Blacklock City, Foxlow Soho and Bellanger

Blacklock City pre-chop bites

I'm not deliberately moving the blog towards more reviews, it's just been working out that way. This past week I have eaten out an unprecedented three times. Well, it may not actually be unprecedented but I can't remember the last time I did (while not actually being away from home). And now I am coming to think about the three meals, I think they are quite representative of the way I prefer to eat out in London. Independents or small chains. Not stuffy or fussy, not enormously expensive but good ingredients and generous hospitality.

All in. Why not?

On Monday I had lunch with Mimi and her lovely baby son at Blacklock City. We originally planned to meet because Mimi was embroiled in an imbroglio, as Wodehouse would have it, over the appropriation of Burmese culture and I'd offered to be moral support in her meeting with the unrepentant appropriator. But then Mimi decided that he wasn't worth the time, so we just had lunch. I'd been to Blacklock Soho for their (exceptionally good) Sunday lunch, but this was the first time I'd been to the new City venue. While the Soho branch on a Sunday is pretty mixed, a chophouse in the City on a weekday might as well have "NO GIRLS" on the door: some of the suited and booted diners looked slightly horrified to see women with a pram.

We went "all in" - pre-chop bites, chops piled on grilled flatbread and a couple of sides, for a very reasonable £20 a head. The pre-chop bites, int the same vein as the anchovies I had at Foxlow recently, were Peter's Yard (probably) rye crispbreads topped with salty, delicious toppings. The nicest of the three was topped with egg and anchovy - so good we ordered another round of those in lieu of pudding. The chops (beef sirloin, pork belly and lamb t-bones) were delicious, the chips perfect and the salad just what was needed. A couple of £5 cocktails and extremely friendly staff going above and beyond to accommodate the baby made it just about perfect.  

Lenny Henry as a Depression-era gangster

On Wednesday I had a quick, early dinner back at Foxlow before seeing the excellent Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar. We had a table towards the front of the restaurant, which was a reasonable height so my feet were able to touch the floor comfortably.

I almost never order chicken burgers, because the chicken is so often woolly and bland, but with the memory of their delicious fried chicken fresh in my mind I felt confident to have the chicken burger, with an optional kimchi topping. Messy. Very messy. But absolutely delicious. The service was a bit scatty - my friend had specifically asked if there was mayonnaise on the Foxlow burger, had been told no, and then it arrived with a massive load of mayo on it. She complained, and the staff member complained to went to get the staff member who'd taken the original order, who said it wasn't mayonnaise it was KEWPIE MAYONNAISE. And it then took much longer than it should have to bring a replacement, mayo-less bun.

Chicken burger with kim chi, fries and cherry tarragon sorbet

I decided that I couldn't forego ice cream on a very hot day, so I ordered a scoop of salted caramel ripple and a scoop of cherry and tarragon sorbet, both of which were gorgeous. Then we strolled off to the theatre.

Rose weather at Bellanger

And finally on Friday I had dinner at Bellanger before a dance show. Turned out to be a slightly less good idea because the show wasn't at the venue we thought it was at, so we ended up having to hustle to get there in time. But Bellanger is a Corbin and King restaurant, and I love what they do so, so much, so it's never going to be a terrible idea, even if it results in a more expensive Uber. The Delaunay, Brasserie Zedel, Fischers - all good food, professional service, some of the nicest loos in London and reasonable prices. You know you are in safe hands.

It was a really hot day, and I couldn't quite bear the idea of choucroute garnie, or even one of their huge, delicious schnitzels. The salad section of the menu appealed but it was a bit tricky to fathom what size the salads were. The waitress advised us that the crab and smoked salmon salad, at £13.95 was a starter size, and the beef, endive and roquefort salad at £14.50 was a main course size. Which was slightly confusing. We took her advice and ordered the salads, with a tarte flambee to share. The portion size was perfectly judged to leave space for dessert. The last time I had a knickerbocker glory it was a tragically disappointing waste of calories. This one restored my faith in them, with strawberry and vanilla ice creams, not-too-jammy berries and whipped cream.

