January in London is not my favourite. The days are short - despite the solstice being well behind us - it's cold and rainy and there aren't even any twinkling Christmas lights or mulled wine vendors to warm the heart and lift the spirits. Embracing the calçotada, a late-winter celebration of a sort of leek/spring oniony vegetable from Catalonia, makes a lot of sense to me.
Trudging through the rain, trying to keep my umbrella right side up, I did wonder how on earth Brindisa were planning to bring the flavour of a Spanish outdoor feast to a pretty grim Tuesday evening. Heaters, was the answer. Lots of heaters. And beautiful displays of vegetables. So even though we were outside (on a covered terrace) it was warm and bright. As long as you stayed away from the ends where some rain was blowing under the canopy.
I was a skosh early, due to an unsuccessful bra-buying expedition to Oxford Street, and more than ready for a drink. The cava started to flow, which always makes me more cheerful. Not long after the cava started flowing, the food came in a steady torrent. Delicious meaty olives stuffed with orange. Tempura-battered calçots with romesco sauce. Wonderfully light, creamy croquetas at just the right temperature for eating.
Tempura-battered
Croquetas
While we nibbled, chef Leonardo Rivera came around to explain how the calçots are grown, with soil banked up around them, and then demonstrated the correct way to drink from the porró. There was a little anxiety that the porró is a thing made up by Catalans to humiliate British tourists but we were assured that it's an actual traditional way of drinking.
I was wearing a new top so I declined - even the people who really had a good technique ended up with streams of wine dribbled down their fronts.
The calçots are charred over a fire and then wrapped in newspaper to steam through to complete the cooking. Then everyone gets their own personal bundle. Eating them requires a bit of skill, to strip the charred outer layers off in one swift movement while leaving the inner layers clean and succulent. Then you dabble it in romesco sauce and eat it in a single bite. It's a messy business, but has a fabulous sensuality to it. We did wonder if anyone had thought of doing calçotades as a singles event - it'd beat the heck out of ten pin bowling as a first date.
Stripping the outer layers
Dabbling in romesco
Approved technique for eating
The outer layers of the calçots leave a thick, sticky soot on your hands, so you really need to embrace the grime for that part of the meal. Fortunately we were well-supplied with wet wipes - it took four wipes to be clean enough to get to the loos to wash my hands properly. The bundle of calçots looks huge, but after stripping off the charred bit and only eating the white part, it's actually not an enormous portion and you are left with a big pile of debris. Which is a Good Thing because there was a lot of food still to come.
debris
Then came grilled bread and a plate of meat, to be shared between two. I think even if I hadn't hoovered most of a plate of croquetas I would have struggled to eat my share. It was very, very generous. An artichoke - wonderful dipped leaf by leaf in the fabulously olive-oily allioli that came out with the bread. A tangle of grilled red pepper slices. Half a potato, sprinkled with paprika. Botifarra, chorizo, lamb and presa iberico (a cut from the top of the shoulder). I didn't try the potato but everything else was superb, with the chorizo and botifarra in joint first place in my affections.
And then, of course, pudding. Crema catalana, naturally, given a hint of smokiness with an iron salamander instead of a blowtorch.
Brindisa will be running calçotades through February and March on weekends, pre-booked only (because they have to know how many calçots to import). It's £35 a head, which includes the calçots with romesco, the meat platter, the sides of bread, potato, artichoke and red pepper, the crema catalana and a glass of prosecco. I don't think you'll be able to stop at one glass though.
I attended the calçotada as Brindisa's guest. I was also given a bag of calçots and some of the ingredients for romesco sauce to take home, so I am very much hoping the rain holds off for long enough for me to get outdoors to grill them.
From time to time people (usually people who don't know us well) ask us how we co-habit, as an Australian and a South African. How do we manage about sport? Doesn't it get fraught? Are there hostile silences and cross words about cricket? It's actually pretty easy - neither of us is particularly nationalistic and neither of us pays much attention to the sort of sports that people get nationalistic about. I knew the Rugby World Cup was coming but, well, it's not Quidditch is it?
So I haven't been getting too excited at the prospect of dozens of burly men running around in tight shorts. I mean obviously it's crossed my mind, but let's not get carried away. It takes a good food gimmick to get me really worked up.
Square Pie have come up with just that gimmick in their Pie World Cup. They've developed a pie for each of the countries competing in the Rugby World Cup, and on the days each team plays, they'll put the pies up against each other in their stores. They'll be tallying the sales and putting them in a league table for a chance to progress to the next round. So tomorrow, to coincide with the tournament opener, England's steak and ale will be up against Fiji's goat curry.
The Australian Pie
I've had the steak and ale - it's their classic that they sell through Ocado as wee canapies as well as full-sized pies. It's very good, and as a bit of a sweetener, Square Pie has partnered with the Dallaglio Foundation. 10p from the sale price of every Dallaglio Foundation steak and ale pie will go towards their work with disadvantaged young people.
At the launch of the Pie World Cup I was hoping that they'd have canapie-sized pies so I could try a good range, but sadly they were full-sized. With the best will in the world I can't eat more than two pies, and I was on my way to my dance class and the prospect of two hours of spotting spins on a full stomach inhibited me further. But I had to try the Australian pie - as I said, I'm not hugely nationalistic, but the combination of kangaroo, mushroom and shiraz sounded like a winner. The pastry was nice and flaky: it wouldn't pass the old Australian footy pie test of eating it out of hand, but as long as you have access to a plate and fork it's the perfect texture. The filling was richly meaty - I wouldn't swear to being able to tell the difference between kangaroo, venison and beef in a blind tasting but it definitely tasted good. Maybe a little too sweet from carrots, but that's a minor quibble. I didn't even reach for the ketchup which is my default when faced with a pie.
I only had room for a couple of bites of a second flavour of pie, and which pie to choose was a real dilemma. I would have liked to try the Fiji goat curry, or Georgian chicken, mushroom and sour cream, but I opted for Canadian moose. Now, I was expecting moose to be similar in flavour to kangaroo or venison, but it was much more delicate. More like veal than beef. The Canada pie is very peppery and, dare I say it? much more to my taste than the Australian pie.
The Pie World Cup is only running in store, so I am going to have to print out the fixtures card and plan some trips into Old Spitalfields Market to taste some of the others. I think the pie draw is more evenly matched than the rugby teams - but may the best pie win.
I mainly just potter along, posting what I feel like, when I feel like it and not really bothering too much about how I "grow my brand" or any of that serious blogger business. Which puts me in a position to be a bit smug when something like the tawdry #BloggerBlackmail hits social media.
But of course the week that unedifying hashtag blew up, I had a lovely invitation to do serious blogger business at a brand event. So obviously when I arrived at the Globe for the Unearthed Christmas Press Show I demanded £100 worth of macarons. They shoved a cocktail in my hand and told me to stuff my face with sausage. Fair enough. That sort of free and open communication prevents all sorts of misunderstanding.
Iberico meat platter
Unearthed have very kindly invited me to several events over the years, but this is the first one I've been able to attend. It was lovely putting a face to the twitter account! I am, however, very familiar with many of their products, because Paul has a two-salami a day charcuterie habit and Ocado often has the Unearthed range on discount. They hit a very pleasing balance of quality and accessible pricing which I like and often have delicious and unusual products perfect for savoury snackers like us. I'm still mourning the loss of the smoked semi-dried tomatoes that they ran as a temporary line earlier this year.
Brussels sprout salad. Delicious. Really.
While I love smallgoods, the salads were particularly inspiring. I'm a huge fan of fancying up a salad by chucking on deli items, but these were on another level: feta, artichoke and brussels sprout, and freekeh, tomato and smoked cranberry. The cocktail offered in lieu of macaron was a lovely combination of Makers Mark bourbon, strawberry purée, raspberry liqueur and lime juice which packed a punch but I don't think it addled my palate. So when I tell you that the brussels sprout salad was really delicious, you can trust me. Really. But follow the links to the recipes and see for yourself.
