Wednesday Night Pizza

One of the things I dread most is a dinner rota. It's Tuesday, it must be spaghetti. Thursday night is curry. And Sunday? Sunday is the dreaded roast dinner, with the same meat and vegetables as we cooked badly last week.

Individually, there's nothing wrong with any of these for dinner. The banality comes from the inevitably of the same seven dishes wheeled out each week, rather than the food. Back in catered halls, I was initially impressed with the variety and quality of the menus. It was only after a few months when vegetable bake rolled round yet again that I began to dismay.

We didn't have a full rota when I was child, but there were some days that had dinner assigned. Saturday would be fajitas (My father eats everything with a knife and fork, even fajitas. He would go out on Saturday nights so we would take the opportunity to eat with our hands.) The horror of the Sunday roast, followed by a light dinner of taramasalata and pitta bread.*

I looked forward to Wednesday though. Wednesday was pizza night. My dad always cooked on pizza night, using a slab of stone to get extra heat in the oven, and gently pushing the dough to fill the pizza trays. I'd help make the tomato sauce, or mix the dough. I'd be first to volunteer for cutting up the kabanos, sneaking the end slices in to my mouth when I thought no one was looking.

Pizza with peppers, kabanos, olives, mushroom & an egg.

This recipe is far from authentic. It features the aforementioned kabanos (usually we'd buy it from the Polski Sklep, but in this part of Scotland I have to make do with ambient kabanos. Nice.) and a tinned tomato sauce. I'm sure most Italians would probably laugh in disgust. It's invented by a man who hadn't tasted pizza until his late twenties, and garnished with whatever leftovers can be scavenged from the salad drawer.

Ambient Kabanos. Next week - trance wiejska

*looking back, I realise this is quite a weird thing to have for dinner once a week for around 10 years.

Wednesday Night Pizza
Serves 2

Dough
175g plain flour
pinch of sugar and salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried yeast

1) Place all the ingredients in a bowl, and add a splash of warm water.
2) Mix until a smooth dough is formed - you may need to add more water.
3) Knead for around 5 minutes until soft and supple. Place in a oiled bowl, then cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise for at least 30 mins.

Tomato Sauce
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp anchovy paste
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Sprinkle of dried oregano
Salt and pepper

1) Chop the onion and garlic as finely as you can. Gently fry them for 5 minutes, until soft but not coloured.
2) Add in the anchovy paste and tomato puree. Cook for 1 minute.
3) Pour in the chopped tomatoes, oregano and season.
4) Bring the pan to a gently simmer, and stir occasionally.
5) The sauce is ready once it's very thick and the chunks of tomato are almost totally broken down. Dragging a spoon through the pan should leave a clean line. This usually takes around 20 mins.

Thick tomato sauce

Toppings
I like kabanos, peppers, anchovies, capers, fresh egg, olives, mushrooms and mozzarella. Not necessarily all at once.

Assembly
1) Preheat the oven to the highest setting.
2) Gently stretch the pizza dough over an oiled baking sheet*. You'll need to prod and poke it in to place. Make it slightly bigger as it will shrink a little as you put the toppings on.
3) Spread a thin layer of sauce on the dough, and add your toppings.
4) Blast in the hot oven for 8-10 minutes.
*If you are really clever, you can stretch the dough on to a floured plate, and slide it directly on to a scorching hot baking sheet. This makes for a crispy crust, but runs the risk of your pizza disintegrating in to a heap.

Duck Confit

I have been fighting the urge for the last month to make endless puns about Cold Confit Farm, and seeing something nasty in the fridge. While T is a knowledgeable type, unfortunately this knowledge does not include pre-war satirical novels. Or iconic French ways with water fowl.

When I first suggested making duck confit, T did not sound impressed. The idea of duck legs encased in a kilo of fat did not sound appealing. However, I bloody love a bit of duck confit, so stocked up on legs and fat and got to it.

I went with a Valentine Warner recipe, as I felt his enthusiasm and simplicity would be better than going with something more complex and elaborate. The recipe began by curing the duck for 2 days, with salt, herbs and juniper berries. Gin flavoured duck!

Then the legs were simmered in fat and white wine for 2 hours on a very low heat. I didn't quite have enough duck fat to cover the legs, so I topped up the pot with a little lard. Yum.

We had stuff in the fridge that needed using up, so it was a few days before I excavated 2 legs from the tub of fat and stuck them in a hot oven for 15 minutes. To go with it, I stewed some lentils in herbs and red wine, and sauteed some potatoes in the duck fat I'd scraped off the legs.

Duck Confit

It lived up to and beyond expectations. I think it helped that the potatoes were some of the best I've ever done, and the earthiness of the lentils helped to tone down the richness of the duck a bit. But that duck...! It was tender, flavourful, with crispy skin and the residual taste of the aromatic cure. If I could have gnawed on the bones I would have.

Look at the crispiness!

