Spicy daikon-oroshi salad

1. Grate daikon (mooli) and heap up on a small platter.
2. For the dressing: mix dry chilli flakes,  garlic powder, fish sauce, soya sauce,  Chunking vinegar, chopped scallions, and toasted sesame oil.
3. Tip the dressing on the daikon heap. Serve.

Pisto manchego (the best recipe)

The most satisfying recipe for that simple and hearty Manchego farmer treat, the pisto.

1.  Sautee  crushed garlic in olive oil.
2. Add chopped onions, red bell peppers and tomatoes.
3. Season with salt, black and red pepper.
4. Serve on top of slices rustic bread, topped with fried bacon dices and fried egg.

Roasted fennel with yoghurt dip

1.  Cut a fennel bulb lenghtwise in four and baste with some olive oil.
   
2. Heat a ribbed skillet and slowly fry the fennel on both sides.
   
3. In the meantime, crush three cloves of garlic, mix with a few tablespoonfuls of full-fat Turkish yoghurt, and season with black pepper, salt or fish sauce, and a generous amount of chopped mint or parsley.
   
   
4. Serve as the main for lunch, a starter for dinner, or an entry for a tapas feast.

Clams, spinach and butternut squash soup recipe

  nspired by Korean jogae-tang clam soup, I made a few adjustments with some fantabulous results. 

1. Slow-fry some crushed garlic in some groundnut oil until golden.
   
2. Add clams, diced butternut squash, sprinkle with some fish sauce and fry a little.
   
3. Add water and bring to a simmer.
   
4. When all clams have opened, add roughly chopped spinach and simmer a little more.
   
5. Season with black pepper and fish sauce.

Lietuva salad - the latest in culinary nationalism

henever I try to cook Russian, my uncertain memories of what it should taste like tend to mix with the mishmash layers of culinary influences I have accumulated through the decades of living away from my erstwhile mothership. I don’t even know if any Russian actually eats it but for me this particular salad contains all the edible staples of Russianness so many are busy resurrecting these days: turnips, carrots, linen seed.

Ironically, it goes by the name of Lietuva salad because it also happens to be of the same colours as the Lithuanian flag. In fact, I am planning on suggesting the Lithuanian embassy here to adopt it as their national dish, kind of like Colombians did with their bandeja paisa.

 

Since I started my 5:2 regimen half year ago I find myself making it every now and then. First of all, it is super easy to make. Then it does contain both a modest quantity of easily digestible calories as well as a lot of crude fibre to help stave off hunger on my fast days. And, last but not least, it does taste mighty good, especially considering the bare minimum of the effort and cost it requires.

So here how it goes:

1. Grate some turnip and a couple of carrots.
2. Chop some parsley
3. Add some linen seed, a sprinkle of fleur de sel and a dash of pumpkin seed oil.
4. Mix vigorously by hand squeezing the juices.
5. Serve with a piece of rye bread.

Pkhali - Georgian answer to hommous (ფხალი)

 

hiz together in a blender:

1. A can of red beans (although my Mom would also use nearly anything veggie-like: boiled cabbage leaves, freshly boiled spinach, cooked beet roots, fried aubergines, etc.)
2. A handful of walnuts.
3. 1-3 cloves of garlic.
4. Half a handful of coarsely chopped parsley or coriander leaves.
5. A glug of olive oil.
6. Some salt (as I do, I use fish sauce)
7. A generous sprinkle of khmeli-suneli (ხმელი სუნელი), an indispensable Georgian mix of dried herbs, which is best made at home as supermarket versions are invariably inferior. Simply mix equal shares of dried mint, basil, marjoram, parsley, oregano as well as bay leaf powder, ground coriander seeds and black pepper. If you can get hold of dried hyssop and fenugreek leaves, by all means add those too.

Spread some on grilled bread and decorate with a sprinkle of pomegranate sauce (sold in Turkish shops as nar ekşisi) and finely chopped coriander leaves.

How to improve hommous

 am not that dedicated to make hommous from scratch. However, the supermarket variety is just too dull and basic, the price of becoming Britain's favourite cupboard commodity.

