Cay tre - Allergy-Freetarian approved !

A friend is swapping life in London for life in Hong Kong and took us out for lunch at Cay Tre - a Vietnamese chain which is casual but vibrant. I only went for the coffee (one must not resist Vietnamese coffee) and I was pretty certain that I would be post-lunch hungry but to my pleasant surprise, there was "100% cassava vermicelli" and the pho broth was freetarian! In my excitement and contentment, I commented, possibly in an annoying voice, on how cute everything was, from the teapot to the menu and receipt-holder (yes, pretty sad) and the waiters being super nice and friendly (or plain just wanted me out of their hair), sent me away with a little present, gratefully accepted!

Wintry pork ribs stew - with added pepper

Having posted quite a few "ragouts" and "sugos", there was hope we'd have run out of such recipes but alas, there isn't! We had lugged a dozen cans of San Marzano tomatoes (a little forlorn looking as they were battered and bruised from their adventure with lost luggage) back to London from our break in Italy and we just had to put them to good use immediately. The silver lining this time round, stewing time was only an hour instead of the usual six...

The result: sugo with costine di maiale (pork ribs to me and you) with an extra dash of pepper and chilli flakes to cure wintry ills. Buonissima! 

Recipe:

1 red onion, 2 medium carrots, 2 celery stalks, all diced. Sweat the mirepoix for 15-20 minutes with salt and pepper in a heavy bottomed pot, put aside and in the same pot brown 0.5 kgs of pork ribs on medium to high heat. Salt and pepper. Deglaze the pan with 1 cup red wine. Pour in 2 cans peeled San Marzano tomatoes,1tbs tomato paste and half a tomato can of water, salt and pepper, bring to boil and simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally. Pepper.

Ippudo - bemusing but forgettable...

A couple of girlfriends and I met up for a long awaited chinwag over dinner at Ippudo. My bemusement started from the moment we walked into the restaurant to rapturous and incomprehensible shouts from every member of staff aimed at us (I think they were trying to welcome us in Japanese rather than frighten the living lights out of us), and increased through the night. 

The others ordered the famous house buns and tonkatsu ramen, of which I couldn't have any due to my intolerances, and I, surprise surprise, ordered salad as a starter and steak as main, with sauces on the side for obvious reasons. My bemusement increased when a different waiter returned to tell me that the dressing for the salad and the sauce for the steak were different - as I would indeed hope since one is a dressing and the other a sauce and they were two separate dishes - and asked if I would still want both on the side....? I am still pondering how to respond to that statement but I noted that the salad was sent straight back to the kitchen.

The salad was boiled kale served with asparagus, some orange, cashews and raisins - the sum of the dish was as good as the individual parts, but not better, probably due to the lack of said dressing (of which a non-freetarian friend tried and noted as forgettable). The steak was served with fried garlic, onion and spring onions, and unfortunately pretty forgettable too - as I am also pretty forgetful (or forgettable, if you wish), I tasted the sauce (before a dear friend reminded me of my freetarianism) and that was equally forgettable. The waiters on the other hand, were anything but - I was sure that they had run out of serving dishes when three different waiters came up to me at different times to ask if I had finished with my salad and steak despite both plates being half full, or at least with some food left, and my companions still midst eating. I ate up quickly, afraid they would literally pounce on those rarified plates and I be collateral damage! Stabbed by a plate, special as it is, does nothing for me.

Whilst my girlfriends and I had a great time catching up on Xmas and NY antics - we even had an indulgent 10 minutes talking about sous vide machines and upcoming food trends (beetroot anything in dessert and broth were our bets) - my fruit, jelly and red bean paste drowned in prosecco was as forgettable as the steak. 

However, the night was both bemusing and entertaining, the waiters were cheerful if not a tad scary, and I am inspired to cook a new recipe! Broth, not steak, that is.

Plates, or else:

Stuffed shoulder of lamb a l'albigeoise

It wouldn't be rash to conclude that I rather like boning, stuffing and tying up all manner of meats and fish, wrong as that somehow sounds. As we were perusing the grocery aisles this weekend gone, a sudden fancy for lamb overtook us and we could not resist a half shoulder. We went home to consult Larousse and chose this recipe as we had chipolatas to hand (yeah, can't live without sausages). In short, the lamb is boned and the meat cut open like a book and a sausagemeat, liver, rosemary, garlic and parsley mix is spread on its open face. The book is then shut and tied up neatly, seared in goosefat (with 8 blanched garlic cloves) and roasted in a 230degree oven for 40 minutes. In true Larousse style, the recipe was concise - but to try this recipe, a clean oven and good candles (Jo Malone or Penhaligon's) are non negotiable or expect smoke billowing in the kitchen and hair...

Done right, the Larousse does not disappoint:

Ingredients, to serve 4:

0.7kg lamb shoulder

12 garlic cloves

30gm parleys (including stalks) and process this together with

250gm sausage meat

100gm pork liver (if not just use 350gm sausage meat)

Small bunch of rosemary, chopped

1 tbsp goose far

2 tbsp fresh ground black pepper 

1 tbsp salt 

Smooth hummus as creamy as a baby's bottom

We've all tried to prepare hummus as it is the absolute easiest thing to do (if you do not live in Italy, that is) - blend all the ingredients in a food processor and voila! But somehow, the other half is never quite satisfied with it and insists that it's never creamy, never smooth, never that-je-ne-sais-quoi enough. For the first time, we tried Barefoot but her recipe was not quite the answer, and we tried to charm a Persian restauranteur into divulging the secrets of hummus. 