Freekeh, roasted tomato, olives and smoked cranberry salad
As well as trying the salads, I tasted a few of the new lines that are being introduced for Christmas. They are entering into "gifting" (horrible word) for the first time, with some snazzy decorative kilner jars of olives (the citrus Nocellara with garlic were particularly good) and glass beer mugs of snacking chorizo or fuet. Fortunately Kavey recently mentioned on Facebook that she had made fuet so I was able to assume a knowledgeable air on the subject. I think it is safe to say Paul is absolutely going to love those fuets and in a couple of months I will be trying to figure out what to do with a dozen empty glass beer mugs. I might have to open a hipster cocktail pop-up. I really enjoyed the pâté, unusually topped with rhubarb, packed in a cute earthenware dish and sold in a duo with an apple-topped pâté. The apple one looked striking, and the pâté itself was delicious, but I think as a garnish the whole slice of apple would be a bit awkward and it would end up being put to one side and discarded.
They are also expanding their range of platters, which should do very well for them over the Christmas entertaining season. The Iberico meat platter looks particularly good as a more expensive treat. I'm just hoping that the snacking fuet and Iberico meat platters are available on Ocado, so I don't have to venture into actual shops with actual other people.
DISCLAIMER: I was invited to attend the Unearthed Christmas Press Show and given a goodie bag of olives and a USB stick. No other compensation was offered or requested and I was not required to post a review. All comments are my own and some may be hyperbolic for comedic effect.
My London stamping ground is pretty small. You could probably walk the borders of it in a couple of hours, taking a leisurely pace. It runs from Marylebone/Euston Rd in the north down to the Thames, seldom going west of Grosvenor Square or east of Kingsway. There's so much encompassed in that area that even after nine years I still don't feel like I know it well. I haven't been to all the museums or galleries and definitely haven't been to a tithe of the restaurants. It takes a pretty special invitation to get me to Chelsea. But as I stood at the bus stop outside Sloane Square tube, the people-watching was so superior that I knew I was in for something good.
The invitation was to Kurobuta for the launch of Eat Me! a 4-part series of beautiful-looking youtube videos where Scott Hallsworth, founder of Kurobuta, teaches Made in Chelsea's Millie Mackintosh about "contemporised, Westernised" Japanese food. And there was the added lure of a Kikkoman soy sauce tasting and some of Scott's food. Quite a lot of Scott's food, actually.
After a quick game of "Aussie or Kiwi?" where I correctly spotted that bartender Paps was from Far North Queensland, there were drinks and an introduction to Kikkoman by Bing-Yu Lee, the London General Manager. Then Scott explained how he uses Kikkoman soy sauce in making a lot of the sauces and condiments he uses on his food, and Paps demonstrated how he'd added a twist to some classic cocktails with the addition of a bit of soy sauce. Definitely worth venturing west for.
Paps muddling cucumber
There were two Kikkoman cocktails - a soy sauce sour and a take on a bloody mary. Usually I love a sour (alcohol, lemon, eggwhite and a bit of sweetening), and I am a huge fan of the salted rim on a margarita, but somehow having that much umami depth in every sip of the sour didn't work for me. The other one though - wow. I am sharing the recipe for that one with Kurobuta's kind permission because it was completely delicious, the addition of cucumber adding a light freshness that was very welcome and the soy standing in for the Worcestershire and celery salt savouriness. Yum. Make one this weekend: you won't be sorry.
Bloody Kik in the pants (by Michael “Paps” Papal for Kurobuta)
50ml vodka
50ml Tomato juice
4 drops of Tabasco
Pinch of Shichimi salt
10ml honey
10 ml lime
10ml lemon
5ml Kikkoman soy sauce
4 pieces cucumber
Muddle cucumber with the salt and Tabasco, pour rest of ingredients in and shake. Garnish with lemon wedge and the salt to present.
Debris from soy sauce tasting, flamed edamame with sake, lemon, butter and Maldon salt
But really, for me the event was all about the food. Scott describes Kurobuta as a "rock & roll izakaya" but while the atmosphere was relaxed the food was carefully considered and meticulously prepared.