A few add-ons I came up with never fail to land me adoration from my lunch/dinner guests. I am going to share my little secrets with you today. This is what I add to hummus to give it the extra zing-boom-bang:

• 1 tbsp of za'atar (Levantine thyme)
  
• a dash of Persian lime powder (failing that, lime juice)
• a glug of extra vrigin olive oil
• a sprinkle of garlic powder
• a wee tad of fish sauce for the naturally occurring MSG.

The quantities indicated are not precise because you need to arrage everything to your own heart's content. Good luck!

Clams stir-fried with garlic, coriander and white wine

y cooking is very often an elaborate 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. Crushed and sautée 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. 

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.  

 

Stale bread pudding recipe

Baking has always been exclusively my parents' remit. My Mum churns out pies, buns, cakes and the like on a nearly daily basis and even my very male supremacist Dad is highly apt at making that king of doughs, leavened one.

I only have started baking recently, inspired by Nigella's voluptuous poetics in her How To Become a Domestic Goddess. This recipe is a slight improvement on her "pudding made from rich man's leftovers".

Beat 2 eggs, a generous glug of rhum, 250 ml double cream and 3 tbsp demerara sugar. Fold in half a chopped stale baguette and let soak for half an hour. Mix in a handful of raspberries and a handful of black chocolate chips. Put in a buttered porcelain tray, sprinkle with a little demerara sugar and bake 40 min at 170 degrees.

Serve on your boyfriend's bubble butt.

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.

Las Iguanas: how cheaper can you go?

e all know that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. But make Kirill your friend and you will be introduced into the world of fine dining on a shoe-string. And that means exactly that: not eating cheap trash for next to peanuts, but having nice nosh in fancy places for a pittance.

Today we went to Las Iguanas in Soho for this very lovely lunch, all cooked to perfection:

• sopa de calabaza: mildly spicy and suprebly creamy butternut squash and coconut soup with a dollop of sour cream; the promised fresh coriander and stripes of corn bread were missing;
  
• chicken quesadilla: tortilla stuffed with spicy chicken breast, onions, peppers, cheese and salsa ;
  
• pasteles: a bit of misnomer, but this Chilean slow-braised lamb with raisin topped with creamed sweetcorn peculiarly explained in the menu as "a sort of cottage pie" is utterly delish!
• sweet potato fishcakes: flaked white fish and crayfish in corn crumbs served with aïoli;
• curly patatas fritas and salad, well lettuce doused with red wine vinegar, really.
  

Now for the bill: £8,87 for two, including tax and tip. Now you too want Kirill for a friend, don't you?

Pro's: You can't beat this price, can you? All entries can be ordered gluten-free.
Con's: Without Kirill's know-how, this place will cost you a pretty penny. Most mains are in the 12-15-quid ballpark.
In a nutshell: Perhaps the best to discover the greatness of South American cuisine outside South America.

Puttanesca africana: global fusion cuisine

uite unbeknownst to me, my cooking patterns have evolved to embrace a most spectacular variety of world cuisines - all too oft mixed in a single dish. I realised that when fixing my spaghetti lunch today. As I sautéed garlic and onions in olive oil for puttanesca, I added Thai anchovies and, in lieu of old boring salt, Vietnamese fish sauce - it gives food a more pronounced, deeper flavour. Then I mixed in a pinch of finely chopped Nigerian peppers, which made me think of an Italian puttana feeling sore after a night of heavy African sailor loving: when used in moderation, the peppers leave exactly that pleasantly burning sensation in your bodily orifices as a lot of sexual rubbing does. They also give that drool-invoking savoury flavour so prized in Africa and the Caribbean.

Freshly picked basil leaves and a few shavings of hard cheese felt just right with this intense salty-spicy sauce.

The recipe:

1. Peel and finely chop three red onions and half a head of garlic.
2. Heat a frying pan well, pour a generous glug of olive oil and grind some black pepper into it.
3. When the pepper starts giving out a flavor, add first the garlic and then 10-12 dried Thai anchovies. When both golden brown, add the onions, sauté until all golden brown, then add a pinch of finely chopped Nigerian peppers and fish sauce to taste.
4. Tip a tin of chopped tomatoes and half a cup of red wine and mix well.
5. Allow to simmer on a very low fire for 10-15 minutes.
6. Serve with fresh herbs - parsley, sage, thyme or basil - and a few shavings of mature cheese.