He didn't. We made do with some "research" (Larousse, Barefoot, Google - you get the flow) instead. Apart from homemade chickpeas (which we didn't actually make), the key is the ingredients which are first whipped in the food processor. Note that whatever else is purported by other hummus-authorities, there is no such thing as hummus without tahini or cumin....well, no real hummus anyway. But what would I know as try as I might, I'm no Persian restauranteur and can't pretend to have any authority over this. But I do know that this was the smoothest, creamiest, fluffliest, most fantastic hummus we have ever achieved. Ever.

The secrets:
1 can chickpeas (about 200gms - 240gms net weight) drained and thoroughly rinsed if not preparing your own
3 tablespoons tahini
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 medium garlic clove, cored and minced
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
2-3 tablespoons olive oil (not extra virgin)

At least 3-5 tablespoons water (adjust to taste)
fine sea salt to taste - at least 3/4 tsp

Blend the tahini and lemon juice together for at least 1 minute. Scrape down and blend again for 30 seconds. Add the garlic, cumin, oil, salt, scrape down and blend for another minute. Add the chickpeas and blend for 2-10 minutes. Test taste, adjust, scrape down and blend again for 30 seconds. Let the processor go on slow and slowly add water down the feedtube until the desired consistency. Blend blend blend!

Drizzle over olive oil, lemon juice and dash of paprika to serve - this was omitted in the photo as it was leftovers (we made three times the recipe for the NYE party) and we just wanted to face plant ourselves into the damn thing...

The Queen and Her Pig

A pig is always a crowd pleaser and is usually easy to prepare for a dinner party as one would just bung it into the oven and forget about it. Well, it would have been in England anyway. In Italy, the "pork belly" cut doesn't quite exist and it was rather like a Greek drama to procure 4kgs of pork belly as my translator, his mum and I dragged my brother to the butchers to discuss in amusing and very loud broken Italian and English what was required, while my brother guffawed behind my back as I tried as elegantly as possible to show the butcher which part was required by pretending to be a pig.

Belly, and most importantly it's rind, in hand, we then traipsed around looking for tahini and lime both of which are rarities in Italy. Again, this involved a customary scene of utter confusion and phone calls made in panicky voices to every family, friend and acquaintance known as if in search of panacea. To everyone's relief, all the ingredients were found and the belly was marinated over night in a blend of tahini, salt, lime and lemon juice - a Nigella special but freetarianised. Salt was then rubbed onto the skin to extract moisture. Three hours before cooking the belly was removed from the fridge to allow to relax and come to room temperature and the skin wiped completely dry before cooking for 3.5 hours at 150degrees and 0.5hours at 250degrees. 

It was declared by a guest as the piece de resistance of the Christmas Eve dinner party and the cook "La Regina della notte" (the Queen of the night). Personally, I thought there was too much tahini (I could not find a measuring spoon in Italy and perhaps went tahini crazy) which the other half was also quick to point out, but I console myself with the superb crackling. Lots of crackling.

The plasticity of an Italian New Year celebration

New Year's Day was looming and we somehow found ourselves playing hosts to around 17 full blooded southern Italian characters. I say 17, but one can never be quite sure of the exact number of guests who would turn up as we are in south Italy after all, and all that passion and fire in the blood seem to make things rather dynamic...

As opposed to Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve is traditionally an affair with the loudest of friends and instead of full service dinner, we would use plastic plates and cups. Yes, turn away now if you have the slightest snobbery to eating and drinking from plastic containers, as I do. Even so, the table was set (oh, the irony) with plastic plates (antipasti and first) and cups (one for water, the other for wine and another for champagne *horror). Of course it was not just any plastic - we actually purchased different plates for each course, different napkins to match the plates, and cups, all of which had to match the iridescent silver table cloth and centerpiece...

Dinner, quite like the silver plastic service, was also prepared pot luck style. Ladies sashayed into the house dressed to the nigh and their men trooped in after them carrying crates (literally) of food. The plastic affair does not deter the obligatory amount of food one must consume during festivities; prosecco abundance, pigs in blanket, spinach and ricotta pasty, homemade smooth hummus as creamy as a baby's bum, cheese board of Asiagos and Parmesans, savoury crepe smothered in cheese, vegetarian cous cous and parmigiana, were just the starters and first courses. In my fascination with everything plastic, it would be amiss to withhold that there were three plate changes a head (why, isn't it obvious that one simply must not eat parmigiana after eating creamy crepe as they are not the same coloured food and couscous just cannot be eaten with any sauce no matter the colour...?)....!

In a truly Italian fashion, our guests held a protest and insisted on a 20 minute food-hiatus, the time of which was filled with toasts of mutual appreciation of the ability to cook industrial portions of food and purchase equal amounts of matching wines. The main course was then presented, melting slow roast pork marinated in tahini and humble but wonderful pork crackling (http://duckandthyme.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-queen-and-her-pig.html?m=1), served with oven potatoes and peppers. I'm also happy to report that we were allowed to eat all that food on a single plate!

Another food-hiatus was declared, and the table was cleared for gambling. The hiatus was shortly rescinded as clementines were presented as amuse bouchée. As gambling always does, it was soon time to countdown and have that bottle of Moët amidst a panaroma of fireworks in the horizon, a contented chaos of arms, legs and bodies, kisses and wishes. And if you thought that food consumption was over, you would be wrong as it is customary to have lentils cooked with ham-like sausages, as soon as possible after midnight as lentils represent round coins and signify wealth. And not to forget that dessert of chocolate sausages in three flavours was yet to be served. As the night of eating, quite like this post, gets long and tedious, I was chuffed with the imminent ending of the night but we are lulled into a false sense of tranquility as soon after 1a.m. the door bell starts ringing continuously and in trooped more well wishers, more gamblers, and at half past one, I lost count of both plates and people and also of consciousness. Rowdy table banging antics continued well past 4a.m., but I was as oblivious to it as a discarded plastic plate in a large black bag.

Fat lentils: