11 years

Margarita on the rocks

It's snuck up on me, so I haven't baked anything to celebrate. But here we are - 11 years of Foodycat.

Anthony Bourdain's macaroni cheese

The food world - and the music world and the travel world - is still reeling from Anthony Bourdain's death last week.

Many people have written about their feelings of loss. People who knew him and people who only knew his work have talked about the way his passion for things that are real and human moved them and made them feel seen. Many more people have talked about their own experiences of mental illness taking them close to the doorway he walked through.

For someone who came to fame with a book that pretty much formed the public perception of macho bad-boy wankery in professional cooking, he's leaving a legacy of compassion and vulnerability, the “very tender alchemy that made one generous to friends and unrelenting to enemies; the best kind of human to be” that is much more valuable.

His macaroni cheese recipe (which of course being American he called macaroni and cheese) is my offering to the I Heart Cooking Clubs round-up of food-blogger tributes. I don't know the backstory for him developing this recipe, but to me it speaks of having eaten many, many disappointing dishes of mac cheese. This is the recipe of someone who is not going to settle for bland, pasty macaroni. He leaves nothing to chance, with four types of cheese, mustard, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce and a lot of white pepper. It's very, very good.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper for Cook The Books

It's been ages since I cooked along with Cook The Books Club - even when there's been a book scheduled that I was really keen to read or already loved, time has got away from me and I've missed it.

I thought this was a good time to come back though. Deb, from Kahakai Kitchen chose Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, which I have been wanting to read for a while. Fuchsia is a bit of a national treasure: she gets trotted out whenever people want to talk to an English-speaking person about Chinese food, or authenticity, or the migration of food culture. The broad strokes of her career (first Western person to train as a chef at the culinary school in Sichuan) are very well known but I was interested in the detail.

And the detail was very interesting. A snapshot of China in the early 90s, when things were starting to open up a bit. The experience that white people seldom have of being completely other. The deep, rich history of Chinese cuisine. The desire to break off the treadmill of being a clever woman on a predictable academic and career path.

Unfortunately, I found much of the actual food descriptions stomach-churning. While her desire to immerse herself in the cuisine and to learn to appreciate the foreign textures and flavours is admirable (it reminds me a bit of Anthony Bourdain "you’re unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don’t understand that, and I think it’s rude. You’re at Grandma’s house, you eat what Grandma serves you"), I found it very hard to deal with the things she found herself eating. The almost blasé approach to animal cruelty and eating endangered species (although she did say she may end up vegetarian and gives quite an interesting explanation for the animal cruelty) was a kind of cultural relativism that didn't sit well with me.

As it happens, the dish I personally most associate with Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan is 成都豆腐花 - Chengdu street tofu with soy chilli, peanuts and preserved vegetables as served at A Wong. Which is vegan. And Andrew Wong has shared the recipe.

Chengdu street tofu - not as pretty as Andrew Wong's.

The fish-fragrant aubergine that initially captured Fuchsia's imagination can also be vegan if you use vegetable stock, so I made that as our main course (following Diana Henry's recipe for Fragrant Sichuan Aubergine in Simple), along with some marinated mushrooms (which I reheated to serve). And then I let the vegan side down by serving it on egg fried rice. But it was delicious. And no endangered species died.

Urchin kept bumping my elbow - didn't get one single focussed picture)

A belated blogoversary

So... we moved. And it was the utter ball-ache moving always is. With the added tedium that we only got broadband installed on Friday.

Due to the hassle of moving (and the fact we don't have a dishwasher yet) I haven't really been cooking anything fancy. Definitely nothing with multiple stages or processes or utensils required. And because of the lack of interesting cooking and the lack of broadband I completely missed my 10th blogoversary. 10 years! My god.

Anyway, my mate Sharon (who you may remember from posts such as this one. And this one. And this, and this, and this) is married to a man whose parents live near our new house. They have very kindly invited us over for Sunday dinner this evening because they think it would be nice to have some local knowledge. It definitely will!

