Round like a spiral in a spiralizer

Following Christmas and New Year indulgences, I'm usually happy to embrace a bit of healthy living in January. The beginning of 2012 saw me not only hungover but engaged (with all the narcissistic worries about wedding photos that goes with that happy state) so when my new personal trainer suggested I try a couple of weeks carb-free I agreed to give it a go. 

And swiftly began to regret it. 

No fruit and no porridge meant breakfast was the hardest. Unless I got all organised and made some mini frittatas the night before (put a bit of wilted spinach in the dimple of a bun-tray, pour on beaten eggs and bake for 15 minutes - one egg makes three) then I was reduced to eating a packet of ham with my morning coffee. Not disgusting exactly, but ever so slightly wrong. A plain yoghurt and a handful of almonds were equally uninspiring reasons to get out out of bed.

Dinner and lunch were OK. I like fish and chicken and I like vegetables and salad. I could have those things in many, many combinations before I got bored of them. But I missed carbohydrates as a "base" for something else: nutty brown rice with a spicy chilli or fragrant curry, a baked potato, crisp on the outside and fluffy within to have with gussied-up tinned tuna and, most of all, pasta in all its numerous forms, each designed to hold a subtly different sauce. 

Enter the spiralizer! 

Jam a vegetable on the spikes, turn the handle and hey presto, pretty strands of "spaghetti". It's big in the raw food community but I found that courgettes make for the best approximation of pasta and that the noodles are much nicer if lightly steamed or warmed through briefly in the pan with the sauce. It's not quite a substitute for the real thing, but retains a pleasing al dente bite and is bland enough to go with most things you might want to top it with.

My first spiralizer-based dinner was courgette "tagliatlelle" with chilli and garlic prawns which turned out well. The next night I used a finer blade to make "spaghetti" to go with a bolognaise. 

My two weeks without carbs are over now (it sent me slightly insane, causing James to Google "carb free" and "mood swings", but was otherwise successful) and only time will tell whether the spiralizer is one of those kitchen gadgets that remains a favourite or if it gets relegated to the cupboard under the sink but I'm still pretty excited about it.

Dinner tonight was soup made with a couple of sachets of miso soup, a handful of beansprouts, baby spinach leaves and some tofu. By the time the kettle had boiled I'd made two types of noodles (courgette and carrots) and the whole thing was a satisfying remedy for a cold caught over the weekend. And pretty damn healthy considering it's right at the end of the month.

Spring Is In The Air

The weather has finally brightened, meaning it's not a total misery to eat salad for dinner. Here's a couple that pleased me last year:

Grilled chicken, little gem lettuce with asparagus, cannalini beans, alfalfa sprouts, pomegranate seeds and torn basil leaves. I'm pretty sure the dressing was the standard one I usually make: 3 to 1 oil and white wine vinegar, dijon and wholegrain mustards, crushed garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. It would work made with lemon juice instead though.

And this one was made for lunch the next day to use up the leftover beans. They're mixed with red and yellow tomatoes and basil with a dressing made of olive oil, red wine vinegar, chilli, garlic, anchovies and capers. I like the mixture of different sorts of tomatoes, although more for aesthetic reasons than for flavour. Sometimes I used halved cherry tomatoes and bigger ones cut into sixths or eighths. There's something pleasing about the contrast in shapes and sizes. These ones came from the stall at Borough Market which sells tomatoes from the Isle of Wight.

Vegetables of Terror

It's Halloween soon. Woooo-oooo-ooooh. Spooky.

Personally I prefer to carve peppers rather than pumpkins. They come ready-hollowed and in a variety of colours. But pumpkins are good too. I'll be doing a massive one on Sunday and making soup with the insides. I'll also be hosting a vegetable carving competition. Prizes for the most frightening lantern and for the most original choice of vegetable. I'm a little over-excited at the prospect.

As well as the competitive gourd-whittling there will be warming autumnal food. I haven't decided what yet, but pictures and recipes to follow.

I should apologise for the over-long absence, but I shan't. I Dined With Dos Hermanos on Monday which was ace and gave me the kick start I needed to start blogging again and I shall try to be less lax in future.

UPDATE: There were some impressive vegetable carving skills on display on October 31st, but sadly my camera is broken and the iPhone failed to capture them in all their exquisite detail. You can get the general idea though. Here are Helen Z’s incredible butternut squash townscape relief, two alarming aubergines by Simon and Martin, a never-attempted before turnip/globe artichoke mash-up by Polly, James’ thuggish gourd and my pumpkin.

The innards of the pumpkin got turned into soup, but I’m not really sure it was worth the effort. I added the flesh to onions that I’d softened in butter with garlic, cumin, cinnamon, dark brown sugar and a tiny pinch of chilli flakes. I waited until the pumpkin cooked down into a lovely, buttery, fragrant pulp before adding the stock. Which is where it all went wrong.

Sainsbury’s “Signature” Chicken Stock tastes of very, very little. It suppose it serves me right for believing that the kind of stocks you get in plastic pouches will somehow be better than something made from a cube. (Yes, I know it would be best to make my own, and I do sometimes, but I’ve not got a proper freezer so it’s not available on demand...) Anyway. It imparted its flavour of very little to my soup which had previously been so enticingly spicy.

I managed to rescue it by reducing the liquid a bit and adding a lot more cinnamon and plenty of salt and pepper. It was served to hungry vegetable carvers with sour cream and paprika-toasted pumpkin seeds who seemed appreciative enough, but I’d rather gone off pumpkins for culinary purposes by then.

Restaurant: Tuscan Kitchen

Jeez, it’s been ages hasn’t it? I doubt anyone but me has even noticed the absence of updates on this personal vanity project, but I was beginning to be sorely affronted by my own silence and thought I better do something about it. Also, I recently had a meal that forced me to re-evaluate the Nicest Things I Have Ever Eaten list (I’ll give you the full rundown some other day) so it seemed as good a time as any.

James had a birthday in November so, being a top-class girlfriend, I whisked him away for a romantic weekend in a mystery location. Well, in all honesty, it was less a whisking and more just a matter of getting him to accompany me on a crowded commuter train to Rye. Which turned out to be truly mysterious as James had never even heard of it before. For anyone in a similar situation I can tell you that it is a small (but pretty and historic) town near the south coast, about four miles from Camber Sands.

We stayed at The George which I found through the Mr & Mrs Smith boutique hotel directory (I know! Get me! Who do I think I am? Booking into boutique hotels as if I’m a proper grown up or something…) and was very nice indeed. Our four-poster bed was truly, profoundly comfortable, the staff were obliging and the bar pleasantly cosy. The other patrons were slightly twattish in a loud and boring, new-money kind of way, but that was hardly the George’s fault.

We went for a walk to a castle in a gale-force wind, watched a massive torch-lit procession and had things (including a DVD from their library) delivered to our room. It was great.

What I want to tell you about though, is the restaurant we visited on the night we arrived. It doesn’t have a website yet, but a gushing description of Tuscan Kitchen on the hotel’s blog (and the fact it was only just round the corner) made me think it would be a good place to go for a low-key first-night dinner.

It’s run by a couple, Genn (who does front of house) and Franco (the chef). She’s from the UK, but has only recently returned after years of living in Florence, and he’s Italian. This combination is reflected in the restaurant itself which is a confusing kind of place in many ways. The building is very Olde England, all exposed beams and historical prints, but the food is pure Tuscany. With just two of them working there the service is a little haphazard (to say the least), but it’s friendly and the food is worth waiting for.

I started with the antipasti, expecting a couple of slices of salami and a few olives. What arrived was a massive platter consisting of at least three different types of salami (a garlicky wild boar once particularly stood out) as well as generous curls of salty, fatty ham, slices of cheese (I’m not sure what sort and didn’t get the chance to ask, but it was sort of half way between manchego and parmesan) and a mound of olives, artichoke hearts and sundried tomatoes. It was easily enough for two, but James was having some rustic soup so I (wo)manfully ate my way through about three quarters of it before admitting defeat.

We had ruefully acknowledged that we weren’t going to have space for the whole Italian style parade of starter-pasta-main-desert so divvied up the courses between us. James had the Tagliata – strips of tender beef with rocket and parmesan which was very good, and I had the truffle ravioli which was one of the single nicest things I have ever eaten.

