Raw Vegan Pad Thai

You know this can be completely raw but don't sweat it if you don't manage to get those rather elusive kelp noodles... mung bean noodles are really good or just some rice vermicelli... it's all good!  If you have too many courgettes growing why don't you just go for courgette noodles (see how down below)...

Oh and if you are wondering just what these kelp noodles this is what they look like:

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

1 package kelp noodles (12 oz./340 g) if you are keeping it raw or 2 packs of mung bean noodles (you can get these in your local Chinese supermarket)

½ head cabbage

2 carrots

1 courgette

Handful of french beans (thinner the best)

a few handfuls bean sprouts

1 bunch coriander (reserve a little for garnish)

Raw Pad Thai Sauce (see below)

black sesame seeds (or almonds, pumpkin seeds, cashews, peanuts etc.)

lime wedges for serving

Raw Pad Thai Sauce

Ingredients:

1 piece ginger root, peeled (about the size of your thumb)

1 clove garlic

½ red chilli pepper, seeds removed

1 tbsp. maple/agave/date syrup

1 ½ tbsp. tamari or ordinary soy sauce - it all depends if you do the wheat or not....

juice of 2 limes

1 tsp. ground turmeric

10 coriander seeds

1 Tbsp. cold-pressed olive oil or rapeseed oil

500ml water (or as needed)

Directions:

1. If you are using kelp noodles remove noodles from package and rinse very well under cold running water. Set aside and let drain. If you are using mung bean noodles soak in warm water for about 5 minutes and then drain.

2. Prepare all the vegetables. Slice the cabbage as thinly as possible (a mandoline is helpful). Using a vegetable peeler, slice the carrots into ribbons. Julienne the courgette, or use a mandoline or spiralizer to obtain long, noodle-like strips.Chop the coriander, including the stems. Add the bean sprouts and the french beans.Toss all together in a very large bowl with your noodles.

3. Just before serving, pour the dressing over and fold to coat. Garnish with sesame seeds (or any nut/seed you like), extra coriander, lime wedges and ooh just some more sliced chilli (I like it hot!)..

Raw Pad Thai Sauce

Directions:

1. Grate the ginger and chop and crush the garlic. Finely chop the chilli.

2. Start adding the ginger, garlic and chilli to an empty jam jar..crush the coriander seeds and add with tumeric, agave syrup, tamari soy sauce, oil, juice of 2 limes and a little zest. Put a lid on and give it a shake. The sauce should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to coat the vegetables and noodles. If it is too think add some water. Season to taste. 

Elderflower and Sea Bass

You might wonder why I have a picture of Anthony Bourdain on my post about elderflower and sea bass.... well I thought I would sneak in one of my guilty pleasures - watching No Reservations.  I just cannot get enough of the laconic monologues about food and life in general.  The format of taking Tony and plonking him in some obscure place and watching him eat and drink his way through mostly guts and entrails with some fine dining thrown in does not sound like the kind of show that I would normally be into but the witty insight into cooking and eating just escalates the show to whole new level.


This recipe came from one of those great episodes of No Reservations - in fact it was the 100th episode where Tony goes back to Paris..... and in amongst a Smörgåsbord of meats was this gem of a piece on Iñaki Aizpitarte and his restaurant http://www.lechateaubriand.net/, and this dish.... sea bass with elderflower and  mascarpone.

The dish looked so delicious that I decided to re-create it.


Sea Bream with Asparagus, Mascarpone and Elderflower

Couple fillets of sea bream
Mascarpone
Asparagus (Aizpitarte used white asparagus but I used green instead.... cannot bear the white stuff)
Elderflowers
Butter

Well it all starts of course with the elderflower... freshly picked... do not let that elderflower hang around too much as it will begin to really stink!

Prepare the elderflower by picking off the flowers from the stalks.... really get all the green stalks away - you just need those tender white flowers.  Take your time and you will be rewarded.Gently rinse the flowers in water and drain on some kitchen paper.

Gently boil your asparagus for about 5-7 minutes then quickly drain and keep aside.

In a frying pan with a little oil of choice .... butter preferably gently fry your sea bream fillets and then set aside.   Heat up some more butter (a 50g or so) and add to the sea bream pan.  Once the butter has fully melted and starts to bubble add the elderflowers and gently fry until golden brown... this should not take too long.

Prepare your plate by placing a dollop of mascarpone on the plate and then smearing across the plate with the back of the spoon.  Place the cooked sea bream on top and then the asparagus.  Gently spoon the butter/elderflower over the fish.