I offered to bring a dessert - a pretty pointless gesture because Graeme's mum's desserts are legendary for their quality, quantity and diversity. But hey.

I thought I would knock up a quick frangipane mirabelle tart. Which was quite a good idea really, until I discovered that I couldn't find my scales or my silicon spatulas. A bit of guesswork took place and it ended up being a bit oozier and more rustic than planned. Fortunately they all have lovely manners and will be gracious. But I think we'll take a bottle of wine as well...

Picture restaurant and thoughts on blogging

Menu

For Christmas, Paul gave me a day-long silver jewellery making course. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. One thing that startled me, though, was that when we were introducing ourselves at the beginning of the course, a couple of the other participants announced that they were doing this (absolute beginners) course because they intended to make a career out of it. Without any real background in jewellery making or knowing whether they had any aptitude they were determined that this was going to be their thing. On the one hand I admired the confidence, but on the other that just seems bonkers to me.

Warm sourdough rolls and whipped butter

And I have to say that I am feeling much the same way about food blogging these days. Back lo, these many years ago, when I started blogging, it mostly seemed to be people who liked food or liked writing or both, using a free platform with a shitty layout and rubbish photos. And enjoying it. We made friends with people with similar interests, spent time commenting on other people's posts and took our time over things.

Delicious basil martini

Now it seems like a lot of people have decided that there is money to be made and they decide they are going to be Food Bloggers. They come in with professional-looking headshots in their profiles, a business plan, a brand identity and an SEO strategy. They have media kits. They have business cards. They hustle. It's a valid approach, but it's not my approach and it does make me a bit wistful for the days when we made friendships, not networking opportunities. I deeply admire, though, the people who started around when I did who have actually been able to cope with change and adapt to the new environment.

Beef bites

The whole landscape is different. I've stopped accepting PR invitations and removed myself from a couple of databases, because if you want a blog to promote your thing I'm really not your girl. I don't care about my reach. I don't know how many, if any, readers I have. I seldom bother cross promoting my blog posts on other channels (I will put them on the Foodycat facebook page but I won't pay to boost posts, so not a lot of people will see that). I'd rather leave that stuff to the people who are passionate about making their blogs pay.

Asparagus, pea and wild garlic veloute

It also occurred to me this week, that while there are products that I have continued to buy and use after initially being sent them to review, there's only one restaurant that I have been to for a blogger event that I have subsequently been back to on my own dime. Since I don't have a lot to offer a restaurant in terms of generating buzz, the point of me really is going to a place, being inoffensive to staff and paying for my dinner - so I have a pretty terrible track record.

Beetroot tartare, goats curd

I first went to Picture, on Great Portland St, with a bunch of bloggers in 2014. And then again less than a week later. Then somehow I hadn't managed to go back. I knew they'd opened a second restaurant in Marylebone, but I'd never made it to that one either.

Pork, pickled carrots, granny smith apple

This week, though, I was looking for a venue for a dinner with a friend (same friend I'd had lunch with at Picture before, as it happens) and Great Portland St ticked the boxes for her to get to Waterloo or Vauxhall and me to get to Baker St or Marylebone after. I'd assumed we'd go a la carte - didn't think I could stretch to the £45 6 course Spring menu (still very reasonable, but once you add drinks and service charge that's probably £65. Not on a Wednesday). But then when I booked I discovered they were doing a Taste on London deal of the Spring menu and a cocktail for £35.

Roast cod, charred gem, salsa verde, merguez

It was all wonderful really. In a perfect world the skin on the cod would have been crisp. And the merguez tasted more like chorizo. But plate after plate of delicious, well-seasoned food with interesting contrasts of taste and texture can't really be sneered at. The first time I was there I noted that the menu had moved from veg to pork to fish in a slightly confusing way, but that the fish had been a necessary palate cleanser between rich pork and rich beef. This menu went with a similar formula with the clean, pearly cod breaking up the lightly smoked, meltingly tender pork and the voluptuous lamb. But even so I couldn't possibly have faced a cheese course, either before or after the chocolate mousse.