A dash of chlorophyll: spinach stir-fry with oyster sauce

e all need some chlorophyll, the energy-absorbing pigment responsible for the green colour of leaves, to keep us running. Even British scientists, who are mostly busy with using grants on utterly useless projects, concur that regular consumption of green veggies is beneficial to human health. It won't help us with photosynthesis though.

Spinach is said to contain tons of chlorophyll, well at least about 300-600 mg per ounce. Besides, it tastes fab when cooked according to my favourite recipe.

1. As the actual cooking time is very short and not overcooking is essential, first of all do what the Japanese call shita-goshirae: base preparations. Peel and chop or finely slice a few garlic cloves. Wash and cut a tomato. Wash well and shake dry abig bunch of fresh spinach leaves. Optional: de-seed and chop a chilli pepper.
   
2. Heat a little odourless sunflower oil in a wok or pan on high fire.
3. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and chilli, fry until the garlic is golden brown.
4. Add the tomato and then shortly after that the spinach. Stir well.
   
5. Reduce heat and add fish sauce and oyster sauce to taste. Remove from fire when the spinach is slightly crunchy.
   

Serve as a side dish or as main dish with steamed rice.

Simplicity revisited: grilled portobello mushrooms with crème fraîche and oyster sauce on a bed of caramelised onions

ive me simplicity any time. Even more so when it comes to food. This is one of my fave lunch sandwiches: portobello mushrooms grilled with crème fraîche and oyster sauce served on a bed of caramelised onions and ciabatta. Haha, I gotcha there! Well, in fact, it is way easier than it sounds, does not cost much and is a cinch to prepare.

Here how it goes:

1. Slice finely two onions. Fry slowly with some olive oil, coarsely ground black pepper, sea salt and dry herbs of your choice until golden brown. This process caramelises the natural sugars in onions bringing out their natural sweetness. If you have fish sauce, use it instead of salt.
2. Mix well crème fraîche with a hearty glug of dry white wine and, how can you do without it, coarsely ground black pepper. Season with fish sauce.
3. Remove the stems from portobello mushrooms, put the caps upside down and fill them with the crème fraîche mix. Put them on an well oiled oven tray.

Bake the mushrooms in the oven at 180 degrees until the crème fraîche looks nice and brown (about 12-15 min).

Cut a ciabatta or a baguette in two, top it with the fried onions, grilled portobellos and chopped parsley or ruccola.

This recipe was inspired by the traditional Russian way of stir-frying wild mushrooms with onions and serving them with sour cream. Fish sauce is a harkback to my Asian days and ciabatta is a tribute to my love affair with all things Mediterranean.

Kipper: the original red herring

raditional English food is straightforward and quick to cook. Whether it is down to Protestantism or the busy rhythm of industrial society, I don't know. I first heard the word kipper in the famous episode of Fawlty Towers. It took 15 years before I got around to tasting it. Kipper is a herring, which, in a traditional bout of Northern European ichthyophobia , has been split from tail to head, gutted, salted, and cold smoked. As if that is not enough, the traditional recipe requires grilling it.

Although every effort seems to have been made to thrash the last whiff of the sea, the final product tastes rather nice. Before grilling, I sprinkle it with freshly ground black pepper and put a knob or butter on top. It comes out a delicious dark tan colour.

How to make mayonnaise

ayonnaise is easily Russia's national dressing. Although often derided as fatty and unhealthy, in Russia it outsells every other type of commercial condiment including ketchup: the Guinness Book of Records insists that the Russian city of Ekaterinburg is world's leader in mayonnaise consumption.
A Ekaterinburg-native friend of mine told me that when back in the 90s Russian factory workers tried to mess with the newly imported Italian mayonnaise-making machinery by using less expensive ingredients and more water, it would stop working. According to him, that's why Eketarinburgers have been enjoying properly manufactured mayo ever since.
It is somewhat ironic that the jarred variety with all the creepy chemical additives, very likely substandard eggs, inexplicably added sugar and excess of salt is so popular despite mayonnaise being one of the simplest and cheapest sauces to make at home. It takes just about 5 minutes to whip up a bowl of mayonnaise. Here how it goes:

1. Mix well one very fresh egg yolk (I buy biodynamic free-range organic eggs from Orchard eggs) with a tablespoonful Dijon mustard. Both need to be room temperature.
   