Duck Confit (From 'What To Eat Now' by Valentine Warner)
Makes 8

Salt
Pepper
Rosemary
Thyme
Juniper berries
8 duck legs
750g duck fat
150ml white wine

1) Rub each duck leg with salt and pepper. Layer in a tub with sprigs of rosemary and thyme, and some bruised juniper berries. Leave for at least 24 hours, and ideally 48.
2) Brush the salt and aromatics off the duck legs, while melting the duck fat in a pan on a low heat.
3) Arrange the duck legs in the pan with the fat, and add the wine. I found arranging them in an overlapping circle worked best - the shinbone from each leg rest on the thigh of the one next to it, so the meat is submerged. Duck fat melts at quite a low temperature, so you can do this without worrying too much about spitting fat or getting burnt. If you can't get all the meat under the fat, add more fat.
4) Adjust the heat so the fat is barely bubbling. The lower the heat, the better. Put a tight lid on the pan and check it frequently to see if it's too hot or cold.
5) After 2 hours, take a leg out and try to push the meat away from the bone. It should fall off with a bit of pressure, but obviously don't take it off the bone yet! Just give it a prod to see if it is coming away from the bone. If it still seems too solid, put it back in the pan for another 20-30 minutes.
6) Once the meat is releasing from the bone, gently stack the legs in a glass, china or plastic container. When the fat is cooled (but still pourable) pour this over the legs. The fat will help seal the legs from bacteria, so they will last for ages in the fridge.
7) When you want to eat the confit, put your oven up to about 200c, or its highest setting. Excavate the required legs from the fat, and put them in a deep baking dish (quite a lot of fat will come out of them so you don't want it slopping over your oven.) Cook for 15 minutes until the skin is crispy.

Pork Hock and Haricot Stew

The borscht I made a few weeks ago needed a bit of pork hock in it. I wasn't going to bother, but it was surprisingly cheap for such a massive hunk of meat. After putting a little of it in the soup, the rest went in the freezer for another time.

Every so often I have to have a freezer purge to get eat up some of the stuff in there, as well as saving some cash. So this week I defrosted the pork hock, and set about finding a recipe to use it in. I came across this Pork Hock and Butterbean Stew on Dinner Diary, and decided to give it a go.

I replaced the butterbeans for haricots, as I had some in the cupboard, and the whole point of freezer left over day is to not spend money! I also used white wine instead of sherry. The rest of the dish was very easy to make, and although it took a few hours, most of that was spent watching "Eggheads" while the stew bubbled away. The hardest part was getting the meat off the bone as it was too hot to get a proper grip on it.

The stew was delicious, and the paprika did give it a Spanish feel. A bit of chorizo in there would have been excellent, but it was still tasty. I served it with some brown rice and some crusty bread for mopping up the juices.

Pork Hock and Haricot Stew

There was enough of this for some of it to go back in the freezer as a left over portion, and if I hadn't used some in the borscht it would have made two portions to freeze. I was really impressed with the pork hock, which was incredibly tender by the end of the cooking. There were some sinews and fatty bits left, but I managed to get most of these out when shredding the meat. Definitely a store cupboard triumph!

PS - I did the guest round up at Nora The Kitchen 'Splorer this week, check it out!

Thai Steamed Mussels

One thing I am genuinely good at in the kitchen is dealing with left-overs. Although I ignore the golden rule of planning a weekly menu, I always check out the fridge before deciding what is for dinner that night. This has an extra bonus when you have flatmates, as often there are things left in the fridge and cupboards that they no longer want that can be snaffled.

Minimising waste is one of the rules of "Economy Gastronomy", a new show on BBC2. The show is definitely not aimed at me, as I've spent the last four years perfecting the art of eating well on a small budget, but I do enjoy some of the recipes. I also get a bit of schadenfreude off some of the more idiotic meal plans of the participants, but that just probably makes me an evil person.

One recipe that did catch my eye was the Thai Steamed Mussels. I love mussels, and I love Thai food too. When I found myself looking at a fridge containing half a can of coconut milk, it seemed like a good idea.

I made my own red curry paste, using a selection of jars from the fridge. The recipe is probably not all that authentic, but it tasted pretty good, with the right balance of heat, sourness and aromatics.

2 cloves of garlic,
2cm of ginger
1tsp lemongrass (either chopped or pureed)
1tsp tamarind paste
1 heaped tsp Thai shrimp chilli paste
3 small kaffir lime leaves (chopped, and soaked if using dried)
1tsp lime zest
1 red chilli (chopped)
1 spring onion (chopped)
Splash of groundnut oil

Thai Red Curry Paste

Basically, mash everything together with a pestle and mortar. I find it easiest to add the solid ingredients first and then start adding the pastes and liquids, but as long as it all ends up in the bowl it shouldn't matter too much. It takes quite a bit of pounding and grinding to get it all looking smooth, so put something good on tv or the radio and keep going. The recipe above makes enough for 3 or 4 large spoonfuls, and will keep in the fridge a couple of days if you don't use it all in one go.

Thai-Spiced Steamed Mussels

The mussels themselves were easy to make, although I was worried that I might give myself food poisoning by putting a bad one in the pot by mistake. I sorted through the bag, and only 2 failed to close when tapped. They'd also been debearded and scrubbed, although a couple still had the remains of a beard which I pulled out.

As I knew it would be a matter of minutes once the mussels went in the pan, I did a full mise en place for once. Chillies and garlic were chopped, and the spring onion and coriander garnish readied. I mixed up a jug of coconut milk, red curry paste and chicken stock, to pour over the mussels. (It was actually half an Oxo cube and some boiling water, but I didn't see the point of defrosting the real chicken stock for 75mls worth.)

5 minutes later, I was tucking in to a massive heap of mussels, with the fragrant broth awaiting me at the bottom of the bowl. I also had got a mini baguette earlier in the day, and used this to mop up the juices. Lovely!

All gone!

My main criticism would be that there was not much kick to this dish. I guess as Economy Gastronomy is aimed at families they didn't want to make it too spicy for the kids (but which kids do you know that would eat a plate full of mussels? I didn't go anywhere near seafood until I was in my late teens.) However, this would be easily solved by using more red curry paste, or making your own *very* spicy version.

