Amasi, also known as maas

 very culture has its favourite lactophile microorganism. Russians swear on the one that makes their ryazhenka. In Southern Africa, they trust fermenting their milk to the Lactococcus lactis, namely its subspecies cremoris. It makes something between English buttermilk and Russian kefir, called amasi in Zulu or maas in Afrikaans.

Manzini market

o, this is not your twee Sunday bazaar in a picture-perfect Tuscan village, it's a market in Swaziland's largest city, Manzini.

Clams Breton style, recipe

Palourdes à la bretonne, or clams Breton style. Palourdes is the closest French word I could find to call these clams (they would be called coques, if they were ribbed). In fact, they are Vietnamese natives, known locally as Nghêu Bến Tre, quite a mouthful, so let's stick with palourdes.

This is also one of my improved recipes: normally, Breton style should mean aux lardons et oignons, with bacon and onions. However, a  long afternoon in St. Mâlo, Brittany, spent looking for mussels cooked that style proved that locals have never heard of anything of the kin. I did not give up and went on to elaborate on what Breton style cooking should be like, which is how all "traditional authentic national cusines" were invented in the first place anyway.

So here how it goes:

1. Toast a head of crushed garlic and three chopped shallots in butter.
2. Add a kilo or more of clams, 2 sliced leeks, a generous handful of Chantenay carrots, diced smoked bacon and stir-fry until the clams start opening.
   
3. Add a jar of double cream and a big glass of dry Breton cider, Picardian blonde beer, or dry white wine.
   
4. Stir well, gently bring to a boil and simmer with the lid closed until the smell of alcohol goes. Remember to stir occasionally.
5. Douse liberally with freshly ground black pepper. No salt necessary as the clam juice and bacon are salty enough. 

Black capelin roe, aka masago (まさご）

ot just the only credible clean-up of the financial crisis aftermath comes from Iceland, but also black capelin roe. Despite this review by The Daily Mail's own McDonald's sampling guru India Sturgis, the £1.49 jar of what is known in Japan as masago is a very good introduction to the world  of fish roe and caviar for the uninitiated. It is rather mild in taste with very moderate saltiness. It does not need cooking, just spread a wee tad of butter on good baguette and arrange a thin layer of black capelin roe on top. A few slices of cucumber may be added too. Use as a starter that goes down very smoothly with dry white wine.

Clams stir-fried with garlic, coriander and white wine

y cooking is very often a long protracted affair. It can easily can take up a whole evening, punctuated with thoughtful wine sipping, while a piece of particularly nifty software reads me anthropological articles in a studiedly enthusiastic male voice reminiscent of the Pacific War newsreels. To make all that even more interesting, as I cook, I fix myself sort of amuses-bouche to stave off hunger. Normally, they are spin-offs of the main dish, like I can use some of the caramelised onions from the stew as the base for a canapé or some of the Italian marinade for the fish as a salad dressing. 

Last three days I got into a little habit of stir-frying clams with garlic, coriander, fish sauce and white wine. It's a super simple recipe that involves next to none effort yet yields superbly delectable results.

Here how it goes:

1. Toast crushed garlic in oil or butter.
2. Add clams and sprinkle with fish sauce. Stir-fry on medium fire until all the clams open, remove into a bowl.
3. Add chopped coriander, ground black pepper and a glug of white wine, deglaze.
4. Add the sauce to the clams. Serve with baguette and white wine. 

Shark steaks recipe

he best thing about shark steaks is that they are, save the spine, completely boneless. Apparently, sharks as a species evolved way before fish came up with having bones, or bladders, for that matter. For the latter reason, sharks need to be constantly in motion lest they drown, which makes them lean and muscly. And that is how they make it all the way to the top of the food chain, on a pre-heated plate, where we, humans, appreciate exactly that. Occasionally, a shark would get back at us for that, but you couldn't quite hold it against it, could you?

Like most white fish, shark benefits from marinating Japanese style, in equal measures of sake, mirin and shoyu mixed together. In case of dire need, those can be substituted with some dry white wine, brown sugar, and well, shoyu, there is not substitute for that. 

Now for the recipe:

1. Heat some butter in a thick-bottom skillet. Fry a handful of unpeeled garlic cloves for a few minutes and then push them to the sides.
   
2. Remove the steaks from the marinade and pat them dry with paper kitchen towels. Put them in the skillet and fry a few minutes on each side.
   
3. Now prepare the best dip for fish ever: mix lime juice, grated ginger, palm sugar, fish sauce, chopped chillis and crushed garlic.
    
4. Serve with steamed vegetables and steamed rice.

Lehel Market@Budapest: When in Hungary, do as the Hungarians.

 

t feels good to be near food. Even when I don't try, I always end up next to it. So in Budapest, our apartment turned out to be a minute walk from the Lehel Csarnok, Lehel Market, that also goes by a tongue-twisting name of Lehel Gyógyszertár. Less fancy and less touristy than the resplendent Central Market, it however offers a mouth-watering choice of Hungarian yummies at quite competitive prices. This is where we stocked up on bread,  viennoiserie and delicatessen for our Budapest breakfasts before hitting the museums and hot spring baths. It is frequented almost exclusively by locals, so everything is strictly Magyar, which exactly why we love visiting Hungary, for that very authenticity that, lamentably, seems thinning out every year giving way to the generic Euro-experience. Si fueris Pannoniae, Pannonō vīvitō mōre. 

