School holiday treat - Bocca di Lupo

It's that time again - it's half-term which means that Jude and I get to go for our half-term treat. It was tempting to go back to Corrigans, or to Great Queen St, but in the interest of adventure and excitement, we decided to try something new. And the new kid on the block that is getting all the press right now is Bocca di Lupo.

I confess, as I walked up from Covent Garden, my heart wasn't really in it. I passed a couple of Chinese places redolent with crispy duck so by the time I got to Archer St I was much keener on those sorts of flavours and wasn't really wanting Italian. Plus another person was joining us and I wasn't completely enthusiastic about that either.

And then - mea maxima culpa - I had entirely fucked up the booking. I had somehow managed to book a table for late March. Of course, given the press that they have been getting, there was no chance of a free table, was there? So we ended up perched at the bar, on quite comfortable stools but too far apart in a single line to be able to have a proper 3-way conversation.

A very pretty waiter (who I suspect wants to be John Barrowman when he grows up) brought us water and delicious walnut bread and very, very delicious fat green olives while we thought about the menu.

Deciding that I wanted a glass of something dry and bubbly was easy - a Franchiacorta brut was in my hand within seconds. Deciding about food was much more difficult. The Bocca di Lupo schtick is that most of the dishes are available as small or large plates. So you can have a conventional starter and main course, or you can eat tapas-style. Barrowmanalike assured us that - if we weren't sharing - 3 small plates would be a good lunch. Which is good, because it did give more options.

I decided that balanced meals be damned. I ordered a fried dish of salt cod and courgettes, a dish of fried polenta with gorgonzola fonduta and a fried egg, and their signature crisp fried artichoke a la giudia. Jude also had an artichoke, and a pork & foie gras sausage with farro and porcini, and a salad of saved radish, celeriac and pecorino. Our other companion had a single grilled prawn, some breaded swordfish and some cooled romanesco broccoli with parmesan.

The salt cod and courgette was magnificent - the fish had been reconstituted into moist, white flakes, and the pieces were covered in the lightest of batter. A squeeze of lemon lifted the flavour perfectly; it wasn't a bit greasy or heavy. The sausage wasn't particularly foie gras-y, but it did have a lovely rich flavour. The single prawn was a pretty good size and a beautifully deep red colour, but I struggle to see how any prawn could be worth £2.50 when there wasn't even a fingerbowl forthcoming.

My polenta with gorgonzola fonduta was the dish of the day for me. A crisp outside gave way to a soft middle, while still having some of the texture of the cornmeal. The egg was just how I like it - a lace-edged white with a runny yolk. The gorgonzola fonduta was creamy and rich but with a big blue cheese punch. Jude's salad was fresh and delicate, although the truffle oil in the dressing overpowered some of the other flavours. The breading on the swordfish was a bit thick, so it ended up looking like a fishcake, but the fish inside was moist and disappeared without trace.

The thing that really sold me on the artichoke was the memory of Elizabeth David's Italian Food where she describes them as having "a very spectacular appearance, like a large, inverted sunflower". It certainly did have a spectacular appearance, and the outer leaves were crisp and crackling, while the heart was luscious and creamy. But the scattering of salt over it was too heavy-handed - and I love salty flavours. The artichoke heart fritters that I make sometimes are more to my taste, although I am glad I got the opportunity to try these.

Of course, one advantage of the small plate system is that it leaves room for dessert. And I had a terrible time with the dessert menu. I love rice pudding and I love icecream, so I was drawn to a cinnamon & rice icecream, but then a brioche sandwich with 3 types of gelato sounded wonderful too. In the end, I had a classic Cassata Siciliana. And very good it was too. The thin layer of sweet, soft marzipan under the fondant icing was a good contrast to the bland creaminess of the ricotta, and there was a good bit of orange zing throughout. But then I had a taste of the blood orange granita and realised that I really could have done better in my ordering. Jude's rum baba disappeared at a rate that suggested it was pretty good as well, although the pineapple on it looked under-ripe.

All in all? It was a nice lunch, but somehow disappointing. A tempting menu, nicely cooked and attentively served, but just not 100% there. Jude said it lacked a "Wow!" factor and I think that about sums it up. I won't be rushing back.

