Old School Parathas

I’ve searched high and low but cannot find a recipe for parathas anywhere.  Before you start bombarding me with links to the contrary please note – I am fully aware that the net is saturated with recipes for what are effectively chapatti dough that’s been rolled out once and then fried, however these are not the parathas that I know and love. These are recipes for chapatti dough that’s been rolled out once and then fried.

There’s nothing out there for the kind that my mum has always rustled up. Hers are crisp, delicate and most importantly of all, shot through with a mille feuille of flaky buttery layers.

When I was about five years old I remember spending many a fun-filled afternoon helping to make these. I’d stand on a chair steadying the bowl as she poured in a big puff of chapatti and plain flours, sending up a white cloud of dust and depositing a fine and ghostly layer on my little brown arms and face. She’d then instruct me to mix in a big pinch of salt and make a hollow in the centre. Into this well she would pour what must have been a couple of teaspoons of molten ghee. There were never any measurements.

I would then incrementally add drops from a milk bottle and mix these in until it was just on the cusp of pliable and sticky. She would tell me that the stickiness was important because a firm dough that’s been made with less liquid is easier to work with but nowhere near as tasty to eat.  I just thought the stickiness was important because I was five.

She’d plonk me in front of Chorlton and the Wheelies with a big bowl of this dough. I’d happily sit there, kneading away and wondering what it must be like to live in a teapot until the sticky mixture would come together in a smooth and supple dough.

Filed under: breakfast, lunch, snacks, tea

Smoked Green Tea Salt and Pepper Tofu

Like a lot of people I seem to spend an awful lot of my time at work counting down the days until pay day. However, it’s not hi-top trainers or Christopher Kane handbags that are preying on my mind. Nor do I hanker after Margaret Howell frocks while waiting patiently for the 27th of every month. Oh no. Instead I sit there counting off the days until I have enough money to buy more fodder. This month it was the quarterly Oriental food shop. Yes, that’s right – I spent most of May fantasising about kimchi. I sat through endless dreary meetings pretending to listen while wistfully anticipating that halcyon day when I could skip into the Centre Point Food Store in Tottenham Court Road and buy Calpis, pickled turnip, fresh tofu, frozen gyoza, bottles of umeboshi plum wine, instant ramen and dreamy bags of Tohato caramel corn to my hearts content…..I do prefer the Centre Point Food Store to the Japan Centre, for one thing it’s a lot cheaper and it seems a lot less manic. I’m pleased to report that despite the fact that it’s cheaper I still somehow managed to spend a small country’s GDP in there and am now well and truly brassic.

Filed under: lunch, snacks, tea , vegetarian

Swine Flu Snacks

While of course, I am fully aware that eating pork won’t give you swine flu, as a (bad) Muslim I have always felt a little bit guilty about eating our porcine friends.

It’s such a shame that some of our finest British snacks are more often than not made with cheap evil factory meat; and there have been various articles linking our shonky meat production methods with the recent spate of viral disease. So when I was summoned to an impromptu picnic in London Fields I decided it was time to get creative; some Ginger Pig lamb and beef sausages, a lump of feta, some quails eggs and half a packet of puff pastry, all burning a hole in my fridge.

These are my pork-free versions of Scotch eggs and sausage rolls. I soft-boiled the quails eggs for exactly 2 minutes, so they were still slightly runny inside and then coated them in the beef sausage meat which I’d seasoned with a touch of horseradish and some parsley. I then dipped them in beaten egg and covered them liberally in Panko breadcrumbs before deep frying.

I didn’t really have enough lamb sausage to make full on rolls, so decided to make these little “puffs” instead. Curry and feta don’t sound like ideal partners, but bizarrely enough in this recipe they flatter one another to mouthwatering effect. If I had some mustard or poppy seeds I would have pressed them into the pastry, but they were still pretty damned tasty without.

Filed under: snacks

Lentil Doughnuts in a Spiced Yoghurt Sauce AKA Dahi Vada

Sometimes only GITS will do. If you have time to clean, wash and soak the black lentils overnight before grinding to a paste with salt, ginger and bicarbonate of soda then of course the results will be infinitely tastier, but when I want to cut corners I always turn to the little box of GITS in my cupboard.  Dahi Vada (or Doi Boda as we call them in Bengali) is my street food of choice whenever I visit Bangladesh. Savoury doughnuts of spiced lentils are fried, soaked briefly in water and then combined with cool, thick yoghurt. This is garnished with coriander, chilli powder, tamarind and roasted cumin and served chilled.