People are weird about truffles. I think it’s because they’re inescapably sexy in a way other supposedly aphrodisiac foods aren’t. I love oysters, but the high I get from a half-dozen is more like a general feeling of energetic well-being than something that sets my loins afire. I’m a big fan of asparagus too, but surely their seductive properties are less to do with taste and more about a) rarity value and b) their suggestive shape.

Truffles on the other hand are sexy in themselves and Tuscan Kitchen’s ravioli were full of them. The oval parcels of perfectly cooked pasta contained a smooth, truffle-studded filling and were basking a creamy, cheesy sauce containing plenty of generous shavings too. I would have licked the plate if such things weren’t frowned on in polite company.

We’d ordered a second bottle of wine just before the mains, but it didn’t turn up until we were nearly finished. But way of an apology the removed it from the bill and also plied us with delicious chilled desert wine. The panna cottas we’d seen floating by on their way to other tables looked pretty good but, after the truffle experience, a cigarette seemed more appropriate.

Tuscan Kitchen

8 Lion Street

Rye

TN31 7LB

Restaurant: Spaghi

I’m begging you: if you live in N19 then please, please, please go and have dinner at Spaghi. You’d be doing yourself a favour but, more importantly, you be doing me one too. I’m worried that if business at my local Italian doesn’t pick up soon then it’ll go bust and thus deprive me of their lovely gnocchi.

Spaghi is exactly the sort of restaurant that every neighbourhood should have. The food is good, the service friendly and the prices so low that you don’t need an occasion to go there.

I’ve been three times now in the space of a month and will be visiting again tonight. Each time I’ve been impressed with the quality of what’s on offer as well as its absurd good value. Pizzas and pasta dishes start around the £6 mark and other mains are only a little dearer. House wine is under a tenner. On Tuesday and Wednesdays they do a two-for-one deal which makes it ludicrously cheap - really only a couple of quid more expensive that dining chez JD Wetherspoon and, I surely need to point out, unimaginably nicer.

My research so far reveals starters to be adequately tasty, but nothing to write home about and so large that ordering one can push you dangerously close to full before the main event.

Since discovering the gorgonzola and radicchio gnocchi on my first visit I’m afraid I haven’t really experimented with much else on the menu. Well, I had a pizza once, but only on the understanding that James would have the gnocchi and we could swap halfway through. I was determined to try something different tonight but can feel my resolve on that matter wavering. The waitress made a noise of sexual satisfaction when I ordered them the first time and I can see why. These potato dumplings are often tediously heavy and can sit in the stomach in a very leaden fashion. Spaghi’s pillowy little gnocchi, however, are comfortingly solid yet beautifully light. They sit in a creamy sauce in which the cheese’s blue note makes its presence felt but isn’t overpowering, and the richness of which is balanced by the bitter leaves. The pizzas are pretty good too, authentically crispy-based and generous with the toppings.

However, the pleasure of our budget dinners is adulterated by the fact that James and I are always nearly alone in the restaurant. Not because we want to speak to anyone else. Jeez no. It’s just that, given the incredibly generous nature of its portions and the pittance it charges for them, I worry that Spaghi is heading for bankruptcy. And then what will I do without a regular gnocchi fix?

Which is why, again, I’m begging you. Please go to Spaghi. If not for your sake, then for mine.

 

Spaghi Pizzeria Ristorante

6 Archway Close, London, N19 3TD

020 7687 2066

 

Barbecue Weather?

Apparently the Met Office lied when they said it was going to be a hot summer. I heard on the radio this morning their new prediction is that it's going to rain for most of August. So it's unlikely that barbecues will feature on anyone's social agenda for the next month or so but, just incase the Met Office are wrong (and it has been known), I thought I would tell you about some things I made for a barbecue back when it wasn't quite so grey outside.

I like to do homemade burgers since a) they’re nicer and less fatty than shop-bought ones and b) I’m a show off and they always get a good reaction. I couldn’t decide between beef or lamb on this occasion though so ended up doing both - the beef burgers in buns with cheese and the lamb ones in mini pitta breads with feta taztziki. And I didn't stop there. Oh no. Two lots of meat patties and I was just getting started.

It's rude not to provide something for the vegetarians so I decided on halloumi kebabs and there was a potato salad because you've got to have potato salad at a barbecue. I think it's the law. And a green salad, even though no one ever eats that. Then, because I had got myself thoroughly over-excited, I decided to do some corn on the cob as well and some Pimms lollies for dessert.