I really enjoyed this meal, and it was very quick to make if you don't have to debeard and clean the mussels yourself. The mussels were not that expensive (£5.60 per kilo) but probably a little more than I would spend on one meal normally. I was also a bit put off by the lack of fruit and veg, but I guess if you had a healthy pudding or starter and a glass of juice that would compensate for the lack of roughage. However, it felt very indulgent and luxurious, and in total probably only cost me about £3.50. Bargain! A perfect way to use up leftovers!

Eating at The Fringe Festival

For the last 20 days, Edinburgh has been busy with the various festivals that are held here during August. There's books, opera, dance, theatre, and a nightly RAF flyover at 9pm on the dot. The biggest of all the festivals is the Fringe, which tends to be mostly comedy with the odd hint of amateur theatricals.

Much of the Fringe takes place in the University Unions. It's very strange to see the bar where you'd go for a cheap drink after lectures packed full of "real" people. Weirder still is that Pleasance Sports Hall is a major venue. Normally, queuing outside Pleasance equals an exam. Queuing with a beer in hand to see stand up messes with my mind.

Most Fringe tickets are unreserved, so you have to stake your place in the queue 30 minutes or so before the show starts if you want a choice of seats - otherwise you can find yourself split up if you are in a big group, or sitting in centre front row for a comedian who likes to pick on the audience. This isn't really a major problem, but for those seeing several shows on the same day, it can mean that once you have traveled between venues, you have little or no time to eat. (Ok, I realise that this is probably only a problem for me, but it is a serious one! You try sitting through an hour of hip-hop theatre when you desperately need some food!)

Assembly Rooms on George Street has a pretty standard cafe on the premises, and the Pleasance complex has a small barbecue van that does ok burgers and sausages, and a small cafe. Pleasance Dome also has the guys from the Mosque Kitchen serving decent curries for bargain prices.

However, the most interesting eating at the Fringe is to be had in Bristo Square, in the courtyard of the Guilded Balloon (otherwise known as Teviot to the locals). With all the American blogs and food sites going mental over gourmet food trucks, it's good to see a few food vans that aren't just burger and chips here in the UK. They're great to grab a snack at in-between shows, and everything is portable should you need to queue and nosh simultaneously.

La Creperie - Not that exciting, but sometimes you *need* a pancake with Nutella.


Wee Hut - Serves several types of wurst, I am going to try the smoked wurst next.


La Favorita Pizza Oven - Features a real wood fired pizza oven (you can see the black chimney at the the top of the photo). Generally very tasty and stays open late. (Although they had a sign today proclaiming themselves "Athur (sic) Smith's Favourite Pizza")


Well Hung and Tender - Comedy name, but seriously good burgers. T was put off by the open air relish station, but I enjoyed using coffee stirrers to sample all the condiments before deciding that the mustard mayo should grace my burger.

Fish Mussels - Not quite in Bristo Square, but around the corner at Hullaballoo. Doesn't serve fish, but does serve mussels in a classic white wine and garlic type sauce.

It also serves these bad boys...


I wasn't sure whether I liked oysters or not. I can't remember ever eating a raw one, and when I can remember eating one, they've always been deep-fried. The oysters are freshly shucked as you order them, and garnished with a squeeze of lemon and a drop or two of Tabasco. However, since plucking up the courage to try one the other day, I've been back for more. Very delicious and a really unusual streetfood option!

Grandmother's Chicken Fried Rice

T is a big fan of Chinese food, and if I'm not around at the weekend, he'll often treat himself to a take away. He'd watched a few TV shows about Chinese food, but didn't really have the know-how to cook it at home beyond basic stir-fries. When I saw Chinese Food Made Easy on special offer, I picked up a copy for T. (I am angling for a Girlfriend-of-the-Year Award...)

Even though we don't move to our new flat together (eeek!) until September, already we've begun the process of sorting through our possessions and getting rid of things. Yesterday was the turn of my old PC (I'm a Mac-girl now) so T had spent the day dismantling it and adding the best bits on to his PC to create an uber-PC. I'd spent the day clearing up the casing and getting rid of all the dust that had collected in it over the years! We decided to start off the book with Grandmother's Chicken Fried Rice, as we just wanted something fairly straightforward and quick to have for dinner after a busy day. T also gets this dish a fair bit from the take-away, so he was interested to see how it compared.

We had most of the ingredients already, as I had some rice wine (I decided that Japanese is close enough to Chinese in this case) from making sushi ages ago, so all that was required was a quick trip to the Chinese supermarket I recently discovered to get some dried shiitakes* and some glutinous rice.

As I chopped up the shallots, and grated the ginger, I soaked the mushrooms and cooked the rice. T's flat doesn't have scales, so I had to guess how much rice and how much water to use. After about 10 minutes, there was a horrible burning smell and a rice pancake burnt on the bottom of the pan! Luckily as it was non-stick it just flopped out in one lump straight in to the bin. The second attempt I used a lot more water and a lower heat. This one didn't burn on to the pan, but was very glutinous indeed! It stuck together in a big ball and it was only once I started stir-frying it that it began to separate into the grains.

Second attempt at glutinous rice

After I'd managed to cook the rice, the rest of the recipe was very easy and simple. After briefly frying the garlic, shallots and dried shiitakes, diced chicken was added. Then five spice and rice wine, followed by dark soy sauce. Finally, the rice and peanuts are added, warmed through, and then served seasoned with light soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and spring onion.