Crab salad, tarte flambee and knickerbocker glory

Fig, bresaola and burrata

Paul's in South Africa for a couple of weeks spending time with his mother and brother while I hold the fort here. And the fort needs quite a lot of holding - Miss Urchin is not at all amused by his abandonment and for the two days he's been gone she's been extremely demanding and not very interested in letting me sleep.

I remembered that the last time he was away for a while she was similarly demanding, and didn't understand why I felt the need to cook when I got home from work, rather than dedicating my time to entertaining her. So mostly while Paul's away I am planning to eat very fast, low effort meals.

This was pretty fast and low effort, but still really rich and indulgent for a Sunday lunch. If you find burrata too rich for words, a fresh buffalo mozzarella or even a creamy young goats cheese would also be nice.

Fig, bresaola and burrata (serves 1 as a main course)

50g hazelnuts, blanched
1 small bunch basil
1 small garlic clove
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
4 slices bresaola (or proscuitto or serrano ham)
4 figs
1 x 100g burrata
extra balsamic

Roast the hazelnuts in a 160C oven until nicely browned and tip the hot nuts into a mini processor.

Turn up the heat to 180, halve the figs and put them on a baking sheet and roast for 15-20 minutes.

Add the basil, garlic, mustard, olive oil and balsamic to the mini processor and pulse to a rubble.

Arrange the bresaola and burrata on a plate, tip the hazelnut rubble onto the plate and add the hot figs. Drizzle with a little extra balsamic. A glass of fino sherry would be particularly nice with this, but I didn't happen to have one.

Peanut butter chocolate birthday cake

I hadn't been asked to make a birthday cake for my young friend The Hurricane since 2012. I had assumed that her growing sophistication meant she was well and truly too grown up for my extremely rudimentary decorating skills.

However, this year she asked if I would. Of course I said yes. We brainstormed over drinks (prosecco for me, water for her). Chocolate was a given. I offered ideas for additional flavourings and she scorned all thoughts of raspberries or apricots but decided that peanut butter and caramel would be good.

Peanut butter buttercream swirled with caramel

It was always going to be the Be-Ro Milk Chocolate Cake. It's obedient, reliable, sturdy enough to slice and decorate and not overwhelmingly chocolatey. The Hurricane may be an unbearably grownup a-couple-of-days-from 12 year old, but she still doesn't like too much intense chocolate.

The rest was assembly really. The layers were sandwiched with Perfect Peanut Buttercream (astonishingly good. I used a smooth, organic peanut butter with salt but no added sugar), swirled through with some Carnation Caramel, then covered with more of the buttercream. I'd thought about putting some chopped peanut brittle in with the layers, but I thought The Hurricane's parents and orthodontist wouldn't thank me at all if I buggered her braces two weeks before Christmas.

Chocolate mirror glaze

Then I topped it with John Whaite's chocolate mirror glaze. I got the consistency a bit wrong with this one - I cooled it so it wouldn't melt off the butter cream but then it was too thick to flow easily. I liked the result of the dribbles showing the underlying buttercream though, so let's call it deliberate. It does have a gorgeously shiny finish though, and a rich chocolate flavour.

The final decoration was a bunch of gold sugar stars, white and dark chocolate stars printed with gold stars, and gold star sprinkles. Simple, but effective. When I delivered it, she was pretty darn pleased. I did have to issue a warning that the glaze would show if she attempted to eat any of the chocolate stars off it.

I asked them to send me a picture of the cross section - the lairs (as Mary Berry says) have held their definition very well. And they ate an impressive amount!

Diana Henry's A Bird in the Hand

Chicken with leeks, apples & cider (p 192)

A couple of months ago I posted about Diana Henry's chicken with leeks, apples and cider, the first dish I'd made from her new book, A Bird in the Hand. Well, since I bought the book, we've been eating a lot of chicken. A LOT of chicken. I'm not done with it yet, but I had to draw a line in the sand somewhere, so I thought I'd run through the recipes we've tried so far. I haven't been particularly methodical - I just cooked things I felt like eating rather than strategically providing a broad view. It's worked out pretty balanced, I think, although the recipes I've cooked have veered more towards Asian flavours. I think that is a seasonal thing - I tend to cook more European dishes in winter, so I have lots of things bookmarked that probably won't happen until October.

