Roasted pheasant recipe

Judging by the rate the company where I work peddles grouse, partridges and venison to various posh restaurants, London's appetite for game shows no signs of abating. Inspired by observing the fringes of this celebration of ecologically clean gastronomy, I delved into the latest English edition of La Rousse Gastronomique. Here is what wise Frenchmen say.

Truss and bard a young pheasant, brush with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Roast in a preheated oven at 240 degrees for 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of the bird, busting 2 or 3 times. Fry some croutons until golden brown. Untruss the pheasant and remove the barding fat. Place it on top of the croutons and keep warm. Deglaze the roasting pan with a liittle poultry stock and serve this gravy separately. To make it an ultimate treat, the pheasant can be stuffed with truffles before roasting and the croutons can be spread with a small amount of forcemeat with the minced liver of the pheasant. (Source: La Rousse Gastronomique, Hamlyn: London, 2009)

Photos will follow when I get around to implementing this recipe in my kitchen. Please bear with!

Roasted quail recipe (caille rôti)

hese days quails are farmed but in fact they are game. A quick sniff will confirm this: quail meat is heavier and chewier than your chicken or turkey. That is why I treat them as game, that is cook with

1. Crush a handful of juniper berries and add with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to red wine.
   
   
2. Using a sharp knife, make incisions in each quail from the inside without piercing the skin.
   
   
3. Soak the quails in the marinade making sure that it goes into the incisions. Let stay overnight in the fridge.
   
   
4. Take out the quails out of the fridge at least one hour before cooking to get them back to the room temperature and allow the excessive marinade to drip off.
   
   
5. Heat the oven to 220 degrees. Pat the quails dry with paper towels. Warm some butter and mix with a small amount of honey, salt and pepper. Baste the quails with the mixture and place them on the oven grid.
   
   
6. Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 200 degrees. In the meantime sweat some chopped shallots in butter and add the marinade, allow to reduce to half.
   
   
7. Serve with sautéed wild mushrooms and double-cooked potatoes. Use the reduccion as sauce.
   

autumn roots soup recipe

Shrimp stock recipe (fumet de crevettes)

use shrimp stock (fumet de crevettes) as the base for bechamel and so should you, it makes the whole difference, giving the lowly mix of fried flour and cream whole dimensions of flavour and richness.

1. I love pink Greenland shrimp (they taste sweet and are not farmed) and keep all the peelings refrigerated until I am ready to cook this. Put whatever shrimp peelings you have in a large pan of cold water with some roughly chopped celery stalks, carrots, leeks and halved onions.
   
   
2. Bring to a boil and allow to simmer for 40 minutes.
   
   
3. Towards the end season with salt, bay leaf, allspice berries, nutmeg, cloves and black pepper. Allow to simmer a few more minutes.
   
   
4. Set aside to chill and then refrigerate if you plan to use it later.
   
   
5. If you are planning on making some bechamel immediately, keep it hot, as it is the roux that needs to be chilled.

Shrimp stock recipe

Duck magret salad recipe (Salade de magret de canard)

If I have to choose between travelling to Israel and eating a salad made from ducks force-fed on corn, I go for the latter. Defo much less cruelty supported.

1. Pat a magret dry and wallow it in a mix of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
   
   
2. Heat a frying pan on medium high heat
   

Feteer meshaltet egyptian puff pastry

Khao Sarn Thai restaurant@Brixton, London (review)

This year was the year of Brixton's avalanche-like gentrification. The ruNice restaurants and even a barber shop for white peeps have sprouted all over like mushrooms after rain. I reckon we have a few years to relish the bliss of the BoBo (bourgeois-bohemien) limbo before the 'yuppie suits' cotton on this and make this a new Chelsea, Clapham. The once grimy and forlorn Brixton Market is now teeming with 20 and 30-somethings hanging out in organic bakeries, ethnic restaurants and sunlit terraces.

One of such cool hangouts is Khao Sarn. Having lived 6 years in Bangkok, I'm very wary of Thai restaurants outside Thailand. Now this one I can recommend. If this was French outfit, it would be a brasserie: it churns out classic (some may say "same ole") Thai dishes consistent quality at reasonable prices.

We had a correctly cooked and served, with lime and green onions, phad Thai (somewhat on the smallish side) and the Isarn staple: grilled chicken leg with sticky rice and somtam (papaya salad).