Grandmother's Chicken Fried Rice

The dish was really tasty, and I liked how the crunchy peanuts contrasted with the soft chicken and rubbery mushrooms. My main criticism of this dish was the lack of vegetables. Normally I would put in lots of veg and only 1 chicken breast, but I used 2 breasts for this. It felt very meat heavy, I guess I have got used to a less meaty diet lately. The book does have a large vegetarian section, and it seems that a lot of the dishes are meant to be served in conjunction with each other, so if I was to make this again I'd make a bit less and serve a veggie side dish too.

*I don't know why the recipe specifies dried shiitakes over fresh ones, perhaps it is because fresh ones aren't that widely available in parts of the UK? Anyone got a better suggestions?

Summer Courgette Spaghetti

Given that only a few weeks ago I was ranting about how I don't like pasta, today's post might seem a little strange. However, I'm moving flat soon (yay!) so need to eat as much as I can from the cupboards. That includes 2 portions of spaghetti bought in some moment of pasta-based madness. I'd also spent the afternoon at the gym, so something vaguely healthy seemed fitting. I had half a courgette left over in the fridge too, so this courgette and tomato sauce from last month's Good Food magazine seemed ideal.

Reducing the tomatoes

The recipe was super quick to pull together, and the only adaptation I made was quartering all the ingredients, as I was making this for one *sob*. Apart from using spaghetti instead of linguine, but I think that difference is negligible.

Courgette and Tomato Spaghetti.

The result was a pretty tasty dinner, although as is always the case, I put in a few too many chilli flakes and the dish was perhaps a little spicier than would have been ideal. I really liked the contrast between the soft courgette and the crispy, salty bacon bits, and I even coped with eating a whole 75g of pasta!

Although I probably wouldn't go out and buy ingredients specifically to make this, it was great as a way of using up that spare bit of courgette lingering in the salad drawer. Now to find something to make that final 75g of spaghetti bearable!

PS - Both the photos in this post look so much tastier when clicked for the bigger versions!

Home Made Tapas

It's been a busy week for me. My parents came up to visit, as did most of my flatmates' families. It's graduation week! I got to wear a cape! I was also a bit disappointed that I only got a white hood, some of the other degrees got red with fur trims. I am now officially a graduate. Scary.

Before the madness started, we had tapas for dinner. I spent 5 or 6 hours in the kitchen making 11 dishes, it was probably the most extreme savoury cooking I've ever done. As there was only 4 of us, most of the dishes were quite small. It was still tough, and I struggled to get everything out at once. I have a new appreciation of the amount of work an underground restaurant must involve!

Tortilla, chorizo, gambas al pil pil, patatas bravas

The photos are pretty rough because I was so hungry and tired by this stage that spending time taking well lit pictures just wasn't going to happen.

• Green Salad
• Potato and Onion Tortilla
• Grilled Chorizo
• Gambas al pil pil
• Patatas Bravas
• Sardine Escabeche
• Olives
• Pan con tomate
• Meatballs in tomato sauce
• Chicken and Chorizo Stew
• Garlic Mushrooms
  

Very rustic looking pan con tomate

I tried to make things ahead and reheat them nearer to dinner, as well as including a couple of cold items such as the tortilla, salad and olives that just needed to be plated up.

The meatballs and the tortilla were my favourite dishes. The tortilla was made by cooking potatoes and onions in a sea of olive oil, then draining off the oil and replacing it with beaten eggs. It took ages to cook as I don't think our frying pan conducts heat very well. (This might be because it was cheap, but probably more due to the bashed in bottom not sitting flat on the hob). I ended up grilling the top to try and get the egg to set enough to turn it over in the pan. We didn't manage to eat it all on the night, so had another slice for breakfast the next morning. Yum!

Meatballs

The meatballs were made with a mixture of pork and beef, with a red wine and tomato sauce. I browned them in the pan before baking them in the oven with the sauce. They were deliciously meaty, although the sauce wasn't quite right.

Tapas was quite stressful, and I'm not sure whether I'd be bothered to make it all again! As always, there was way too much food so I'm still eating left over chorizo and salad. It was a fun evening and I drank more sherry than I should have done! We've still got loads of onions, eggs and potatoes, so another tortilla might be on the cards, especially if I can eat it for breakfast!

Tonkatsu with Japanese-ish Salad

In my handbag I have a red notebook. In the notebook are various scrawls and doodles that categorise my life at any given time. The current notebook has a few shopping lists, a pictorial representation of our holiday in Florence, and a record of how far I ran in January. It also has a list of hard-to-find ingredients I am always on the lookout for.

The two items that refused to be knocked off the list were freeze-dried raspberries (Ideally powdered, but I'll take whole. I would also be tempted by freeze-dried strawberries.) and panko breadcrumbs. I'd tried the Thai store in Bruntsfield, but to no avail (they did have kaffir lime leaves though, so that got crossed off the list). Lupe Pintos was also lacking on this occasion.

The area of Edinburgh I live in is apparently the "Chinatown" area, although you wouldn't know it. The only clue is Hot Hot Chinese, an advice centre for elderly Chinese, and the Chinese service at the local church. The evidence is there, but there are no dragon arches and bilingual signs like some of the more established Chinatowns around the world. I came to the conclusion that if I was to find panko, it would probably be available within a 10 minute walk. Googling around, I found there was a Chinese supermarket hidden on Lauriston Place at the junction with Tollcross.