It's been produced by Diana's usual team, so the design and photographs are typically beautiful. The only real qualm I have with the book is the index, which I only found useful if I remembered the exact name of the dish I wanted to cook. For something like this where chicken is in everything, having dishes indexed by major secondary ingredients or cooking methods would have worked better, I think. I found myself using Eat Your Books a lot for this, once it was indexed.

Turkish-spiced chicken in a wrap with Greek yoghurt

Turkish-spiced chicken with hot green relish (p 32) was one of the dishes served at Diana's book launch party. It's incredibly delicious. Not super hot, but spicy and spiky with salty, herbal, acidic flavours. We don't have a griddle so I cooked the chicken in a cast iron frying pan - it didn't need extra oil for cooking because of the oil in the marinade.

Thai chicken burgers with Asian slaw

I couldn't get minced chicken for the Thai chicken burgers with Asian slaw (p 20), so I put chicken thigh fillets, the lemon grass, onion, ginger, lime zest and coriander through the mincer, then added the breadcrumbs and other seasonings. As you can see from the disconcerting purple speckles on the burger, I used a red onion. They were succulent, with a pleasant lightness from the breadcrumbs and had a very good flavour. The Asian slaw was excellent - just the thing if you find a mayonnaisey slaw cloying.

Royal chicken korma with chapattis and tomato katchumber

The book is divided into sensible (the starter/main/dessert structure doesn't really work with chicken!) but overlapping chapters - every day dishes, comforting dishes, salads, feasting dishes for when you have more time and so on. The Royal chicken korma (p 146) could easily fit into The Spice Route: scented, perfumed, hot chapter, but really it is in the right place in Feast: let's celebrate. It is a fiddle. I have a well-stocked spice cupboard, so I only needed to buy the perishables but even so when I looked down the lengthy ingredients list and read the method my heart sank. But take courage! This is probably the best curry I have ever, ever made. Disgorging and deep frying the onions for the spice paste gives an extraordinary depth of flavour. It is not a dish for every day but it is sublime. And I say that as someone who would never order a korma in a restaurant because I find them bland, sweet and dull.

Vietnamese lemon grass and chilli chicken - served with sauteed cabbage

Infinitely quicker and simpler, but still utterly delicious, was the Vietnamese lemon grass and chilli chicken (p 22). The red chillis I have been getting recently have no heat at all, so I used two without de-seeding and still needed to add a slosh of hot chilli sauce to give it a boost.

Roopa's lemon grass and turmeric chicken

Roopa's lemon grass and turmeric chicken with potato salad and date and tamarind chutney (p 50) is in The Spice Route chapter, but could so easily have fit into Feast. Not that it's particularly involved or that time consuming, but the potato salad accompaniment makes it taste extremely special. I used ground turmeric instead of fresh so my spice paste wasn't very pasty, but it still stuck nicely to the chicken. The potato salad with the chutney ends up tasting a bit like an aloo channa chaat, which is a very good thing for a potato salad to taste like.

Rice cooked in the fragrant chicken juices

The lemon grass and turmeric chicken also produced vast quantities of juices, far too much to serve with the chicken. So I saved it and cooked some basmati rice in it to have with a mutton methi curry later that week. It was so luscious I would do the chicken again just to make some more rice.

Balinese chicken, bean and coconut salad

This Balinese chicken, bean and coconut salad (p 112) was another one from the book launch party. Deliciously fresh and zingy, with a creamy underpinning from the coconut, it's lovely fresh and even though the herbs wilt a bit and lose some crunch, it's very tasty as leftovers.

Soothing North Indian chicken

So far, there has only been one dish that has really disappointed. The soothing North Indian chicken (p 185) just didn't work for me at all - very bland, and the yoghurt split even without boiling the sauce after adding it. The following day I turned the leftovers into a sort of biryani, stirring it through rice seasoned with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and turmeric, which was much more to my taste.

Negima yakitori cooking

I've made negima yakitori before, so I was very interested in Diana's version (p 172). Mine were not the dainty morsels of her method, because I wanted to use my big, flat, metal skewers, but the flavour was excellent. I particularly appreciated the instruction to start grilling the seasoned chicken before basting with the sauce - so many recipe writers don't seem to understand how quickly things burn if they are marinated in a sugary sauce before cooking. The skewered spring onions add a lot of moisture and flavour to the chicken, and the little sprinkle of shichimi togarashi at the end adds a nice spicy kick.