Filed under: lunch, snacks

Tatsuta Age Mackerel

I picked up some sparklingly fresh mackerel from the excellent Steve Hatt and decided to have a go at making tatsuta age mackerel. I substituted the more traditional potato starch with rice flour and used rice bran oil for frying. I used to have this all the time in my school lunch when I taught English in Japan, but had never actually tried making it myself – it was much easier than I thought it would be. Bite sized chunks of mackerel are briefly marinated in fresh ginger, sake and soy before being drenched in seasoned rice flour and then deep fried until crisp.

Filed under: lunch, snacks, tea

Spicy Pickled Cucumbers

I am addicted to pickles. From Polish mushrooms to Korean radishes, English onions to German Sauerkraut, if it contains salt and/or vinegar I am usually overcome by the sort of craving that isn’t sated until the entire jar has been devoured in one sitting (and yes, if no one’s watching I have even been known to polish off the tangy pickling liquid. It’s that bad).

When I lived in Japan my neighbours would periodically satisfy this craving with gifts of pickled cucumbers and radishes, the vegetables lovingly preserved from a glut they had harvested themselves and the pickling recipe unique to each family. When I found this recipe on the fabulous “Appetite for China” site I had to give it a try. Miraculously I somehow managed to restrain myself enough to wait for the flavours to develop before eating them and it was well worth it. The crisp, tangy results were the perfect accompaniment to some tatsuta age mackerel and steamed basmati brown rice.

Filed under: snacks, starters

Parmesan Custard with Anchovy Toast

Mmmmm two of my favourite ingredients. I love Rowley Leigh’s column in the FT and I have wanted to visit the Café Anglais for ages, but never seem to have enough money. I’ve read some wonderful things about these parmesan custards so decided to have a go at making them myself using Rowley’s recipe. I had a bunch of tarragon in the fridge that needed using up so added a tiny bit to the toasts. I don’t have a Panini or sandwich maker and only had ciabatta for the toasts; so had to weigh them down with a pestle and mortar to make them requisitely thin.

I found 15 minutes was nowhere near long enough in my stubborn mule of an electric oven, so had to cook the custards for 40 minutes altogether, but it depends on how set you want them.

They are really delicious, and surprisingly easy to make. I think next time I’ll try adding some sun dried tomatoes, prosciutto and perhaps some olives, like a Mediterranean chawanmushi.

Filed under: snacks, starters

Salt Yard Style Tapas

I had the most amazing meal at Salt Yard – a rabbit dish so good that it made me laugh, fried parsnips with truffle and rosemary honey and padron peppers were all stand out tapas that I couldn’t wait to try to recreate at home. It’s really hard to get hold of padron peppers, the only place I could source them was from Brindisa in Borough Market, where you can get a bag of 30 for around £3.50.

Filed under: snacks , vegetables

Roast Tomato Soup

I’ve been wanting to make a roast tomato soup for ages. After some mild research I decided to go for a classic combination of Gordon Ramsay’s (Secrets) and Delia’s (Vegetarian Collection), but with more emphasis on Gordon’s for ingredients and Delia’s for technique, with a few added touches of my own. I added a splash of Tempranillo to the soup rather than Balsamic vinegar and lemon thyme instead of basil. I found that Gordon’s roasting time left the tomatoes looking a bit “raw” so I turned the heat down to 190°C and left them in there for an hour. I also mixed Woodsmoke BBQ sauce with the water I used to re-hydrate the sundried tomatoes. I didn’t have olive oil so used a mixture of flax seed and rice bran oils instead. Finally I had a tiny bit of tomato vinegar in the back of the cupboard so trickled this in to serve.

Filed under: lunch, snacks, tea , cheap, healthy, vegetables

Roast Broccoli

I hate broccoli. Liver, spinach, anchovies, olives – I have no problem with any of these things. But broccoli?  Bleugh. I only eat it if it’s so smothered in something else (cheese sauce) that there is no remaining hint of that weird, irony taste. At least that’s what I used to do.  I recently discovered that if you roast it, it becomes not only edible but actually very very delicious.