I headed down there the next day. Within a minute I'd found not one, but two varieties of panko. Yay! I went for the one that was cheaper, I think because it didn't have English instructions on the packet. There were loads of other weird ingredients in there, plus a good selection of utensils and woks. There was also a large section dedicated to nearly every brand of pre-made stir-fry sauce you can get. I have never seen so many varieties of Blue Dragon and Sharwoods in one place.

So... On to the actual post!

I had some pork chops in the freezer that I wanted to use, and the only recipe in the Wagamama cookbook that used them was tonkatsu. I've never had this, so I thought I'd give it a go. I promised T "crispy Japanese pork" for dinner, but conveniently forgot to tell him that it would be served on a salad.

Tonkatsu: Slightly out of focus as I was impatient to eat

Overall, I don't think this dish really worked. The tonkatsu was pretty tasty (and it's the first time I've breadcrumbed something where the breadcrumbs stayed mostly on the meat and not in a pile in the pan) and I quite liked the crispiness of the salad too. It's also the first dish on here to feature a mangetout! However, I wasn't convinced by the recommended sauce, a mixture of ketchup and Worcester sauce, although it did taste weirdly Asian given the total Britishness of the two component ingredients.

The main failing was pairing the salad with the pork. Although Wikipedia has just told me tonkatsu can be eaten cold, it felt strange having a lukewarm piece of meat on a freezing salad (all the ingredients except the spinach were kept in iced water to ensure their crispiness).

T was not interested in the salad at all, and I struggled to finish mine. I would probably make it all again, but have it on different plates. The tonkatsu would be really tasty with some stir-fried vegetables or on a ramen soup, while the salad would be better accessorized with some smoked fish and lots of dressing.

I now have a fridge full of daikon, spinach and bamboo shoots and a cupboard full of panko... more Japanese food to come soon I guess!

Japanese Style Salad (adapted from Wagamama Cookbook)
Serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 veg lovers.

2 small carrots, julienned
4 inch chunk of daikon (mooli), julienned
25g mangetout, thinly sliced diagonally
1 green chilli, finely diced
8-9 spring onions, thinly sliced diagonally
a handful of alfafa sprouts
3 handfuls of spinach

1) Once all the vegetables have been washed and chopped, place everything but the spinach in a bowl of ice water for an hour to ensure their crispiness.
2) Using the spinach as a base, artfully arrange the drained vegetables on top.
3) Add the toppings and dressings of your choice.

Hot Hot Chinese, Home Street

While browsing the List Food and Drink Guide, my flatmates and I found a review of Hot Hot Chinese, which we regularly walk past on the way home from uni. It does not have a promising exterior, and the windows are regularly so steamed up that it's impossible to see what's going on in there.

The review said the speciality dish was Hot Pot, which involves cooking wafer thin slices of meat and vegetables in a stock pot at the table. I haven't seen this anywhere before, although I remember in the mid-90s there was a bit of a fad for hot stone table top cooking (anyone remember Deals on Hammersmith Broadway?)

So we went along on a family outing. The restaurant was packed with Chinese people, with only one table occupied by Westerners. Usually a good sign in ethnic places. We thought we'd have to wait for a table, but instead were lead downstairs to a slightly depressing storeroom with plastic tables and chairs. There were a couple of other tables already occupied, and we helped the waitress to take the chairs stacked on top of the table down and lay out the chopsticks.

The menu was almost entirely in Chinese. In English, it merely said Hot Pot, and then a list of ingredients. We had no idea what we were supposed to do. Was it like tapas, where you order several items that take your fancy? Or did you pick a category such as Meat or Seafood and get all those items? We asked the waitress, who didn't really speak English. Instead she asked us if there was anything on the menu we didn't want. Tripe was immediately vetoed, but we were happy with anything else. She then asked what we wanted to drink: beer, coke or water. No varieties of beer or choice of soft drinks, just whatever they got in from the last delivery. While she got our drinks, we snacked on some raw peanuts and some kimchi. I've seen a lot of online chatter about kimchi, but had never tasted it. It had a strange texture, but I enjoyed the spicy sauce.

She came back with some beers and a hot plate. We helped her shuffle the table nearer the wall so the lead for the hot plate could reach the plug. She brought us a pan of stock, divided down the middle, with spicy on one side and normal down the other. Then the food started arriving.

Peanuts, fishsticks/balls/skewers, razor clams, squid, prawns, mushrooms, kelp and kimchi

Before we knew it, the table was covered in plate upon plate of food. Slices of beef, pork, lamb, ham, tofu, frozen tofu, tofu skin (?), rice noodles, chinese leaves, two types of mushroom, kelp, squid, prawns, razor clams, fish balls, fish sticks, fish skewers, potatoes, turnips, garlic sauce and satay.

Pork, turnips, potatoes and tofu skin

A waitress with better English explained that the turnips and potatoes would take 8 minutes to cook, but everything else either just need reheating, or in the case of the meat and fish, would change colour as it cooked. After messing about with the timer, and realising that instead of alerting us to our ready food, it just turned the whole hot plate off, we settled in. Hundreds of items were thrown in the stocks, sometimes to be fished out straight away and eaten, other times left to linger until someone else with the ladle hit the bounty. I tried holding things in with chopsticks, but my skills were too poor and the steam burned my hands.

Spicy stock and normal stock with dates

The combination of the holiday feel (plastic tables, weird food, incomprehensible menu), the intense steamy heat, and several beers made us rather silly, and we giggled insanely as we dunked the blue prawns into the stock until they turned pink. L spent a long time discussing how a razor clam resembled the fossils he studies in class, including a detailed anatomical description. Periodically the waitress would turn up and be baffled by our requests for tap water or top up our stock pots with fresh juice.

