Home grown meets Tesco Metro

Y & I arrived home from our 4 day weekend in France at about 6pm Monday. Six weeks ago we started growing herbs on our little terrace - unexpectedly, along with the coriander, basil, parsley and mint, our maternal sides sprouted and we have been racing onto the terrace every 15 minutes ever since to check and measure the progress of our beloved herbs. We were therefore most anxious to check on our dear children after 4 days away. Well, I don't know what shenanigans they got up to, but they had grown like crazy. When I left my old job a couple of weeks ago, one of the presents I was given was a little planter box with compost and a mixture of lettuce seeds - I planted and watered them and all of those leaves had gone berserk too!

Something needed to be done - yes, the parents were going to have to eat their young! I plucked all the lettuce leaves and lots of mint and parsley for a salad. However the fridge was rather bare, and (with all that champagne and foie gras still rolling around my stomach from the weekend) I could only muster the energy for the 5 minute stroll to the local Tesco Metro. The Tesco Metro at Highbury/Islington is rather good, definitely superior to the slightly closer Holloway Road Tesco Metro - obviously I only went to the latter, which explains why I wasn't able to buy the sweet potato and lamb fillet I had planned to add to our salad. Instead I bought strawberries, lamb chops, haloumi cheese and snow peas. I cooked the chops on the griddle and when they were almost done added slices of haloumi to the pan. Meanwhile I washed our leaves and herbs (and plucked out the odd snail pellet - they are not poisonous surely?), sliced the strawberries and assembled the salad. I added the haloumi and dressed the salad with olive oil and balsamic (the perfect compliment to the strawberries). (We sprinkled more of the toasted nut & seed from Thursday night on top - only because we love it on anything)

It was such a delicious dinner - the combo of juicy lamb, with haloumi, strawberries and mint can't be beaten! (at least not tonight)

A foodie day in Paris

After spending a couple of days in the French countryside, we gathered our courage and drove back into Paris to drop our hire car at Gare du Nord - we were most thrilled to discover that most streets around the station had been closed for a festival, causing us to circle and back-track several times before we could actually return the car. I think we spent 2 hours within a 200m radius of the station before finally being able to drive into the car park. It was therefore with great relief that we finally left the car and headed into Paris, where we checked into our lovely hotel in Marais, Saint Merry (a former monastery and part of the neighbouring church) - our hotel was in a little street of outdoor cafes and it was into one of them we quickly installed ourselves for a late lunch of foie gras and nicoise salad. The late afternoon and early evening were spent walking along the river in the beautiful sunshine and through the lovely grounds around the Louvre, where we stopped for a refreshing carafe of Rose.

The following day we had 4 hours to discover foodie Paris before heading home to London. Y had done some research and we'd found a selection of places we were keen to check out. We discovered a great area (highlighted pink on my map) which was overflowing with cafes, gourmet food shops and kitchen shops.

We loved Rue Montorgueil, a charming street littered with cafes (including Au Rocher De Cancale where we had our morning espresso), Italian style delis, bakeries, patisseries (Stohrer looks great) and some meat and fish shops.

At the southern end of Rue Montorgueil is a little side street (which links to Rue de Montmartre) with a very kitsch home wares and knick knacks store called Pylones where we bought this fabulous (in our eyes at least) sugar bowl! Also in this street is a small foodie shop called Detou selling dried mushrooms, Kusmi tea and different oils.















The area where Rue de Montmartre intersects with Rue Etienne Marcel, as well as side streets Rue J.J. Roussea and Rue du Jour has some great kitchen and catering supplies shops - from huge copper pots of every size, large balloon whisks and specialist kitchen equipment, to cute little toothpicks, Chinese cardboard take-out boxes and patty cake papers. Even if you're not looking to buy, a stroll through at least a couple of these shops is fantastic fun (if you are inclined towards food porn and its associated paraphernalia). The ones we checked out were: La Bovida - 3 levels of kitchen and catering heaven (in particular a gorgeous apple green Kitchen Aid!);





Dehillerin - a more warehouse feel and therefore infinitely more hard core!; Mora - a smaller shop cluttered with all sorts of goodies!

