SPUNTINO

My chief lover took me to Polpo and I loved it. Buzzing atmosphere, quirky with easily executed, delicious food made for a very happy time. So, when I found out it was a chain I was a bit amazed. In fact, I'm not sure I'm over it yet.

A foodie friend from America came to visit from across the pond and, curious about meeting Polpo's relatives, we chose Spuntino in Soho for lunch. At about 1pm Spuntino is the kind of place you could easily miss if you didn't know it was there. It's the real life equivalent to the easily overlooked Leaky Cauldron from Harry Potter! Thankfully I was led by a highly observant crew, each armed with iPhones and all was well. Note: It's easily spotted after 6.30pm thanks to the queue of people clamoring for a place.

Let's talk about the decor. Gloriously dingy with New York speakeasy dinge-factor 30. In keeping with this vintage vibe they haven't even got a phone! (And no reservations as a result.) Make sure you can grab a corner for groups larger than two - the at-the-bar dining experience can stifle easy conversation - no-one wants a creaky neck after lunch. At this juncture I must warn you of the bar stools. No problem for youthful limbs but I shan't be bringing granny.

Having a quick glance at the menu I noted to my friends that this seemed like a tapas style sharing joint. The American half of our party refused to believe me (fools), so we Europeans braved on, sharing to our hearts and stomachs content.We were right by the way.

The food here is intelligent, simple and tasty. I could happily eat my way through their menu....

Fennel encrusted aubergine chips! Pungent. Yum.

Mouth watering pulled pork slider.

Buttermilk chicken wings.

My favourite!!! Truffled egg toast. Break into the middle an yolk oozes!!

Beetroot, anchovy and soft boiled egg salad. Sublime.

Roast cauliflower, chermoula and smoked almonds.

This has swiftly become a favoured haunt thanks to their delicious food and reasonable prices. I've been twice now (within a few weeks), eaten indulgently and not spent more than £15 either time! Fan bloody tastic. Get yourself there.



Spuntino
www.spuntino.co.uk

61 Rupert Street W1D 7PW

CRAZY FOR KOREAN

When I was at school, Henry J Beans was The Place To Be, thanks entirely to their chicken wings. I never really understood it - even as a fatty lover wings always seemed a miserable combination of grease and mess. They're bleeding fiddly buggers resulting in ruined clothes every time! I just couldn't get on board with the wing-fanaticism, that is until I discovered Korean food in Japan - where else?! The chicken was so delicious, so sweet, so crispy and with a wonderful whallop from the chili. The flavours ran all the way through, from the crisp exterior to the melting juiciness of the meat itself. Suddenly chicken wings made a LOT of sense, and I'm not ashamed to say with all of Tokyo's culinary delights (I still salivate at the memory) I became a frequent visitor to that Korean restaurant. Since then I've been on a quest to find a London Korean that's as delicious. My father has taken me on endless trips round the delights of New Malden's 'Korea Town', but while the supermarkets are incredible (well worth a trip) and many of the restaurants delicious, I still couldn't find the chicken winged heaven I was searching for.

Then by accident I came across Holborn's 'Asadal'. Tucked away next to the station, I was convinced I'd discovered a secret taste haven - so unbelievably delicious, but sadly with a price tag to match. Also, it's the largest Korean restaurant in London and full all the time, so a rubbish secret. Finally, my craving taste buds were placated and the restaurant became a small obsession of mine. The thing is I simply can't afford to eat there as often as I'd like, and I need my fix of that chicken! So after a lot of desperate research I can share this recipe with you. Joy to the world! Chicken wings are cheap!

Korean Fried Chicken!

Korean Fried Chicken Recipe

How to...
Marinade
Traditionally there is no marinade - they season the chicken with salt and pepper and that's it. My way makes for a tasty interior AND exterior, hurrah.

Ingredients
6 chicken wings
4 tbsps soy sauce
1 onion chopped
1 inch ginger chopped
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
2 tbsps honey
a handful of chopped coriander
pinch of salt and a grind or two of pepper

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and cover the chicken in it. You can marinade it for an hour or leave it over night.

Batter it!
The Korean's secret to perfect delicious chicken is that it's twice fried. MMmmmm delicious, BUT also less than healthful so I'm gonna suggest that you fry it once and finish it off under the grill. This also means that the sauce reduces more and becomes extra sitcky on the wings.

