Taro times

Taro Brewer Street surpassed itself again.
The soya broth in the gent's spicy ramen was light and almost meaty tasting. In the good way, of course.

My tempura udon had two generous prawns and great broth. When I first encountered this in Japan I speed-scoffed the crispy tempura, having a horror of the batter getting soggy. But I soon learned to relax and enjoy the dish as it should be eaten. I even adopted the noodle-slurp!

The pork ramen I had in Taro last time was quite possibly the best ramen I have tasted since visiting Japan.  Happily the gent has quite the obsession with miso soup at the weekend: long may it continue! 

Friday treats

However lovely your new flat is, and however much you love your work, there will always be grumpy weeks.  Not bad, not unhappy, just meh to the core.  I have different tactics - secret weapons that keep my head above water until the sun comes out again – and today I am going to share one with you.

In a mood slip-slide, getting up later creeps in and soon breakfast is off-menu.  Instead it is a coffee and pastry at the desk, and then after a while, even this doesn't seem exciting.  The only thing to do is get a grip and re-invent breakfast.

On a practical level, eating breakfast makes your morning 70% better*.  You have more energy, you are less grumpy, and less likely to eat only cake and flake bars for the rest of the day.  On an emotional level, this is one of the few times I feel again the thrilling, unsurpassable anticipatory excitement of Christmas Eve.  

A few weeks back I decided to celebrate Friday breakfast.  The night before I assembled all the dry ingredients for savoury muffins, so that the next morning (bouncing out of bed super-early with excitement) I just had to bung in the wet ingredients, scoop the batter into muffin cases and pop them in the oven.  At the same time I put a tray of chipolatas in to cook.  

Breakfast cooked itself whilst I had a shower and made tea, and then the lucky gent had breakfast in bed.  And I had a Friday morning feast which put a spring back in my step.

How to

The muffins are based on the recipe in Nigella Bites: I fiddled about with the flour a bit, but stuck more faithfully to the recipe than usual. 

I used chipolatas as they cook quickly, giving time for them to cool to a handling-temperature, whilst the muffins had their last 10 minutes in the oven.  I used sausages from the 'Good little' company, which I hadn't heard of before; I loved the idea behind them... and they were tasty, too.

*Recently invented statistic.

lazy Sunday

We were very generously gifted an amazing chunk of iberico chorizo. Neither salami nor cooking sausage, it is instead a hybrid of the two: a thin slice can be eaten immediately, or cooked in a stew etc.

The flavour is a surprise. As salami it is really earthy and resiny, lower on the bright pimento taste we were expecting.

With such a powerful flavour I fried only a few slices for brunch, releasing that lovely orange chorizo fat which I then fried quail eggs in. The chorizo discs were put on top of toasted baguette, with the quail eggs perched on top of the chorizo.

The eggs were gratifying to cook, needing only to have the edge of the white flipped over the yolk to make a perfect, soft yolked parcel. So neat and so quick.

Coffee is often the high point of the day and today's post-brunch cup was, in Mary Poppins' parlance, practically perfect.

'licious lunch (or ode to leftovers - again)

It isn't very photogenic, but my lunch today is just adorable.
Imagine, if you will, last night's coleslaw with a little salad, some slices of cold roast chicken and cold, roast beetroot. With the last pitta bread.

Heaven, heaven!

Which brings me on to last night's slaw.
Find one exhausted-looking radicchio lettuce; shred, tumble with finely chopped carrot (the nearest to 'shredded' I could get by knife). Mix about with Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and mayonnaise. The taste is heavy on vinegar and mustard, low on the creamy mayo. The colour, as you can imagine is bright and cheering!

This was invented to be companionable to some amazing pulled pork - itself left-overs from our friends Gabe + Maria, gifted from their larder-of-dreams. I fried the sweet-fatty pork in patties and wedged it onto some fancy-pantsy artisan french stick; the slaw's sharpness undercut the pork perfectly.

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The roast chicken and beets were from a quick, basic roast to stave off post-Easter blues, and also to provide for a salad the next day. I think this is such a delightful combination, as the beets sweeten up, and r0se-tint, the chicken.

jolly cauli

My reason for setting up this blog, all those years ago, was to have one, custom-made, searchable place for my cookery notes.

If I want a particular recipe I have read or cooked, I can often remember precisely which recipe book it is in. If I am given tips from friends, or scribble down recipes from magazines or library books, then I shovel the bits of paper together (and with a Library Masters degree I can even shovel the papers into a reasonable order). However, each time I discovered something by happy accident - when I ran out of ground almonds so used ground hazelnuts in a cake instead, or was inspired to put a fried egg on my sobrasada toast - I would forget to note this down. I never remember the ad hoc, unofficial parts to kitchen experiments, which are so often the most fun.

