Happy, smoky, milky

Happiness is smoked haddock chowder. The smell and taste bring back some of my earliest childhood memories: a treat lunch at The Place to Eat on the top floor of John Lewis in Edinburgh, big glass windows with views down over Leith and over the Firth of Forth to Fife. I remember the smoky fish, the luxurious creaminess of the broth and the sweetness of the sweetcorn, and even when I went off fish later on, the smell of a smoked haddock chowder would always bring back happy memories.

Now that I'm well and truly back on the fish, I decided to pop in to my local fishmongers, the amazing Steve Hatt on Essex Road, and pick up smoked haddock for that purpose. I using this Channel 4 recipe as a basis, but upped the celery as I had quite a bit of that in already and I never get through it quick enough.

Making the soup was very easy, and the most fun bit was boiling the smoked haddock in the milk, which produced this amazing creamy, smoky milk foam that I couldn't resist dipping my finger in. MMMMmmm.



The soup was absolutely wonderful - it tasted just like it used to, so creamy and rich but not too heavy going. I thought the addition of extra celery worked well and would like to try it with fennel next time for some extra depth of flavour.

Tom's Victorian Chop House

I had an overnight in Manchester with work last week. I really like Manchester, even though I only ever seem to go there on work duties. The last couple of times had been political party conferences, and the town is swamped with politicos, lobbyists, the media and party members. When I've had a free evening I've always tried to slip away from the throng of conference and find the beating heart of the city. Luckily, that wasn't too hard and I've been to some characterful (and bargainous) curry houses in the Northern Quarter, a basement Armenian restaurant and some fun bars and pubs.

This time I was on my own (no lobbyists for company!) and keen to try out some more of Manchester's dining options. I opted for the institution that is Tom's Chop House, a traditional north western restaurant/pub in the centre of the town, after lots of positive words from friends who've been there. It's all Victorian splendour inside: tiled floors, dark wood panelling on the walls, and lots of nice antique furniture. The waiting staff sensitively tucked me in a corner (slight look of sympathy when I asked for my "Table for one"!) with a good view of the restaurant and bar.



My first course was brown onion soup. It was very close to French onion soup (which I love), rich and deep flavours, the sweetness of the slow-cooked onions and the saltiness of the stock. Also like its French counterpart, it was served with a cheese crouton, although it was mature cheddar rather than gruyère. Really nice.



For my main I had a Lancashire beefsteak casserole with root veg and a dumpling. I do love a dumpling, and the casserole was utterly perfect. Really subtle but effective use of herbs and a good stock made the sauce delicious, while the meat itself was incredibly tender and clearly good quality.



The wine list was really expansive and not too expensive, but you could get some really nice stuff by the glass too. I opted for a glass of Borsao Garnacha Tinto, which matched the food perfectly. I was very full and the restaurant was getting busy with loud and happy Mancunians coming in to celebrate birthdays and catch up with long-time-no-seen friends. I ducked away from the chorus of 'I'll have a large Pinot Grigio!' to retire to my Travelodge and get on with some studying. But I was very happy to have experienced a slab of old skool Mancunian tradition on my one night there.

Mexican food getting simpler

I've made it my new year's resolution to improve my skills in Mexican cooking. This came about following many trips to Wahaca, a fantastic meal in Berlin, and many outstanding burritos about London. The quality of Mexican food you can eat out has come on massively in recent years; yet my cooking had not. I love the fiery spices, the ubiquity of coriander (up there with dill on my herbs top 10), the tangy flavours, the slow cooked meet, the avocados, the limes. I love the ceremony of making up a wrap, the colours, the combinations. But I felt that my cooking of it was stuck in Tex Mex, I was using my own techniques without seeking to understand some of the science and structure of Mexican cooking.

I'd been dropping hints for Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple cook book for a long time and when I didn't get it (again) for Christmas (the outrage!) I bought it for myself. It's beautiful, informative and encouraging. 'Simple' is not a cop-out at all; rather, it explains the ideal ingredients and tells you how you can substitute accurately by using combinations of more readily available ingredients, and takes you through how to make some of the larder staples with just a few speciality peppers, for example. Once you've got the basics, you can easily put together some really exciting, authentic dishes at your local shops.

So last weekend I set about making my first Mexican food made simple. It was a Sunday and I had a whole chicken that needed using up. Rather than making a classic roast, I decided I'd make some kind of roast chicken burritos. With a couple of bunches of coriander and a packet of chipotle peppers from Lupe Pintos in Edinburgh, I set about my task.



I'd seen that so many recipes required a chipotle paste, I made that first. The dried chipotles were boiled in water for almost an hour, their steam filling the house and making us all cough at their potency. The smoky smell I recognised from BBQ sauce (love that stuff), so I'd already learned something. After a while I drained the peppers, mixed in white wine vinegar, lots of garlic, onion, salt, sugar and tomato purée and blended down to a paste. The house smelled amazing, although in the end I didn't actually need to use the purée for this meal. Well, at least it's in a jar now and ready for the next one.

I made a 'green rice', where you purée (notice a theme here?) lots of coriander, parsley, spinach together with garlic and onions, a splash of water and a pinch of salt, cook the paste and then mix in rinsed basmati rice before adding a mild stock. It was like cooking a pilav, and ended up very smooth, fragrant and tasty. I also made a smoky salsa, use the chipotle paste I'd just made. And when it came to the guacamole, though I'd made my own a hundred times, I carefully followed the steps set out in the book - a little lime then, a little later, a little chili first, then more in a bit. It was really, really very good. A lot of people don't like recipe books, believing them to stifle creativity and intuition in the kitchen. I agree to an extent, but I think it's always good to be open to learning from others and then build on your intuitive skillz!!



The finished product was delicious - the flavours all so fresh and light, the perfectly roast chicken going excellently with the fragrant green rice, the luscious guacamole, the zingy salsa and the slightly tart sour cream. The best wrap I've ever had. Lots of smiles on the other side of the table too.



Now that I've done that dry run, I should be ready to put on a super Mexican spread when hosting a dinner party in a couple of week's time!

Brunchin' brunchin' #2

Brunch is big business in the yummy liberal enclave of Stoke Newington. So much so, that in a damning critique of the inner city middle classes's hypocrisy, the Independent journo highlighted the almond croissant and latte serving cafes of N16 as the frontline of social divisions that permeate right down to parents at the school gate.

Competition is fierce for brunch on Stoke Newington Church Street. Fierce for restaurants and cafes vying for the refined dollars of N16ers, happy to splash out on the good things in life. Fierce for would-be brunchers, with every table in every eatery hard won through hawking and stalking and opportunist pouncing. The sharp elbowed middle-classes indeed.

My old favourite is the Blue Legume, which does delicious brunch, lunch and dinner. Their brunch menu covers tansatlantic favourites such as eggs benedict, freshly pressed fruit juice combos (celery, apple and mint? YES PLEASE!) with more Mediterranean style dishes - olives, lamb sausage, haloumi all crop up in the cooked breakfast dishes. The prices are very reasonable and so the above-mentioned competition for a good table is tough. We recently even found ourselves brunching at the unfashionable hour of 10am to save us the table sourcing stress. On a bitterly cold, but sunny December morning it did the trick, but by 10.30am people were arriving in droves and by 11am the outlook was pretty bleak. So there you go: early bird, worm, etc.

I usually opt for the eggs benedict, which is always delicious, but most recently I plumped for the Mediterranean breakfast, the big 'un.



It was a delicious mixture of smoky, salty and fresh flavours; much less greasy than its English counterpart. The jam for the toast felt slightly redundant, but I guess some people like to finish on a sweet note. Ben had the fruit salad platter, which is an immense spread of exotic and more local fruit, presented beautifully and great for kidding yourself that it'll help you fighting off a cold.

The opening of Homa on Church Street midway through 2010 sent the N16 twiteratti into a gushing frenzy. A new spot, with beautiful, sleek interiors, a wine bar with a bang on winelist, excellent pizzas, bunch, cakes, locally smoked salmon. Is it too good to be true?!