It should look a little something like this... and it tastes devine... trust me.  One of those few dishes that is truly inspiring... glad I found you!

Adventures in Sushi

A sushi feast

Making sushi is a real art.  And you cannot rush it.  I end up taking hours just making a small batch of ill-defined but quite tasty nigiri (that is the rectangles of sushi rice with a topping) and some uneven but yummy sushi rolls. But then that is the whole joy of it... it is like that Samuel Beckett quote:

 "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

After quite a few failing better sessions I thought I had better turn to some experts.... now the key to making the perfectly formed sushi rolls and nigiri is have the perfect sushi rice which involves buying the correct rice, cooking and then cooling correctly - there is a lot of fanning going on (that's fanning the rice to cool it).  For some great instructions go to http://justhungry.com/2003/11/japanese_basics_1.html. Now justhungry.com are my go to people for all things Japanese food related. I truly recommend it for giving budding cooks out there an insight into Japanese food.

Getting fancy there!

So once you have got your sushi rice ready you can work on getting a bunch of ingredients ready to put on or in the maki rolls and nigiri. It could be smoked salmon (not strictly sushi I know but it is useful when very fresh fish is not around), smoked trout or mackerel, peppers, cucumber, avocado, green beans, or any other veggie that could easily be eaten raw.Get a selection together; cut the vegetables and fish into strips for maki rolls, and larger rectangles for the nigiri.The other thing to prepare is the wasabi... an absolute essential for sushi.

  Now there are far better people out there who know just what to do to make the various forms of sushi.... a great site is http://makemysushi.com/.

My nigiri maker - a great piece of kit for your Japanese kitchen

The piece of kit that is almost essential is the nigiri maker.  I got mine from Arigato in Brewer Street in Soho along with my invaluable sushi mat.  Now the sushi mats seem ubiquitous and you even find them in high end supermarkets. The nigiri makers are a little more difficult to find but now with the rise of the internet there are plenty of on-line shops selling them... like the Japan Centre - http://www.japancentre.com/.

Some ill-formed but perfectly edible nigiri

I found that I did not have any photos of the rolling up of the sushi rolls. Probably because I was stuck with rice glued to hands whilst making these tricky rolls.  But here is fine picture of some nigiri being made.

I really recommend that you experiment and make your own....

Morning Glory

Morning glory at Busuba Eathai

I love new ingredients and even if I will never get the chance to grow it in this country I still like to expand my horizons and try exotic vegetables.

Busuba Eathai usual succeed in introducing me to new dishes but the last time I ventured into a branch in London I discovered a new ingredient.  Now I normally consider Morning Glory to be a climber with blue flowers that we can indeed grow in this country.  What I did not know was that it was also the name for water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) and used widely in the far east.  Hence, it turning up at Busuba Eathai.  It likes to live in water or very damp soil and can grow quite rampantly; indeed in Florida it is considered a weed.

You harvest the leaves and stalks and steam or braise. The taste is of subtle spinach; almost bland.  It can absorb the flavours of the stock or sauce around so is a great companion to those big, robust Thai flavours. Something I would love to try again.... I have seen the seeds available in the UK.... now I wonder?

Salsola

I am really catching up with all the recipes and ingredients that I have been playing about with for the past year.... I wanted to highlight this great ingredient salsola.  Little used in this country  - I heard all about from the Petersham Nurseries restaurant chef Skye Gyngell and when I found the seeds at the Real Seed Company I just had to grow and try this unusual herb? vegetable? 

Salsola soda is saltwort and is known as land seaweed or agretti in Italian. It has a flavour of something like samphire or seaweed with a salty tang and slight bitterness. In Italy you find it regularly in greengrocers in large piles of stalks with the roots still attached.  And because is has that seaweed taste it is of course popular in Japan.

You can eat the younger leaves raw in salad but I waited to see how the plant grew.  What you had were these amazing thick bushes of succulent green foliage.  I cut some fresh and decided to steam it and serve with some squid, scallops and cockles to intensify the taste of the sea.

 I ended up cooking much of the salsola in stir fry to add that briney tang.  A great vegetable to use and fun and original to grow!

Real Food Festival @ Festival Hall

This is really old bit of news but i just want to shout about how good this festival was and how great the food was on to offer. Round the back of the Royal Festival Hall in London my friend and I happened across this event.  Fantastic. Food from all round the world all congregating outside one of London's most famous monuments. This is a regular event now and is a great haven of  the food truck... You can find out more about the Real Food Festival at http://www.realfoodfestival.co.uk/.

