Well, maybe not, but this is as close as I’m likely to get.

So here we have some beef fillet steak, seared until just cooked on the outside as an attempt at beef sashimi, a hot peanut dipping sauce, tangy mango and papaya salad with lots of lime and a soothing contrast of coconut rice.

Many of the best meals I have made have come from absolute necessity. The realisation that you have a couple of pounds left in your bank account and only a few storecupboard staples can work wonders for your cooking inspiration. It was a similar mindset I had when creating the meal above.

No, I’m not for a second pretending that anything in the meal pictured above is a budget item but, at the end of a particularly long and tiring week, they were almost all sitting in my fridge and the fillet steak in particular needed to be used fast.

So how did I come to have some ’spare’ fillet steak sitting in my fridge. Exhaustion, that’s how.

Parents’ evenings are always tiring. The parents’ evening of the upper sixth year is the last one before the kids sit their A2 exams that determine which university, if any, they can attend. When you teach BOTH bottom sets in a subject like mathematics, you know you’re in for a long evening that will involve dealing with some emotionally fruaght parents.

In a school like mine, you can be sure that not even the bottom set kids are going to fail their A2 maths. However they are mostly B and C grade candidates trying to get into some very good universities to read subjects like medicine and engineering. They REALLY need As  and Bs. Their parents by this point are getting more than a little anxious about their child’s future and in particular their apparently incurable inability to do any work. 

I actually had one parent, scratching his head and looking perplexed saying, “Well he’s never done any work. He’s not going to start now but he needs an A in maths. So how do we make sure he gets it?

Ummm…… tricky one…… getting me to dress like a boy and sit his exam might work but unfortunately that’s called fraud.

Anyway, after three and a half hours of trying to console around 20 pairs of very worried parents,  I left, just caught Sainsbury before it shut and grabbed some fillet steak. Then I got home and passed out on my sofa before I even thought about what I was going to do with it.

A few days later, the steak needed to be used. Fortunately I had a little more time on my hands so I made up a dish inspired by a salad I’d had at my favourite local Thai restaurant which conveniently used up some of the exotic fruit my parents sporadically give me.

 Beef ‘Sashimi’ with Mango and Papaya Salad, Coconut Rice and Peanut Dipping Sauce

Quantities for One Person

For the Beef

• 150-200g filet steak in one piece
• A little vegetable oil or groundnut oil
• Salt and pepper

Rub the steak with the oil so it is is just coated. Season with salt and pepper and sear over a high heat for 45s per side or until it is just cooked on the outside. Wrap in foil and leave to rest.

For the Rice

• 2 handfuls of basmati rice
• half a can of coconut milk (keep the rest handy in case you need some extra
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Rinse the rice thoroughly in cold water. Bring the coconut milk to a boil, stir through the rice  with a teaspoon of salt and bring back to a gentle bubble. Stir frequently until the rice is cooked (about 8 minutes) - test a grain to see if it is cooked. Drain off any excess coconut milk and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

For the Peanut Sauce

• 1 tablespoon unsalted peanut butter
• 1 chopped red chilli, deseeded
• a quarter can of coconut milk
• half a tablespoon chopped coriander leaf
• fish sauce- just a little

Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan and heat through for a few minutes until the peanut butter thickens the sauce. Taste and season.

For the Salad

• half a ripe mango, peeled and thinly sliced
• half an under-ripe (green) papaya, peeled, deseeded and thinly sliced
• juice of 1 lime
• a few drops of fish sauce
• half a teaspoon of sugar
• 1 small clove garlic, pasted
• 1 small green chilli, deeeded and finely chopped
• finely diced red onion- mi just used a heaped tablespoonful and kept the rest to use another time.
• a tablespoon of coriander leaves

Mix the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, chilli and garlic paste. Toss this through the rest of the ingredients. 

Slice the beef fillet thinly and serve with the accompaniments.

That’s an understatement. It’s f*cking freezing.

I swear there hasn’t been a winter this cold since I moved back to London. I have swapped my pretty fur trim gloves for big thick things that look like they belong in a boxing ring and still I can’t feel my hands by the time I get home. In fact yesterday I couldn’t feel anything below my knees either, which led to a very embarrassing tumble outside Tesco.

Even in weather like this, I still get bored of stews so I’ve been trying to vary them as much as possible. Veal blanquette has made an appearance as has a spicy root vegetable and lentil curry but this week’s favourite was the one below.It’s an interesting combination of flavours: slow cooked beef with warm spice, sweet sultanas and a slight bitterness from the pepper.I blogged it a few years ago before my hard drive crashed but that page is in quite a state so it is worth reproducing.

