Autumn/winter warmers

Apologies for the absence of any recent posts – I’m currently in the process of moving house, and didn’t realise how much crap I have to sort through. Anyway in between packing and cleaning, I’ve got a couple of things to report from the last month or so…

So firstly, I think I’ve decided that autumn/winter is my favourite time of the year to cook (and eat). Summer is great for fresh produce and dining outside (for the few weeks of sun we get a year…) but I really think winter is great because the food you eat can have a real and tangible effect on your mood. There just seems to be so many simple, tasty, and healthy recipes designed for winter – specifically dishes that might be deigned as ‘comfort food’ which can actually far exceed expectations. The key to this, I’ve found, is variety – or variations upon a ‘safe’ theme. A good example that I have used recently to satisfying effect, is the very common chorizo-based sew. Yes I know it’s obvious and is on nearly every cookery show around this time of year, but there is a reason for it – its warming, and it’s delicious. My little additions are usually a pulse (cannellini or butter beans, potentially lentils or chickpeas), loads of veg and lots of seasoning (chillies, paprika, fresh herbs etc.). The result is a taste that I associate instinctively with winter, because it is exactly what I want to eat by the bucketful when its freezing outside.

A couple of other favourites I like making around this time of year include pork chops or medallions (I can’t really articulate why I associate pork with winter, I just do for some reason), with a brandy-based sauce (works well with apples – maybe the booze makes me think of warming, and therefore winter food), and also a nice take on a classic four cheese pizza (with the addition of halloumi – such an underrated cheese). These are really hearty options, and also if you serve with the addition of a salad or some veg there is often enough for a couple of people or for leftovers throughout the week.

On another note, it occurred to me recently that pasta dishes, generally, can suit any time of year, but there are definitely different types of pasta and sauces/accompaniments which pertain to specific seasons. I always think a nice pasta salad or spaghetti with pesto is summery, whereas something like a pappardelle or lasagne is hearty, and brilliant for the months where you need/want to carb-load. I was lucky enough to attend a pasta-making class at a local cookery school (Flavours – http://www.flavoursschoolofcookery.co.uk/), and, although this is probably going to make me sound sad/old, I genuinely had a brilliant time. The chef who runs the classes was trained by Albert and Michel Roux, and has also worked for John Torrode, and I personally think that having someone of his quality running this kind of small business and willing to put up with a room of amateur cooks (when he could be working in Michelin starred kitchens) is great. Not only did I learn how to properly make fresh egg pasta, roll said pasta and cook it so it doesn’t end up as a water-logged mound of mush (as has been the result of my previous attempts at making home-made pasta), I was also given tips on ideas for different recipes for tagliatelle/ravioli fillings (spiced sausage and chicken mousse were favourites). We were given recipes for different types of simple sauces, and although I generally am not overly keen on tomato-based pasta sauces, the marinara sauce prepared for the class was the best I have ever tasted.

A final few words on where I’ve been eating out recently – the last five or so weeks have been pretty good for eating out as I’vecisites various friends around the country. Two places stick out in my mind – the first is a vegetarian pub in Oxford that served one of the best lentil dhals I have had in a while, as part of an Indian platter (The Gardener’s Arms – https://plus.google.com/105797275586931369286/about?gl=uk&hl=en). My two accompanying friends also had similarly good experiences, both opting for the veggie burger which was the closest I have encountered to the meat equivalent in any restaurant. The second place was also in Oxford, a Thai restaurant called Bangkok House (http://www.bangkokhouse.co.uk/aboutUs.html), and although I’ve covered my feelings about the authenticity of Thai food in England in previous posts, I just really enjoyed eating the dishes we ordered! I shared a red fish curry and the safe haven of Pad Thai, and thoroughly enjoyed both (especially given that this was my first fish curry experience – definitely one to be repeated). Honourable mention to Brazilian bar Bodega in Birmingham, which offers some great little tapas-sized plates and a well-matched menu of cocktails (http://www.bodegabirmingham.co.uk). 

Sorry for the long post – I will try not to leave it so long until the next!

M

Couple of photos...

Orange and almond cake

Scallops with pasta 

Dim sum!

Deli/orange and almond cake

I’ll be honest with you – I love nothing more than a really great deli. There, I said it. I know this makes me sound old, a bit fussy, perhaps cardigan-obsessed (one out of three?) but I just think they’re great. I want nothing more than to be able to buy over-priced, non-essential food products like organic pesto, gluten-free shortbread and spiced dried chickpeas, just because I can.

So I was really happy when I recently visited my friend in Birmingham recently (S), and she kindly took me to the Kitchen Garden café. It was just really great – set in what seems to be a cross between an alleyway and a garden centre lies a small shack-come-conservatory covered in plants, with little old ladies shuffling around and muttering about fertiliser. S and I unanimously decided that the best policy was to share some lunch, agreeing on good old mac’n’cheese, with a balsamic salad, and the intriguing potato hash with pancetta and a poached egg.

Both dishes were excellent. The hash was quite odd but delicious – a sort of deconstructed rosti, loosely bound with onions and herbs. There was pancetta running through the whole thing, and a perfectly poached egg on the top which brought it all together. The mac’n’cheese was equally as good, and although you can’t go wrong with that kind of dish, you can go very right, and it was pretty indulgent. We left that deli a very full pair, but not without a couple of the purchases mentioned above – organic pesto, gluten-free lemon shortbread, organic tea and spiced dried chickpeas. And I feel totally unashamed…

As an end note to the post, I’ve been getting back into baking recently, as I seem to do in some sort of annual tradition when the Great British Bake Off is on, and I turned my hand this week to an orange and almond cake. I’m normally a very hit and miss baker – I have little patience for weighing things out correctly, and generally favour the ‘chuck it all in and hope for the best method’ – so outcomes can be varied. On this occasion I don’t want to blow my own trumpet but it was a definite hit – moist with the orange, grainy texture with the almonds and a sharp/sweet marmalade glaze; photos to follow.

M

A week of two curries

Since I last blogged about eating in Hong Kong, I thought I would be a bit more adventurous when trying to cook Asian food. As a rule of thumb, I always assume that the way we cook a lot of Asian stuff here is not 'wrong' per se, just not 'authentic' (whatever that might mean). However, the thought crossed my mind recently when chatting about this with a friend (S) that it really shouldn't matter - there's no way we can get the type or quality of ingredients here, but that shouldn't hinder being adventurous in the kitchen. 

So that being said, I had a week of cooking two curries last week - one was a Thai massaman, rich with peanuts and chili, which I was so pleased with because I finally got round to making my first Thai curry paste. I always had in my head that making a paste from scratch would be labour intensive and not really worth it, but I really don't find a lot of the shop-bought versions particularly convincing, and having given it a go myself I can report back that so long as you are following a recipe, and constantly tasting, it's no problem at all. Although quite heavy with chilli, it got a generally good reception.

The second was a sweet potato and chickpea dhanzak that I modified with the addition of lentils, and chicken for the more veggie-phobic members of my family, and this also went down pretty well. I made this twice last week – the first time was quite mild, so I spiced it up with more fresh chili than the recipe stated the second time which I think added another dimension. But what do I know…

So unfortunately the recipe for the dhanzak is in a book (and I can’t really be bothered to photocopy it), but here’s a link to the recipe for the massaman paste I used: http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaicurrypasterecipes/r/massamanpaste.htm.)

M

The Wild Garlic, Beaminster

The Wild Garlic is a restaurant situated in Beaminster (a sleepy town on the south coast between Exeter and Bournemouth) which, whilst on the face of it seems little more than a more-active-than-average mortuary, is actually a rather charming little village lucky to house one of the finest restaurants  in this part of the country. For those of you that love reality-culinary TV (like me, unashamedly), you’ll be familiar with the owner and head chef of this café-come-gastro pub, Mat Follas, who was the winner of BBC’s Masterchef in 2009. The rotund New Zealander gained prominence for his love of local, fresh ingredients that typically were available to forage within the surrounding countryside, which is why the location of this restaurant makes perfect sense.

As you can tell, I was pretty excited by the prospect of dining at Mat Follas’ restaurant – Mat Follas! – and so it was difficult to hide my initial disappointment upon first sight of the restaurant. Situated in the central square of the village, it is utterly non-descript from the outside, blending in with the monotony of craft stores and news agents. Yet I tried to stay positive, if only because I knew my mum had known I’d wanted to come here for ages, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

We entered, and things immediately changed. The décor was a mix between off-white wooden panelling, and light-mint green walls, which worked really well with the blackboards and real wooden fire. We were shown to our seats by a welcoming waitress, who had that laid-back kind of attitude which rendered validating our reservation superfluous; it’s something I really like in waiting staff, because I know I’m far too stiff to pull it off. Yet I immediately felt at home, and had almost immediately forgotten about my earlier doubts.

Once drinks were out of the way, we got stuck into the menu, which led to quite an extensive and in-depth discussion between mum and I regarding how on earth we were supposed to choose from such fine options; we decided on skipping starters (of which there was a surprisingly impressive range, including the intriguing red onion tart tatin) and went straight for the mains. Having deliberated for quite some time, mum went for the Jerusalem artichoke risotto with radishes, and I (rather indulgently) went for the 12-hour cooked pork belly with sweet potato.