A Valentine's Menu

We never really "did" Valentine's Day. The cheesy commercialism and overblown sentimentality and prescriptive notion of what romance and love are about doesn't really sit too well with us.
And then we got married in the same week as Valentine's Day, so we've sort of adopted it - or the closest Saturday, which this year was the same thing - as our anniversary. But all of the things about Valentine's Day that don't sit well STILL don't sit well, so we are much more likely to cook something nice at home and sit on the sofa watching DVDs together, rather than going to a fancy restaurant and eating our way through the set menu with a rose for the ladies.

Of course, the weekend in Paris would still be nice, but I got a kitten who is too little to put in a cattery instead...

So we started with champagne. A very delicious Bollinger.

To go with it, I made some crab salad rolls. I basically wanted a light starter, that could be eaten as fingerfood. Because I was using ricepaper as my wrappers, I was a bit tempted to go with some Thai-ish flavours of ginger and coriander, but I decided to keep my flavour landscape a bit more European to match the other courses. And then I got carried away and used lime juice and Tabasco, so I strayed from Europe anyway...

Crab salad rolls

4 rounds of ricepaper
150g white crab meat
1 shallot, finely minced
Juice of a lime
1tsp double cream (if I'd had mayonnaise in I would have used that, but I didn't, so I used some cream leftover from the desserts)
2 shakes of tabasco
1 tsp tiny capers
1/2 cucumber deseeded and cut into batons

Mix all the filling ingredients. Dip a piece of ricepaper in warm water until it becomes flexible, then quickly add 1/4 of the crab mixture and a couple of sticks of cucumber and roll firmly. Repeat with the other pieces of ricepaper, filling and cucumber batons.

Try not to do these more than a couple of hours before serving, because they can dry out quite quickly, but tightly covered with clingfilm they'll be OK in the fridge for a while.

Then we moved on to the main course. Since the lovely lunch we had in Sydney at Pilu, I have been very keen to get some bottarga into my pantry. It took quite a lot of searching, but I did eventually track some down so I decided that it would have to feature in a special meal. I also got some lovely langoustine tails, some squid ink tagliatelle and some baby courgettes, to bring the whole thing together. The beautiful thing about this dish - other than it being pretty and the flavours being excellent - is that it takes about 12 minutes from the water coming to the boil to pull it all together.

Valentine's Pasta

Squid ink tagliatelle (about 150g raw weight)
Olive oil
knob of butter
1/2 tsp chopped red chilli
Grated zest and juice of a lemon
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
12 langoustine tails
2 baby courgette, sliced into thin coins
Bottarga to finish

While the pasta is boiling, warm a slosh of olive oil in a saute pan and add the garlic and chilli. When the garlic is on the verge of sizzling, add the langoustines. As soon as they start to turn opaque add the lemon zest and courgettes.

Drain the pasta, add a good knob of butter and the lemon juice to the saute pan, swirl the drained pasta through the sauce and divide it between 2 plates. Grate some bottarga over the plates in a shower of amber dust and eat immediately. We had a 2005 William Fevre chablis Premier Cru with it which was just lovely with the sweet salty seafood and the lemony hit.

After a time, we had dessert. I had a nice bottle of Andrew Quady Elysium, so I thought it was time to have a proper go at the muscat caramel custard that Great Queen St does so well. This was not a success. This picture is the last moment where they looked acceptable. The custard was set but without the rich velvetyness that it should have had, it was a most peculiar pink colour from the wine and they didn't turn out properly, going *thsploodge* into the bowls without most of the caramel following. Still, drinking the rest of the bottle of the Elysium was very pleasant. And in the words of Meatloaf, "two out of three ain't bad".

French Onion Soup

The best thing about French Onion Soup is undoubtedly the cheesy crouton in it. Is there anything better than hot melty cheese? But even if it is just a vehicle for eating cheese, you really have to make sure that the soup the croutons adorn is worthy. And the only way to do that is the long way - the onions have to be properly caramelised, and this is not a time when you can cheat and speed the process with a spoonful of sugar.

French Onion Soup (as a main meal for 2)
1tsp butter
1tbs olive oil
4 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced (I use your basic brown onion, I think red onions add something weird and white onions are somehow acrid)
Sprig of thyme
Bayleaf
Splash of booze (I used whisky because it was there, brandy or white wine would be better)
beef broth (I used a can of beef consomme and a can of water)
Salt & pepper to season
Good bread (I used a large square pain rustique roll)
Cheese (I used camembert and gruyere)

Melt the butter and oil together in a large, heavy based saucepan on a very low heat, and before it reaches sizzling point, add the onions. Turn them over in the fat until they are well coated, add the bay leaf and the thyme and clap the lid on, returning to stir them well every 5 minutes for at least half an hour, more like 45 minutes. The onions need to have completely collapsed and cooked to a deep brown without being burnt. A shortcut at this point leaves you with a very indigestible soup.