Lamb, sprouting broccoli

Chocolate mousse was the pudding the first time I ate at Picture too. But they make such a good one it hardly matters. The presentation was better this time! I wasn't quite sure about the blob of cream being almost the same size as the mousse, but it actually concealed the delicious milk jam (basically condensed milk, for those of us who adore it). The mousse was very light, just the right sweetness and although I had my doubts at the beginning I actually managed to finish the whole dish. In addition to the £35 deal, we had a beef bite each and shared a carafe of wine. So with the service charge it came in at £50 a head. Definitely worth it.

Chocolate mousse

Showing the milk jam

Curtis Stone's asparagus & taleggio omelette

 This week I Heart Cooking Clubs are celebrating "the most important meal of the day" with Curtis Stone recipes. I have to admit that at the moment for me breakfast is most likely to be two very large cups of coffee and possibly a banana, but I do love a really extravagant breakfast or brunch.

On the weekend we generally have two meals a day - a substantial, late breakfast and then an evening meal - and pretty much Paul's favourite thing for the substantial late breakfast is a very cheesy omelette. Curtis Stone's Lazy Asparagus Omelette is just the thing really!

I've written in the past about my favourite frying pan, and how it makes the best omelettes in the world. It really does.

Paul doesn't like a baveuse omelette, so this technique of putting the pan under the grill to finish, which leaves you with something half way between a French omelette and a frittata, is the one I tend to use anyway. My delicious new season British asparagus were really skinny, so  I just sauteed them raw in the butter before adding the eggs. I also reduced the number of eggs, because 12 is too big for that pan and way too much food, really.

The taleggio melted into delicious runny pools, the eggs were just set, and the asparagus brought its wonderful fresh flavour to the party. It's one of those really simple dishes where everything has to be just right, and the combination of butter, eggs, asparagus and cheese was just perfect.

Alphonso Mango Bellinis

Alphonso mangoes

When I saw that Ocado were stocking Alphonso mangoes I bought some, and figured I'd make a decision about what to do with them later. I know people go completely nuts for them when they are in season, but to be honest I've not been that impressed. I've just found them very sweet and very fibrous. Not a patch on the Queensland and Northern Territory mangoes I know best! But there must be a reason they are so popular, so I keep trying to see why.

Gloriously coloured flesh

Since I Heart Cooking Clubs are cooking along with Australian chef Curtis Stone, and mangoes are such a quintessential Australian ingredient, I thought I'd check his recipes and their themes for inspiration. And very conveniently came upon a Mango Bellini, just in time for the Wet Your Whistle round.

Now, a Bellini is usually white peach puree and prosecco, and this version very simply uses fresh mango puree and champagne.

Straining the puree is an important step because the mangoes are so fibrous, so even though my natural inclination is towards laziness I did go to that bit of effort.

Unfortunately I then tried to cut a corner and make the Bellini straight into the glass.

Which makes a heck of a mess and even when the bubbles subside leaves a messy froth of mango pulp around the rim.

So for the second round I followed the recipe properly and mixed it in a jug before pouring it into the glass. But whether messy or tidy, it was absolutely delicious. The dry champagne cuts through the sweetness of the mango, letting the fragrance show through. Just lovely.

Diana Henry's chicken with sour cherries and parsnip puree

I wasn't intending to post anything for this week's I Heart Cooking Clubs potluck. Time got away from me and I didn't get around to cooking anything specially. But I woke up to the news on twitter that Diana Henry had won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Single Subject Cookbook for A Bird in the Hand. Which is such a fantastic achievement I thought I should have a rummage through my photos for one of Diana's dishes that I haven't already posted about!

And lo! I found this fabulous, elegant dish of chicken legs with pinot noir, sour cherries and parsnip purée that we enjoyed a few weeks ago. Normally chicken leg recipes are aimed at weeknight, workaday meals, but this lifted them into a special occasion meal.

Not that we had them for a special occasion, just as our Sunday roast. Which I suppose is a little celebration.

