Well, that was a bit of a gap.

To be honest, life is pretty mental right now, and I have to admit I’m losing the will to blog. Does this happen to everyone in the end? I’m not sure. I just know it’s a lot easier (and sometimes a lot more fun) to talk about food through a variety of other social media outlets. As well as posting pictures of cats and talking about how fit Pharrell Williams is on Twitter.  I’ve been pondering about whether it’s time to just broaden out the remit of what I want to blog about. I mean, I obviously love food, and I stuff my gob full with it a lot.  But there’s also a ton of other stuff I’m interested in. Maybe it’s time to not tie myself to writing about recipes all the time. Because that’s getting a bit tiresome. And my photos are shit, they really are. You may have noticed they’ve got even worse. That’s because my new worktops are navy blue and the lights in my kitchen cast shadows everywhere.  But I’m not that bothered about learning how to do anything about that. So yeah, that’s a bit rubbish.

But this is about a plate of noodles, really.

Rubbish photo. Hand shadow just in shot.

I’ve talked about how much I love Silk Road in Camberwell before. Big plate chicken, stir fried pork with wood ear fungus, THAT cabbage. Oh, and the dumplings.  Well, anyway, last time I went I actually tried a new dish. I can’t remember the name but we were presented with a massive plate of handmade noodles covered in a little mound of stir fried (or grilled) lamb doused in the most amazing, spicy crust of cumin, chilli and salt. No veg. Just lamb and noodles.  The taste was heavenly. I have a feeling it probably contained two mugs of cumin and one mug of salt, at a conservative estimate.

I’d been wanting to try and approximate these for a good long while, and finally got around to it when I remembered I had a bit of lamb neck fillet in the freezer.  This is very easy. Even the noodles are easy – they only contain flour, water, salt and oil.  I still turn to the recipe over at Cooking the Books, which is a fantastic resource for lots of East and South East Asian dishes, even if Josh sadly doesn’t blog anymore.  These were probably a bit too thick, but their chewy texture and shape is pretty forgiving, and they really go well with the lamb here.

You don’t have to use lamb neck, it’s just what I had in. I’m sure leg would also work well.

Xinjiang style lamb and noodles – serves four with a couple of side dishes

200g leg of neck fillet of lamb, thinly sliced into bite sized pieces

Marinade for the lamb:

1tsp light soy sauce

1tsp dark soy sauce

1tbsp shaoshing wine

1/2tsp potato or cornflour, mixed with 1tbsp water

For the sauce / spice crust:

1.5tsp hot crushed dried chilli, or less if you don’t want it as spicy

1tsp cumin seeds

2tsp cumin powder (double cumin may sound weird but that flavour really needs to come through)

Salt to taste

3tbsp groundnut or vegetable oil

1 quantity of noodles, cooked, as per the recipe above

1. Mix all the marinade ingredients for the lamb together, and stir in the lamb. Set aside for up to an hour

2. Once marinaded, heat a wok over a very high heat until smoking, and add the oil and swirl to coat the base of the work.  Add the lamb, stirring to separate.  Stir fry briskly around for a few minutes, until the lamb is cooked through and a nice, dark crust (not burnt!) is forming around the outside, from the spices.

3. Remove from heat, top the noodles with the mixture, stir in and serve

Look at all that butter.

There I was, feeling a bit lazy and knackered one Sunday morning, browsing Twitter as I normally do. And there it was – a recipe for pav bhaji.  I had to have it there and then. Cue me putting random clothes over my pyjamas and shuffling to the nearest shop to buy a load of vegetables.

This type of thing happens to me a lot – beyond the random time wasting and fun conversations that constitute most of my twitter activity, I also love it for the inspiration it gives me when it comes to food.  Someone blogs a photo of something tasty, or the name of a dish, and that’s it, I’ve got to make it.

Pav bhaji is classic Indian street food, and something I used to eat as a kid – it’s supremely comforting, that combo of mashed spiced vegetables and buttery toasted crusty roll.  I had never thought to make it myself. Turns out it is ridiculously easy.  If you wanted to be mega lazy, you could always just get a bag of frozen mixed veg and use that.

Anyway, thanks Meera for posting this up – it was very delicious. The only changes I made were to sub cinnamon powder for garam masala, and to add 1/2 tsp of chaat masala (recipe here) and amchoor (ground mango powder). That sourness really helped to lift the whole mix.

Mine all mine.

Whipped white chocolate. With olive oil. And pine nut brittle. And candied lemon.

Oh my word. Amazing – just amazing.

I thought nothing would beat the cheesecake here but this does.

Just go.

I actually made this dressing before Christmas (heavens), but in the spiral into doom that was the not-having-a-kitchen-for-two-months, I completely failed to blog it.  Which would have been a shame as, whilst this is stupidly simple, it is also very, very delicious.

I initially cobbled this together to pour over a tray of roasted vegetables – in this instance, sweet potato, squash, red onion and beetroot – that were jazzed up with some harissa spices (another random thing I bought from Persepolis in Peckham – that place is like a treasure trove).  When I initially put the dressing together, I folded in some crumbled sheeps cheese that was along the lines of manchego.  You don’t need the cheese though – it’s pretty fantastic and even easier without.  The tang and sourness from the preserved lemons really lifted the whole dish and cut through the sweetness of the vegetables.

You can generally pick up preserved lemons in the “foods of the world” section of a lot of big supermarkets – they’re not cheap but they last ages. Or you could make them – I’ve always been too lazy to do so.

Anyway, this is for the lovely Lesley, who never fails to make me laugh – I said I’d blog this and I never did. My bad.

Yoghurt and preserved lemon dressing

Makes enough to dress a whole heap of vegetables or whatever you like

1 preserved lemon, finely chopped

4-5tbsp plain yoghurt

A pinch of chilli flakes

2tbsp olive oil

Optional: a very small handful of finely chopped flat leaf parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all of your ingredients and mix very thoroughly until the olive oil is combined. Season to taste, and serve.

After all that non-kitchen malarkey, you’d think I’d have been spending my time making ridiculously complex feasts involving all of the rings on the hob, the grill and the oven all in one go.

Well you would be wrong. The first meal I wanted to make when the kitchen got finished was pasta. Yeah, just a plate of pasta.

I may be in love with my new cooker. No, really.

I suppose this just goes to show how much I had massively missed having a stove.  And there’s a lot to be said about the simple joy of stirring, and watching something slowly simmering away until it turns into the perfect tomato sauce for pasta.  And it really was perfect.  Well, when you’ve not been able to make a pasta sauce for bloody ages, it would feel perfect.

I can fry aubergines! The joy.

I ended up making a variation on pasta alla Norma. A dish combining pasta, tomato sauce and aubergines.  This was born out of having aubergines in the veg box that week (and I can’t even begin to tell you about the joy of getting the veg box from Riverford again – no more microwave runner beans in a bag!), and stumbling across some fabulous salted ricotta with myrtle berries at a Sardinian stall on Catford Broadway, of all places.  Now, I’m pretty sure pasta alla Norma does not require salted ricotta but my thought process jumped from Sardinian sounding cheese to pasta with some aubergines in it. So there.

Anyway, it was lovely. Probably the most lovely plate of pasta I have had. Finally getting a kitchen back after two months will do that to you.

Pasta all Norma

Makes enough sauce for 4 small to medium sized servings

1 medium sized aubergine

1 tin of good quality plum tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Pinch of chilli flakes or crumbled dried chilli, to taste

Pinch of sugar

1tsp dried oregano

6tbsp olive oil (aubergines love oil – there’s no getting around it here)

Small handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Pecorino, grated (I would envisage the tang of this working better than the greater richness of parmesan in this dish, but really, it’s not the end of the world to use parmesan), or if you can find it, salted ricotta, crumbled

Enough pasta for 4 people (for me, that’s around 90g per person – having asked about this on Twitter, I’m now aware this can vary MASSIVELY, so I’ll leave it up to you)

Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Chop the aubergine into 2cm squares. If you wish, you can salt them and leave for 30 mins or so to draw out their bitterness.  Heat 5tbsp olive oil in a heavy frying pan until hot.  Then add the aubergine cubes and fry until nicely browned on all sides, ensuring they don’t burn. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

2. Heat the other tbsp of olive oil over a medium heat in a medium sized saucepan. When hot, add the garlic and fry until softened but not browned (which can render it bitter if cooked too far). Add the pinch of chilli flakes and oregano and cook for a few seconds more.

3. Add the tomatoes to the pan. I like to squish these up in my hands as I add them to help them along in turning into a sauce.  Give them a good stir, mashing the tomatoes with the back of your spoon to help them amalgamate. Add the pinch of sugar, stir some more, turn the heat down and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.

5. 15 minutes before your 45 minutes is up, put your pasta on to cook – I used spaghetti in this instance.  When the pasta is nearly done, get a cup and reserve some of the pasta cooking water.

6. Once the sauce has simmered away for 45 minutes, add the aubergines, stir to combine and heat though.  Drain the pasta once it is al dente, and add to the pan containing the pasta sauce.  Stir well to combine, adding the reserved pasta water, bit by bit, to help moisten the pasta.  Once combined, add the cheese, parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

My kitchen looked like this for quite a bit. It was quite hard to cook in.

I haven’t blogged for about two months. That’s the same two months I haven’t had a functioning kitchen. There is no coincidence in this.  I can now safely say that not being able to cook means a) I have nothing to really blog about, and b) makes me thoroughly miserable.

I didn’t really know how miserable at first, but now I can say, very.  Some mates mentioned to me “oh, but you’ll get to eat so many awesome meals out!”. No, I’m also skint.  What happened instead is that we bought a microwave and lived off steam bags of ready prepped veg, ready meals and oven chips (as at least we had an oven for a bit).  I could have probably done more in the oven. If we’d had any worktop space. Oh, and a kitchen sink.  I now know that washing up in the bath gets dull pretty quickly.

At least I have learned a few important things: ready meals are as crap as ever, there is one ready made soup in Waitrose that I quite like, and I actually like oven chips, especially if smothered in gravy (well, I knew about the chips and gravy love already).  But really, that’s no substitute for being able to cook.

Being able to cook when I get home from work really is my way of unwinding and relaxing. Whilst for other people, it may be that hour in front of the TV, a bath, a bit of reading, for me, it’s most definitely being able to cook.  Radio on, pottering about in the kitchen in the evening – that’s bliss to me.  It’s only when things like that are taken away from you for a bit that you realise how intrinsic they are to your wellbeing.

Now, this is proper first world problems – it’s not that serious in the grand scheme of things, and in a weeks time it will all be over because I will have a shiny new kitchen. But still, it’s been hard.  I never want to see another mini bag of microwave veg again.

So, now I’ve got the wonder of having a new cooker to look forward to. I’ve already got some thoughts lined up for what I want to cook. The roast duck from the Chinatown edition of Lucky Peach, a ton of Chinese greens in the wok as I will now have a wok burner, as well as new ice cream flavours as Spring (hopefully) arrives.  Before then, I will actually blog about bits and pieces –  about how awesome The London Particular in New Cross is, and some Henan food in Bloomsbury – that saved my sanity a bit whilst I was not able to cook. So, if you will, bear with me – the two months is almost over!

Hello 2013 – I hope you will be better than 2012.

Whilst 2012 definitely ended up a bit better (moved house, passed driving test – YAY), it was generally an up and down year.  Too many friends going through stresses, too much illness, and that sodding recession didn’t help.  Anyhow, as someone mentioned to me on Twitter, maybe I should start viewing years in terms of sports seasons.  This being the case, I can safely say I’m having a good 2012-2013.

I’m not one for making tons of resolutions, but in relation to this blog, I’ll definitely try and post more – I have been a bit rubbish of late.  Maybe I should actually start learning to take good photos of food. Maybe that will happen (maybe not).  And I would quite like to branch out a bit more – I’ve been feeling in a bit of a food rut of late.  I need some new inspiration, some different cuisines to try (and I would love to start trying out some new, interesting and above all, delicious new vegetarian and vegan dishes).  I’ve ordered a few new cookbooks so I’m hoping this will take my greed in a few different directions this year.  Anyway, for those who do read, I hope you do still enjoy it.  From the looks of my stats, you all seem to be lovers of pickle as much as I do, as this recipe for green mango pickle is still my most viewed post.

So, on to 2013.  Well, I actually made this little dish for a 2012 Boxing Day bash, but it’s so good, I’m sure I’ll be making this a lot more this year.  These toasted cashews are a pretty top nibble to have alongside some drinks.  Spicy, aromatic, salty, they’ve got it all (unless you have a nut allergy).  These are inspired by an appetiser dish at recently opened Naamyaa Cafe in Angel – a new SE Asian restaurant that is the brainchild of Alan Yau (originator of Wagamama, Busaba and, er, Cha Cha Moon) alongside Thai cheffy expert, David Thompson.

Now, when I went for the first time, that “ripe for a rollout” klaxon did go off loudly in my head.  And there’s no doubting that more of these will probably spring up all over London very shortly.  But the thing is, right now, the food here is really good.  I’ve been a couple of times, and enjoyed nearly everything I’ve eaten (except for the chicken wings, which were a bit spartan and lacking in flavour).  Moreover, it’s good value.  You can get yourself a main dish with rice, alongside a lovely soothing soup for around a tenner.  So go now, before it gets rolled out and potentially gets a bit rubbish (hope not).

Anyway, back to those cashews.  Naamyaa have wok tossed cashews on their menu and I’ve eaten them both times I’ve been.  They are basically toasty cashews with crispy curry leaves, chillies and shallots.  I’m not exactly sure how they are made, but it’s such a simple combination of ingredients, that I thought I’d get a good approximation.  The only thing I’ve omitted are the crispy shallots, as I didn’t have any and couldn’t be bothered to make them.  If you can be bothered, they would only make them taste better.  I mean, crispy stuff = stuff tastes better.

Now, curry leaves – these are getting a lot easier to get hold of. I’ve even seen them in the slightly exotic veg bit of Asda and Morrisons.  When I buy them, I typically give them a wash and stash them in the freezer. You can easily use them from frozen in dishes and it’s the best way of ensuring you don’t waste them.  When it comes to substitutes, I really don’t feel there is a great one for curry leaves.  They have such a unique fragrance and give so much to the dishes you put them in, that I would say, do try and seek them out if you can.

So, on to 2013 – here’s to a year of much more good stuff, and much less bad stuff.

Toasted cashews with chillies and curry leaves

300g raw cashew nuts

Approx. 25-30 curry leaves

2 red chillies, finely sliced (and de-seeded if you want less heat)

1tbsp groundnut or sunflower oil

Salt to taste

1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C.  Spread the cashew nuts out on a baking tray.  Once the oven is pre-heated, toast them for approximately 10-12 minutes, checking as you go to ensure they don’t burn (which happens very easily).  You want a uniform brown colour, but not dark brown / black.  You could do this in a frying pan but I find toasting them in the oven is the best way of getting a uniform colour on them.  Once toasted, remove from the oven.

2. In a frying pan or wok, heat the oil over a medium heat until hot.  Then add the curry leaves and give them a stir.  They will sizzle in the pan.  Almost immediately, add the chillies and stir and fry until you can smell the fragrance of the leaves and they look crispy (make sure you don’t burn the chillies).  Add the cashews to the pan and toss until they are coated in the curry leaves, chillies and oil.  Remove to a plate lined with kitchen roll.  Place another layer of kitchen roll on top and try drain to remove as much oil as possible.  I find it works best to then transfer to another lined plate and to repeat the process.  You should end up with the curry leaves being crispy enough to break up into little flakes.

3. Once drained, add salt (you will need more salt than you think) to taste, mix, and serve.

Marzipan cake with roasted plums. Amazing.

So, that was a big load of time non-posting.  I’ve been in the process of moving house,  which means my brain has been full of thinking about things like paint / shelves / fridges, rather than constantly thinking about food.

And I also haven’t been cooking that much.  Not conducive to writing posts, that’s for sure.

So anyway, here’s a quick post waxing lyrical about one of my favourite places I’ve been eating at this year – Honey & Co.  This wonderful little restaurant serving up inspired Middle Eastern-ish food has perked up the little bit of Fitzrovia I work in no end.  At last, a fantastic alternative to the perma-chains that litter the north end of Tottenham Court Road!

I can’t quite remember how many times I’ve eaten here. I also have hardly any photos of the lunches I have had.  Which is a bit rubbish. But also testament to the fact that I’ve been enjoying myself far too much when I’ve been eating there to think about taking a picture of what I’ve been stuffing into my mouth.  Amidst the visits though, I’ve indulged in the most fantastic tomato, zataar and pita salad, a heavenly lamb and cauliflower baked dish smothered in tahini and yoghurt and a rich, sweet chicken and chestnut tagine.  As well as all this, they make the most fantastic iced teas every day.  I’m not a massive fan of floral flavours, such as rose and orange blossom, but even I adore their orange blossom iced tea.

Oh, and the puddings.  They are bloody amazing. Just go order the cheesecake.  Or the marzipan cake (pictured above).  I think about them both. A lot.

What I incongruously have managed to take photos of, are some of the wonderful breakfast items I’ve eaten there.  I’ve mentioned my breakfast issues before. Well, if I could eat some of the savoury (and sometimes sweet) concoctions from Honey & Co. for breakfast, I don’t think I would have a problem at all.

Spinach egg thing. A worthy breakfast.

This is a spinach-cheese pastry thing with an oozing cooked egg yolk in the middle.  Look at how orange it is!  Amazing.

Merguez sausage roll. Enough to convert a breakfast hater

A pretty awesome merguez sausage and tomato roll. Heaven.

Raspberry custard doughnuts. Nutritious breakfast.

And a raspberry custard doughnut. Like all of their sweet items, just brilliant.

So go if you can.  It’s already very busy as it can only accommodate about 18 covers or so. But try to book and bag a table.  In addition, they are now open for dinner on Thursday and Friday.  Oh, and the service is fantastic.

Did I mention how much I love this place?

Details:

Honey & Co.

25a Warren St

W1T 5LZ

Nearest transport: Warren St tube (Victoria Line) and Great Portland St tube Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan Lines)

Price: low to mid-level, depending on whether you go for a full three courses or not.

You may know by now that I like a bit of spice when it comes to my food.  I generally think there’s no dish where an addition of chilli wouldn’t help it out a bit (maybe trifle). And I have been known to keep a stash of dried chillies in my office.

I’m also a massive fan of chilli oil, and love drizzling it over all manner of things – from noodle soup to fried eggs.  I typically make my own, primarily because I find the ones you can pick up from the Chinese supermarket a bit off-putting in their aftertaste. I’m pretty sure this is because a lot of them contain dried shrimp. This is probably the reason why a lot of people love them, but there’s something about that taste that doesn’t sit well with me.