We had a table late afternoon on Halloween. The surrounding streets looked like the scenes in ET, full of gleeful, screaming children dressed in immaculate scary outfits. The distractions of Halloween and our slightly odd timing made for a quiet and relaxed meal at Homa, with friendly service and tasty food.

Keen to try the N16 smoked salmon, I plumped for the Eggs Benedict. James was super keen and went for a plate full of smoked salmon with capers, cornichons, rocket and lashings of creme friache. Fancy pants. The salmon was really incredible - delicate smoky flavours, tender and very fresh tasting. In the eggs benedict it was served with fresh spinach, poached egg and hollandaise sauce, all of which tasted like they were made from really top ingredients.



Anna opted for a cooked breakfast of sorts, with scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, mozzarella and sourdough toast. Again, the ingredients were clearly super quality and well sourced, and it totally elevates brunch from being a fun social event with nice food to a proper foodie experience.



Meals at Homa are a good £2 or so more expensive than at Blue Legume and the experience is a little more slick, stylish and sedate. The ingredients at Homa are clearly a cut above the rest, but Blue Legume is still very yummy and has a lively atmosphere and more 'fun' menu in terms of smoothies, cakes, etc. Brunch is clearly a growth industry in Stoke Newington and you're truly spoiled for choice. Lucky me.

I love Christmas

I love Christmas, especially this one, as I now have a new camera thanks to my lovely boyfriend (and his parents), mum, dad and others. Woop. Early signs are that it takes a beautiful picture, so I'll be working on my photo skillz to up the standard of photography on this blog.

As is well documented, I love Christmas dinner. It's my favourite meal of the year, with so many happy memories evoked. It's evolved over the years: different faces at the table, different settings, new dishes (this year: parsnip and pear croquettes!), shelved dishes (where's the mashed potato and cauliflower and cheese? Rightly relegated!), new customs (the Christmas eve cut price turkey hunt). But I love it for its ritual, its bringing people together and it's slow, social celebration of culinary excess.

This year was a particularly excellent Christmas dinner. Our turkey was the best ever, so succulent and juicy. It was a Marks and Spencer's free range organic bronze feathered beauty that we picked up on Christmas Eve for a third of its original price. The turkey hunt is fast becoming a favourite tradition - my mum has us stationed at supermarkets across Edinburgh at about 3pm on Christmas Eve, waiting for the supermarkets to slash the prices of their top tier turkeys. It's a game of nerves: jump too soon and you pay over the odds, leave it too long and you could be left with nothing. We were very pleased with our turkey.

The trimmings are key, and I think we counted 12 different dishes on our Christmas lunch plate:





Turkey, red cabbage braised with apple, roast potatoes in goose fat, home-made cranberry sauce (with orange zest), carrots with orange, brussels sprouts, little sausages, chestnut stuffing, parsnip and pear croquettes, bacon, leek, bread sauce and gravy. My favourites are the bread sauce (milk slow-cooked overnight with bay leaf and a clove stuffed onion) and the chestnut stuffing (chestnut purée, bacon, onions lemon zest, abundant parsley, breadcrumbs, egg: baked), without which it just wouldn't Christmas at all.

On Boxing Day, my siblings and I walk to the other side of Edinburgh (via the Topshop sale, for our sins) to join my dad and his partner for a second Christmas lunch. My dad isn't mega keen on the whole roast dinner setup, so will often cook a Portuguese style dish. This year he made a very meaty cataplana (it typically has clams, prawns and white fish, but my brother really dislikes fish) with melt-in-your-mouth pork loin and top quality chorizo and black pudding in a rich tomato and wine sauce. It was delicious and went down nicely with the free flowing cava!



The food has been amazing and there's been much more too: home-made ice cream, chestnut cream whip, leftover combinations, brunch out with friends. I'm definitely feeling fooded out and ready for some nice fresh salads and fruit!

Even the pizzas are posh

You only have to flick through the piles of take away menus that come through your front door on a weekly basis to see that tastes are more and more sophisticated, even when it comes to the traditional junk food fest territory of the Friday night take away. The game has been upped and you can now even choose which Italian region you want your pizza from, some Indian take-away menus don't even feature chicken tikka masala and you can get dim sum delivered to your door. Of course, you still get menus with yellowing pictures of huge greasy pizzas topped with rubber cheese and rubber meat, but it's hard to see how those places will survive for much longer when you could have it so much better for the same price.