As you may by now be aware, Y & I inhale foie gras as though it were oxygen, and we had read about Foie Gras de Luxe (English translation: HEAVEN [albeit a heaven of the you-will-first-die-of-a-heart-attack-to-get-here variety]) on Rue de Montmartre. We checked out (being careful not to slip on our own drool on the way in) & loved this shop, however we fell head over heels (again the drool problem) for its close neighbour, Comptoir de le Gastronomie (also on Rue de Montmartre and next door to La Bovida). This is a gorgeous shop filled with foie gras, oils and meats. We browsed the store at about 11am and resolved to return later in the day to enjoy lunch at one of the pavement tables. We returned at 12.30pm to find several people had beaten us to it - there is however a small indoor seating area, which is just as lovely, especially if you're sitting at the window (like we were) and so can not only people watch, but ogle the food being eaten at the pavement tables.

Y had a delicious carpaccio of beef (which seemed ubiquitous on our travels, despite its Italian roots) but conceded her food envy for my delicious La Gourmande Salade - comprising a ridiculously scrumptious slice of foie gras of duck, smoked duck leg (and other yummy parts of a clearly very generous duck), a boiled egg (also from the duck?), on a pile of lettuce and tomato. Coupled with a glass of crisp white wine, this was the perfect way to end a lovely weekend (for which Y must take all the credit and me, none - that obviously includes credit of the Visa variety too ...)

3 days in Champagne (the region, not a bath tub of bubbles)

On the weekend Y & I travelled to Paris on the Eurostar (having previously enjoyed 4 hours stuck on the Eurostar in complete darkness and in the tunnel, Eurostar had given us free return tickets) and then drove a hire car from Paris out to Reims in the Champagne region (I dare not relive that experience as I value my sanity too highly - let's just say driving through Paris traffic + no clue of direction + not only on the wrong side of the road, but on the wrong side of the car [in a manual!] does not a relaxing start to the weekend make).

Y had planned the most fabulous 4 day weekend, starting in Reims, Champagne, driving through Epernay, staying just out of Dormans, and then a day in Paris at the end. I had no involvment whatsoever - all the places I'm about to rave about are solely the result of the hard work and tenacious researching of Y.

In Reims we stayed in a gorgeous B&B run by the charming Madame Larcher (11 Rue Ponsardin 51100, tel 03 26 47 32 50). She has lovely, very clean rooms in a central part of Reims.

We had a lovely dinner at Flo Brasserie . It is located at the end of a pedestrianised street with several touristy type restaurants and cafes. Flo however is like a little garden oasis at the end of all this. We sat outside amongst lovely gardens. The service was excellent - treading that fine line between inattentive and pushy, perfectly. Y had the 3 course set meal, whilst I had 2 entrees for entree and main. Y was most impressed with her oysters, followed by fish with chorizo and an aubergine type ratatouille. I had a generous serve of parma ham and rockmelon, sprinkled with pine nuts, followed by carpaccio of beef topped with rocket and parmesan (in retrospect, did I think I was in Italy?). Y can't say no to a creme brulee, and this was no exception. We had such a lovely night and the food was excellent, as was the wine. Don't expect your own special English menu though! (which makes it all the more authentic in my opinion)



Saturday morning we explored Reims, in particular the food markets. I love a good food market and this one lived up to expectations. It is located to the north part of the town, near some Roman ruins (we felt very much like locals when we bumped into Madam Larcher from our B&B "Bonjour Madame!"). Using our best pointing skills and "merci, merci" we were able to procure some delicious raspberries and strawberries, as well as beautiful ham carved from the bone. From Reims we drove to Epernay and along the Champagne Route to Dormans, where we enjoyed our picnic of the ham, some goats cheese and the berries by the river - never have raspberries tasted better!

That night we stayed at a lovely B&B in the countryside in a small village of Reuilly, just out of Dormans. The B&B is run by Bill & Meredith and is in a gorgeous spot. Y & I spent a few hours late on Saturday afternoon swinging in the hammock, reading and being happily distracted by the view over the valley. On Bill's recommendation we drove about 5km down the road to Chez Nanou for dinner - it's a great, rustic place (there are finer dining options in the area too) which fills up very quickly making for a great atmosphere. Y had veal kidneys (we now know what rognon means!) which were delicious and accompanied perfectly with mushrooms and pancetta. I had a perfectly cooked eye fillet, and helped Y out with her decadent chocolate mousse. The staff here were really lovely - thanks for the tip Bill!

One of my favourite foodie experiences of the weekend did not actually involve eating ... Bill & Meredith put on an excellent breakfast of fresh fruit, including peaches from a nearby tree, yoghurt, freshly baked bread and excellent coffee. However the highlight for me was chatting with Meredith over breakfast about Julia Child (America's Delia Smith, who introduced that country to French cooking), whilst flicking through one of her cook books. Bill & Meredith are American and Meredith remembered when Julia Child was first on TV in the 1960/70's which made for some lovely anecdotes. We were looking through one of Julia's books from 1989 - my favourite part was in relation to beans and how they may give some people "voluminous gases of rebellion and protest"!

We reluctantly left Reuilly and headed back to gay Paris ...

You CAN make friends with salad!

We head to France early tomorrow morning for a long weekend, so tonight was packing, clothes washing, and an easy dinner.

I ducked into Morrison's on the way home and grabbed parma ham, goats cheese, salad leaves, figs and some nuts and seeds (pumpkin and sunflower seeds, hazelnuts and almonds). Once home, I dry roasted the seeds and nuts together in a frying pan on the stove top. Meanwhile I cut up the goats cheese and popped under the grill for about 5 minutes.

Next I assembled the ham, leaves and figs on a board, dotted with melted goats cheese, sprinkled the nut mixture, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic glaze and there was dinner. It was so delicious, I think eating it was even faster than making it!

Shanks for dinner

Y loves it when I cook anything Greek (as she is 50% that way herself - Greek, not cooked), so she was extremely excited when I told her we were having Kleftiko for dinner, which is a traditional Greek lamb dish with mint and oregano. I found a recipe (using lamb shanks) in my new slow cooker book - last night I filled Isaac the slow cooker with the shanks (easily available at Tesco and presumably other supermarkets), small pearl onions, garlic, celery, canned tomatoes, (I left out the potatoes and accidentally used the carrot in Monday's dinner) and the signature ingredients, dried mint and oregano. I then covered the shanks with water and Isaac cooked them for 9 hours (he had nothing else to do). On Y's instruction we had our lamb with steamed greens with lemon and olive oil - in this case Savoy cabbage.

The lamb fell off the bone with one prod of the fork and looked yummy. I sat opposite Y at the table, waiting expectantly for her reaction. She looked up with a huge grin on her face: "It's delicious! And so genuine! I LOVE Isaac the Slow Cooker, he's SO clever". Thanks Babe.

Can our table be closer to the kitchen please?

Last year, to celebrate one of Y's lovely cousins' 30th birthday, we had dinner at the chef's table at Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley - the restaurant formerly known as Petrus. Fortunately for us, Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing had just parted ways - Marcus got the restaurant, Gordon got the name, staff, the cellar and all the reservations. The upside of this was that we were able to get a chef's table at a 2 Michelin starred restaurant without the usual 3-6 month waiting list!

Now the chef's table is really only for those foodies obsessed enough to convince themselves that dropping a week's rent on one meal is an unmissable opportunity. I was excited about the experience, but dubious that it could really be worth the cash. I left thinking I'd gotten a bargain!

We started the night in the lounge area with champagne and canapes (we met the lovely sommelier who dropped his poncy posh English accent and reverted to his true blue Aussie one upon realising we were all of the same persuasion). The price for the food is set, but the wine is not ... you have a different wine with each course, so the sommelier wanted to talk about our preferences for wine including how much we were prepared to spend on each bottle. I appreciated this approach, as it not only obviously assisted the sommelier in picking our wines, but it meant we knew that we weren't going to be hit up for a bigger fortune than we'd budgetted for at the end of the meal.

We were then led through the restaurant (I promise I didn't smile smugly and look around the entire dining room to see who was watching) and into the kitchen. Our table was directly opposite the pass in the kitchen and was a U shaped booth, so that we were all facing the kitchen. It was slightly raised, so we had a perfect view, and air conditioned so we felt none of the heat the chefs were no doubt experiencing.

The degustation menu had 9 courses and is created just for the chef's table each day, based on that day's produce. What I loved most was that for each course, the chef who had prepared it came over to the table to talk us through the dish. Several of the chefs were very young and used only to slaving away over a hot stove all day (an occasion when that saying isn't even slightly exaggerated!) and not having to talk to a group of complete strangers, let along a group of very happy girls hurling questions. We later took a tour of the kitchen and everyone we met was so lovely and obviously very dedicated. It's a definitely a labour of love!

