Balci the sister is a well-respected food writer. One of the brothers sports a proper handlebar moustache, the sort that wouldn’t look out of place on a Friday night in Dalston.

After wandering the humming late night streets of Beyoglu we fall into a tiny speakeasy down a narrow side street. The top floor is a tiny, heaving room, saturated with the city’s beautiful young things partying the night away. Everyone’s smoking hookahs and the DJ spins some demented folk choons set to an obese bass line, the Troggs, Chamillionaire and Heaven 17. There’s no self-consciousness here though and no attitude – just a serious mission for good times. There’s a little fat man in the corner who’s clearly coming up. The rain seeps in through the cracks in the makeshift roof and mingles with the sweat as our senses are nourished with tune after tune and everyone gets on down.

*literally means “the Imam fainted” due to unfeasible deliciousness.

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Roast Grouse, Giblet Gravy, Bread Sauce and Game Chips

About a month ago a very lovely friend presented me with a couple of grouse from Allen’s of Mayfair.  I was excited, having never eaten the stuff before. I tend to associate grouse with the very posh and faintly eccentric. My pal is both, as well as huge hearted and a brilliant laugh. Although they came ready prepped, all trussed up with streaky slices, I still had to rip out the gizzard, heart and liver. There were no neat little plastic giblet bags in these cavities. There was a lot of blood. Relishing in my own squeamishness, I tore off the claws and talons and hid them in the bin, like a filthy secret.

Filed under: tea

The Ledbury – Lunch with the Champion

The chef gently cradles the fuzzy purple sphere, as if presenting his first born. He beams at us.

“It’s a peach” he explains, before slicing it open to reveal the juicy indigo flesh that bleeds softly into a pale white heart. We’ve just had one of the most spectacular lunches in the history of ever and now 30 year old head chef Brett Graham is introducing us to his tiny kitchen. He bounds into the back room and proudly pulls out a tray of green leaves from beneath a sodium lamp. I stare at him.

“Don’t worry, it’s not weed” he laughs. “These are my herbs”.

Filed under: lunch

Tequila lunch at Hix Oyster and Chop house

A fresh email plops into the inbox. You are invited to a tequila lunch with Mark Hix on Thursday it casually says. I re-read it a few times. The words “Hix” “lunch” and “tequila” reverberate in my nosh-addled mind like strobe lighting. I call my mates, but this is no wind up. Apparently there is a God. I feel awash with happiness, like I’ve won the culinary lottery.

It’s an Inspirit Brands event  and strolling through the City sunshine to the Oyster and Chop House, even the suits emit thin-lipped smiles at one another, like vicious little paper cuts. It’s one of those days when you fall all over in love again with this skanky old town. It’s one of those days, when all you want to do is stand outside and drink chilled lemon verbena cocktails mixed by a world champion bartender, the citrusy leaves plucked fresh from his garden that morning. Which is precisely what we do.

I try not to gawp at Cleo Rocos wobbling exotically around on her crutches like the ornithological walking wounded (she’s suffering from a brutally agonising knee injury, but laughs and jokes throughout our lunch). I’m introduced to Sam Galsworthy of Sipsmith, Alice Lascelles of Imbibe Magazine, Stuart Ekins of Inspirit Brands, Peter Prescott and Nick Strangeway amongst others. They ask me what I do. I feel vaguely embarrassed – not everyone gets blogging. I have another cocktail, it slips down dangerously easily with its non-alcoholic tang, every little gulpful a fizz of lemon sherbet. They’re all so warm and it’s so luxuriously hot I feel relaxed and as if I’m amongst friends, rather than feeling like the unexpected item in the bagging area.

Filed under: good times

From Blogging to Flogging – Part 2

I’ve written up the lowdown on yesterday’s antics at the UKFBA food stall. Once again, those lovely folk at Channel 4 food have published it here:

http://blogs.channel4.com/food/2009/08/14/from-blogging-to-flogging-part-two/

I whined a lot about being tired the next day, but emails like the one below made it all seem so worthwhile:

To: juie1@hotmail.com
Subject: Cheesecake
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:55:47 +0100

Hi there

I’m the person who bought your last cheesecake slice!  It was truly delicious and I ate it sitting on the kerb in the sunshine.

Little did you know that I had been feeling pretty rough that day and had popped out the office for some fresh air; your lovely nature and fab cooking was all the healing I needed.  Returning to the office sans headache was wonderful!

Thank you for being there

Love, light, peace and blessings

=)

A huge thank you to Sig for being such a fantastic fellow trades-woman and to everyone who came down to see us!

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From Blogging to Flogging

As part of the run up to the food stall I’ll be running tomorrow in Covent Garden, I’ve written a piece on my frenzied preparations.

Channel 4 food published it here:

http://blogs.channel4.com/food/2009/08/12/from-blogging-to-flogging/

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Wasted again

There’s something seriously whack in the world of food. At the risk of sounding like a dolorous, preaching, harbinger of doom proclaiming that we are all going to hell in a handcart; we are in fact all going straight to hell. In a solar-powered handcart.