I just want to highlight two places that I tried and loved; the wonderful fish tacos of Luardo's in their playful pink van and some exquisite oysters from Squid and Pear.

First off the tacos...well I have been hearing all about the famous taco trucks LA and I was thrilled to find the genuine article on the streets of London. And when I talk about tacos I don't mean the hard versions you get in the supermarkets that you heat up in the oven. No, I mean the gorgeous soft tortilla wrapping itself around a divine filling.

This is a little bit of Californian Mexican heaven in London - plus they use sustainable fish as well - coley.  So you have this divine tortilla wrapped around some unctuous coley and topped with gaucamole, cabbage strips and a spicy salsa sprinkled liberally with lime...

Apparently Luardo's can be found at King’s Cross with eat.st every Friday in May, Saturdays at Brockley Market and Mon-Fri at Whitecross St in the other van.

This is something that I will definitely be trying at home!

Now, if that wasn't enough to try I thought I would partake in a little oyster tasting.  I couldn't pass up Squid and Pear's modern take on oysters by serving them with a little cucumber caviar and some foraged sea vegetables. A perfect hit of the sea balanced with some cooling cucumber.

So this is another take home the idea and re-create! Of course my trusted internet turns up trumps by providing a great recipe for oysters with cucumber caviar and bloody mary granita - http://www.reonhobson.com/oysterswithcucumbercaviar.htm. Now where can I get the algin?

Dulce de Membrillo

Don't they look devine! My delectable quince with their subtle perfumed aroma and a downy skin (not unlike a peach). But what to do with this honeyed fruit?

I actually cooked up a huge batch of dulce de membrillo after being given a huge bag of them from my friend's brother's place (thank you Chrissie and John).  So this really is a free-form recipe that you can scale up to whatever proportions you require.  The dulce de membrillo is a great gift to take round to parties to round off an evening.  Invariably there will be cheese and this is an excellent accompaniment.

The recipe comes from internet delvings into the wonderful blog The Traveler's Lunchbox - http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/2005/11/11/dulce-de-membrillo-and-a-host-mothers-love.html.  Please go and read the great posting on being served dulce de membrillo by a formidable Basque mother. 'The Traveler' got it from a the Basque Table by Teresa Barrenechea.

4 large quinces
sugar 

Wash the quinces, but do not peel them. Put them into a large pan, and add enough water to cover them by 1 inch. Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, and cook the quinces for about 40 minutes, until they begin to crack. With a slotted spoon, remove the quinces from the pan, and set them aside to cool. 

When the quinces are cool enough to handle, peel them, and remove and discard the seeds. Weigh the peeled and seeded quinces, and then pass them through a food mill or process in a food processor until smooth. I actually used  my blender which worked wonderfully.

Weigh the quince pulp and make a note (you will need that later).

Transfer the quinces to a saucepan, and add the same weight of sugar as fruit. Stir well, and cook the mixture over very low heat for about 1 hour, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until the mixture turns red and very sticky, and there is no visible liquid left. 

Transfer it to a shallow container (a loaf pan works well for this as does those plastic takeaway tubs), and let it cool uncovered. Cut it up when it has solidified, and serve it with slices of pungent cheese. It will keep in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to two months. It is great to have the membrillo in these plastic tubs as they fit in your fridge so well.  

Looking Back/Looking Forward

I have woefully neglected this blog.

Life has taken over and food life has taken second place unfortunately.

Well that is not true actually... i have been cooking alot, and trying new foods and restaurants but I just have not been able to get it down on paper.

Now  I feel that maybe, just maybe there is a new lease of life in this blog and I can get back to writing about what I truly love..  I think I might be catching up on all the recipes I have been trying and reporting back on the success/failure - look  out for my sea bream with elderflower sauce and marscapone. I will be writing about the whole new world of raw vegan food with an Asian twist - raw vegan pad thai anyone? My discovery of fermentation will be uncovered and last but not least my experiments in tofu.

Writing this I realize that my discoveries in food mostly rely on other food blogs and the wonderful band of people who equally share there passion for food and cooking and then want to talk about it.  I read about a new food trend, or new restaurant that has opened and want to try it! What do I do? I run to the internet and look up the new cuisine... has anyone tried to re-create dishes from the restaurants they have been to? Are there any people out there who want to share there native cuisine?  So I am indebted to them... they have kept their passion alive for food and managed to re-ignite mine enough to start writing about it again!