I've been in essay mode up until recently, spending long weekend days in the library, coming home tired and hungry with little energy to cook. This has meant lots of quiet, relaxed Saturday nights with a take away and a couple of episodes of Mad Men. Very young fogey, but a good excuse to try out some of north London's best pizzas!

Firezza is highly rated by an Italian born and raised friend and specialises in pizzas by the yard. Their bases are thick and rustic without being too doughy, but it's all about the toppings. Plentiful, plentiful top quality hams and salamis, huge basil leafs, sweet onions. Yum. The pizzas are actually huge and we weren't able to finish ours', as much as we wanted to, but they did for a very nice lunch the next day in the lirbary.



It's a small chain and there are a scattering of branches across London. Our nearest is by Highbury and Islington tube. There's a cheaper price (£8.50 a pizza) if you pick up, so I sent the boyf out on his bike to pick ours up.

Il Bacio is another small chain of Sardinian restaurants across a small stretch of north London: N16, N5 and N4, with lots of avid fans. The restaurants serve a range of Sarindian fare: fish and seafood dishes, pizzas and pastas, while Il Bacio Express on Stoke Newington Church Street focuses mainly on pizzas. The menu, being Sardinian, diverges from the pizzeria norms, with more sea food, olives, capers, fresh herbs and Sardinia specific hams.



The pizzas were delicious, especially for the topping combinations. The slight trade off for more interesting combinations compared to Firezza was that the topping didn't seem as good quality – the olives were quite plain and the meat wasn't as clearly top notch as that on the Firezza pizza.

Finally on the pizza front, not a take away, but I enjoyed the pizza at the Hideaway bar between Tufnell Park and Archway tube. It's a great little late spot, with a great selection of beers, wines and friendly bar staff who went out of their way to meet our cocktail demands (Mad Men themed!). Their pizzas are reputed to be some of the best 'outside Foreign' according to the Observer, so we were keen to try them.



I had a chorizo and almond pizza, which was a winning combination, Spanish inspired. The chorizo was really good quality, very meaty, the peppers sweet and the almonds gave it a good rounded taste. The base was thin but not too crispy, which was a nice experience if not hugely filling. Still very nice and a great place for a local low key evening if you're in the Tufnell Park/Archway/Dartmouth Park 'hood.

Brunchin' brunchin' #1

If my Berlin days taught me anything, it's this: brunch should be the king of all meals. If there's any way of spending your precious weekend days in more joy, let me know. But I can't imagine anything better than gathering some friends together and having good coffee, warm food, fresh juice, reading weekend papers and having a good natter. I've blogged brunch before, but I've always got space for more and want to share some recent favourites:

Lantana is a fairly new Australian brunch joint in Fitzrovia, just off Goodge Street. This means, crucially, that they get good coffee, chilled vibes and a fresh approach to a warm breakfast. I went one Sunday, meeting a doctor friend just coming off a nightshift at UCH. For her it was the end of a long day, for the rest of us it was the just the start. But for all of us, the coffee (flat white, why not?!) was excellent.



I had corn and herb fritters, topped with slow cooked garlicky tomato salsa, sweetcure bacon, creme fraiche with a twist of lime and a rocket salad. So so yummy, fresh, tangy and sweet all in one. Fritters are an utilised medium for the carb - stuffed full of herby flavours, they were a great earthy base for the fresh flavours on top.



One friend had scrambled egg with smoked salmon and fresh herbs, and the other (sweet toothed) opted for brioche french toast with poached pears and ricotta. I did swapsies for a bite of both: delicious. I tend to always go for a savoury brunch though, as amazing as a sweet french toast is. We all liked the Mediterranean flavours with a twist of antipodean zing.



Lantana is popular - we arrived just after 10am, and by 10.30 there were quite a few people waiting for tables. The early bird catches the worm, even if it defeats the point of brunch.