A few weeks after the dinner we were sent a printed menu of the night including every wine we were served, as well as a signed card from Marcus, all enclosed in a plush black envelope with "The Berkeley" embossed in silver on the front (sigh). Here's the menu:

Leek & potato soup, green leek foam





Sauteed foie gras,
fig compote and
carpaccio, candied
pistachio (how did
they know to
combine three of
my favourite foods
into one dish?)



Confit loin of tuna, lobster Caesar salad, aged parmesan

Organic chicken,
coco beans,
piquillo peppers,
sweetbreads






Roasted scallops, crayfish, lemon confit and broad beans







Suckling pig, white onion fondue, wild mushrooms, fennel roots











Cheese
selection



Apple tarte
tatin with
vanilla ice-cream





Assiette of desserts; bitter chocolate moelleux, raspberry
milk
chocolate gateau, peanut
parfait,
iced lime mousse, almond pannacotta and orange creme with spiced brioche crisps

We enjoyed the dessert courses whilst the chefs scrubbed the kitchen - I would happily have eaten off the kitchen floor once they'd finished.

Head Chef Marcus, and his 2nd in Command (a Kiwi) were at the pass the entire time and assembled all the food which was brought to them by the chefs. Everything that left the kitchen had to be shown to Marcus and get the OK before being served - even down to a selection of bread sticks in a glass. The attention to detail was incredible. The kitchen was very busy but always supremely calm. So calm in fact that we thought the restaurant may only have been half full and yet it was actually completely packed.

It was a super duper experience. Definitely worth eating at home for 6 months in advance to save up the money to blow on one meal! Y & I agreed it was our best food experience ever. In fact we had food hangovers the next day and had to have burgers and fries!

In a few weeks we're celebrating the same cousin's birthday and also her return to Australia, so in keeping with tradition (as much as doing something 2 years in a row can be a tradition) we'll be enjoying the degustation menu at Le Gavroche (2 Michelin stars). I am very much looking forward to this - much less so the diet of lettuce and water we will be on until then in order to a) make room in our bellies for all the food and b) be able to pay for it!

http://www.the-berkeley.co.uk/
http://www.le-gavroche.co.uk/

Chicken & Cupcakes

Tonight my sister and brother in law came over for dinner, before they jet off to Switzerland for the week.
I made Moroccan chicken from a new book I was given ("New recipes for your slo-cooker" by Annette Yates). Last night I put the chicken thigh, onion, sweet potato, carrot, garlic, chickpeas, and some spices into Isaac the slow cooker and left him to do his thing for 9 hours. Isaac kept the chicken warm all day and it was ready to be served with some cous cous when I got home from work. I didn't think the meal was amazing. It definitely had those lovely slow cooked flavours and we all enjoyed it - perhaps not worth writing home about (which is obviously a higher standard than mentioning it in a blog ...).

Dessert was the main feature. My sister had picked up some brownies (& a blondie - a white chocolate brownie for the uninitiated) and cupcakes from Bea's of Bloomsbury (apparently they have a 13 pound high tea buffet) and, carefully packing them into her backpack, cycled over here and managed not even to smudge the immaculate icing or dislodge a raspberry. With a little double cream on the side, this was the perfect way to end the meal.

(Note to sister: if you're going to be silly with cupcakes and camera when I'm not looking, you will end up on the blog.)

High Tea for Me!

Two weeks ago Y organised for a group of friends to have high tea at the Lanesborough Hotel (Y had generously been given a voucher for her birthday by her cousins so there was no excuse not to go). We went on a Sunday afternoon and all got appropriately dressed up for the occasion.

The afternoon tea was so lovely with the usual tiers of sandwiches, beautiful cakes and scones. We started with champagne and then moved to tea (they have an entire menu of teas to choose from). You can't help but feel refined and ever so more accomplished when drinking tea in such a delightful setting!

High tea is such an English thing to do - you have to dress up and indulge at least once!

http://www.lanesborough.com/

A Happy Weekend with the Naked Chef

This weekend I made two Jamie Oliver recipes from his book "Happy Days with the Naked Chef". I don't actually own this book, but my local library does (amongst many other great titles - you should definitely check out your local library and hopefully, like mine, it has 4 or 5 shelves of well known cook books) and they were more than happy to lend it to me.