When it came out, I was initially taken-aback with the vibrancy of the colours, and indeed the aromas that were brazen across the plate. Indeed, one of the joys about a less descriptive menu is that when you are presented with the dish, there are surprises which often can elevate it above your expectations, and I can safely say that was the case with my dish. The pork belly was cooked to perfection; the 12 hours cooking were clearly the difference. It dispelled the myth that certain cooks seem to have, which is that pork has to be ‘murdered’ at a high temperature. In this case, the pork was obviously cooked over night at a very low temperature, and it showed as the meat came apart at the slightest of touches, meaning that the flavour was amplified above expectations. It was topped with crackling that, whilst in the eyes of some could be said to be overdone, in my opinion was as it should be (crisp and full of flavour), and was accompanied by roast carrots and a (giant) parsnip.

As I referred to above, the dish was elevated above my expectations, and that was not just down to the cooking. Accompanying the pork were two types of purée; sweet potato (as included in the menu), and beetroot. Now, I can hear the reservations that people may suggest regarding sweetness, but the genius of the design of this dish came through with the fact that the two sweet purées, with a fairly sweet meat, were perfectly offset by the crackling and the juice, which provided a saltiness that was essential for the success of the plate as a whole.

Even though I’ve become slightly carried away with this dish, it is only just to mention that mum's dish was also really quite brilliant (dare I say it, for a veggie plate). The flavour of sweet Jerusalem artichoke and slightly bitter radish ran throughout the pearl barley risotto, which was a first for both of us, and whilst it could be criticised for being a little too rich, the finished article was a lesson on how to achieve the perfect risotto texture; al dente enough for some crunch, but creamy and smooth at the same time.

Whilst this was all rather enjoyable, the crowning glory of the meal was still to come (to our delight). I’m sure if you’re reading this then you probably have all experienced that moment when, having unanimously agreed that everyone is far too full to have desert, you take a look at the menu and observe the awkward silence that precedes the inevitable “well, I suppose we could share something”. And in all honesty, there was no way either of us were going to refuse; the real question was how were we going to decide what to have. After much deliberation, we settled on the intriguingly-named ‘lemon curd pavlova with peanut butter dust’, and we certainly backed the right dessert.

Even though the concept of peanut butter dust sounds inexorably pretentious, the dish offered far more than the description entailed. The pavlova – soft and airy with whisked egg whites – was filled with clotted cream, and topped with a mixture of lemon curd, toffee sauce, peanuts, peanut butter dust, and the rather unusual beetroot dust. It was a triumph. The light meringue, with its crisp exterior and gooey inside, was matched perfectly by the simultaneously tart lemon curd and sweet toffee, with the whole peanuts adding a crunch that was backed up in flavour by the peanut butter dust. In truth I probably could have done without the beetroot (it added little in flavour), although I must admit it worked perfectly in terms of visual effect. After we devoured the lot, mum got slightly giddy, and in her enthusiasm managed to get the waitress to bring Mat out of the kitchen to explain the concept behind the dish. I may be sounding a little harsh actually; the waitress, as previously explained, was lovely, and Mat – in between cooking and brining out food personally to some of the other (lucky) diners – was more than happy to explain his ideas about the dish, and food generally; interestingly, he said he tried to adhere as close as possible to the balance of sweet, sour, savoury and salty, hence the addition of peanuts and beetroot to the desert.

Overall, The Wild Garlic delivered where it matters most; in the taste and presentation of the food, and in the atmosphere of the restaurant itself. Whilst Beaminster has little else to offer, and possibly detracts from the personality of the establishment, it is pretty easy to forgive when you see that the reasoning behind its location is clear; foraging is what Mat Follas does, and he does it very well. Oh, and he’s a nice guy too… always good to know.

Redwing Bar and Dining, Lympstone

So seeing as I've decided to revamp the previous blog and replace it with this new shiny one, I thought I would copy over a few of my reviews (they take so long to re-write). If anyone goes back down to Exeter give it a go...

“It’s a bit like the village in ‘Hot Fuzz’, only made up of holiday home-owners”. Perhaps not the best of first impressions of the tiny, typically-Devon village of Lympstone, yet it was nonetheless the location of our destination for the evening, Redwing Bar & Dining. Lympstone, for those who don’t know (and to be honest, that’s pretty much everyone – the place really is off the map, especially to students), is one train stop before Exmouth, and really shouts (well, more gently murmurs) “retirement” as soon as you get off the train.

Upon locating the ‘main road’ (I’m being generous), the village is essentially made up of cottages as far as you can see, decorated in such a way that made me think of a middle class decorating battle Royale: 'Cath Kidston vs. Farrow & Ball'.