Garlic sauce

When we could literally eat no more, we asked for the bill with some trepidation. We had eaten almost everything on the menu... how high would our bill be?

The food came to £14.50 each. I guess that ordering the hot pot essentially means ordering everything on the menu unless you specify otherwise. Bargain!

I really enjoyed our evening out, and we had more fun than we've probably had at any restaurant during our entire time at uni. The food was cheap and plentiful, and pretty good apart from one dodgy prawn. I particularly enjoyed the strange Chinese mushrooms (they looked like seaweed) and the kelp (which *is* seaweed). I also really enjoyed putting a load of random vegetables in, and then some meat on top, and fishing it all out together, as the unifying flavour of the stock pulled it all together.

Next time some one adventurous wants to go for dinner, I'll even try the tripe.

Pork and Beans

We've already established that I like South American style food, and I like trying new recipes. So the two came together when I found a recipe for spiced pork loin with black eyed beans at T's flat.

I bought a massive hunk of pork from the butcher, who was actually nice to me for once. Probably because I ended up spending the best part of £20 on it, but it was good to be spoken to as a proper person rather than getting sarcastic comments. (I should really go to the other butcher, but it's so much further to walk to.) I also stocked up on tinned black eyed beans and paprika from Lupe Pintos, which is an Aladdin's cave of random food from around the world. I also got a couple of their chorizo rosario, which is uncooked so it isn't as tough as the precooked chorizo you find in the supermarkets. I got everything else from the green grocer, although I completely forgot to get the fresh tomatoes, instead just getting tinned ones.

Spiced pork loin with chorizo, bean and tomato stew

The recipe itself was pretty easy to pull together, and although the butcher scored the skin for me, I didn't ask him to french trim the bones as there was still as lot of meat in that area that I didn't want to waste. The crackling came up well, the paprika gave it a mild spiciness, and the fat underneath was creamy rather than chewy. I ate a bit too much of it and felt ill afterwards. I found the tomato sauce a little too watery, although this meant that I could mop up the leftovers with a slice of bread instead! I used larger chillies, so the stew wasn't too hot even when the chillies were sliced in to it at the end. Plus I absolutely love stewed chorizo. I had to restrain myself from picking out all the chorizo while dishing up and eating it all myself. The pork wasn't as melt in the mouth as I'd hoped, but the steam from the stew meant it was still moist and tender.

T enjoyed it too, I am trying to get him more in to pulses as a) they are tasty, b) they are good for you and c) they are a cheap way to bulk out a meal. I haven't yet managed to get a vegetarian chilli down him, but surely it is only a matter of time?

The picture in the Jamie Oliver book/website looked much prettier than mine, and either he used meat from a withered pig or that baking tray is enormous. T's roasting tin is tiny, as it was about the only one we could find that fitted in to his shoebox sized oven. I can't wait until I have my own flat and can buy a decent oven that can fit in more than one thing at a time.

There were some left overs, which I divided into chops. The one in the fridge reheated well the next day (let's face it, stew is always better the next day), but the one in the freezer is an unknown quantity... I would definitely make it again, but reduce the amount of liquid in the stew, and add in way more chillis. It was a bit messy for a posh dinner, but would be great for a more informal meal.

Talking of which, I might have my first ever dinner party next week. I am trying to decided whether to just invite my friends or to get each of my flatmates to bring a randomer. Decisions decisions.

Student Dinner: Home Made Baked Beans

Today was meant to be my last day at university. I had my final exam on Tuesday, and I was meant to pick up my dissertation mark today. Typically, the secretary was ill and the office was closed. I still had dinner planned though.

I had been thinking for a while what I should have. I toyed with the idea of recreating the food I ate in first year, when I lived in halls and ate in the canteen.

For starters, there would be vegetable soup. Only the soup has gone, and your bowl has some mushy vegetables in it. Once we got a serving so unsouplike that it could be scraped up in a heap on one side of the bowl.

Next up would be fish and spring vegetables. Excellent. A nice, healthy, tasty bit of fish. Yum. Here, the catch would be that I would give my flatmate the last piece of fish, and I would have a burrito filled with the mushy vegetables from the soup. No matter what time I got in the queue, the last portion of fish would always go to the person two or three places ahead of me in the line. If I was really lucky, I would treat myself with fried chicken. Except the kitchen has run out of breadcrumbs, so they used breakfast cereal. Not cornflakes though. Rice Krispies. Sweet!?

Finally, dessert would involve me considering a pot of fruit salad, but being put off by the excess of melon and not enough grapes. Over to the dessert specials! As there is that box of Rice Krispies that needs using up, why not make orange jelly, and top it with whipped cream and puffed rice? Why not indeed? *

Talking of Why Not? (a rather expensive and cheesy club favoured by public school types) I'd squeeze on to the dining table with one or two friends, while the rest of the seats were taken up by posh kids discussing whether to go to Why Not? or Opal Lounge. Plus Daddy and Pimsy are coming up on Saturday to watch the rugger. Tally Ho!

Instead I went for the student favourite of baked beans on toast.

Classic.

I made the baked beans yesterday as they took 13 hours to make. You had to soak the haricots for 10 hours, boil for an hour, chop and brown onions, garlic and bacon, then simmer the ingredients in chopped tomatoes for an hour and half. I can't find the exact recipe online but there are loads on Google. I might give some of the others a go, as although mine we nice, they lacked a certain je ne s'ais quoi.