Pumpkin soup recipe

or those of you who don't want life to be simple, or just hate pre-processed canned supermarket food, or perhaps your gums have just been operated on here a pumpkin soup recipe.

1. Peel a pumpkin and cut into half-an-inch slices.
2. Sprinkle with olive oil and bake in the oven at 160 degrees until soft.
3. In the meantime, peel, slice and caramelise an onion in a pan with a tad of olive oil. Season with a pinch of curry powder if you feel that way inclined. (You can skip the onion altogether if it's too much trouble!)
   
4. Leave the pumpkin and onion to cool a bit, then purée in a kitchen processor.
5. Move to a pan, add cream, sea salt and bring to a gentle simmer.
6. Remove from fire and add either cinnamon or nutmeg.
   
7. Serve garnished with croutons, freshly ground black pepper, fresh sage and crushed walnuts.
   

Feijão do Luis@Brixton london review

here used to be a permanently empty Nigerian caff a new Brazilian joint is plying a busy trade on top of a Brazilian butcher shop. I bought from them some linguica de porco (pork sausage) quite a while ago and it turned out very flavourful, if a tad salty.

But for the restaurant I was waiting for Floyd to come to London, knowing how much he loves all things Brazilian.

• Coração de Galinha - chicken hearts stewed tender
• Feijoada Completa - smokey and clearly home-made (the menu claims it takes 24 hours to cook, it does taste like that, smooth and silky)
• Picanha Grelhada - the piece of beef cut called "butcher's cut",
  

The interior may be very caffish but what matters is that the food tastes like made just for you.

Feijão do Luis
Brazilian Point
Market Row Brixton
London SW9 8LD

The easiest pasta recipe ever: la ricetta della pasta più facile

his recipe comes from my Milano friend Luisa. Molto grazie, la principessa mia!

1. Boil pasta to your prefered degree of doneness.
2. Toast sliced garlic in olive oil and pour over the pasta.
3. Optional: garnish with chopped parsley, grated hard cheese (parmiggiano or extra mature cheddar), freshly ground black pepper and smoked sprats.

Givry Le Bois Chevaux Grand Cru vs. La Casita: Emperor's new clothes

he two bottles on the picture could not have come to me via more different routes. The left, Givry Le Bois Chevaux Grand Cru - from a bloomingly swell party in the City. No surprise, its estimated market value is around 50 quid.

The right one, the humble Spanish La Casita in a plastic bottle - from bmi's Cairo flight, economy class.

I was planning on quaffing the former for dinner and use the latter to deglaze a steak. In reality, it was the reverse that came to pass. The Givry turned out to taste like a very tannic Beaujolais Nouveau would have (cringe!), while La Casita proved very quaffable, if unpretentious, indeed.

What a case to demonstrate that most of human consumption is symbolic!

Patatas bravas: improved Spanish recipe

antasies can sometimes be better than real life. It happens to me very often that I come up with a better recipe than the original one when trying to recreate dishes I have tried (like my impoved jeyuk bokkeum) and especially those I never have.

I remember skimming through the Eyewitness Spain Guidebook before my first trip to Spain. The colourful page dedicated to "flavours fo Spain" got my attention for a while. Patatas bravas was described as potatoes in a tangy tomato sauce with parlsey and white wine. Wow, that description alone got my creative and stomach juices flowing.

Little knowing that in reality they are miserly French fries drizzled with bottled chili sauce, I got down to figuring out the recipe. Here is the fruit of my imagination that beats the orignal version hands down with a huge spiked stick.

1. Sauté sliced garlic and red onions in olive oil until golden brown.
2. Add chopped tomatoes with juice, one finely chopped chili pepper and a glug of white wine.
3. Mix well and allow to simmer until the smell of alcohol evaporates.
4. In the meantime, slice potatoes Pont-Neuf style (thicker and chunkier than usual) and cook in the microwave (or oven if you got time for that!) until almost ready with just a wee bit of crunch left.
5. Fold the potatoes into the tomatoes and leave to soak in the juices.
6. Serve with chopped parsley, freshly ground black pepper and grated extra mature cheddar or parmiggiano.

P.S. 01/09/2014 I just realised I actually re-invented a recipe for Arab batata kharra absolutely independently. Wow. Kudos to me.

Patatas Bravas: an improved recipe

Seafood bechamel pasta spaghetti recipe

his lovely recipe is a guilty pleasure: it involves a generous slab of butter and a whole glass of double cream. Without those, its trademark unctuously velvety texture is simply not achievable. Every time I think of cooking it, I have to remind myself of Nigella's maxim: "There's no good kitchen without butter!" Amen, sister!

1. First of all, for roux blonde, the base of the sauce: melt about 100g of butter in a moderately heated pan. Splashing a little bit of water beforehand helps keep the butter from burning. When it starts sizzling, carefully scoop out the froth and gently whisk in 2 tbsp of cassava flour and 1 tbsp of maize starch. I can hear the thuds of portly French chefs fainting on the floor, but yes, not your wheat flour, but good African cassava flour and maize starch. That's how you make bechamel light and fluffy like whipped cream. Stir the mix with a whisker until there are no lumps in sight. Keep stirring until the roux is a lovely golden colour, remove the pan from the fire and leave to cool. I immerse the pan in water for quicker results.
   


2. In the meantime, bring a large pan with a lot water to a boil. Mind and add some salt until the water is pleasantly salty: the taste of the pasta will depend on that. Cook your favourite pasta to your liking. I cook mine just one notch beyond al dente.
   


3. Bring to a boil two glasses of cream. I use double cream - "après nous, le deluge!"If you have proper seafood stock, it's your call now, make sure to use it hot! Fold the boiling cream and the stock if used into the by now cool and nice roux and bring to a simmer on a low fire while constantly stirring with a whisk, making sure there not a wee lump left. Add half a glass of dry white wine, some cloves, freshly grated nutmeg, freshly ground black pepper and some bay leaf to taste. Leave to gently bubble away for about 20 minutes. Add your choice seafood and small bits of filleted fish. Keep on fire for another few minutes. Take care not to overcook!
   

This time I served it on spinach spaghettoni (extra long spaghetti).

Hare & Tortoise@Bloomsbury, London (review)

his month my stereotypes have taken a nice battering. Another blow was was delivered just yesterday to my prejudice against chain restaurants, particularly peddling the so-called "pan-Asian cuisine" (although the toe-twirlingly atrocious N1 Kitchin@King's Cross may be the actual reason why king is cross!). It is hard enough to quality-control a decent Thai or Japanese menu, with all the fresh ingredients and tricky cooking timings. Juggling the gastronomy of the entire Pacific Rim on your kitchen counter is a super-human task. And to do it persuasively across a range of branches? Hmm, I doubt that really seriously.

I would have never made it to Hare & Tortoise but for my fellow anthropologist Patrizia. I would hardly trust anyone to drag me to a "cheap Asian resto for some nice grub" but her. She's extremely fastidious about food and that is just one small dot of the vast common ground that we share.

The place is immensely popular: it took us half an hour of queuing to finally plop around our table and get down to ordering. We shared a salmon box (sushi/sashimi set, £9.50): very fresh neta (fish toppings), expertly prepared rice with just the right degree of sourishness and chewiness and impeccable presentation featuring faux lacquerware and a shiso leaf.

My Singaporean curry laksa (£6.75) was a sumptuous bowl so huge it never seemed to end. It instantly transported me into the sultry streets of the self-proclaimed culinary capital of Asia, infused with aromas of freshly cooked food. Nice touches included delicately sliced chicken breast, cooked-just-right shrimp and squid, slices of toasted garlic and a lingering kaffir lime leaf. Apprently cooked from scratch, with no typical silly substitutes for true South-East Asian ingredients, it made for a deeply satisfying dinner.

Pro's: Highly consistent quality and authenticity.
Con's: Queues and noise around lunch and dinner time, the price of popularity. Cramped seating.
In a nutshell: Great value for your money with no quality compromise.

Hare & Tortoise
11-13 The Brunswick
London WC1N 1AF

Sen Viet Vietnamese restaurant London review

en Viet - a Vietnamese restaurant in London's King's Cross area is by far the best value place to gorge on Vietnamese poetry in food. My peeps from the Japanese Anthropology department hipped me to it and I trust those folks' taste buds (almost) like mine!

Between the three of us we had (it actually looked much more appetizing than Sarah's mobile could capture!):

• Caramel Pork Spring Rolls - a delicious variety of lovely textures wrapped in rice paper;
• Beef Rolls on Garlic Cloves: paper thin sheets of most tender and juicy beef wrapped around garlic cloves and grilled, served on a bed of salad with a zingy dressing;
• Catfish Stew - turned out the piece de resistance of our dinner, full of black pepper, ginger and chilli flavours, it stole the show from the rest of the dishes, which is itself was quite a feat;
• Duck Curry - unctuous and perfectly balanced to complement duck's gamey flavour, the only other good way to cook duck apart from Peking duck (kao ya)
• Rice - the plain steamed variety, as good as you expect it to be;
• Vermicelli - plain rice noodles to soak up all the nice juices;
• Baguette - very good for that purpose too, although I had crunchier and fluffier in France.