Cephalonian Beef Stew

• 3-4 large shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 very small, or half a large green pepper, cored, deseeded, sliced 
• 200g stewing braising steak
• half a small butternut squash, peeled and chopped
• a handful of sultanas
• 3-5 cloves
• a splash  (capful) of red wine vinegar
• 400ml beef stock
• a heaped tsp of crushed coriander seeds
• 1 tsp freshly ground cinnamon 
• cooked tagliatelle, tossed in marscapone and nutmeg to serve

1. Brown the beef in a medium suacepan (I needed to split it into 2 batches). Remove the heat and set aside.
2. In the same pan sautee the peppers until soft. Remove and set aside.
3. Add the shallots to the pan and allow to soften.
4. Return the beef to the pan and stir in the spices.
5. Add the beef stock and bring to a simmer. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.
6. Stir in the chopped squash, vinegar and and simmer for another 30-40 minutes until the beef is tender and the squash soft.
7. Stir the peppers back into the pan
8. Taste and season and serve over the tagliatelle.

That has got to be the understatement of the year and, to be honest, it is not so much technical problems but extreme technical incompetence. Apparantly it takes over two months for BT to set up Option 1 broadband. This morning, after spending two hours on the phone to their technical support ‘gurus’, I was told that actually no one had a clue what was going on with my internet and I would be offline until at least November the 4th.

Somewhere in India, there are two helpdesk people, sitting, shaking, and possibly crying underneath their desks. I have given up my policy of not blogging from my workplace and have come into school to write a post even though it is half term.

Other than lack of technology and blogging equipment (I also had no desktop, no photo software and my camera card reader got lost somewhere in my move) things are pretty sweet in West London. I found a flat which is essentially a large kitchen with attached sleeping area. It has an ancient rickety gas cooker, which has already caused me several burns, but, hey, at least it’s gas! The freezer is on the barely existing side, but to make up for it I have a big pink sofa. Yay! 

Now that I’m back, I’m quite convinced that my irritation at living on the Islington-Hackney border was not just a case of the grass being greener. I am so happy to be back in Hammersmith. My flat is within 10 minutes walk of at least eight nice but affordable restaurants and at least two nice but more expensive restaurants. Roll on payday! A five minute detour on my way home from work takes me to what must be the best butcher in London. The supermarkets are decent. True, a floor assistant responded to my request for black pudding by taking me to the chilled dessert section,  but I found brawn in the bargain bin! ! Woohoo! I also have a supply of interesting ingredients from Shepherds Bush market and a load of expensive but bizarre things to gawp at in Wholefoods.

The new job seems very promising too….. but more on that later.

I’ve been spoiling myself this month, eating and drinking far too much. This has had the effect that I am skint, yet again, until I get paid on Friday. To avoid this happening next month, I am using the fact I can’t visit my butcher on Sundays to force myself to eat more vegetarian food. Last Sunday I didn’t need much convincing. After a heavy weekend I go off the idea of meat and start craving grains and other healthy foods. I used the opportunity to make myself a few portions of a nourishing meal that would freeze well, just in case work gets more demanding as we head towards mid winter.

4 Bean Chilli

• 1 can each ready to use kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, chickpeas
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes (or 800g fresh, peeled and chopped)
• 2 medium/small onions onions, minced
• 6 small cloves garlic, minced
• vegetable oil to fry 
• cayenne peper- 2-3 teaspoons
• paprika- 2-3 teaspoons
• 3 teaspoons dried oregano 
• frehly ground cumin- about a teaspoon
• freshly ground coriander seed- a teaspoon
• a small bunch of coriander 
• 3 red peppers, cored, deseeded, chopped into small pieces
• beef stock- around 500ml
• a good shake of tabasco (optional)
• Tortillas to serve with soured cream and grated manchego (or mild cheddar) cheese and possibly a nice green salad.

1. Put the onion and garlic in a large saucepan and fry gently in the olive oil.
2. Chop the coriander stem finely- about a handful would be good- throw this into the pan with the spices.
3. When the onion is soft, add the red pepper and allow to sweat, pan covered, for a couple of minutes.
4. Stir in the beans and tomatoes. Add the tomato puree and stock and stir well
5. Let the mixture simmer, covered, for half an hour, stirring occasionally.
6. Uncover, take off the lid and allow to bubble down to a thick sauce consistency..
7. Taste, adjust spicing if you like and if you’re that way inclined, add a shake of tabasco.
8. Just before serving, stir in a couple of handfuls of chopped coriander leaf.
9. Serve on flour tortillas with a big dollop of sour cream, grated machego cheese, some more chopped coriander to garnish and a simply dressed green salad.

*****************

I have missed blogging a lot. Now I’ve started my new job, I should have time to write a couple of times a week so hopefully, as soon as I have a net connection I’ll be back for good and I may even be able to let you see what the kids here have been cooking in our after school club. Wish me luck! 

We’ve all been complaining a lot about the weather this summer. It has truly been a mixed bag, almost like Britain has developed a monsoon season.  To make it worse, the rain likes to make itself manifest at weekends or at around 6pm.

The weather is trying to spite office workers! How rude!

During the day, it has certainly been hot enough to go out with just a t shirt on, but my leather coat remains in my bag in case the heavens decide to open a little bit earlier than expected.

The rapidly changing temperatures really confuse my appetite. As I went food shopping last Tuesday, it was a very warm and humid 22 degrees. I had a bit of a bargain binge, picking up half price duck breasts, and some lamb neck fillet reduced from £5 to £2.05 and half price broad beans. I was thinking lamb kebabs using some super cheap veg from the Turkish grocers and a broad bean and feta salad (feta also seems to be one of the grocers’ cheap items).  Sadly, as I went to leave Sainsbury’s I saw that it had decided to storm properly, complete with a bit of thunder and lightning.

Half an hour later, when I got home, the rain had just stopped. I was soaking from the waist down and my hands were numb. I NEED to buy a bigger umbrella. I certainly wasn’t up for summery lamb kebabs with a light salad any more. I was more in the mood for a casserole. Time for another score cupboard raid, I thought, and so this came into being…

It’s essentially a twist on a lamb blanquette, kind of inspired by lamb avgolemono (which I’ve only read about but never actually had). It was cheap, which is the important thing right now, and it still tasted very good: good enough for Goon to ask for it again. The ingredients were
From the bargain bin: approximately 500g of lamb neck fillet and 400g unpodded broad beans.
From the storecupboard/fridge/freezer: a lemon, some garlic, frozen peas, fresh tagliatelle, a splash of cream and an egg
From the Turkish grocers: parsley
From the windowsill: the remains of the poor mint plant, which is now properly dead.
Total spent on the meal: £2.02 for the lamb. 40p for the parsley and £1.37 on the broad beans, so under £4 for two generous servings.

Summer Lamb ‘Blanquette’

• Lamb neck fillet, around 450g, cut into bite sized pieces
• around 500ml vegetable stock
• 1 lemon, zested and cut into quarters
• about 10 mint leaves, finely chopped, plus a sprig or two to to garnish
• 2 handfuls of frozen peas, cooked.
• 400g of broad beans, shelled, podded and cooked (I’ve put a note on how to prepare broad beans at the end)
• 1 large egg
• around 20ml of single cream
• two servings of fresh tagliatelle, cooked (around 200g) tossed in parsley and olive oil if you like 

1. Brown the lamb in batches over a high heat.
2. Place in a saucepan of cold water, bring to the boil, then immediately turn down to a simmer.
3. Over the next five minutes or so, skim the scum that rises to the top of the water off with a wooden spoon.
4. Once no scum is left, drain the lamb and place in a pan with the vegetable stock. Bring back to a simmer.
5. Add the lemon zest and the chopped mint
6. After 30 minutes, the lamb should be tender. Strain off the liquid into a seperate saucepan, reserving all the solids and boil until reduced by half. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 2 or 3 minutes. This is to stop the egg mixture from curdling when it is added.
7. Beat the egg and cream in a bowl. Add to the reduced stock, stirring constantly. This should thicken the sauce although you may need to return the pan to a low heat for this to happen.
8. Stir the lamb and other strained solids back in. Add the peas and broad beans. Warm through, taste, adjust seasoning.
9. Serve with the tagliatelle, squeeze over  some lemon juice, garnish with mint leaves and wedges of lemon.

Note: to prepare the broad beans: remove the outer pods and discard. Put the beans in their white casing into some cold water. Bring to the boil. After 3 minutes, drain and pour over cold water to cool them. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the beans. They’ll pop out of their casing and should be almost cooked.

 *************

If you’ve never tried lamb with lemon in a dish, you should try it. They pair up remarkably well. Sharp flavours cut through the natural fattiness of the meat. I noticed that the supermarket packaging suggested that lamb neck is grilled or fried. I suppose this works too, but it is amazingly tender when braised slowly like this.   Now, what to do with that duck….?

This post is really testing my memory. I was just going through my food photos from this year and foud a picture of a curry that I really wanted to post but never had time.