Yellowtail sashimi with kizami wasabi salsa and yuzu soy
Beef fillet tataki with onion ponzu and garlic crisps
Tuna sashimi pizza with truffle ponzu (I couldn't detect any truffle) red onions and green chillies
Sashimi selection, just a teensy bit cold to appreciate the flavours properly
Jerusalem artichoke chopsticks with truffle ponzu dip - I could taste the truffle this time
Kombu roasted Chilean seabass with spicy shiso ponzu
Unfortunately I had to leave just as these glorious-looking pork belly buns were served. I knew if I started playing "just one more course" I would never be able to tear myself away. Fortunately there is a branch of Kurobuta in Marble Arch, which is a bit more accessible for me, so I'll be able to go back and eat the rest of the menu.
BBQ pork belly in steamed buns with spicy peanut soy
I'm really excited about the recipe I am sharing today. It's really delicious, a bit unusual, very impressive-looking and not as difficult as I was anticipating.
Paul was playing with his camera
I was invited by Yapp Brothers, a wine merchant specialising in French wines, to take part in their Drinks on Us challenge. They asked about my wine preferences (...in a glass), sent me a bottle and asked me to devise the perfect accompaniment to the wine.
They chose a chablis for me, described as "classy, unoaked & supple, delightful with creamy fish or seafood dishes". Chablis tends to be quite fresh and acidic, so I wanted to make something that would highlight that acidity, without being so rich as to make the wine seem thin.
Very young garlic scapes
I decided to have a crack at a seafood sausage. A white fish mousseline with chunks of other seafood through it. I did a practice run on the mousseline and it was lovely - it reminded Paul of the pike boudin from the dearly departed Le Cafe Anglais - but he thought there should be something green and fresh in the mixture. Fortunately a few garlic scapes had appeared on our garlic plants in time to come to the party.
If you don't want to do the extra fiddle of making the sausages, I fried spoonfuls of the mixture to test the seasoning and they were very tasty too, so you could make fishcakes instead. Or put it in buttered ramekins or a terrine and cook it in a waterbath. But do have a go - the delicate, sweet seafood with the slight hint of garlic from the scapes is just the thing with a crisp white wine. And it makes a sausage elegant enough to be served anywhere.
Putting sausage skins on the tube is always funny
Seafood sausages (serves 3-4)
420g skinless boneless white fish (I used cod)
3 eggwhites
150ml double cream
300g other seafood (I used scallops and crayfish tails)
3 garlic scapes (or chives)
1tsp salt
Freshly ground white pepper
Sausage casings prepared according to type
Make space in your fridge. This all needs to be kept quite well chilled, so keep everything in the fridge until the last minute and between steps put the bowls back in the fridge.
In a food processor, pulse the white fish and eggwhites together until smooth. Gradually add the cream and blend until white, fluffy and quite firm. Refrigerate.
Chop the other seafood into small pieces. My sausage stuffer has a little spinning disc bit in it and the holes in the disc are just over 1cm wide - so the bits had to be smaller than that so they could get through the tube. Put the garlic scapes into a sieve over the sink and pour over a kettle full of boiling water. Drain, pat dry and finely slice.
Fold the fish mousseline mixture into the garlic scapes and other seafood. Season with salt and white pepper, cover and chill for an hour.
Feed the sausage casings onto the stuffing tube. A little cream may have oozed out of the filling while it's been chilling, so fold it back in. Fill the sausage skins, twisting to form links, and knot at both ends. Chill the sausages again for at least another hour before cooking. Fry very gently in a little oil until well browned on all sides. We had them with green beans and sugar snap peas, and a little beurre blanc. And of course, a glass of chablis.
I am feeling somewhat elderly. The other night I attended a really fun event, the launch of a campaign to get people eating more lamb, but the big thing that stood out to me is that apparently lamb eaters are an ageing demographic. Then this morning I discovered that it's been 26 years since Naomi Watts made the wise choice of lamb over Tom Cruise. 26 years. Damn that makes me feel old. Bah (baa?) humbug.
Now, I don't know if it is because I am Australian and Paul is South African, and we're required by law to eat lamb, or if it is because we are old, but lamb has never fallen off our shopping list. I don't know the actual reasons for the decline and the AHDB representative didn't really suggest anything concrete but I suspect there may be several reasons. I wonder if people who were children during the devastating 2001 foot and mouth outbreak remember the horrifying news footage too clearly? Or if they associate lamb with mystery meat kebabs, takeaway curries and grey Sunday roasts rather than considering it something to quickly and economically cook at home? Perhaps the value-added options at the supermarket haven't been so tempting or as diverse as for other meats. Or maybe it is the price - lamb doesn't lend itself to factory farming, so the price hasn't been pushed down to pennies the way intensively-reared pork and chicken has been. I absolutely refuse to accept the "they don't learn cooking at school" argument because I didn't learn anything of value in school cooking classes almost 30 years ago and yet here I am, moderately competent.