That set us back mere 31 pounds + tip -- very well deserved as the service is on par with Cathay Pacific's business class. The place has just opened since a month or so ago, it's squeaky clean, nicely appointed in your classic London hip urban style, although the exterior does not give that away at all. They also have a 10% student discount - no need to show an ID, just mere saying "SOAS" does the trick.

Sen Viet Vietnamese Restaurant
119 King's Cross Road, London
WC1X 9NH

Beirut Express: great dinner for under 10 quid in London

remember what a major letdown was Time Out's Cheap Eats in London guidebook: a random list of fast food grease joints and places that cost 15-20 pounds a pop. Since then I discovered that London is, indeed, chock-a-block with places where you can eat very well under a tenner and they crop up in most unexpected places.

Take Beirut Express: it looks like your common-and-garden urban caff, if decorated in a distinct Levantine style of 80s marble and nickel surfaces. The only giveaway that you can also feed your face here, are two giant kebab "elephant legs" slowly swivelling in the corner. Luckily, I know that they have way better stuff up their sleeve. Check their menu and you will see the classic Middle Eastern lineup of starters, grilled meats and sweets.

Last time I went there with a Japanese girl friend who does not eat much anyway, it took us close to three hours to finish the gigantic platters of starters (meze) and mixed grilled meats (meshawi). This time around there were three of us to feed on those and that filled us up for the rest of the day.

As it goes with Levantine food, the variety is limited and repeated time after time again, but everything you get is utterly fresh and cooked to perfection.

Make sure to try their jellab drink - rose-flavoured date juice, intensely fragrant and sweet.

Pro's: Superlative Lebanese grub. Friendly service. Big portions. Affordable.
Con's: Tables next to the entrance are a tad drafty.
In a nutshell: Levantine cuisine at its usual best.

Beirut Express 112-114 Edgware Road London W2 2 DZ


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Je vous remerci pour notre pain quotidienne: springbok steaks & cresson veloute

The mind boggles just thinking about how far our food travels. For a few pieces of meat to come from South Africa to London and then end up on a dinner table in Amsterdam, we must be forever grateful for being able to enjoy such luxury.

Knowing that Floyd would hardly have juniper berries in his cupboard, I brought those from London too. They are the best to make sauce for probably any kind of game meat.

The cresson veloute is my homage to the wonderful family of French soups so rarelyy cooked outside La Belle France (from my experience an

Billingsgate Market: London's freshest

o say that I am crap in the morning is to say nothing. All too oft, it takes about two hours for a huge mug of coffee, a handful of Chinese herbal pills, a round of Kundalini breathing exercises, an invigorating contrast shower and upbeat music throughout the commute to yank me out of lethargy into some semblance of functioning humanity.

It sure takes a promise of something really special to get me up at 3AM and drag my vehemently uncooperative body across dark and cold London. This time it was the perspective of a sightseeing session that worked the miracle. My group mate Tom used to work for an Italian restaurant and Billingsgate Market is where they used to buy fresh pesci spada and gambas and he promised us a tour. Nice.

Being the wholesale fish and seafood market of the capital of the country that has only recently started shedding its ichthyophobia, Billingsgate is sure not Tokyo's Tsukiji Market. A lot of the produce that will later be featured on the menus as "fresh catch of the day" is in fact hauled in refrigerator trucks. Well, how else then would you ship anything fresh from the tropical expanses of the Indian Ocean to a cloudy island in the North Sea?

At any rate, the choice is incomparably larger than the pathetic hike and pollock of my childhood's fish shops. The high turnover makes sure that the gifts of the sea are affordable to the gluttonous masses in the Big Smoke.

Speaking of prices, they are not that much lower than at my Brixton Market fishmongers, so a couple of quid difference is definitely not worth the tribulations of an hour-and-half night bus trip.

A lot can be said by the food cooked in the market. Grilled seafood in Barcelona's La Boqueria Market was superlative. The only ocean-derived item we found in Billingsgate Market's café was this grilled scallop bagel with bacon and cheese. It tasted just the way it looked.