When the onions are ready, add a splash of booze to deglaze the pan, then add the beef broth. Simmer for another half hour.

Put cheese on bread and grill it - I used a slice of camembert for richness topped with a slice of gruyere for the perfect melt and bubble, but just gruyere is more traditional.

Taste the soup, season with salt & pepper if necessary, divide between two deep bowls and top with ferociously hot cheesy toasts. Enjoy the warmth spreading right to your toes. And even if it is mid-week, it would be rude not to have a glass of wine with this.

Spicy Nuts

Apparently I have been living under a rock. Apparently EVERYONE but me knew that the way to get a good crisp, spicy coating on nuts was to coat them in meringue first.

If this is so widely known, why has it taken so long for anyone to tell me?

Anyway. I shall put aside my bitterness.

A couple of nights a week I have a dance class and I don't get home until 9pm. I have a very low tolerance for being hungry. Being hungry makes me extremely cross and snappy. So I usually try to find a snack to eat on the train so that I can maintain some sort of positive outlook on society for long enough to get home to dinner. After spending a) quite a lot of money and b) eating a lot of unhealthy snacks, I decided that the best way would be to make something that I could take with me. So I turned to these spicy nuts that EVERYONE BUT ME knew about.

So, here we have:

Last One To Know Spicy Nuts

1 eggwhite
1 tbs muscovado sugar
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp crushed chilli
3 cups mixed nuts (I used mixed nuts and raisins, some blanched almonds that were lurking and some walnuts that were lurking)
1/2 cup flax seed
1/2 cup pumpkin seed

Whisk the eggwhite to stiff peaks. Mix in the sugar and other seasonings, then fold in the nuts and seeds. Spread in a single-ish layer on a silicon paper-lined baking sheet and roast on a low temperature for 10-15 minutes, keeping a close eye on things. Allow to cool completely and store in an airtight box.

Spinach with Spirali

I remarked months ago that the sight of pasta with something green and something pink made me nostalgic for spinach with spirali. Well, a couple of weeks ago it came to a head and I just had to have it.

Bacon, fried with garlic and chilli. Frozen chopped spinach. And this was cavatappi, not spirali, but it was just the thing to grip the sauce in its curls and ridges. It was every bit as good as I remembered. More to the point, Paul, who didn't grow up with this and therefore didn't wear the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia, thought it was pretty good too. Unlike last night when he indulged me and watched The Breakfast Club.

My favourite waste of time

This is Urchin. Two weeks ago she came to live with me. She was very sad and frightened for her first day or so, but she has adapted quite well to her new lifestyle I think... She likes fish more than meat and thinks that cheese is the best thing ever.

Cooking the Books - The Language of Baklava

For the second Cook the Books Club, we were set to read The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber. What a lovely book! Growing up as a Jordanian American in New York State in the 1960s and 70s can't have been easy (although I suspect it might be worse now) but the story is told with a lightness of heart that carries you past that.

There were a lot of parts of the book that resonated for me - I guess it is the migrant experience. Some of the things that Bud says when he goes back to Jordan are the things my grandmother would say after going back to Switzerland. I also very much liked the bit in the foreward, thanking people for accepting her memories, however embellished they may be.

And always, at the centre is the food. All the meals she recounts are enticing. I wanted to make and eat all of it! I especially loved the story she told about when she was feeling very down about being Arabic and announced to her aunt that she hated Arab food. So her aunt says "Let's make baklava - it's Greek; baklawa is Arab".

But in the end, I went with savoury dishes. I would have loved to do some of the meat dishes, grilled over charcoal, but the weather just has not been conducive to getting out the barbecue. In the end I decided to make her "Lost childhood pita bread" because I bought my copy of the book second hand, and that was the one recipe where the previous owner had made a note against the recipe. I love writing in my cookbooks and felt drawn to this other person who had noted what quantity a sachet of yeast is.

So - pita bread (which needs some work!), roast lamb shoulder in the marinade for "distract the neighbours chicken" (absolutely delicious), yoghurt flavoured with garlic and some roast courgettes. Then the following day, the leftover lamb and pita was served at lunch with some homemade hummus.