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Spinach Kicks

I’ve done one or two exciting things in my time, but one of the very bestest things I’ve ever done was to work for the late and legendary John Peel.

John was amazing. For a brief and splendid period I was his humble Broadcast Assistant, and was given the honour of compiling the festive fifty and helping out with the phones during his programme. He once heard me rowing down the phone to payroll about the late payment of a freelance colleague, and without giving the matter a second thought, immediately gave him a huge wad of cash to tide him over until payday.

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Kora Kora Keski or crunchy, devilled “mini-whitebait” with a coronation raita

With one eye on the bag of slowly defrosting keski, the distant ringing thrums down the handset, like some sort of Vodaphonic heartbeat. I tilt my head unnaturally to crick it twixt ear and chin.

“Hello?” her voice is small and husky with exhaustion. I hear the days of graft in that hello. The years of ruined eyesight bartered for long nights of dress-making just to raise and educate her brood. I never call as much as I should.

“Maa, it’s me.” I look at the rapidly melting block of tiny, thread-like bodies with their scattered, sequin eyes. They stare back at me, frozen in a piscine twister of animation.

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The Underground Restaurant – Japanese and Jackson night

Like cider cocktails, twitter and facial serum; it seems I’m forever doomed to be the last one to the party. Even when that party is on my own face.

And thus it was both generally and indeed, quite literally with Ms Marmite Lover’s Underground Restaurant. Despite leaving my house super early (“be there at 7.30pm sharp!”) and even minus my usual faff to locate keys/rizla/library book, I somehow still managed to make an unfashionably late appearance. As a seasoned Londoner, I’m fully aware that with our fragile and sensitive train lines, the tiniest droplet of water, the slightest hint of a fallen leaf and the anile bowels of our capital shudder to an inexorable halt.

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L’Anima

1 Snowden Street, London EC2

www.lanima.co.uk

When I approach Signore Mazzei for an interview I expect to be offered a rushed half hour between service slots, or a phone call even. Instead he warmly and casually invites me to have lunch with him at his restaurant L’Anima just four days later. This is a bit of a Charlie Bucket moment for me, having never had lunch with a chef before, let alone a proper at-the-top-of-his-game one.

However, Francesco is the antithesis of the clichéd kitchen dragon. Instead he’s down to earth and approachable (and he’s a chef?!). While others were sweating and stressing at the Taste London fest, he was clowning around with his staff and openly having a ball. However, as I was about to discover, talk to him about food and he becomes deadly serious.

When I rock up at his packed restaurant (“credit crunch, what credit crunch?” he breezes) tucked away on a little side street near Liverpool Street, I have no inkling that this is going to be one of those meals you remember for the rest of your life, the kind you tell your grandchildren about and maybe shed a rheumy tear of nostalgia over whilst dribbling reconstituted pap in the old folk’s home. I’ve eaten at the chef’s table at Maze, dined at the Fat Duck, at Le Caprice and at Nobu and yes these were great, but I couldn’t tell you half of what on earth I ate (and yes, I was sober) except that some of them left a faintly dodgy after-taste of money and fear.

Walking into the restaurant I am immediately dazzled by the light, the suits and the white leather sofas (by Claudio Silvestrin no less, designer to Anish Kapoor and Armani). There are beautiful clean lines; it’s all porphyry, limestone and glass. However, it’s far from intimidating and has managed to unite those tricky frenemies of class and welcome with proper, understated taste. I feel strangely at home, perched at the bar sipping deliciously cold Prosecco. The focus on detail is everywhere; even the cocktail sticks I spear my enormous olives with are stylish slivers of carved Perspex. The staff wear genuine smiles and there’s no sense of stress or attitude after what was clearly a manic lunch-time rush. This place is very, very cool.

Filed under: good times

“back of the net”

At the risk of quite possibly boring myself to death, I had one of those proper ” back of the net” moments on Thursday afternoon when I saw my piece about crab published on the guardian Word of Mouth blog.  As you may have heard, this was the follow up to a glorious weekend of “tweeting” and eating for WoM at the Taste London Festival as arranged by the awesome Suse.

This is something I’m seriously chuffed about. It might not seem like a big deal to some folk, but where I hail from it’s a huge achievement.  I  even got a call  from the rellies in Bangladesh who all queued up to congratulate me down the phone. I don’t think many of them fully understood what I’d written but they were all very proud, nonetheless. It’s totally up there in my folder of most excellent achievements (along with a brief stint working for the late and legendary John Peel and being invited to a four hour lunch with Francesco Mazzei at L’Anima – more on that malarkey later). It’s also a complete buzz watching the comments coming in, do check it out if you get the chance – my current faves are from TexMC (man crab?) the “vigitarian” who thinks I should be executed and Cennydd who once won the walk-like-a-crab race in PE. I’ve got a lot of love for these people.

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