In my mind, it was going to take about 20 minutes to prepare. In reality it took closer to two and a half hours. But since no-one apart from Rich turned up on time (he and James lit the barbecue together in as manly a fashion as you can light a foot-high thing from Argos). Eventually the others arrived and we ate some food.


If you would like to spend a whole morning in the kitchen on a lovely sunny day, here is how to recreate our experience:

Beef Burgers

lean beef mince

egg

salt and pepper

(Damn it. After typing that I now have Lets Talk About Sex, the controversial hit by early 90s all-girl hip-hop trio Salt'n'Pepa, stuck in my head.)

That’s pretty much it. Sometimes I chop an onion very fine and mix that in too, but it’s got to be more or less minced or it doesn’t cook at the same rate as the meat. You need more salt and pepper (c'mon Spin...) than you think as well. Mix everything up together and shape it into little patties, bearing in mind that it’s going to shrink while it cooks.

Serve in buns with cheese slices (by which I mean slices of nice cheese, a strong cheddar or something a little bit blue, not those weird day-glo processed things) and a plate of lettuce, cucumber, tomato and dill pickle on the side for people to help themselves as they please.

Lamb Burgers

Exactly the same ingredients and method as above only using lamb mince instead of beef (obviously). You don't necessaily need the egg since lamb is fattier than beef so binds better, but I am creature of habit to I put it in anyway. I also like to put some dried thyme in too. These are nice served in mini pitta breads (put them on the BBQ for 10 secs either side so they puff up a bit) with a slice of tomato and the tzatziki below.

Feta Tzatziki

plain yoghurt

cucumber

feta cheese

fresh mint leaves

black pepper

Peel the cucumber and chop it into roughly half cm cubes. Crumble the feta. Mix them both into the plain yoghurt along with finely chopped mint leaves and pepper to taste. You shouldn't need any salt because the cheese is full of it. If it's too thick, add some water until it gets back to the consistency the yoghurt was before you put all that extra stuff in it.

Halloumi Kebabs

halloumi cheese

cherry tomatoes

yellow pepper

courgette

onion

olive oil

garlic

fresh chilli

herbs (parsely, coriander, mint)

black pepper

lemon juice

Put a couple of good slugs of oilve oil in a bowl and squeeze in the lemon juice. Crush the garlic, roughly chop the herbs and the chilli (don’t bother taking its seeds out) and add them to the bowl along with a fair amount of pepper.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and the vegetables into bite-size bits and dump them in the bowl with the oil and other things. Mix it all round til they're well covered and leave them to sit for a bit while you do everythig else.

When you're ready get some wooden kebab skewers (soak them in water for a few minutes to stop them burning over the flames) and put a couple of bits of everything on each. Cook on the BBQ, turning a couple of times and serve with pitta bread and chilli sauce (see below).

Chilli Sauce

onion

garlic

chilli flakes

tinned tomatoes

salt

pepper

sugar

Pretty much like making a pasta sauce, but all whizzed up at the end so its got a smooth consistency.

Sweat the chopped onion and garlic until soft, add the salt, pepper, sugar and dried chilli flakes and stir. Add the tinnned tomatoes and simmer until it's nice (I think you need at least 10/15 minutes for the flavours to combine and to get rid of the slightly metallic taste of tinned tomatoes) then blend until smooth.

Potato salad and green salad are self explanatory. I like to add chopped hard boiled egg, crushed garlic and chopped spring onions to the potato salad. Although, in the event, the eggs proved controversial (sorry Marie).

The corn on the cob is also undeserving of a recipe (although it was very nice). All I did was put some crushed garlic, dried chilli flakes and chopped coriander in some softened butter and smeared it on the sweetcorn before they went on the grill.

Desert wasn't enormously successful since I had bought lolly moulds unaware that the stand they came in wasn't just for show. They were not watertight and thus, when laid on their sides in my pathetically small icebox, leaked all over the place. I am still providing the recipe though since what I managed to salvage of the mixture was appropriately summery.

Pimms Lollies

Pimms

lemonade

strawberries

oranges

fresh mint

I left out the traditional pimms accompaniment of cumcumber as I thought it might go a bit weird when frozen. Apple might be nice instead though.