Ottomanic fiasco: Bazar @ Amsterdam

aaw, I should have known the moment I entered the place: the dim lights, the exotic crockery, the "world cuisines" menu, and a sure giveaway: packed to the rafters with under-35 Dutch yuppies. The daily dining out lifestyle is making quick in-roads into the Dutch psyche, particularly catching on among the above mentioned demographics. A dinner out does not need a special excuse any more, it is just a matter of convenience as well as enjoyment.

But what is there to be enjoyed remains to be agreed upon. In Amsterdam it seems to be candles and cosy interiors over the food served every time. The dim lighting masques the content of the plates and the designer furniture makes the restaurant a sort of extension of your living room perfect for pursuing the Dutch national ideal of gezelligheid (conviviality in a warm,cosy and preferably dimly lit milieu).

Bazar on Albert Cuypstraat got it all covered: there is just enough light to read the menu, the plates and cutlery are exuberantly picturesque and candles are sticking out of all imaginable places.

Although it claims to be a wereldeethuis - a restaurant of world cuisines, the food is mostly Turkish, on the level of your average dinner in Turkey - never bad enough to be sent back to the kitchen, but always making you long for the moment when you finally got it over with your dinner. Like I wrote earlier, I have had much better Turkish food outside Turkey than in the country itself.
These icecream-like balls are Irfan’s starter (€10.50):

• zaalouk, -the best of the bunch, a kind of cold Moroccan ratatouille;
• humuz - aka hommous, flat as a used condom;
• haydari, aka suzme - plain strained yoghurt without a whiff of herbs;
• sarma - aka dolma, stuffed grape leaves, as forgettable as they always are;
• peynir ezme - a spicy-ish feta-cheese spread that acquires its pungent taste and lively light orange colour from the biber salçası pepper paste - served in one big blob, it just was too rich to have allure;
• sigara böregi - filo pastry stuffed with cheese, a good solid B;
• pide - very underwhelming, considered that the only people that could possible beat Turks to making bread are the French. You can get better in any Turkish bakery in Amsterdam any day, and aren't reataurants supposed to be better and more special than our daily home-made meals?

The attractively served on a huge colourful bowl Bizar Bazar (€29) was a meat platter consisting of a mixed grill kebab, that had apparently never been in the vicinity of either charcoal nor grill, most likely just hot plates:

• very chewy pieces of mutton disguised as lamb, ingenuously spiced up with salt;
• pieces of dry and bland chicken breast,
• pieces of even dryer and blander turkey breast,
• pieces of rather passable spicy chicken sausage
• interspersed with pieces of onions, bell peppers and aubergines

as well as

• lamb stew with almonds (and SALT!) à la Persienne - way too conspicuously cooked well in advance;
• fried chicken, tasting suspiciously like frozen "spicy chicken wings" from your local discount supermarket (I once did go through that traumatic experience!)
• two long and raw green bell peppers;
• a mound of rather nice rice;
• a bowl of semi-retired tabbouleh, chopped parsley with bulgur and tomato bits;
• a bowl of bizarrely tough pickles, think slices of wood,softened by immersing in vinegar;
• and a handful of soft and anaemic French fries.

Big beers were in fact half-pints, the service - friendly, yet very unhurried. We were relieved when the dinner was over and we could go home. Wouldn't any comment be superfluous?

Pro's: Beautiful plates and wall tiles.
Con's: Utterly bland uninspiring food. Snail-speed service.
In a nutshell: Bleh. You won't see us again.

Juniper sauce: on top of the game

There is nothing like the resiny bouquet of juniper sauce to complement the rich flavour of game. When served on top of reindeer steaks, it reminds me of my childhood in Arctic Russia where we had both reindeer and juniper, but no one was sophisticated enough to combine the two in one dish.

That does not stop me from enjoying this lovely combination now. It sounds fancy but in fact is very easy to whip up.

Once you've fried your game steaks or what you have (I use clarified butter for that), leave the juices on the pan, add a tablespoonful of juniper berries, a liberal dash of freshly ground black pepper and half a glass of red wine. Reduce it on low fire until trickly. Serve your game meat with the sauce on top and two sides: one starchy (e.g. baked potatoes) and one crunchy (e.g., steamed haricot beans). A green salad with a simple Italian dressing can be good but this time I served a veloute with grilled parmigiano bread.