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