At Easter we'd bought another cockerel which I'd jointed and frozen, so I used the cockerel legs for this. They are huge, so I had to adjust the cooking time, but other than that I followed the recipe. The parsnip purée was creamy and luscious, with a sweetness that worked extremely well with the tartness of the sour cherry sauce. Divine, and definitely to be recommended. You can see why this book won a James Beard award.

Baked eggs with greens & dukkah

I forgot that it was Potluck Week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, but as it happens our tea last night was a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi, who was featured on IHCC in 2013. Well, I say it is one of his recipes but I did go a bit off-piste.

It started life as his braised eggs with leeks & za'atar. But as I looked at the leeks dwindling in the pan as they sauteed, I realised I needed to add more veg. I bunged in some baby courgettes and looked again at the recipe. With the liquid the courgettes was giving off, I couldn't see any reason in the world to boil it all in vegetable stock, so I left that out. I divided the vegetables between two ovenproof dishes, added a couple of eggs to each, crumbled over some feta and discovered that I had dukkah in the cupboard, not za'atar. So a tiny drizzle of oil over the yolks, a sprinkle of dukkah and into a hot oven until the eggs were set and the feta golden brown.

We had it with sourdough toast, rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with a little olive oil. Delicious, and very comforting.

A short season of short ribs

A few weeks ago I got a last minute invitation to a preview night of Zelman Meats in Soho. On a little back street in Soho, Rex & Mariano had been hugely popular with people I follow on twitter, but wasn't attracting enough regulars and lunchtime custom, so the owners decided to try something quite different.

The raw red prawns are still on the menu - and I was amazed by how good they were - but the big thing Zelman Meats is doing, apparently, is making the most of the cuts left after the premium steaks are taken off the carcasses for the Goodman restaurants. So at the preview night we were fed magnificent picanha (rump cap) and utterly divine short ribs.  

Aubergine with harissa & yoghurt (which was a bit undercooked), beautiful meat, stunning truffle chips

And just after this wonderful dinner I discovered that Ocado were selling beef short ribs. So I bought some.

Short rib ragu

We've had them as a rich ragu, with lots of red wine and mushrooms, stirred through pasta.

 We've had them cooked to shreds with chipotle, thyme, cumin and coriander and packed into tortillas.

Short rib chilli

Short rib tacos, with shredded salted cabbage and tomato and avocado salsa

And we've had them in a sweet chilli and tamarind glaze.

Work in progress - tea smoking the ribs

I haven't quite nailed the technique for the glazed ribs. I want to give the effect of a slow, cool barbecue, and tried to get it by tea smoking the ribs and slowly baking them in the oven. But if I start the ribs on the hob to get the smoke going the meat cooks too fast, and if I just do them in the oven it doesn't get hot enough to smoke.

The glaze itself -
2tbs tamarind paste
1tbs habanero sweet chilli sauce
1tbs ketjap manis
1tbs dark soy sauce
- is very good, but I do wonder about maybe adding some liquid smoke or a touch of pimenton or something to cheat the smoke flavour.

Anyway - while they look unprepossessing after an 8 hour slow bake, the meat fell apart as soon as it was nudged with a fork but was still beautifully juicy.

Creamy coleslaw was not the right accompaniment - too rich. An Asian-flavoured vinegar slaw would be better

Diana Henry's cheddar, onion and spinach tart

It's Potluck week again at I Heart Cooking Clubs - where you simply have to cook a dish from any of the previous featured cooks and food writers. 

The dish I've made is one of the best savoury tarts I have ever made, even though I thoroughly bollocksed up the pastry.

It's Diana Henry's cheddar, onion and spinach tart - slowly cooked onions and minerally spinach, topped with a rich savoury cheesy custard.  Utterly delectable.

Unfortunately, when I was completely committed to making this, I realised that I didn't have nearly enough plain flour for the pastry. So I ended up having to use 175g of wholemeal self-raising flour to make up the quantity. Bad Idea. It ended up expanding so much that the filling overflowed and stuck to the tin and made a considerable mess.