A whole 18 weeks ago, just before the end of the Easter holidays, I was contemplating what my final term at Highgate would bring. Late nights I suspected and bad moods at arriving home hungry and exhausted at 9:30pm. I had been ill prepared for these in the previous two terms. People kept telling me it would get easier and I’d cope better as I went along. It was true to some extent, but if I was to keep preparing a full worksheet for every lesson, leaving school before 7:30 wouldn’t be an option.

We decided that, in order to fend off the near psychotic rages that had ensued when Goon had promised to cook dinner but forgotten, it would be a good idea to stock up the freezer with home made ready meals. Goon exercised his training from the previous year and made a vat of bolognese which divided into 10 portions. I went down to Sainsbury’s and discovered that they had free range pork and stewing beef on offer. The beef became 6 frozen portions of beef in Guinness. The pork became the slightly psychadelic curry pictured above.

This is a Cambodian Style pork and butternut squash curry. The intense yellow flavour comes from the use of turmeric and a herbal paste called Kroeung, which is made from blending lemongrass, turmeric, ginger or galangal, onion, lime leaf and garlic.

The paste here is a lot wetter than normal, because I only have a crappy stick blender and so needed a bit of water to process the spices.

Kroeung is a classic flavouring in Khmer cooking and quite distinctive, being earthy and yet fresh and citrusy at the same time. It provides the principal flavouring to many curries, soups, stir fries and marinades. It certainly dominated this curry, providing a nice balance to the creaminess of the coconut milk.

I’m afraid I can’t remember exact quantities for this curry but the method went something like this…

Cambodian Pork and Butternut Curry (Adapted from The Complete Vietnamese Cookbook by Ghillie Basan)

Approximate method for making 8-10 Portions

For the Kroeung Paste, process

• 3 chopped lemon grass stalks, trimmed with the tough outer leaves removed
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 fresh kaffir lime leaves
• a large piece of ginger (25g)
• 25g fresh turmeric (I had to substitute around 4 teaspoons ground)

with a little water if necessary to bind. This paste will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

Now for the curry…

The recipe suggests using pork loin but we had a 1.6kg boneless leg. This was cut into bite size pices and browned in batches over a high heat.

Stir fry a large knob (4-5 inches) of finely chopped ginger, 8 chopped green chillies and 2-3 very finely diced onions in some vegetable oil until the onion is soft. Add 6 tablespoons of the kroeung paste and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Throw in a 3 or 4 teaspoons of ground turmeric and a couple of teaspoons each of fenugreek and sugar and stir fry for a minute or so. Now add the pork loin and stir to coat. Add a couple of tablespoons of fish sauce, two tins (approx 1 litre) of coconut milk and bring to a gentle bubble. After 5 minutes or so add the diced flesh of 2 small butternut squash and 5 or 6 lime leaves. Allow to bubble until the squash is almost cooked. Adjust spicing at this stage if necessary. Continue to cook until the pork and squash are cooked through.

The portions we ate that night were garnished liberally with chopped coriander and mint and served on plain boiled rice. The other six portions went in the freezer and were almost equally good when reheated, although the squash disintegrated a bit.

********************

This was the first time I’d encountered this herbal paste, so it seems like a good idea to enter this post to Kalyn’s long standing event, Weekend Herb Blogging.  It must have been a year since I last took part but hopefully I can make more entries soon.  The host this week is Kelly from Sounding my Barbaric Gulp. Visit her site on Monday for a round up of educational and entertaining posts.

Apparently the paste I used is just one of a several different types of Kroeung. Variations include adding red chilli pulp, making the paste red or rhizome, making it a light green. Most pastes include lemongrass, galangal and turmeric or kaffir lime leaves, giving Khmer cooking its distinctive flavour.  

More detail is here at the Wikipedia page on Kroeung.

On Thursday evening I was a little bored. I’d spent the day avoiding correcting my thesis and starting, but somehow not finishing, several posts for this blog. For the first time in weeks, I decided to surf around the other blogs and, as usual, my first port of call was Trig Brooks’ site. After a few minutes of reading the posts my eye was caught by the seasonal food item of the week, towards the bottom of the side bar.

Fifteen minutes later I realised I was still staring and drooling.

There is definitely something about rare venison that makes it impossible to resist. it’s more than just the fantastic flavour. I think it’s the association with the cold winter months and the inevitable comfort that game dinners bring. Plus rare venison has such a beautiful colour and the slices of meat topped with a few sprigs of rosemary look delicious.

These thoughts all coincided with the arrival of a message from Goon over the internet saying something along the lines of “PLEASE SAVE ME! I NEED MEAT!”  Goon had gone to visit his parents for Christmas and apparently they don’t eat as much meat as we do*. He was missing the 250g steaks that I regularly cook for him. I had little sympathy as I’d just spent Christmas with my vegetarian and practically teetotal parents (more on that soon) but I thought Goon’s imminent return to London was an even better excuse to go get us a big chunk of deer meat.

Luckily for me, despite it being that awkward time between Christmas and New Year, the Borough Website informed me that the market would be open that Friday. And so I went down there to fetch my venison. I also got a couple of duck breasts, a haggis and a rather nice black pudding. During the walk home from Borough, my mind was boggling with potential ways of cooking my deer. Eventually it settled on this rather neat idea which uses something that can ALWAYS be found in the ‘Living To Eat’ household: good quality gin.

*****

Loin of Venison with a Fruity Gin Sauce, Blackberries and Apple and Celeriac Mash 

Ingredients (for two people who like their meat)

• 500g venison loin
• 2 teaspoons rosemary leaves, very finely chopped
• 8-10 juniper berries, finely ground
• 2 teaspoons coarsley ground black pepper
• 3 medium/large mashing potatoes ( I used Vivaldi), peeled and cut into small cubes
• the same volume of celeriac peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 large bramley cooking apple, peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 heaped tablepoon finely chopped parsley
• A splash of single cream ( around 50ml)
• 100ml game stock (chicken stock would do)
• large splash gin (about 75ml)
• splash of cassis (50ml)
• a sprig of rosemary plus extra to garnish
• 1 teapoons raspberry or red wine vinegar
• 10 blackberries, cut in half plus a few whole ones to garnish

Method

1. Preheat your oven to gas mark 6. 
2. Coat the venison sparsely with the ground pepper, juniper and chopped rosemary. Get a frying pan very hot and sear the meat on all sides, reserving any liquid that comes off for the sauce.
3. Transfer the venison to a roasting tin and place in the oven for 10-12 minutes for rare meat.
4. Once the venison is cooked, remove from the oven, wrap in foil and rest for 15 minutes or until ready to serve. Again, any pan juices will enrich the sauce, so keep hold of them.
5. While the venison is in the oven, take the cubes of apple, celeriac and potato and place in a pan. Cover with water and bring to the boil.
6. Once the vegetables are tender (after around 15 minutes) drain thoroughly and then mash with the cream and the chopped parsley, making sure you get the vegetables evenly mixed.
7. In a small saucepan, bring the stock to a bubble, then add the gin, cassis, sprig of rosemary and the blackberries. Pour in the pan juices from the venison and allow the mixture to reduce to a thick syrup. Stir in the vinegar, taste, adjust seasoning, then strain off the solids.
8. To serve, slice the venison on the diagonal and arrange around a mound of mash. Drizzle the sauce over the meat and decorate with blackberries and sprigs of rosemary

*****

I was very impresed by this meal. The flavours were great and the venison was perfectly done. I think some lightly cooked savoy cabbage would have been a better accopaniment than the asparagus that we decided to have, but apparently Goon had been fed more cabbage than he thought was possible over the previous week and really couldn’t bear to have any more.

The only problem with the meal was a few woody bits of celeriac in the mash. Since I have only cooked celeriac once before I’m not sure if this was because I didn’t peel it adequately or because that is how celeriac always turns out. So, if anyone can give me advice on how to improve my mashed celeriac, I’d appreciate it.

*This isn’t saying much. We both eat far too much meat.

A few months ago, my Dad brought me a few bargains from Borders. Among them was a £3 book on Mexican Cookery. Whilst I’m always up for trying new cuisines, I thought that this particular one was a bit out of my reach. The book described a lot of ingredients I’d never heard of before. For a start, it mentioned more types of chilli than I knew existed, strange vegetables like sliced cactus leaf paddles and a few cheeses I didn’t think I could find.

The book lay unused on my shelf for months. Then, two weeks ago, I was reading the BBC food boards when I saw that Charlotte (from Great Big Vegetable Challenge) had been looking for some cactus and had been pointed in the direction of an interesting company called Cool Chile, which imports a lot of Mexican ingredients and storecupboard items.

The next Friday I visited their stall at Borough Market, hoping to get my hands on the most common items mentioned in my book: tomatillos, corn tortillas and nopales (cactus paddles). The very helpful gentleman running the stall sold me the last two, but he didn’t stock the tomatillos at Borough. Apparently no one bought them. I couldn’t help wondering why.