For the toast, I bought a sourdough loaf from Peter's Yard. I love the way the crust is really chewy but the inside is soft with a slight tang to it. (I got kicked out of there the other day as I had been in there for 3 hours studying and they wanted to close! I feel a bit embarassed about this but it is also a bit cool that the staff now recognise me as the person who can make coffee and a cake last half a day.)

On its own, I thought it looked a bit ascetic, so I added a side salad and a portabella mushroom stuffed with peppered cheddar and breadcrumbs. It was a pretty tasty dinner and good for my student budget too!

(*All this talk of the halls' canteen makes me want to go back and review it objectively. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all...)

Dissertation woes

The dissertation is looming, and I haven’t had much time this week. I’ve even resorted to taking a packed lunch to uni so I don’t have to lose an hour of study time walking home for lunch!

I’ve still found the time to make a few things, mainly to cheer me up between the seemingly endless bouts of reading government strategy papers.
- Tea bread, mainly to use up loads of dried fruit that had been in the cupboard too long. I think next time I might soak the fruit in Lapsang Souchon to give it a different spin.
- Roasted vegetable and feta tart. I still don’t like feta cheese though.
- Lemon Buttermilk pie. My flatmates were having a chilli evening, and we wanted an authentically tex-mex dessert. Google told us buttermilk pie. It was a bit like an English egg custard tart, but lemony instead of flavoured with nutmeg.
- Canadian pancakes. We had vast quantities of buttermilk left over from the chilli night, and buttermilk is not an ingredient that crops up much in British food.
- Lentil, bacon and roasted winter vegetable stew. Took this in to uni in a thermos flask and looked like a total nerd.
- Raspberry and vanilla muffins. This was to use up some raspberries I had in the fridge, as well as the seemingly endless amount of buttermilk. They were a tad dry so I topped them with some sweetened cream cheese.
- Chicken, lemon and tarragon soup. One of the success stories for the NCG book of soup.
We still have some buttermilk left, so I might make some scones, or marinate some chicken drumsticks with herbs.

I also enrolled on a sugar-paste modelling class, partly with the idea of making some kind of topper for D’s wedding cake. At the moment we are learning to make carnations and lilies. I need to practice with icing too, although she hasn’t worked out what flavours she wants yet so I can’t choose which type of icing would go best.

I’ve only got 25 days of my dissertation left and I cannot wait!

Crispy Tofu with Shiitake and Edamame

I had one last piece of tofu left last night, and some edemame beans in the freezer. A quick google revealed this dish: crisp fried tofu with shiitake and edemame sauce.

I don't know how healthy it is to deep fry tofu, but I went for it anyway.

I really liked this meal, particularly the sauce. My main problems with it were the usual tofu textural issues. The mushrooms and edemame were both quite soft, and the tofu, even though some of the smaller bits were crispy, was now chewy instead of squidgy. I think I should have sliced it smaller or cooked it longer to get a bit more crunch in there.

I also didn't have any sherry, so I used some white wine and some vinegar, and I had birdseye chillies, so I only used a small amount.

I usually have some tofu lying around, and there's still loads of edemame in the freezer, so I'm sure this one will be cropping up again, next time I will try and get a photo!

Spicy Tofu Stir Fry

I bought a bunch of coriander the other day, which is probably my favourite herb. I have been known to sit there and eat it straight off the plant.

The first meal I made with it was beef chilli, with coriander topping. I found some mince in the freezer and used tinned tomatoes and kidney beans that were in the cupboards, so it was a good meal for a bare fridge and not much money.

Next up was a tofu stir fry. Tofu is so cheap compared to meat, but I have spent a lot of time trying to make myself like it. I don't mind that it doesn't taste of much, because that means you can flavour it with whatever you like, but I really don't like the squidgy texture.

To avoid the texture, I cut the tofu into tiny pieces (cubes about 5mm across) and marinated it for a few hours.

Chillis, ginger, spring onions, shallots and garlic

I mixed up 2 green chillis, a big wedge of ginger, 4 spring onions, a shallot and 3 cloves of garlics with the tofu, and added a few splashes of toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, lime juice and nam pla.

When it came time to cook the stir fry, I heated up a wok until it was smoking hot, then added some sunflower oil, and then put in the tofu and marinade. I find getting the oil really hot helps get the tofu a bit crispy around the edges.

Once the tofu was starting to crisp up, I added in chopped red peppers, shiitake mushrooms, and pak choi. To contrast against the tofu, I wanted these to be quite firm, and only wanted them warmed up as opposed to cooked.

Now everything was hot, I added a teaspoon of water and another splash of soy sauce to get some steam going, and also to create a sauce. Finally, I added the rest of the lime juice, and served it up, with the coriander sprinkled over the top. Yummy!

The £7.42 Chicken Challenge: Part III

We've had two dinners this week with the left over chicken from the roast dinner, including some very tasty home-made fajitas. They were probably not very authentic, but they tasted good and there was enough left over for my lunch the next day too.

Next up was some pasta sauce with vegetables. As I am feeling a bit unhealthy after Christmas, I decided this would be a good way to use up some of the chicken and have a fairly well-balanced meal.

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce
Serves 2

1 small aubergine
1 medium courgette
1 green pepper
3 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
Sprigs of rosemary
Some cooked chicken
olive oil
salt and pepper

First chop up the aubergine, the courgette and the pepper into largish chunks, and put them in a roasting tin. Sprinkle over some salt, pepper, rosemary and the garlic cloves (still in their skins) and drizzle with a little olive oil. Roast at 200C for about 40 minutes. They should be starting to turn black around the edges, but soft on the inside.