Ingredients
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp rice flour
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all of the batter ingredients. Drain any excess marinade and then cover the chicken in the dry mixture. The marinade will help the flour mix to stick to the chicken.

Fry it!
Ingredients
2 tbsps vegetable oil

In a frying pan heat the oil over a high heat until it is smoking, and then turn it down to a medium heat.

Place the battered chicken in in batches of three, cooking for about 3 minutes on each side or until the flour is becoming crispy and golden

Sauce it!
Put the oven on the fan/grill setting at 220°C.
 
Confession time. In the picture I've not used what I should and would normally use, gojujang (Korean chili paste.) Please forgive me. I didn't have any, and the chili flakes worked fine. I still recommend the gojujang, it has a much deeper and more intense flavour than chili flakes, which just give off a bit of heat.


Ingredients
2 tbsps soy sauce
3 tbsps honey
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
2 cloves of finely minced garlic
5 tbsps tomato ketchup
1 tbsp gojujang

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl before gently reducing them over a medium heat in a frying pan for 2 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the fried chicken and roughly cover all the pieces. Place all the chicken onto a baking sheet and put it in the oven for 10 minutes.

HEAVEN!

DEHESA - referring to a grassy haven in Spain's Extremadura

Ever since a friend who worked in the kitchens of Dehesa introduced me to it I've been a major fan, though in the last year my visits have dwindled somewhat. So when I walked by it on my way to Nopi it was like bumping into an old friend but walking straight on without properly inquiring after each others health - devastating for all parties involved. This tragedy, however, was the catalyst that strengthened my resolve to return and at first opportunity I was dining once more at this familiar favourite.

Dehesa, sister restaurant to The Salt Yard and Opera Tavern (neither of which I've yet been to), is a Spanish/Italian charcuterie and tapas restaurant with a difference. The difference is that it doesn't stick to the traditional world of Spanish cuisine - though a loving nod is certainly made - they branch off, whisking the lucky taster into new, uncharted terrain of tapas dishes. Although the menu doesn't seem to have evolved too much since I've frequented it, this does make for a lovely cozy familiarity with the place. To be honest, I'd be furious if I returned and the deep fried courgette flowers (stuffed with goats cheese and slathered in honey) had been replaced by anything else, ever.

I've never booked, and been happy for them to take my name and number and call me when a table is ready - but the popularity of the place means it can be a long wait. Still, I've always found that a drink at one of the nearby bars and pubs does the trick!

Our journey started with these unbelievably delicious courgette flowers.

Pork belly, beautifully cooked sitting on rosemary scented cannellini beans.

This was a new one from the last time I'd been, lamb chops with lambs tongue, girolles and a mint alioli.

Malfatti with sage butter, trompette and parmesan

Hake with chorizo mash, clams and cider sauce

Salt cod crequetas with romesco sauce, crisp and creamy delicious!

We didn't have dessert. We were both quite full and had just enough room to have another plate of those to-die-for courgette flowers. Stuffed to the brim and with a bottle of wine this came to just about £30 per head. I'm sure I'm biased - I love this food, but I think that's pretty reasonable for such delights!



www.dehesa.co.uk/

25 Ganton St  London W1F 9BP

020 7494 4170

BRIOCHE CUSTARD EXPLOSION

I hereby bequeath this recipe to Gillian who requested it's feature on this blog and to Bart, living downstairs, whose main excitement of my friends coming over for dinner is that THIS might be in the oven. To his joy it often is.

This pud bounded into my life when I threw a 'food heritage party' - pretty geeky I know, but look what I learned! Huge thanks go to William who brought it along and more to Lily who confided her family recipe in him all those years ago.

This is my kind of food. Negligible faff and positively bursting with flavour. Boxes are ticked with incredible gusto: so simple, so sweet, so luxuriously indulgent and so bloody quick! This is perfect dinner party fodder. It takes 5 minutes to whip into the oven and then you can forget about it while you eat your meal. Yet another of this pudding's many accolades is that it really can't go wrong. How could it when it's core ingredients are brioche, cream, chocolate and raspberries?! The key is to keep the oven on a nice low heat so that the eggy custard thickens without splitting and the chocolate doesn't burn. Of course, this is calorific hell but Fat Is Flavour - just enjoy it!

Fresh from the oven, and dusted in icing sugar

2 minutes later and there were just 3 of us! Check that Ooozing Chocolate.

This has served 6 people and it has served 3, it depends how greedy you are!

Ingredients
300g brioche
150g creme fraiche
One punnet of raspberries
100ml double cream
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Lindt extra creamy chocolate bar - all in!
2 large eggs

Recipe
Preheat the oven to 140°C.
First make a custard by mixing the eggs, sugar, cream and creme fraiche together with the vanilla extract.
Tear up the brioche into large-ish chunks (enough for a small handful) and leave them to soak in the glorious custard mix. Meanwhile, break the chocolate into half squares.

Assemble
In an oven-proof dish, layer it up. Half of the wet brioche is followed by the chocolate which is followed by the raspberries (keeping a handful behind) and then the other half of the brioche on top. Pour the rest of the custard mix over and sprinkle with raspberries.
Cook for about 45 minutes before giving it a quick dusting of icing sugar et voila. Serve it hot, so all the chocolate is still oozing M&S food porn stylee.

CIGALA

Lambs Conduit Street harbours many gems. One of the lesser shining is the LA Fitness which I have avoided staunchly since a traumatic spin class two days after joining, now quite some time ago. As I crawled into my cab home I remembered how fondly and enthusiastically a friend had recommended a restaurant but steps away from the scene. I was determined that if my limbs were ever strong again, I would return to taste.

Tonight was the very night! As Jenny and I sheepishly passed our neglected gym/torture chamber, eyes averted, we anticipated a meal that would melt our guilt clean away.

No Such Luck. Cigala is a trendy tapas restaurant with a great wine list. Let me say, we loved our carafe - nothing house wine-y about that! The meal was a slightly different tale. It was perfectly acceptable and it is true to say we left merry and full but there was something amiss. It just wasn't particularly special, I suppose. There was nothing overwhelming, unusual or distinct about it - mainly we dreaded our bill. Our fellow diners seemed to be holding business meetings and I have no doubt that this would be a perfect venue for one. However, our search for sensory pleasure was left wanting (the hot waiter helped - a bit.) Having said that, the place was buzzing even as we left at 10.30pm so they must be doing something right. Perhaps we just made the wrong choices...

A rather salty Tortilla - and I love salt, so imagine!

Tomato on Toast(!)

Beetroot, orange, carrot and bean salad

 Tuna and anchovy salad

The highlight of the evening: Hake sandwiched between aubergines and deep fried

If you do go, say hi to the waiter from us! More me... Jenny wasn't that into him.

PANCAKES POSTPONED

I was cruelly cheated out of pancake day. Struck down in my prime by food poisoning (new London restaurant 'Burger and Lobster' to blame - a delicious meal going down the gullet, grim coming back up) and I have been unabashedly miserable about it.

I love pancake day! It's one of my favourites not least because of its blatant endorsement of gluttony and sloth. I remember the thrill of retrieving the sugar shaker from its shelf (when else does this happen?!) when I was little and my grandmother would fry us endless batches. So you can imagine my emotional state when they were simply not an option on Tuesday. I was sloth for all the wrong reasons. To make up for this devastation I have rescheduled my pancake day for next Wedensday - the traditional savoury pancake bake will be made and lemon and sugar shaker will finally be reunited none-the-wiser.

In the mean time I wanted to go a bit wild, still along the pancake batter route but something to stretch my food vocabulary - The Funnel Cake. These are north American deep-fried fairground treats dowsed in icing sugar and my God they are disgustingly good.

Funnel Cakes..next time I'd add some creme fraiche, fatten it up a bit!

Funnel Cake Recipe

Ingredients
200 ml milk
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
140 g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted melted and cooled butter
Icing sugar, for topping
300ml oil for deep frying

How to do it...
In a deep saucepan heat about 300 ml of oil over a medium heat until a cube of bread will fry to be cooked and crisp in about 10 seconds. If it rises to the top cooked and crisp before then, then the oil is too hot, if it takes longer the oil is not hot enough.

While it is heating combine all the wet ingredients - milk, egg, vanilla and butter in one bowl, and all the dry ingredients - flour, salt, baking soda and sugar in another. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, whisking to incorporate as you go.