However, he did point me in the direction of Cool Chile’s Taqueria, which happens to be reasonably close to where I live. So the next morning, I set off, eager to get my hands on the elusive ingredient. I was in for a bit of a shock. This was the can of tomatillos I found.

I don’t think that picture does it justice. I think this one puts things in perspective.

Apparently tomatillos are only imported into Britain in cans about twice the size of my head! No wonder they weren’t sellingfast at Borough. These things weigh around 3 kg. Still, I was determined to have my tomatillos, so I bought them anyway. Then the shop assistant told me they didn’t have any carrier bags.

So I walked the three miles back to my flat with my tomatillos cradled in my arms like an oversized baby, getting some very strange reactions from passers by. A few people pointed and laughed. Someone even tried hitting on me. Apparently the thing to do if you’re single and really desperate in London, is walk around with a large can of tomatillos. You’ll attract Goldhawk Road weirdos by the dozen.  By the time I got back home, my arms really ached and my throat was a bit sore from yelling at the weirdos to get lost.

The irony is that I still haven’t used the tomatillos. For my first attempt at Mexican cookery, I fancied beef enchiladas and, from what I saw in books and online, tomatillo wasn’t the best accompaniment. I’m saving them now for chicken and tomatillo burritos.

So, what did I make for my first Mexican style meal? Well, beef enchiladas like I said,

a salsa made from mango, finely diced white onion, lime juice, lime zest, green chilles and coriander leaf,

nopales and red pepper salad,

and sweet corn with fried onions and cream.

It was an interesting meal to make. Each particular dish was easy in itself but co-ordinating the lot was a bit challenging. I started early by making the beef.  I sweated off one finely diced onion with 2 cloves of garlic and 3 chopped green birds eye chillies. Then I added 500g of chopped braising steak and browned it. I put the lot in a casserole dish with a about a level tablespoon of  ground cumin, ground coriander, dried oregano and paprika,  then covered the meat with beef stock, added salt and pepper and let it braise slowly at 130C for about 5 hours. While it was in the oven, I made the the creamed corn and let my tinned nopales soak in fresh water to remove the salt from them.

After that I took the beef out of the oven, poured off most of the liquid and shredded the beef. It had picked up the flavours from the spices very well so I didn’t add any more. I just put a dollop in the middle of each of my 8 corn tortillas and rolled them up into enchiladas. These went into a baking dish and were topped with sour cream and grated mild cheddar (as a substitute for Monterey Jack) and baked until the cheese bubbled.

While the enchiladas cooked I quickly assembled the salad and salsa. The salsa was literally just the ingredients mentioned above, mixed together in a bowl. The salad was made from grilled, skinned and sliced red pepper, thinly sliced red onion and the nopales slices in a dressing made from a chile and garlic oil and white wine vinegar. The nopales had an interesting flavour that’s hard to describe. They were very slightly bitter and quite leafy but had a bit of a salty tang from being pickled. Their texture was like cooked runner beans. We liked them a lot.

I’d have liked to submit the tomatillos to Weekend Herb Blogging this week, but since I haven’t yet cooked with them, I’ll have to talk about the nopales instead. Nopales are the paddles of the prickly pear cactus. Over here they are sold pickled in brine. Apparently these things are full of vitamins and fibre, which is very useful as they are very tasty too!

For more information on nopales, see the Wikipedia entry.

This week, Weekend Herb Blogging is hosted by Anna from Anna’s Cool Finds. Head over there to see the round up on Monday. 

That Whole Foods supermarket is going to bankrupt me. I keep finding cool things like these that I want to try.

Picture borrowed from nandalaya.com, until I remember to photograph my own eggplants.

The market actually has a good selection of eggplants, from the normal aubergines we see all the time here to little yellow, white and blue ones. These tiny green ones caught my eye because I remember eating them in a green curry I had in Thailand. I was ill that evening with a horrible heat migraine and had stayed behind in my hotel room. Dinner was from room service and, after I’d finished, I tried asking the porter what the little, sour vegetables in the curry were. I’d assumed they were peas but the flavour was different and they had a harder texture.

Unsuprisingly, the porter was clueless and it wasn’t until I was visiting Saran Rom several years later that I encountered the little vegetables again. The staff here were much more well informed about the ingredients in the green curry and the maitre’ d even brought out a raw one for me to see. Apparently these eggplants are considered to be good in a green curry because of their slightly crunchy texture.

When I came across the plants in Whole Foods I made a mental note to make my own green curry with them. Then, on Thursday, I was planning to make a red curry with a twist but the key ingredient was unavailable. I thought it was a good time to make a green chicken curry instead with the exciting eggplants.