Cut the onion up into small pieces, and fry it in a small amount of olive oil. Add in the roasted vegetables, except the garlic. The garlic should be soft enough to squeeze out of the skins into the pan as well. Add the canned tomatoes straight away, and stir it up! I also added some more rosemary, some tomato puree and some pepper at this point.
(You could use real tomatoes in this step, but as the ones in the shops at the moment are pretty rough, tinned was a better option.)

Once that is bubbling away, cut up the chicken in to small pieces. Add it in at the last minute, as you don't want to cook it, just reheat it. The amount of chicken you use is up to you, as I was trying to make this cheap and healthy I didn't use much, but if you put in lots you could probably stretch this to 3 or 4 portions instead of two.

I served this with tagliatelle, but I think it would work best with a chunkier shape like giant conchiglioni, as that would catch the larger vegetables.

Tagliatelle with roasted vegetables and tomato sauce.

The £7.42 Chicken Challenge: Part I

I think one of the worst things about the food culture in Britain is cheap meat. Traditionally, meat has been a treat. It is meant to be more expensive than other ingredients.

When you look at how meat is produced, it's obvious why meat is expensive. To grow some vegetables, fruits, grains or pulses, I can sow some seeds, and then just leave them until harvest time. Rain will water them and birds and insects will help fertilize the plants and eat pests. A totally natural approach probably isn't the most reliable, so I might invest a bit of time and money in putting down compost or soil nutrients, or weeding the field. I might also water the fields, or use pesticides to maintain my crop. By ultimately, I can pretty much leave the plants to their own devices and they will produce food for me.

If I want to get some chicken, beef, pork or lamb, then it is much more complicated. I have find a shelter for the animals at night, and protect them from predators. They might need a lot of land to roam on, with special plants growing on it, or special areas like dirt baths or muddy patches. I have to ensure the animals are fed everyday, and look after their health. I also have to make sure they breed, so I'll have some animals to farm next year. Animals take up a lot of time and effort, and eat the plant crops that I could be eating. Therefore, the yield of meat from animals will be more expensive than plant based food.

In the supermarket the other day, I had a choice of three chickens. One was organic, free range and expensive. For a 1.8kg bird, the price was over £11. There was a value chicken, that at for 1.8kg, only cost £3.40. There was also a free range chicken, that was corn fed, for £7.42. I went for the free range one. I would have paid around £7 just for 2 free range breasts, so paying an extra 42p for the legs, wings and carcass was a good deal.

While I am not totally convinced by the benefits of organic produce, I am convinced by free range. I don't think animals have rights per se, and I would never become vegetarian for ethical reasons. However, I do think animals should be looked after, and not made to suffer just because we are top of the food chain. A quick look around small holder websites reveals that you can't really even feed a chicken for £3.40, let alone look after it properly. Commercial farmers will buy in bulk and have lower costs, but still, it does not bode well. If an animal is going to die so I can eat it, I want it to have had a decent life, with good quality food, outside access, and enough time to mature properly and not killed as soon as they are heavy enough to go to the supermarket.

I know to some extent that you can't be sure about what you are eating unless you have farmed it yourself, and I would prefer to buy all my meat from the farmer's market, where you can talk to the people that raised the animals about the conditions in which they were kept. One of the few good things going for Britain in terms of mass market food is that we do have stricter farming regulations than most of Europe, so a cheap British pork chop is better than a cheap European one, but I still think most forms of intensive farming should be banned, and people should be forced to accept that meat is not cheap.

So now I have my mid-price happy chicken, I need to make sure I get the most out of it. First off, a roast dinner!


We ate most of a breast and a leg with the roast dinner, and shredded the rest of the meat for use later in the week. I also saved most of the fat, skin and all the bones to make stock with.

Scouse and latkes

Last night I made scouse for dinner. T is from Liverpool so this is his local dish. Liverpool used to be a major shipping port, and scouse is a product of all this immigration and multiculturalism. It's similar to Irish stew, although there are also suggestions that it originates from the Baltic states.

We'd had some roast lamb the other week, and I'd used most of the leftovers in a shepherd's pie. There was still some left in the freezer though, so we phoned T's aunt (whose recipe is apparently world famous!) and she told us how to make scouse.

As our lamb was already cooked, we stewed a couple of potatoes, three leeks and three carrots with some chicken stock (just enough to cover the veg) and seasoning for an hour. T's aunt told us a secret ingredient, but we couldn't find it in the shops so we used curry powder instead to warm it up a bit. We added the lamb, put the lid back on the pan and stewed it for another 30 minutes. It was a nice end to a chilly day in Edinburgh, and I mopped up all the all the juice with buttered bread.

Tonight T had the left over scouse, and I went back to mine for some left over pheasant stew that I had frozen a while back. There wasn't much left, so I made some latkes to go with it. I had seen an interesting looking recipe on Sassy Radish. My last attempt at potato cakes was disastrous, and they fell apart, so it was time to give it another go. I did the icy water element, and was really surprised by the amount of starch in the bottom of the bowl. As I used smaller potatoes than the recipe recommended, I wan't sure how much egg to put in, but the consistency seemed good and they worked out fine.

The latkes were crispy on the outside, and cooked through, so softer in the middle but it was still possible to feel the individual strips of potato. I dipped some in the stew and ate the rest with some creme fraiche. I made two portions, and ate them both...