Chop all the fruit into tiny cubes (about 1/2 cm) and shred the mint. Divide the bits between your lolly moulds and then top up with a mixture of 1 part pimms to two parts lemonade. Freeze.

If anyone has a bigger freezer than me and would like the lolly moulds, do let me know. Of course you don't actually need special moulds. You could just use an ice cube tray like we did when I was little, sticking a toothpick in prior to freezing to provide a serviceable, if wonky, handle. Although I hasten to point out that, in those days, we were using orange juice and not Pimms.

So there you go. It took longer than expected to prepare, but it was well worth it. Just look how much fun everybody had:

Oh.

Restaurant: Quo Vadis

Having divorced parents may leave you with all manner of deep-seated personal issues necessitating years of expensive therapy, but it has its advantages too. Chief among them is the fact that, on your birthday, you get taken out to two nice restaurants instead of just the one.

As mentioned in my previous post this happy event occurred not long ago and, a few days after my father had treated us to dinner at Del Parc, my mother took James and me to Quo Vadis.

The name is Latin for “where are you going?” which is apt since the restaurant has a pretty chequered history. You can read plenty about it elsewhere but, incase you can’t be snatched, I shall sum it up thusly: Soho institution... 1926... Karl Marx... Marco Pierre White... Damien Hirst... falling out... yada, yada, yada...

It was recently taken over by Sam and Eddie Hart, the culinary brothers behind Spanish restaurants Fino and Barrafina, both of which I like a lot. They’ve abandoned the tapas thing for Quo Vadis though and it’s menu is instead “modern British”. It has been raved about by everyone who reviewed it and it’s not cheap either so (although I wasn’t paying) I was expecting great things. My expectations weren't dashed exactly - we had a lovely time - but they were slapped about a bit. Albeit in the most genteel way possible.

The stained-glass windows are pleasingly “old Soho” and once you get inside it’s all buttery leather banquettes, sparkling glassware and ever-so-slightly-camp Continental waiters. Things started very well with the house apéritif of Campari, Champagne and clementine juice which was delicious. My starter was fantastic too: a little heap of sweet, brown shrimps served on toasted sourdough bread with - classy touch this - half a lemon tied up in muslin so the pips didn’t fall out when you squeezed it. My Mama had crab mayonnaise and James had asparagus, both of which looked very nice but we were all rather too protective of our tiny portions to share.

Our waiter was sweet, but rather over-attentive and kept complimenting our decisions, a practise I always find a bit strange - surely saying something is a “good choice” implies that ordering some of the other things on the menu would be a mistake? Not the impression any professional kitchen would like to give...

My main of Beef Wellington was a) huge and b) hugely overpriced. If memory serves it came in at not much under £30 (£30!). It was a good piece of meat, cooked medium rare as requested, but the pastry case was a little soggy. This was, in part, because it was sitting on a pile of lovely, buttery spinach and surrounded by a pool of impressively savoury, glossy brown gravy, neither of which I could fault, but still... this dish alone was the price of a whole dinner in a lesser establishment so ‘good’ isn't really good enough. At the prices Quo Vadis charges everything ought to be perfect.

Side dishes were well done - tender purple sprouting broccoli and buttery al dente greens - but the servings were microscopic. Little white dishes, about four inches long and three wide (I have just looked at a ruler so I’m pretty confident of those measurements) and priced at £4.50 each. (More outrage: £4.50! etc. etc.)

I was as full as anything afterwards, but it was my birthday (week) so I courageously found room for a piece of treacle tart, as lovely an example of it’s kind as you could ever hope to find, served with a little scoop of clotted cream.

So, quo vadis? The answer, I think, is ‘not back there again’. I enjoyed my meal, just not so much that I’d be willing to pay (or have a close relative pay) to repeat the experience. I suspect this fact won’t distress the Hart brothers too much though: the restaurant wasn’t packed on the Monday night we visited, but it wasn’t empty either and the other customers looked to be mostly bankers. I hear Michael Winner is also a regular (poor Sam and Eddie). My mother is a very generous lady and showed no sign of minding the steep prices but, if she offers to buy me a celebratory meal next year, I shall choose a venue where I am less likely to run into the director of Death Wish.

Quo Vadis

26-29 Dean Street, London, W1D 3LL

0207 437 9585