The curry was more difficult to make than it should have been. While i was getting my spices together, flatmate Ken came to ask me how to make a green curry from scratch. I started to tell him, and then realised that I wasn’t making a green curry at all. For some reason I’d gone on autopilot and was making a red one. I clearly need more sleep.*

So, I told Ken roughly how to make both a red and green curry paste and proceeded to make my red curry. Then I ran into problem 2. Somehow, during our move, we lost both our pestle and mortar pairs (i.e. Goon forgot to pack them). Fortunately Ken came to my assistance and did a pretty good job of pounding the spices in a bowl with a rolling pin.

Once the spices were roughly ground, I made my red curry paste and then the red curry in the way I normally do, except this time I threw in my eggplants roughly ten minutes before I was ready to serve.  

Those eggplants really look like large peas, don’t they.Fortunately they were just as good in a red curry as they are in a green one. We had our curry with jasmine rice and, on Schmoof’s recommendation, I tried stir frying some choi sum with garlic, ginger, chilli and oyster sauce. I threw some mushrooms in for good measure too. 

I’ve decided to enter Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging this week with this post, so I’ve done a little bit of research on these eggplants**.  Apparently eggplants are native to India Sri Lanka but are cultivated all over the place now. The wild plants produce small vegetables, like the ones I had in my curry. They were only half a centimetre in diameter. Cultivated plants tend to produce much bigger vegetables, like the purple ones we are used to seeing in our supermarkets.

The name ‘eggplant’ comes from the first growers of these plants in Europe and North America. The aubergines there looked a lot like Goose or Duck eggs since they were white and round.  

This week, Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted by Chris from Mele Cotte. Head over there on Monday to see the other exciting submissions for this week’s WHB.

*Or less alcohol. I’ve had a fair few bottles of champagne since I found out about my new job.

**Ok, you got me, I just looked them up on wikipedia.

Remember the large lamb leg that Goon had fun butchering? Goon had to move out of his flat this weekend and the remaining four portions of lamb leg, which had been sitting in the freezer, had to be used up.

I decided to act on Schmoof’s recommendation and turn two portions of the meat into some harissa marinated lamb kebabs. That left the final batch of lamb to be used on the night before we left. The weather recently has been more reminiscent of late autumn than midsummer and, as always, my appetite was determined by this. I wanted a stew, but something a little more exciting than a straightforward red wine, carrot and celery combination.

Flicking through random internet pages, I came across one idea which looked particularly interesting: a lamb stew with lemon and dill. I have to admit, this is not a combination I would have thought of myself but I was intrigued and, since there was just enough time to enter this month’s ‘In the Bag’ event, I thought I could somehow incorporate the other ingredients for the event into the meal. Broad beans would work well with the lemon and dill in the stew and some Jersey Royal potatoes crushed with olive oil and herbs would be lovely mixed up with the juices.

The stew would have been easy to make too, had it not been for the intervention of Goon’s wonderful flatmates. This time they had managed to cause trouble without even being there. As I started to prepare my ingredients I noticed there was something different about the kitchen. 

ME: Goon! Where has all the kitchen equipment gone?
GOON: Uh?
ME: We used to have two cheese graters. Where are they?
GOON: (Thoughtful Silence)
ME: And the chopping boards… and the garlic crusher….and half the pans… 
GOON: Uh-oh. 
ME: (suspiciously) What?
GOON: The girlies moved out today.
ME: What? They took all the useful kitchen equipment with them?
GOON: Must have done.
ME: BUT WE BOUGHT HALF THAT STUFF!
Goon: Yes, and most of the rest of it came with the flat.

I can’t repeat what I said next as I’d like to keep this site family friendly. I’ll let you use your imagination. 

So it seems that one or both of the girlies have taken their money saving endevours further than I expected and claimed half the kitchen equipment as their own leaving us and the other boy in the flat without half the stuff we needed. I have to say, I’m rather glad I’ll never have to deal with either of them again, although I will miss torturing the blonde one with my offal based dinners.

Fortunately, Goon’s ability to perform mindless boring tasks for long periods of time meant that we could produce finely chopped lemon zest, which could almost pass for the grated zest I wanted for this meal. Chopping vegetables on a dinner plate was a real nuisance though. Despite the setbacks, we eventually produced a decent stew.