When everything is combined put the mixture into a piping bag and pipe in a circular motion over the hot oil. Cook for about a minute on each side and then remove it and place the funnel cake straight onto kitchen paper to absorb the excess grease. Dust indulgently with icing sugar and you can add fruits, melted chocolate, sauces or creams. Just go mad for it!

MAKE MINE A MOUSSAKA

I was stuck with a lot of minced beef last week - it sat in the fridge for a few days, staring at me with contempt. How to use it. "Not another lasagna!" we seemed to say to each other, "try something new!" the mince added, rather unkindly. So I fondled my cupboards and they graciously responded with a bag of raisins and some pistachio nuts. Pistachios, you may be interested to learn, are a nut my Persian father regularly fed my sister and I when we were wee - the connotations of this particular nut are endlessly nostalgic for me. A Middle Eastern jingle started to play in my head and with it I scurried to the supermarket, khombaks plinking, to make this dream a reality. I returned with some limes, coriander, yoghurt and aubergines and we were off - hurtling past Greece into the depths of the Middle East (whilst staying firmly put in Clerkenwell.)

I've never had Moussaka before (sorry!) but from what I've read it's pretty much a Greek lasagna - instead of beef, lamb and instead of pasta, aubergines with a bit of oregano and cinnamon. This was just not enough for me. No. The mince and I had other ideas. Last week's fish without chips had left me with a swelling spice drawer and I wanted to play! Looking back, the Greeks seem to have got it right - lamb instead of beef would have completed my heritage themed moussaka nicely, but the beef I used in the end worked charmingly.

Now to thank mother, fondly known as 'Bong'. Had she not told me about Evelyn Rose's moussaka earlier this week I doubt the idea would have even dared enter my small brain. So, thanks to both parents, a Jewish/Persian Moussaka has arrived on the scene and it's a good'un.

So Colourful: Middle Eastern Moussaka

Ingredients (this serves 6)

For the meat filling
600g minced beef/lamb
2 onions
4 large tomatoes, cut into quarters
A handful of pistachios
A handful of raisins
1 inch of ginger, grated
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tsps caster sugar
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cinnamon
Zest of half a lime
Tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sumac
1 tbsp smoked paprika
 salt and pepper

For the aubergines
3 aubergines, sliced lengthways
1 big glug of olive oil

For the topping
6 tbsps of yoghurt
2 egg yolks
Juice of 1 lime
Zest of half a lime


How to...

...cook the beef/lamb
First Preheat the oven at 140°C. Rub the beef or lamb with smoked paprika, salt and pepper.
Brown in a hot pan in small batches to get a good, even colour. When the meat is browned, sprinkle with sumac. Set aside in it's own bowl.

Onions, Turmeric, Cinnamon, Tomatoes, Raisins, Pistachios, Coriander

...deal with the onions
Thinly slice the onions and fry them slowly in oil. If the pan dries, add a little bit of water. When they're looking nicely jellyfishy (transparent and squidgy), add the ginger, turmeric and cinnamon. Make sure the spices are nicely cooked out - undercooked spices is one of my worsts - it makes for a grim, gritty texture and who wants to eat raw spices?! Set aside the onions in a bowl.

...cook the tomatoes
Rinse out the pan and fry the tomatoes in the olive oil on a low heat. When the tomatoes start to lose their shape a little, add the garlic and shortly after a tsp of caster sugar. Add the lime zest. Again, if the pan gets dry, don't be afraid to add a little more water. Set aside with the onions.

..cook the raisins and pistachios
Rinse out the pan and fry the raisins and the pistachios with a tsp of sugar. When the pistachios start to brown, put the mixture in the bowl with the tomatoes and onions.

...deal with the aubergines and combine
At this stage, combine all the ingredients in a bowl (browned meat and vegetables) with the coriander.
Next, fry the aubergines until they are well browned. Place them on kitchen towel and sprinkle them with sea salt.
In an ovenproof serving dish, layer the meat and aubergine starting and finishing with the meat mixture and place it in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.
Once cooked, allow to cool.

Layers of spiced meat and aubergine...just one more meat layer to go!

For the topping:
Mix together all the ingredients and when the moussaka is cool, add the topping. Now cook for another 25 minutes. So nice and yellow from the yolks!

Middle Eastern Moussaka

Salaam my new favourite 'bake'.