However, even my homemade chilli oil pales into comparison when faced with the wonder of Tsuru’s Eat the Bits chilli oil. I was recently blessed with a free pot of this wondrous stuff by the lovely Chloe.  Chloe is a member of my book group but more importantly, part of the crew at Tsuru, that group of restaurants who have been satisfying the katsu needs of London workers for a good few years now.  They’ve been spending time perfecting their chilli oil for home use, and it can now be purchased at branches of Tsuru and also over here.

Anyway, since I’ve had a pot of their chilli oil, I’ve been pretty much sticking it in everything. It’s amazing.  The addition of red miso is inspired, giving it a wonderful salty savouriness without having to use ingredients like that aforementioned dried shrimp (or MSG).  And there’s tons of sesame seeds in there, which I love.

One of the recipes I’ve been liberally using it in is this great radish in chilli oil side dish (another Fuchsia Dunlop adaptation – I’m obsessed) below. This makes a fantastic addition to any Chinese meal and is a wonderful thing to pick at.  Though the amount of times I’ve been making it, I’m going to run out of this chilli oil. And that would be a disaster.

Radishes in chilli oil – adapated from Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

Makes a small bowl, enough for two people with other dishes

1 bunch or small of radishes, washed and topped and tailed

1tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tsp caster sugar

1tbsp chilli oil with a good amount of chilli bits in it

Drizzle of sesame oil

Salt to taste (though you may not need it with the sesame oil)

1. “Smack” your radishes liberally with the flat blade side of a big knife, until they have some cracks in them, but are not falling apart. This will help them to suck up the sauce.

2. Combine all of your sauce ingredients, and pour over the radishes. Mix and serve.

This was one of those dishes which I’d never really intended to write about, primarily because it’s something I made to scoff down on my own one night rather than something I had set my mind on making, and making well.  But then I stuck a photo of it up on Instagram and Facebook and a ton of people (well, two) wanted the recipe.

So here you go.

Another wonderful recipe adapted from Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop. It’s getting embarrassing to think of how many times I’ve now cooked from this.  I love the fact that so many of the recipes are vegetarian (or even vegan), and if not, easily adaptable to make them so. As I try to avoid cooking and eating meat during the week, this has proved invaluable, especially in terms of getting me out of my midweek rut of dal / curry / dal / pasta / dal.

Some of these ingredients are ones you will have to head to a Chinese supermarket in order to get hold of, namely the preserved vegetable and chinkiang vinegar. However, I dare say you could adapt it by using some other form of pickled vegetable (cucumbers, maybe?) and balsamic vinegar.  Hell, the original recipe called for Bombay mix to replace the original fried noodles and deep fried soy beans.  Considering I didn’t have the Bombay mix, I just made do with toasted peanuts and sesame seeds. It still worked, adding some much needed crunchy contrast to that silky tofu.

Sour and Hot Silken Tofu – adapted from Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

Makes one portion

For the tofu dressing

150g silken tofu (I used Clearspring, which I picked up in Waitrose)

1tsp light soy sauce

1tbsp stock

1/2 tbsp chinkiang vinegar

1 tbsp chilli oil with around 1/2 tbsp of the chilli bits from the jar

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tbsp spring onion green, finely sliced

1/2 tbsp Sichuan preserved vegetable (zha cai), finely chopped

Salt

To serve

1/2 tbsp toasted skinned peanuts, chopped

1/2 tsp sesame seeds, toasted

1/2 tbsp spring onions greens, finely sliced

1/2 tbsp Sichuan preserved vegetable (zha cai), finely chopped

1. Bring a saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil.  Carefully spoon in, or slide the tofu into the water and lightly simmer for around 5 minutes, until it is heated through.

2. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a serving bowl, adding a pinch of salt to taste.  When the tofu is heated through, drain and carefully transfer to the bowl.  It will probably break up a bit – this isn’t a problem.

3. Cover with the garnishes and dig in.  I can imagine this would be great eaten with rice, but I just ate it on its own.