I am proud to say that my anti-broccoli days are now behind me. Indeed, it is not uncommon for me to make a bowl of these as a little snack, or have them as a side dish with a nice bit of grilled fish.  The broccoli becomes charred and almost caramelised, and the salty, garlicky juices go perfectly with a squeeze of lemon.

Filed under: lunch, snacks, tea , cheap, healthy, vegetables

Masala Omelette

Another happy accident. The kind that only occurs when you think there’s nothing in the fridge but you stand there for ages anyway just staring into it’s cool, glowing womb-like shelter, thinking… Eggs and curry powder are soul mates; and topping this with grilled cheddar makes the whole dish come alive.

Filed under: snacks, tea , cheap, healthy

Karaage Chicken and Jalapeño wraps

I went to a talk by Neil Boorman at the inspirational Affluenza exhibition. It was a great talk and I came away feeling super-sensitive to all the adverts I numbly absorb every day. Whereas Boorman’s Achilles heel was fashion, I am a massive sucker for food adverts. In particular, and at certain key moments of vulnerability I find myself unable to avoid those air brushed money shots of KFC, McDonalds and Burger King fodder. Don’t get me wrong, I only have a quarter pounder with cheese once a year if that, but I do find myself thinking about those action shots of slow motion bouncing juicy burgers and processed cheese (it has to be processed cheese) melting to golden perfection far far more than I should…

Anyway, I digress. So I was having one of these moments of weakness when I realised I had a bag of Karaage chicken stashed away in the back of my freezer. Karaage chicken is basically soy, ginger and garlic flavoured deep fried chicken. Not exactly diet food, but nowhere near as depressing as a “boneless banquet”. You can buy it from Japanese supermarkets or online from the Japan Centre and it’s nice to have a couple of pieces with some rice and salad in a bento box or with a very cold beer. I also had a jar of garlic mayonnaise. And some wraps. And some jalapeños….

(the following is not so much a recipe as it is an insight into the mind of a weak and confused glutton)

Filed under: snacks

Potato, Pea and Cashew Nut Samosas

It’s wonderful what you can come up with when faced with a 5kg bag of spuds. This was my dilemma when I asked the other half to buy me a single large potato from our local corner shop. The potato was needed for wrapping in tin foil and skewering with a multitude of cheese and pineapple sticks – this was to be the glorious centrepiece for a cheese and wine party.

He proudly returned with said bag. All for only £2.

I decided to satisfy my samosa weakness with these potato, pea and cashew nut beauties. Making your own pastry makes all the difference, filo pastry just isn’t the same. I like to use a mixture of rice and plain flour for extra crispy results, but all plain flour is fine if you can’t get hold of rice flour. It’s so much easier than you might think and you can customise it with poppy, sesame or cumin seeds. These are addictive and are lovely cold with a big dollop of yoghurt dip.

Filed under: snacks , cheap, vegetables

Spinach and Gruyere Muffins

I once had a version of these in the Konditor and Cook cafe section of the Curzon Cinema in Soho. These are simultaneously healthier (wholemeal flour) and more indulgent (more cheese). You can of course use whatever kind of cheese you like. These are good cold and can be frozen for up to a month. They are especially delicious hot from the oven, the steaming fluffy spinach bread giving way to oozing molten cheese centres.

Filed under: breakfast, snacks , vegetables

Ganmodoki/Fried Tofu and Vegetable Balls

I always seem to have leftover blocks of tofu in the fridge, and as it has a very short lifespan, this is a great way to use up a surfeit. Once cooked these can be frozen and are also lovely cold in a bento box with some mushroom rice.

Filed under: snacks , healthy, Japanese, vegetables

Blue Cheese, Beetroot and Sprouting Seed Salad

I made this using leftovers in the fridge. The combination of blueberries and blue cheese dressing lends a sweet and salty note that really works well with the earthy beetroot.  For a more substantial supper dish add slices of smoked mackerel or tuna

Filed under: lunch, snacks , cheap, healthy, vegetables

Onion Tart with a Sage and Cheddar Crust

This is my adaptation of a Delia Smith recipe (as you can see mine looks nothing like hers).  Adding sage and cheddar to the pastry really complements the onions in this tart. If you can’t be bothered to make your own pastry just add your favourite herbs and hard cheese to a packet of shop bought shortcrust pastry. The only thing to worry about is making sure you cook the onions slowly and lovingly to make sure they are properly caramelised.

Filed under: snacks, tea , cheap, vegetables