Cyrus Todiwala - passionate ambassador for British lamb
Anyway, the event was held at Cyrus and Pervin Todiwala's restaurant Cafe Spice Namaste. We had some delicious canapés to get us in the mood before the serious stuff. Sheek kavaab (minced lamb kebabs with dates, sultanas and walnuts), skewers of diced lamb with chilli, garlic and cinnamon and very unusual and delicious lamb breast and cauliflower in short, fragile biscuit cases.
They were all very good, but I was particularly intrigued by the lamb breast. We cook boned breasts of lamb on the barbecue quite often, because with a long, slow cook the (copious) fat renders out and you are left with layers of crisp skin and meltingly tender meat. These canapes were made in quite a different way which again rendered out the fat and just left succulent meat behind: it was slowly cooked then chilled and pressed before being cut into slices and tossed in a hot pan.
Breast of lamb and cauliflower
Sheek kavaab
Having had enough food to tantalise and pacify us, Jane Ritchie-Smith introduced the campaign. It's a joint effort by the EU and agricultural boards in the UK, France and Ireland which will be running for the next three years. Then John Kirkpatrick talked about his experiences raising sheep in Derbyshire and working with local butchers to create interesting varieties of lamb sausage and other value-added products. The main attraction, though, was Cyrus demonstrating a couple of recipes he's developed for the Lamb. Tasty Easy Fun campaign.
Skills.
Other than watching Cyrus and Tony Singh's series The Incredible Spice Men, I wasn't too familiar with him but he is the most perfect person to champion British lamb. He spoke knowledgeably on the various breeds of sheep in the UK, agriculture and sustainability, interspersed with anecdotes about cooking for the Queen and the quirks of some of the farmers he buys from. All the while he chopped and sautéed and explained how spicing works in Indian food, the essential spices to get started and tips on food safety. He got an enormous amount of information into a relatively short and engaging presentation. As someone who hates food waste and loves using local produce, I found his approach very attractive: buying heritage breeds directly from farmers, butchering the carcasses himself and using every bit that he can.
Lamb cutlets
After the demonstration, of course, came dinner. Starters of lamb cutlets simply flavoured with ginger and black pepper which I think Paul would absolutely love. Mini dosa, crisp on the outside, slightly crumpety in the middle, folded around deliciously spiced potato. Little samosas of lamb offal, drizzled with tamarind chutney and sev.
Mini dosa. Even at a lamb dinner not everything is meaty.
Samosa of spiced liver, kidney and sweetbreads
As a middle course we had the dishes which Cyrus had demonstrated. A pair of little lamb burgers stuffed with blue cheese and a quickly sautéed cannon of lamb garnished with coriander. They were both delicious - the cannon was incredibly tender and had cooked in moments - but I actually think I preferred the burger mixture raw, which we'd also tasted. This post is getting very long, so I am going to do another piece featuring the recipes, I think!
One mini burger on a bun, the other on a light tomato sauce
Cannon of lamb
The shared main courses were a rich lamb curry with a nice kick of chilli in the gravy, a delicate and delicious keema pilau and a fantastic dish of shredded Chinese greens with mustard seeds and coconut which I think would be considered a thoran. Apparently the veg dish is on their main menu at the moment.
The finishing touch was a dessert of kulfi and figs stewed in marsala. Pervin Todiwala was wandering around making sure all their guests were happy while Cyrus cleaned up his station, and she explained that the kulfi was so good because they make it in house. It was definitely the creamiest and most pistachio-y of the pistachio kulfis I have tried, and the almond and saffron one was also lovely - just subtle and perfect. Reminds me I need to dig out my kulfi moulds and have a go with Felicity Cloake's perfect kulfi recipe and see how it compares.