Japanese Rolled Pork with Plums, Coriander, Soy Sauce and Spring Onions

I've made this recipe twice now and, although mine never looks as good as Jamie's, it tastes delicious. You make a yummy, sticky plum sauce using fresh plums first and then, after bashing the pork into flat discs (good stress relief), roll each slice of pork about a dollop of the plum sauce. You then steam the little pork rolls. Isaac the slow cooker is also a steamer (pure genius - he is constantly living up to his name - he can cook rice too) so he was able to help out with this recipe (as Jamie suggests, you can obviously use a normal bamboo steamer, or just line a colander with baking paper, cover and steam over a sauce pan of boiling water). The pork steams for about 15 minutes and I serve with boiled basmati rice and glugs of soy sauce. It's simply delicious.





Seared Salmon with Radicchio, Pancetta, Pinenuts and Balsamic Vinegar

(Just realising that Jamie's titles for his recipes don't leave me much to explain!)

This was a super dinner. Y & I aren't mad about radicchio so replaced it with English spinach which I added once the pancetta was cooked. The flavours are rich and delicious, and yet the meal is still healthy and light. We really really enjoyed this.

More "delicious" dinners

I've already mentioned a couple of yummy dinners I've cooked from delicious Magazine's "5 Nights a Week" book, most of which also appear on http://www.taste.com.au/. Whilst I've found having recipes available online really convenient, especially when I moved overseas and was not able to bring a lot of books with me, there's something so special about flicking through a recipe book. I love looking at all the pictures, reading the recipes, tagging things I'd like to make, and "accidentally" spilling some of the sauce on the page when I'm cooking as a type of memento. I treat my cookbooks like a diary and every time I cook a recipe I make notes on the page such as whether I substituted different ingredients and how long I cooked something for, plus I always (just like my mum) note who I cooked for and the date (no one need be served the same meal twice!).



Here are some more recipes that I've enjoyed from this book:

Fragrant egg curry - excellent vegetarian week night meal.

Asian-style duck with cucumber & radish salad - a delicious sticky marinade on the duck went nicely with the cucumber salad. My mum has been teaching my dad to cook and always tells him "the recipe is just a guide" - this definitely applied in this case as I (once again) embarked on a recipe requiring ingredients I suddenly no longer had ...

(for some inexplicable reason, the photo of the duck is rather stuck ... sideways ...)




Char siu lamb with cucumber dressing - my dad made this great dinner when I was in Sydney in April, so not only does it taste good when I make it now but it reminds me of him.








Cinnamon chicken with bean salad - my mum made this for us when we were last in Sydney and I've made it several times since because it's so delicious.

A Wapping Great Place

Today we discovered Wapping Food which is in an old power station just back from the Thames at Wapping. It's not really near anything else, but luckily it's a destination in itself.

We actually walked there along the north bank of the Thames River from Blackfriar's Bridge - it's about a 5km walk and at a stroll took us about 1.5 hours. It's a lovely walk as you start out amongst many tourists, and go past the Tate Modern and the Tower of London. You've lost most of the tourists by St Katherine's Docks and by the time you're walking down Wapping High Street (or still on the well signposted Thames Path) there's barely anyone around and you have a street lined with converted warehouses all to yourself.


We nearly walked straight past Wapping Food as it doesn't appear to be signposted at all - it's on a bend in Wapping Wall.

Hard to get to and then find, but such a wonderful place! It was like stepping into a little oasis!

We arrived at about 2.45pm, luckily 15 minutes before lunch finished - there was not many people there at that time, but the great space somehow has a chilled out vibe that you normally need lots of people to create.

The power station building looks to have been left exactly as it once was and tables and chairs simply moved in. There's a gallery there, a cute little bookshop outside in a greenhouse, and a great outdoor area with deck chairs and big cushions (this is set up in front of a screen and they've been screening outdoor movies throughout summer - I was so disappointed to find out the last one was tonight - hopefully they do it again next year).

We ordered a lemon martini and a raspberry mule (both yummy and with the sort of kick you'd expect from a mule). We shared the foie gras which came with a cherry compote - neither Y nor I can walk past a good piece of foie gras without devouring it and with food this yummy, why would you?

We both had entrees for our main. Y had cray fish linguine with creamy chive sauce - which was "lovely". Y thought the small portion size perfect as a larger serve would have been too rich. I had a salad of feta, peas, courgettes, pine nuts and watercress - which was simple and fresh and just what I felt like on a lovely sunny afternoon.

I really loved this place. It does brunch and dinner as well as lunch and I'm eager to go back soon (especially when, on the way out, we spotted the chef digging around in the vegie patch!).