Archive for March, 2012
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
I was making some daal yesterday (recipe to follow), and had a hankering for something bready to go with it, and then I remembered this recipe for these paratha-esque buttery flat breads from the excellent Mission Street Food book.
As fans / stalkers of the guys behind MSF, we went to the launch of the book whilst we were in San Francisco, but until now I’m a bit ashamed to say I’d not attempted anything from it.
Whats cool about these breads is that they combine different styles of cooking. In this case, probably the simplest kind of bread you can make, with basic lamination techniques more commonly found in pastry work.
I’ve amended the recipe slightly by scaling it down, converting it into grams, and adding some whole wheat flour to the dough. One thing to note is that the butter you use has to be VERY soft. You’ll be spreading it on a thin sheet of dough, so if it’s firm, the dough will tear and screw up all your hard work.
Ingredients (makes 6)
50g White bread flour
50g Pastry flour
20g whole wheat flour
30g Grits / cornmeal / polenta
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Tags: Bread, Butter, Buttermilk, Buttery, Cornmeal, Curry, Flatbreads, Flour, Indian, Lamination, Mission Street Food, Paratha, San Francisco, Wrap
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Snack | 2 Comments »
Sunday, March 18th, 2012
Believe your eyes. It’s a big cornbread muffin, encasing a boiled egg, shards of maple candied bacon, chilli and topped with more of that sweet, sweet bacon.
This recipe is totally inspired by a cornbread and egg muffin I had at a place called Sweetcakes in Chicago a few years ago. It’s an idea that’s been knocking around in my brain ever since, but in my mind, there were two major problems with their version of this inspired bit of breakfast madness. 1: The ratio of cornbread to filling. Too much egg, not enough bread. 2: No bacon. What a mistake-a to make-a.
This recipe rectifies both problems, but as a result, you can’t bake them in regular muffin tins as they’re just not big enough. So I use small aluminium pudding molds. The kind of thing you’d make a chocolate fondant in. Also, make sure you buy medium sized eggs, not the bigger ones you can get these days.
Ingredients (makes 6)
150 g yellow grits / cornmeal / polenta
150 g white bread flour
1 large red chilli, de-seeded & finely chopped
8 medium sized eggs (6 for the inside, 2 for the batter)
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Tags: Bacon, Big, Breakfast, Chili, cornbread, Cornmeal, Eggs, Flour, Grits, maple syrup, Muffins, polenta, Tabasco
Posted in Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Travel | 4 Comments »
Friday, March 16th, 2012
I’ve got a lot of love for the humble falafel. I think I first tried them in Egypt when traveling with a mate during university holidays, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I used to make a weekly, sometimes twice weekly, pilgrimage to a place called Just Falafs when I worked in Soho, but it sadly closed a couple of years ago as their landlord jacked up the rent and they couldn’t afford to stay. For a while, I was in a bit of a felafel wilderness, until I discovered that making your own is pretty easy.
These have a good hit of garlic in them, so if you’re not in to that, just tone down the quantities a bit. I like to serve them in pittas with a crunchy red cabbage salad (recipe below), a tzatziki of sorts (recipe from an earlier post here), some salad leaves and hummus, which I buy (sorry).
One final note, don’t be tempted to leave out the flour as it helps bind the mixture. If you leave it out your balls will disintegrate when you fry them.
Ingredients (makes around 10)
For the felafel
1 200g can of chickpeas (drained weight)
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
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Tags: Chick peas, Coriander, Cumin, Egypt, Felafel, Flat Leaf Parsley, Garlic, Lemon juice, Olive Oli, Onion, Pitta, Red Cabbage, Red Onion, Street Food, Tzatziki
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Travel | 3 Comments »
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
I’ve got a lot of love for Wales. Most of my family holidays in the 80s were spent in Snowdonia, and whilst I’d love to be able to tell you about some formative experience of eating Welsh Cakes fresh from a village bakery, the truth of the matter is my family were more likely to be found destroying a pack of Mr Kipling country slices. But I’ve moved on from the UK’s favourite fictional baker, and in honour of St David’s day yesterday, I’m celebrating with Wales’ answer to the scone.
The Welsh Cakes you get in the shops tend to be rather rubbery, but in my mind the key to a good one is a crunchy crust and a fluffy, crumbly inside. Usually they are made with currants, but I prefer bigger and juicer raisins, soaked over night in a wee bit of booze. Not exactly traditional, but there you go.
Ingredients (makes around 25)
500 g Self-raising flour / 500 g flour with 2.5 tsp baking powder
250 cold, unsalted butter
90g caster sugar
1.5 tsp of allspice
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Tags: All Spice, Butter, Cakes, Egg, Flour, Orange Zest, Rasins, Rum, St David's Day, Welsh
Posted in Recipes, Snack, Sweet Stuff | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Cheap cuts and slow cooking are very much de rigueur at the moment, so this recipe should be bang ‘on trend’. Or something.
Whilst making this yesterday, I was wondering if anyone has actually calculated the cost of energy used during slow cooking and whether that means cheap cuts are still worth it (Aga and Rayburn users aside). I don’t know what the answer is, but when you taste this slow cooked ox cheek ragu, you’ll soon forget about all that. It’s worth it.
Like the filling for my Ox Tail Sliders, you’re going to need a fair amount of time (4-5 hours) to cook the ragu, so this is weekend biznizz. Serve with a wider pasta, from Tagliatele up, to give the sauce plenty of surface area to cling to.
Ingredients (serves 2 hungry people)
500 g Ox Cheek
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 large stick celery, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
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Tags: Bay, Beef Stock, Carrot, Celery, Cheap Cuts, Chianti, Garlic, Italian, Onion, Ox Cheek, Pasta, Ragu, Red Wine, Rosemary, Slow Cooking, Tagliatelle
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes | 7 Comments »