Hungarians are very good with bread and pastry: although Meats, and by that I mean mostly pork, come in an impressive variety of shapes and guises. Cheeses are very straightforward, yet commendable in their uncomplicated rusticity and inexpensive to boot. Fruit and veg are plentiful and cheap, well coming from London anyway. Nothing off-the-wall there, just good and honest edible European flora.Wines, kind of like in France, are very much much hit-or-miss: we've had some despicable swill as well as quite sublime nectar, the former, somewhat predictably, coming from the lower priced range. Coffee these days is almost universally comes from Italian coffee-machines and is brewed to perfection. I can vaguely remember that it used to be very inconsistent in the early post-Communist days, so kudos to bravi Italiani!

Choucroute garnie: simple recipe

rench food is not all la-de-da made of fois gras, frog's legs and truffle shavings and served on a doily - just like not every Frenchman is an effete and jaded urban cynic.  Since the French Revolution put an end to farmers eating boiled bark, peasant food has become more sophisticated, while staying true to its simple roots.

Take, par example, choucroute garnie, one of my favourite winter foods, hearty, filling and wholesome. The juniper berries, a generous glug of white wine as well as good quality organic free range happy pork turn the lowly sauerkraut and boiled potatoes into a veritable gastronomic experience. It's peasant food par excellence, so it cooks itself while you can indulge, peut-être, in a spot of mutual blowjob, and then, to clean the palate, in the rest of the wine, as Mireille Matthieu is crooning in the background.

Basically it's like this:

1. Sauté onions in duck fat just a tad beyond translucent, they should taste sweetish.
2. Add sauerkraut, juniper berries, whole black pepper and bay leaf.
3. Pour some white wine.
4. Arrange nice chunks of smoked bacon, saucisse de Toulouse, boudin blanc on top- I skip frankfurters and strasbourgers and use boudin noir instead but you don't need to.
5.  Simmer until the pork is ready, generally up to an hour. In the meantime, boil or bake some potatoes.
6. Voilà - serve with white wine from Alsace, Riesling or Gewürtztraminner! 

Japanese nabe hotpot: perfect winter food

hat can be better on a nippy winter evening than a hotpot steaming with the heart-warming aromas of  seafood, mushrooms and green vegetables. There is no recipe, really. You just get together with your friends or family and put all and sundry ingredients in a pot of boiling water, dunk them in a sauce of your choice and wash down with beer or sake.

Well, it's not really that random. First of all, you put a piece of kombu in the water to make aromatic broth. Then put ingredients starting from tougher to cook ones in approximately this order. First in go shiitake, carrots, daikon and bigger pieces of fish. I use chopped salmon heads, the abundant cartilege makes for a fantabulous depth of the soup's flavour. I am not a big fan of fish balls unless they are home-made. Next go green vegetables (hakusai/pakchoi, Savoy cabbage, Chinese broccoli, kailan), oyster mushrooms, shrimp, mussels, crab meat, squid, clams. Last follow the gentlest ones that only need to be warmed up: shimeji, konnyaku, bean sprouts, kikurage.

My favourite dip is mix of miso paste and mirin - Japanese style. Also great is mix of chili sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and pressed garlic - Thai style. Korean dip is gochujang, ground toasted sesame, pressed garlic and ground ginger. Vietnamese dip is lime juice, ground ginger, nuoc mam, chopped chillies and pal sugar. Chinese dip is soya sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, sesame oil and a sprikle of hot red pepper.

Once the last bits are fished out and devoured with thanks, beat an egg into the remaining broth and add harusame.  

 

Strada@London: new menu

 don't need really any particular luring to dine at Strada. That's where I go when I'm in the mood for consistently enjoyable no-nonsense Italian classics. So when I was offered to taste their new menu with whomever I cared to come with, I jumped at the opportunity. In return I was asked to write an honest review. So here's the breakdown:

The starter, large green Castelvetrano olives were meaty and flavourful but the portion was on the skimpy side.

Antipasti platter - Parma ham, Napoli salami, speck ham from Trentino, buffalo mozzarella from Campania, vine-ripened tomatoes, olive tapenade and bruschetta pomodoro - was nice, same as usual, not enough for three men though. We were not allowed to order more.

I never order a bruschetta for a starter, to me it's a glorified sandwich and so did it turn out: grilled bread with some chopped tomatoes on top.

Risotto is easily the most abused Italian dish. The opportunity was not missed this time either: boring and watery, risotto verdure tasted like buttery rice porridge. It reminded me of my worst vegetarian days.

Rigatoni speck with bits of ham and broccoli reminded me of the lunch fare in my short time at kindergarten. Über-meh.

Orata al forno, whole grilled sea bream though was sublime: very fresh tasting and cooked to perfection, with scrumptious crunchy skin with just a sprinkle of salt and thyme and delicate juicy flesh. A side of exquisitely steamed vegetables and boiled potatoes kept it good company.

The dolci were run-off-the-mill forgettable factory-made pistaccio ice-cream and chocolate mousse. Nothing horrible but nothing to write home about either. Just something you can buy frozen in Lidl.

Overall, I was not impressed with the new menu. As a paying customer I would only order the grilled fish. However, I will keep coming to Strada for my regular favourites. And also for cacciuco, a Sicilian fish soup that was new but not on the tasting menu.  

I thank Strada for the opportunity, however, for the next time I would advise them to put their best, not the mediocre, on their tasting menu. Perhaps, just what they serve daily anyway?

Monbazillac wine

his sweet and mellow wine, reminiscent of Muscat, goes well with mild cheese like Brillat Savarin.

Brillat Savarin cheese

ade from triple cream (that's 75% fat for you!), Brillat-Savarin was created in the 1930s to be as indulgent and over-the-top as the man it is named after, the great French gastronome. It is produced industrially from pasteurised milk and tastes like a cross between Carpice des Anges and unripe Brie. When matured, it is sold as Pierre Robert, which has much more character and reminds less of ricotta.

We paired it with sweet and mellow Montbazillac wine, a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.