They were very small aubergines - which we also basted with some of the yakitori tare

For Easter we decided to do something really extravagant and indulgent. Not just the indulgence of Roast chicken with truffles (p 150): we made it with a 3.95kg cockerel.

Steam rising from Roast cockerel with truffles

Obviously we ignored the cooking times for the massive beast, following the instructions on the box instead. We also ignored the serving suggestion of sauteed potatoes and watercress, going instead for Sunday lunch accompaniments of roast potatoes and sweet potatoes, and some peas. The buttery truffle sauce meant that no butter was needed on the peas. This was lovely, definitely worth getting a slow-grown chicken for, and we still have half a jar of black truffle slices left, so we're considering doing it again at Christmas (which is probably the next time fresh cockerel will be available).

Extravagant Sunday roast

Clearly an almost-4kg bird left us with a good supply of leftovers. Which amongst other things got turned into Vietnamese chicken and sweet potato curry (p 204), a super quick, fragrant and delicious use for leftover cooked chicken. And I think it would be very good with leftover pork too. Because of the sweet potato in it we decided we didn't need any other starch with it and just had generous bowlsful. I had a couple of courgettes that were slightly past their prime, so I chucked them in for a complete one-pot meal.

Vietnamese chicken and sweet potato curry

Chicken piri piri (p 156) is a Portuguese dish, but there is a pretty big Portuguese community in South Africa and a couple of South African piri piri chains, so Paul has very definite ideas about it.

Piri piri

I used a bottled piquillo pepper instead of roasting my own. And I used 2 of my home grown pickled habanero chillis because of the aforementioned problem with red chillis being really mild at the moment. The marinade had kick. Rather than using bone-in chicken portions or spatchcocked poussin, I spatchcocked a large chicken - because the weather was beautiful and we wanted a long, slow cook in the Weber.

Marinaded spatchcocked chicken

South African barbecuing is usually done over wood, so Paul added hickory chips to our charcoal, which added a really deep brown patina to the skin as well as a strong smoky flavour. As well as smearing the piri piri on both sides of the spatchcock, I lifted the breast skin and smeared some under it, so the flavour and heat of the chilli really penetrated. Another very, very successful dish.

Chicken piri piri, grilled sweet corn and tomato salad

New Year's Indulgence: white truffle

That's what 10g white truffles looks like

After our experiment last year with summer truffles, we were pretty keen to have a go with the much-more-expensive delicacy. As Christmas/New Year provides a good opportunity to be extravagant, we decided to forego our traditional New Year's Eve fondue and eat truffles instead.

A 10g chunk of white gold was duly delivered on the 30th and tucked into a sealed jar of arborio rice over night.

I made a simple white risotto, using some of the poultry broth from our Christmas goose, white wine and a couple of baby leeks. As the final enrichment I beat in some beautiful taleggio cheese. Then I grated a generous pile of truffle shavings over each portion. The aroma was utterly gorgeous. A very delicious and indulgent way to say good bye to the old year.

Of course, grated like that, a little piece of truffle goes a very long way, so there was a bit left over for lunch the following day. We welcomed the new year with a pizza, covered with more taleggio, buffalo mozzarella and finely sliced garlic, and when it was a beautiful bubbly golden brown, the rest of the truffle was grated on top.  

Salt butter caramels: A gift from the heart for IHCC

This week's I Heart Cooking Clubs theme is "Gifts from the Heart". Now, the gifts I like to receive are either quite practical - money towards new linens, socks - or very beautiful, ephemeral and indulgent things I would never buy for myself.

These caramels fall firmly into the latter category.

I used a 10 x 7" pan instead of the loaf tin specified in Diana Henry's recipe, so they were a bit thinner, but because they are a soft (chewy but not filling-ripping) caramel, it's possible to gently press them into a fatter shape when you cut them, if you prefer. I didn't mind the thinner ones but I did need to do a little squashing to get them back into a nice square shape.

These were absolutely gorgeous. Sweet, but with some richer dark caramel notes and the hint of salt, creamy and utterly delectable. A gift from the heart that any caramel lover would be delighted to receive.

Meat Free Monday: eggs baked with cream and asparagus

This simple but rich and gorgeous dish is just a take on oeufs en cocotte, born out of the need to use up a bit of double cream and the existence of British autumn asparagus.

The asparagus spears were very skinny, so I washed them, cut them into 1" pieces and microwaved them with a small nut of butter and the water still clinging to them for a minute. Then I broke on two eggs and the cream - a bit more cream than I'd thought was left, actually, about 1/4 cup. Then I baked it until the eggs looked set. By which time, of course, they were a bit overdone. But delicious.

Summer truffles

30g truffle

A few weeks back, Paul decided that he wanted a truffle. July is not the best time to have that sort of a craving, since the prized black and white truffles are out of season, but we were able to get a cheaper, fresh summer truffle to play with.

Thinly sliced, ready to be put on pizza

 This type of truffle has a slightly crisp texture and just a subtle waft of truffle aroma - a promise of how much better these dishes would be with autumn truffles.

We made pizzas, with good smoked speck, buffalo mozzarella and mushrooms. We put a couple of slices of the truffle under the cheese, and then some more on top just a minute before they came out of the Weber. The slices on top of the cheese had lost most of their aroma, but the slices underneath had imparted some of their earthiness to the mozzarella.

We also made Fonduta Piemontese - a sort of Italian answer to fondue. Cubes of taleggio are soaked in milk until most of it is absorbed, then it is melted in a double boiler with eggs until it is all thick and creamy. I cooked it all a little more than I think is authentic because of Paul's aversion to snotty eggs. Covered with truffle shavings and scooped up on toast it was divinely rich and luxurious - but definitely better kept for a day when the weather is cold and exercise has been taken.

Quo Vadis, Soho

My husband has a long-standing crush on Jeremy Lee. I think it was born while watching Great British Menu, and then consolidated when Lee appeared alongside his friend and former boss Simon Hopkinson - one of Paul's other long-standing food crushes - on Simon Hopkinson Cooks. However it came about, it's meant Quo Vadis has been on his wishlist for a good couple of years.

Last week, our fortnightly date night coincided with a sister-in-law's birthday, so we decided to be a little more extravagant and finally go to book a table.

I was a bit early, having miscalculated how long I needed to spend in See Woo, which triggered the only real flaw in the evening. While they said it wasn't a problem, showed me to the table and fetched me a menu and a glass of prosecco, when Paul, and then Shiona arrived, they were shown to the table and abandoned without menus or drinks for quite some while. We seemed to have arrived right at a changeover point for staff and couldn't attract any attention.

Once we did flag down a waiter, however, service was smooth, the pacing of the meal was spot on and the food was divine.

Paul ordered a mysterious bottle of Italian pinot noir with a German label. We've had a few pinot neros recently, which have generally been quite hearty. This was much more delicate, and perfect for a warm night with a mixture of red meat and fish dishes.

 The smoked eel sandwich is a signature dish, which I believe Lee brought with him from his previous gig at Terence Conran's Blueprint Cafe, so Paul chose that as his starter.  He said it was sublime - creamy and smoky - although he wasn't sure what the sauce was. I'd have assumed horseradish but he didn't think so.

In an effort to moderate the amount I ate, I manfully rejected the offer of the delicious-smelling sourdough bread. Although this led to a pet peeve - they took away the bread and butter plate. I mean, it was a good thing, because it stopped me from changing my mind, but they can't know that I am not going to change my mind! That bit of virtue out of the way, I ordered a starter of artichoke, lemon and ricotta crostini.

Let me tell you, this was the most perfect dish I have eaten this year. Fragile, crunchy, oily toasts topped with beautiful fresh ricotta, tiny chargrilled artichoke hearts, citrus wedges and a tumble of toasted nuts and fried breadcrumbs. I think the cool kids are referring to such things as "savoury granola". I assumed, from the name of the dish, that the citrus wedges were lemon, but they were a delicate pink colour and had a mild, fresh flavour that didn't immediately scream "lemon". It was so beautifully balanced in flavour and texture, I could eat it every day for a month at least.

Like any good food blogger, I'd checked out the menu online before leaving the house. And I'd had a sudden burst of recommender's remorse. Shiona isn't a particularly adventurous eater. She prefers well-done meat, fairly lean, and no offal. Fish, but no other seafood. Fortunately there was a roast lamb with peas and polenta that appealed to her. I had a taste, and the polenta was pure witchcraft - crisp on top, with peas incorporated into the polenta, it had a soft, almost custardy texture in the middle. Definitely a dish to win over polenta naysayers. And the lamb was cooked slowly, until it was only barely pink in the middle, much more to my taste than very rare, French-style lamb.

Paul's main ambition in eating out, for the last year, I guess, has been to get a really large, well-cooked tranche of white fish. He's very specific about these things. He thought his brill with girolles and beans was good, but suffered by comparison with the smoked eel sandwich.

As for me, I was captivated by the idea of eating puffball mushrooms, having seen footage (possibly on a David Attenborough show) of the way they explode into spores. Fortunately this was a young mushroom, picked before the spores had formed, sliced and fried with lots of garlic  and served with delicious tender pork, asparagus and broad beans. Spring on a plate.

We shared a correct if somewhat dull rocket salad, delicious fat chips and a lovely dish of mixed courgettes with mint. And then took a deep breath and considered dessert.

While Shiona is, as I have mentioned, quite a particular eater, she does know what she likes and what she likes is chocolate. This interest is catered to by the St Emilion au chocolat - a rich, boozy, chocolate mousse cake on a base of macaroons, first introduced to the British plate by Elizabeth David, I believe. It looked absolutely heart-stopping, but she didn't seem to struggle to finish it.

I went for raspberry shortcake. Three discs of incredibly short hazelnut shortbread, sandwiching vanilla-y custard, cream and sweet fresh raspberries. A very good end to a meal - not too rich or substantial but extremely delicious.

The bill, with tip, came to £200. Which I thought was pretty good value really (a glass of prosecco, a beer, a bottle of not-their-cheapest wine, 2 starters, 3 mains, 3 side dishes, 2 desserts, a brandy and a glass of sherry). Even better value since the room is lovely, the tables spacious and Helena Christensen was having her dinner a couple of tables down.

 

Christmas food and leftovers. Mostly leftovers

We spent Christmas Day with friends this year. Our contribution was the starter, a crab and crayfish cocktail of which I was extremely proud. But we also made a couple of festive meals designed with lots of lovely leftovers in mind.

The glaze is simple - treacle, mustard and sugar.

Nigella's ham in coke (no jokes please, I love her) was a beautiful thing served hot with mashed potatoes and broccoli, but its 3kg bulk was destined for sandwiches, a pasta sauce, a pie, and a bean-thick soup.

I cooked the cabbage in the buttery turkey juices while the joint rested

A turkey breast joint reclined in splendour next to a pile of Italianate pandoro and sausagemeat stuffing, perked up with cranberries, pistachios and lemon zest, but then joined up with the ham for sandwiches and the splendid pie.

Turkey, ham, brie and stuffing in a baguette

The leftovers for the pie - the sauce was a veloute spiked with white wine

The rest of the pandoro from the stuffing (which had been sitting in the freezer since I bought it at a knock-down price in January) became a luxurious bread and butter pudding and a base for a rather novel cheesecake, which I will probably post about in the future.

Crab and Crayfish cocktails (serves 5)

cocktail sauce

100g mayonnaise (I used Hellmans roasted garlic)
60g ketchup
11/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp brandy (the brandy idea came from Kavey on twitter, it's a very good one)

salad

1/2 little gem lettuce, cut into fine chiffonade
1/4 cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into fine dice
1 slice pickled jalapeno chilli, finely minced
1/2 avocado, finely diced
Juice of half a lemon

to assemble

100g white crab meat
150g crayfish tails
50g caviar/lumpfish roe/salmon roe etc to garnish (optional)

Combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and brandy, and taste for seasoning. It might need a little more brandy.

Toss together the salad ingredients and divide between serving glasses.

Mix 2/3 of the cocktail sauce with the the crab and most of the crayfish tails, keeping a few aside for garnish.

Pile the sauced seafood on top of the salad, dollop with a little extra sauce and garnish with the reserved crayfish tails and some caviar, if using. Serve with some crisp toast.