Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
As mentioned in the previous post, I was down in Cornwall for Christmas. My mum always puts on a great spread while we’re down there, but with seven mouths to feed she has her work cut out, and seems to spend too much time in the kitchen. That being the case, for the last few years I’ve given her the night off and cooked a meal for the family.
This year I cooked a slow cooked shoulder of lamb with Cornish style boulangère potatoes and spring greens. The lamb is cooked in a tangy herb, lemon and anchovy marinade (I have to leave out the garlic as my dad can’t stand it, but have included it in this recipe), and the classicly French boulangère are given a South West twist with the adition of Cornish cruncher cheddar cheese.
Ingredients
For the lamb:
2.5 kilo shoulder of lamb
2 lemons (juice and zest)
10 -15 tinned anchovy fillets
Bunch of rosemary
5 large cloves of garlic
Olive oil
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Tags: Anchovy, Boulangere, Cheese, Cornish Cruncher, Lamb, Lemon, Potatoes, Rosemary, Shoulder, Slow Cook, Spring Greens
Posted in Dinner, Opinion, Recipes, Travel | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 4th, 2010
Happy New Year from Hand To Mouth. Hope you all had a good one.
I had the good fortune to be in Cornwall for Christmas, and then Paris for New Years. Good food was eaten accross the festive period, more on this in subsequent posts, but first of all something for the bread geeks out there.
Whilst in Paris I made a pilgrimage to Poilâne. It may not be a familiar name, but if you love good bread it should be. It’s a bakery in Saint-Germain, and makes the most insanely tasty ‘miche’ or traditional French sourdough loaves. Set up by Pierre Poilâne, a young baker from Normandy in 1932, the shop has been knocking out these beautiful large round loaves ever since to Parisians hungry for something a bit more interesting than the regular baguette.
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Tags: Bakery, Bread, Farine Bise, French, Grey Flour, Paris, Poilâne, Saint-Germain, Sourdough
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
I was first taken to Mangal 1 6 or so years ago by my friends Lou and Liam who lived down the road in Hackney at the time, and I’ve been going back ever since. Back then it had a real impact on me because I’d never really been anywhere like it in the UK before. It’s completely unpretentious, a bit ramshackle, and when you step through the door you feel like you’re in a different country.
You immediately get hit by the heat and smell of grilling meat from the massive open barbecue style grill that is slap bang in the middle of the restaurant. And that’s what the Turkish ocakbasi restaurants are all about. Meat and fire. The menu is dominated by kebabs, mostly lamb and chicken, although you can also get quail and offal too. I suggest you go with a few friends, because you’re going to want to try everything, but I can heartily recommend the following. (more…)
Tags: Cacik, Chicken, Grill, Kebab, Lamb, Mangal, Ocakbasi, Sac breads, Salad, Sumac, Turkish
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
During the Summer holidays of my second year at university I went backpacking with my mate Ed around Egypt, Jordan and Israel. One of the most vivid memories I have from that trip was when we were staying in Islamic Jerusalem. We were sleeping on the roof of a pretty grotty hostel, but every morning we’d look forward to going to this local bakery for breakfast. This place wasn’t a cafe, but a proper working bakery. As well as supplying bread to local restaurants and shops, they guy who owned it was also kind of famous for his ‘breakfast pizzas’.
They were made on dough base that was smeared with tomato puree, then topped with a triangle of Dairylea style processed cheese, and an egg. They were then baked in a bread oven until the egg was cooked all the way through. Like the hostel, the pizzas were pretty basic, but I remember them being very tasty, and after we’d been there a couple of times, the guy let us make our own and put them in the oven.
This breakfast pizza is a more sophisticated version of the above, and uses some of the same basic ingredients as the pizza recipe featured in this earlier post.
Ingredients (per pizza)
Around 200g pizza dough
Tomato sauce
2 cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced
Teleggio cheese
(more…)
Tags: Bacon, Breakfast, Cheese, Dough, Egg, Ham, Israel, Pizza, Taleggio, Tomato
Posted in Breakfast, Recipes, Travel | No Comments »
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
Back to New York, if only briefly, for a quick bit about what might be my favourite place to eat breakfast in the World. Serious claim I know, but Williamsburgh’s Egg is amazing. So amazing in fact that the New York visit prior to this one I think we had breakfast there 3 times out of the 5 days we were there. We only managed twice this time, but if I lived in the neighborhood I’d have to stop myself eating here every bloody day of the week.
Egg is a really unassuming place tucked on a little side road off Bedford Avenue in Williamsburgh. It’s light years away from the city’s brash diners (that I also love) and has a really relaxed almost ‘hippyish’ atmosphere. The owners have their own little farm on the outskirts of New York state, which supplies as much produce to the restaurant as possible. (more…)
Tags: Breakfast, Brioche, Cheese, Chili, Egg, Eggs Rothko, Farm, Fennel, New York, Sausage, Williamsburgh
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Hand To Mouth is back from New York. As usual I ate well in the city that never sleeps, but I also came back with a nasty dose of the flu which has had me on my back for the last three days. Not sure if it was the swine variety or not, but that’s irrelevant, as this post is ALL about the beef.
Going to Peter Luger’s pretty much as soon as I get off the plane in in NY has become a bit of a tradition. The routine goes. Land in NY. Head to Williamburgh. Dump bags at my mate Matt’s place. Head to Luger’s with him. Eat large quantities of meat. Drink a couple of beers. Sleep. Come round smiling the next day.
Peter Luger has been rated New York’s number one steakhouse for twenty four years in a row. For a town that prides itself on good food, that’s a serious accolade. They have two outlets, one in Williamburgh and one in Long Island, but it’s no chain; it’s an institution. (more…)
Tags: Bacon, Brooklyn, New York, Peter Luger, Porterhouse, Salad, Steak, steak sauce
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Hand To Mouth is off to New York for a few days for a mate’s wedding. I feel a bit like I live in the States at the moment. Maybe they’ll give me a green card. See you on the other side.
Tags: Eat Me, New York, Travel, Wedding
Posted in Travel | No Comments »
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Think it’s probably time that I shut up about food related adventures from our US road trip, but before I do, I HAD to give a heads up on Chicago’s number one sausage emporium, Hot Doug’s.
Now, Chicago is a town that loves it’s hot dogs, and for the peeps of the windy city, this place is the stuff of legend. Everyone seems to have a Hot Doug’s related story, and if you’ve not been, you feel a bit left out.
To cut a long story short, there’s a guy called Doug who makes the most amazing speciality hot dogs that come in a bewildering and surprising array of flavours. And when I say bewildering, I mean it. Pork, duck, lamb, beef, weisswurst, bratwurst, veal, rattlesnake, vegetarian…I could go on. Doug’s place is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so if you’re an un-escorted newbie, you can pretty much forget about finding it (we were lucky enough to have a couple of willing guides). But, despite the location, the place is RAMMED every day. It’s open between 11am and 4pm, and there’s a queue pretty much from opening to closing. (more…)
Tags: Apple, Buns, Chicago, Duck, Fois Gras, Hot Dogs, Hot Doug's, Merguez, Sausage, Veal
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | No Comments »