So, hence, a blog. Now I can type 'pasta' into the search box and there is the little homemade supper I did back in Finsbury Park: happy memories plus notes on why to keep the garlic raw!

Today I am berating myself for being so silly as to have had a favourite dish for the past few YEARS for which I still lack notes. I recently tried to convert a friend to this soup, verbally, but really need to cook it for her as I wasn't myself swayed by the description. The thought of adding yoghurt to cauliflower soup wasn't in the slightest bit appealing until I tasted it. Thanks go to Jo for serving it up: I have been making it ever since.

This is the cauliflower yogurt soup from the Moro cookbook. If you are searching for this recipe in your lunchtime at work, because the book is at home and you need to shop for ingredients on your way back, then this time around I am talking about 'Casa Moro'. Every other last result on Google will include coconut milk and be from the Moro East book. One day I'll try it, but for now I can't get past this one. Both books are treasure troves, incidentally.

This soup amazes me every time. I quite like soup, but think of it as a practical way to use up
vegetables, or eat something with vitamins in. This however, is a world apart. The corriander seeds, so lemony when ground, plus the yoghurt partake in some wondrous alchemy to convert this to straight Food Of The Gods.

A note to my future self and also to Tamsin: once you have corriander seeds, cornflour and vegetable stock in your kitchen cupboard (and oil, butter + seasoning, but I am assuming you have those...) you only need to buy fresh:
1 or 2 cauliflowers, Greek yoghurt, an egg, garlic and onion.

Soften onion and garlic in oil and butter, and bash up the seeds in a pestle and mortar to throw in too: cook these three on a low heat for about 10 minutes until it burnishes and turns gold. Hack up the cauli, chuck in the pan, and heave in 300 ml stock. Add a lid and cook for 20 mins, mashing with a potato masher when it starts disintegrating. I only have a potato ricer, so instead have to squash it with the back of the wooden spoon, then semi-blitz it with a hand blender. Not to a puree, just so it loses the bigger lumps. Add another 450 ml stock and bring to a simmer whilst you do the yoghurt bit.

Mix the egg yolk with 1 tsp cornflour or plain flour: add in 400g yoghurt. This will prevent the horror you are expecting: curdled dairy. Somehow the magic works and you will be able to combine the yoghurt mix into the soup without drama.

The recipe also suggests fresh corriander stirred in at the end with burnt butter and chilli flakes atop. I didn't miss this. I did miss the toasted almond flakes which I used to sprinkle over, but forgot about because I didn't blog it: now it is engraved here in Georgia font, I will know for next time.

I chose not to photograph the soup as it looks as you can imagine. White and soupy. However, the kitchen dissection of the cauliflower was really beautiful! Now sit back and enjoy reading the Moro books, whilst eating this beautiful soup.

moving antidote

Of course moving house means decreasingly interesting food cupboards: each meal we try and use something else up until we have herbs, half a tin of tea and 27 grains of rice in the bottom of a packet.

I intended to make some pork with mustard, cider and cream (a scraping of dijon being the inspiration here) but the gent and I have been working late a bit so had missed the shops. I ask you: live in central London and you can't get a potato after 8pm!

So we headed to Antidote for a bavette steak and bottle of wine. The satisfaction of a good day at work, combined with relief at not having to create something out of 27 grains of rice and dijon mustard, made me appreciate this trip all the more. As we arrived a downstairs window seat came free and it turned out to be the same seat I had sat in by myself last summer, in the broiling heat, when this was La Trouvaille: charming serendipity.

And then as we enjoyed the glorious red wine (the gent's assessment: "funky"), and the anticipation of steak to come, it began to snow. It was easily one of the most magic evenings, partly because it was by chance, but also because it is so good to properly appreciate when you are living a charmed moment. We have had the opportunity to live in Soho, eat at some terrific places, and now to walk home in the snow - and not worry about tube delays or waiting, freezing at a bus stop. A perfect farewell, and the antidote to moving stresses.

The gent had bordelaise sauce (shallots, red, wine + stock) and I ate my steak with bernaise sauce. The jury is still out on which is better.

guestie: Bert

A mini guest-post from Bertie Blue. This is how my home-made recipe books look: print-outs of emails from friends of whole recipes, or just a few words about an ingredient. She writes:

"Say Roy, moving can be expensive, so here's my budget friendly tip of the week...Tom Yum Paste. Have a jar in the fridge, and a spoonful mixed with rice, a few veggies and some protein (a tin of tuna or salmon, some old chook or whatever) is wealthy man flavour for student prices." Then added "it's extra yummy if you can squeeze in a bit of lime juice, and a few drops of fish sauce."

Advice gratefully received: moving certainly is expensive and I have been too tired for proper cooking! It is goodbye to saucy, splendid Soho and hello to the blossom trees and birds of Covent Garden. Who knows, the new oven might even open up the world of baking again...