To start with I finely diced an onion and minced two cloves of garlic. I then let them soften on a low heat in a little olive oil with half a bunch of finely chopped dill. When the onion had softened, I  browned my chunks of lamb leg steak, added them to the pan covered them with lamb stock and a glug of white wine. I brought the mixture to a gentle simmer, threw in half a tablespoon of the finely chopped lemon zest and let it stew gently for two hours. After this time the lamb was tender, so I added two handfuls of young broad beans and turned the heat up to a steady simmer. After about 10 minutes, the beans were cooked and the stew was a good consistency so I tasted, added more chopped dill, lemon zest and black pepper and, just before serving, squeezed in the juice of half a lemon.

Although it isn’t the most photogenic thing, this meal was very good. I wish I had come across the idea before. The light fresh  flavours of the lemon and dill were a good balance for the richness of the lamb. The crushed jersey royals were a great accompaniment. I loved mixing the gravy in with the potatoes, they were delicious together. However, I think the stew would be even better with some more mature meat. Not mutton necessarily, but autumn lamb or perhaps hogget. The stew was good, but a little extra richness in the meat would make it perfect.

So here is my slightly late entry to ‘In the Bag,’ a fairly new event run by Scott at Real Epicurean, Julia at A Slice of Cherry Pie and Cherry at Cherry’s English Kitchen. This time Cherry is hosting - I hope she doesn’t mind that this is a day late!  The idea is that the host gives you three seasonal items that you need to incorporate in the meal. The items for June were lamb, broad beans and new season potatoes. Take a look at Cherry’s blog in a few days when the round up is posted and you’ll no doubt find lots of great recipes using these three ingredients.

Exam season has ended and thesis draft 3 is currently being decimated by my supervisor so, for a rather lovely change this weekend, I had a day off! I think the last time this happened must have been August 2006 (yes, I even taught over Christmas and Easter). Unfortunately, my first days off clashed with one of Goon’s working weekends. This time he was attending Yahoo’s first European Hack Day.

No, I don’t see the appeal either. The good news was that I got a chance to visit my parents properly for a change and spend some time poking around our family home. I’m quite wary of doing this since our house tends to be a bit of a breeding ground for spiders. I’ve never understood the affinity they had for the dark spot under the stairs.

I did find some interesting things. A book of my old poetry for a start, a load of old music  I used to play and some stolen recipe books too. As you might expect, I also raided the cupboards. My parents frequently shop at Sri-Lankan grocery stores so there’s a rather interesting selection of tinned fruit and vegetables. This time, I took some jackfruit because Goon hadn’t tried it before. I also got my hands on what is possibly the best thing about Sri-Lankan cuisine.

These are string hoppers. A Sri-Lankan staple made from  rice flour dough. The dough is made from just rice flour, water and seasonings  but apparently you need to sift the flour several times and get the mixture just right or the hoppers fall apart or turn sticky.

Once you have your dough, a special hand press with tiny holes is used to press the dough into fine noodles. The raw noodles are allowed to fall onto a holder so they form little round, thin ‘cakes.’  These are then steamed until they are cooked and then eaten with  curries and coconut sambal. As with most carbs, they don’t have a very strong flavour of their own, but they have a marvellous texture. Not chewy, but soft and slightly springy. 

I have been forbidden from trying to make these myself. Apparently it is far too difficult and my parents have hidden the equipment from me . These hoppers were bought from a caterer’s shop and are particularly good. I took home enough to feed me and Goon with plenty left over.

When I got back to my flat I made some curries to accompany our hoppers. Firstly, a beef curry with coconut milk and Sri Lankan spicing. It’s not at all traditional to use beef since Sri Lankan Buddhists have some Hindu influences on their culture. Mutton and chicken are usually used, but I quite like curried braising steak.  I also whipped up some dahl with garlic, mild spices and black pepper. We had the jackfruit too, which was flavoured with tamarind.

I dived in, eating in the Sri Lankan way with just my hands. Well, just one hand actually. Like in many other cultures, using your left hand is a no-no. I find eating this way lots of fun. You use the hoppers to grab bits of meat and scoop up the vegetables. Goon looked a little intimidated by this method of eating. Then he went and got himself a knife and fork. I don’t think I’ve ever seen hoppers being neatly cut up before. It was a rather strange and funny sight for me. It’s a bit like watching someone eating fish-fingers with chopsticks!

Then again, a fork is useful for getting the curry soaked hopper pieces from the bottom of the plate.

I love this bit of the meal.

Goon really liked the hoppers and was intrigued by the jack fruit. I’d say it is an acquired taste, but I like it, especially in a sour-tangy curry sauce.

So, if you happen to live near a Sri-Lankan store, see if they make and sell string hoppers because I don’t think they’re found in any other cuisine and you’re missing out if you haven’t tried them. They’re definitely my favourite bit of Sri Lankan cuisine.