You may think the point of this piece is just to construct the equivalent of a character assassination on this little village of Lympstone (“poor old Lympstone”, etc), but you would be wrong; in fact, the opening paragraph is merely there to highlight my amazement at what this place had in store for myself and three student friends. The purpose of our journey was to sample the culinary delights of the village’s newest gastronomic delight, Redwing Bar & Dining.

The cosy Inn is tucked away behind the corner of the main street in the village, but not in such a way that would tend to indicate mediocrity; in fact, if anything, its nonchalance would suggest aspirations aiming towards the ‘high-end gastro-pub’ part of the spectrum. Upon entering, this suspicion is confirmed, but in an entirely unexpected way; the bar area is full of bright furnishings, teamed with the classic bar-and-specials board combo, which together made for an unusually eye-catching, welcoming area. The atmosphere was unbelievably relaxed, made all-the-more enjoyable by the incredibly enthusiastic and friendly staff who came across really well – not in that annoying, over-complimentary kind of way; I got the sense they wanted to be here and genuinely were enjoying what they were doing. Upon being seated, we were treated to fresh bread with a light, salted butter (reminiscent of the kind you’d typically get in the States) which got us salivating for the prospect of the impending meal.

Now to the most important part – the food. There’s probably one thing I should get out of the way before I continue: I seriously love food. Not in that over-the-top ‘foodie’ way; simply, I love eating, and (attempting) cooking, good food. I certainly was not disappointed. We all skipped starters (student budget after all), but were enticed by the prospect of sea-food for mains. Myself and L both went for the local River Teign Mussels, in a classic cream and white wine sauce, which were plump and cooked to perfection. There was a good balance to the dish, because for many over-zealous cooks white wine ends up ruining a perfectly good sauce by forcing acidity to become the focal point of the dish. This was not the case, and as any sea-food lover knows, it is the perfect accompaniment to fresh mussels, allowing their subtle flavour to really come through and take charge of the dish. Perhaps the only low-light was the fact that a large proportion of them (perhaps a third) did not open, and whilst that is not the fault of the kitchen it was frustrating simply because the being teased by the prospect of inedible mussels is harrowing. J ordered the salmon and noodles, and N the seabass, and were both impressed by the lightness and freshness of dishes that have the potential to become far too heavy and dry.

Upon ordering dessert, it was an altogether more difficult decision for us all, simply because there was such a great choice of things to try. L and N went for the plum and vanilla bean crème brulee, and (under a self-created and wholly artificial pressure) I hedged my bets with the chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream. I feel that I could have ordered anything from the dessert menu and been perfectly happy, so it pains me to write that the only let-down of the dish was that the vanilla ice cream wasn’t home-made. That aside, a perfectly cooked, almost-gooey chocolate brownie (nice and firm on the outside, slightly moist on the inside) with marbled chocolate shards and a warm chocolate sauce was a treat. In fact, I’m willing to forgive the bought ice cream because without it the dish wouldn’t have worked; it certainly needed the ice-cold, cleansing nature of an ice cream or sorbet to cut through the chocolatey goodness to stop it cloying at the top of my mouth. My fellow diners were even more impressed with their choice of brulee, which was like summer on a plate, with a fresh shortbread finger and two-tone fruit coulis, which reminded us all a little of rhubarb and custard sweets, making it a fun yet ‘grown up’ desert.

On our walk back to the train, I realised that this place could be a real gem. The food was fresh, seasonal and locally sourced (and affordable too – two courses for around £15), they had a great selection of drinks (including a Czech larger that J raved about) and an all-important atmosphere that balances welcome with intrigue. Sufficed to say it worked on us; we’re already planning our next trip back, and I would definitely encourage anyone who appreciates food to take the rickety train up to the toy town-esque village of Lympstone to sample the delights Redwing has to offer.

The (Second) First Post...

So I figured I needed to  freshen things up on the blog front, and after being very lazy recently and not publishing any of my recent articles on this new blog, I've decided to focus solely on the food element. For anyone who hasn't seen what I've written about my travels to the US and Hong Kong, and the food-related anecdotes that accompany it, here's the link (I would recommend the HK post for any kind of cogent insight into the type of cuisine we had whilst away - it's difficult to make blogging about fast food in the US interesting: http://abageladay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/days-505152535455-hong-kong.html).

So anyway, I've got a couple of posts that I've been waiting to publish on the redesigned site, which consist of ramblings about where I've been eating out, as well as some new posts about what I've been attempting to make. I'm also going to re-post a selection of thoughts I have previously shared on this blog's predecessor ('food stuffs').

Hope you all enjoy the new format, theme and content.

M