Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper for Cook The Books

It's been ages since I cooked along with Cook The Books Club - even when there's been a book scheduled that I was really keen to read or already loved, time has got away from me and I've missed it.

I thought this was a good time to come back though. Deb, from Kahakai Kitchen chose Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, which I have been wanting to read for a while. Fuchsia is a bit of a national treasure: she gets trotted out whenever people want to talk to an English-speaking person about Chinese food, or authenticity, or the migration of food culture. The broad strokes of her career (first Western person to train as a chef at the culinary school in Sichuan) are very well known but I was interested in the detail.

And the detail was very interesting. A snapshot of China in the early 90s, when things were starting to open up a bit. The experience that white people seldom have of being completely other. The deep, rich history of Chinese cuisine. The desire to break off the treadmill of being a clever woman on a predictable academic and career path.

Unfortunately, I found much of the actual food descriptions stomach-churning. While her desire to immerse herself in the cuisine and to learn to appreciate the foreign textures and flavours is admirable (it reminds me a bit of Anthony Bourdain "you’re unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don’t understand that, and I think it’s rude. You’re at Grandma’s house, you eat what Grandma serves you"), I found it very hard to deal with the things she found herself eating. The almost blasé approach to animal cruelty and eating endangered species (although she did say she may end up vegetarian and gives quite an interesting explanation for the animal cruelty) was a kind of cultural relativism that didn't sit well with me.

As it happens, the dish I personally most associate with Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan is 成都豆腐花 - Chengdu street tofu with soy chilli, peanuts and preserved vegetables as served at A Wong. Which is vegan. And Andrew Wong has shared the recipe.

Chengdu street tofu - not as pretty as Andrew Wong's.

The fish-fragrant aubergine that initially captured Fuchsia's imagination can also be vegan if you use vegetable stock, so I made that as our main course (following Diana Henry's recipe for Fragrant Sichuan Aubergine in Simple), along with some marinated mushrooms (which I reheated to serve). And then I let the vegan side down by serving it on egg fried rice. But it was delicious. And no endangered species died.

Urchin kept bumping my elbow - didn't get one single focussed picture)

Easter 2018

Happy Easter, to those who celebrate!

Paul's had a break between contracts, so the Easter weekend this year is the conclusion to a pretty restful few weeks. We had a chance to go to see friends, to see a movie, to get away for a few days to the Lake District, to sleep in and do some DIY. Nice.

And on Saturday we had friends over to lunch. Paul's volunteered us to cook at an event in the summer, and we're tentatively planning to do barbecued shoulder of lamb, so we thought this would be a good excuse to do a test run. Unfortunately the weather didn't play along at all. So I slathered the shoulder of lamb with wild garlic salsa verde, poured in some vegetable stock and wrapped it tightly in foil before baking it at 100C overnight. After about 13 hours I opened the foil and put it back in the oven to get a little colour before shredding it with a couple of forks, mixing it through the copious juices.

With it we had one of my new favourite things - the spinach and preserved lemon freekeh from On the Side, although I used a bunch of wild garlic leaves instead of cloves of garlic to add a seasonal twist. And to really amp up the fresh, herbal quality of the meal I also served Diana Henry's wonderful tomato and pomegranate salad with feta and soft herbs.

It was one of the best meals I have cooked in ages. And all doable ahead which made it very low effort. Low effort is definitely what you want for a low-key weekend.