That aside, the only change I made to the recipe was adding a good grating of nutmeg, because I am constitutionally incapable of making something cheesy and spinachy without adding nutmeg. And even with the lovely sharp cheese and strong mustard, the nutmeg flavour did carry through. And it was good.

Nigella's cumin lamb ribs for potluck week

I actually hadn't planned this, but the other day we had a Nigella Lawson dish for tea, and this week it is Potluck Week on I Heart Cooking Clubs, so it was clearly meant to be.

The recipe - lamb ribs with cumin and nigella seeds - is in her new book, I think, but she's got it on her website as an exclusive for community members. Worth signing up just for that, I think. And it's good enough to tempt me to buy the book.

Lamb ribs are very popular in South Africa, as a snack, grilled over a wood fire, simply seasoned with salt and pepper (I posted about them after a trip to SA) but you don't tend to see them as much over here. But Ocado have started to stock them, so hopefully they will take off.

Paul was very sceptical about me cooking ribbetje in a newfangled way, but the weather wasn't up for lighting the fire and I didn't give him much option.

The recipe takes about a minute to put together, and then two hours of slow roasting while all the fat renders out of the ribs leaving tender meat and an abundance of crispy bits. We had them as a main meal, piled on stir fried vegetables, but they would make great party food, as long as you don't have a white carpet and aren't wearing a posh frock.

Yes, Chef! Doro wat and injera

I first heard of Marcus Samuelsson from Joanne's blog - she was publishing some of her recipes on his blog. And shamefully I didn't pay very much attention. They were her usual healthy but delicious-sounding vegetarian dishes but I never looked into who this Marcus Samuelsson was. If I had a mental image of him I guess I imagined he was a vegetarian chef from Minnesota or something. Then I saw an episode of The Taste and realised that he was definitely not a vegetarian from Minnesota.

It meant that I was delighted when his memoir, Yes, Chef!, was chosen as the latest Cook the Books Club selection. And the story of how an Ethiopian child was raised in Sweden and became a celebrity chef in New York is really quite something. In a Sliding Doors scenario there are so many little twists that could have changed everything - if his mother hadn't made it to Addis Ababa, if his grandmother hadn't taught him to cook - so many factors came into play, but Samuelsson's determination is the thing that shines through.

Having read Helen Graves' posts about visiting Ethiopia with World Vision, and the process of making injera, I was pretty keen to have that as part of my Cook the Books contribution. I discovered that Ocado sell teff flour in tiny quantities, but it was enough for me to have a go.

I followed this method, using 23g of teff flour and 60 ml water for a half quantity, every time it specified 1/3 and 1/2 cups. I did a seven day ferment, and it behaved perfectly. It bubbled when the recipe said it would bubble and had a fermented, grassy aroma when it was supposed to. I didn't do the bit with the food processor, because the flour was very finely milled and there wasn't any grainyness to get rid of.

The final addition of the self-raising flour was fascinating. This was my mixture when I added it - sitting just below the 400ml mark.

And this was the mixture a couple of hours later when I was ready to cook them. I guess the acid from the sourdough activated the raising agents in the flour and made it go nuts. Very satisfying.

I wanted to do something that would acknowledge both Samuelsson's Ethiopian and Swedish heritages, and I thought that little injera would be an outstanding base for very Scandi sour cream and cured fish. So leaving the batter a bit thick, I made canapé-sized bites.

They look like little crumpets

I meant to top them with crème fraiche, gravadlax and salmon roe, but laziness got the better of me and I couldn't be bothered making the gravadlax. I just went more lavishly with the salmon roe.

As a little snack these were perfect. The tang from the injera was the perfect thing with the salty salmon and creamy, sour crème fraiche. I might have to do these again, maybe for Christmas.

The main event, though, was the injera served with Samuelsson's own recipe for Doro Wat and a mustardy lentil salad. The lentil salad was not at all to my taste, but the firey Doro Wat was delicious.

I actually made this right at the beginning of August, but hadn't got around to posting. So now you only have about a week left if you want to join in! But it is definitely worth a read.