2. Add little by little one glass of your favourite vegetable oil while whisking vigorously making sure that all oil is incorporated in the mixture before adding any more. Only use up to 30% of olive oil as it tends to make your mayonnaise taste bitter.
   
3. Now for the flavouring. Mix one tablespoonful aceto balsamico bianco, some finely ground sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, and whisk the mixture in. That said, I use Thai fish sauce instead of salt for the extra kick and add crushed garlic to make aioli. You can also add finely chopped estragon, anchovies, etc. - let your imagination run free!
   
4. In case your mayo comes out too thick, whisk in a tablespoonful of water.

Congee: Asian breakfast gruel (粥/おかゆ)

ice with seaweed and egg?" Marina flinches back, half in astonishment, half in politely hidden disgust. This lovely Russian girl is displaying surefire symptoms of an early gastritis, so I have made her congee or okayu （おかゆ） - a watery rice gruel reinforced with a beaten egg and some shredded kelp for nutrition. This is what is given to children and sick people in Pacific Rim Asia from Japan to Indonesia. But for Marina this is a sacrilege. The Russian rice kasha she is more used to is made with milk, sugar and butter, a far cry from my low-calorie savoury concoction.

Variations of this breakfast gruel are encountered wherever rice is a dietary staple. It is more on the watery side in China, flavoured with fish sauce in Thailand, rather bland in Korea, made with coconut milk in South India. In  Singapore I had it with frog meat, in Hong Kong with a thousand-year egg. The recipe below features in my breakfast at least a couple of times every week.
So here how it goes.

1. Rinse a handful of rice in running water. Add half a handful of shredded kombu, whatever dried mushrooms you have (torn in small pieces) and 6-8 cups of water. If you have some cooked rice leftovers, use those without rinsing.
   
   
2. Bring the pot to a boil, reduce fire and simmer until it reaches the porridge texture.
   
3. Add a beaten egg and a handful of green leafy vegetables.
   
4. Once cooked, flavour with fish sauce or shoyu,  garlic powder and finely chopped ginger.

Jjam-bong: udon, Korean style (매운우동)

Long before people in Korea and Japan started calling themselves Korean and Japanese, people in Nagasaki and Pusan knew that culturally they had more in common with each other than with their respective political capitals in Edo (Tokyo) and Seoul. One of the things they shared was this dish, jjambong or champon. It is served as soup that comes in a multitude of flavours and accompanying goodies.

I fix it the Korean way. It takes exactly 15 minutes and costs under 1 quid to fix a flavourful, healthy and delicious lunch. This is how it goes.

1. Slice thinly a couple of pre-soaked shiitake. I normally keep some soaked shiitake in the fridge so that I always have it handy. Feel free to follow my suit.
2. Next thing is to soak black kikurage, white kikurage and golden needles 20 g each in water for at least 20 minutes. I f you can't get hold of those, just skip this step.
   
3. Then peel and slice a few cloves of garlic.
4. Heat a frying pan, add 1 tbsp odourless vegetable oil. Sprinkle some black and white sesame (third a teaspoonful each), wait until it starts sizzling.
   
5. Fry the garlic in the pan until fragrant (light yellow in colour), then add 3 very finely sliced medium onions. When those are nice and fragrant too, add the sliced shiitake. Fry until the mushrooms are fragrant too.
   
6. In the meantime, bring to boil exactly how much water you need for your udon. I use the bowl you can see on the picture as the measure.
7. When the water boils, add one pack of udon. Bring to boil again, reduce the heat and simmer for a couple of minutes.
   
8. Tip the frying pan into the sauce pan and add the kikurage, golden needles, and half a handful of whatever leafy vegetables you have: spinach, pakchoi, kangkong, Chinese broccoli. Dissolve 1 tbsp gochujang in the broth. You will need to find this delicious chilli paste as it is defines the taste of the whole dish.
   
9. Let boil for a minute or so. Mind that the udon does not get overdone, it should be cooked just one notch beyond al dente.
10. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped spring onions.

This spicy dish, also known as jjam-bong (짬뽕) if cooked with thinner noodles, when consumed regularly is known to boost your sexual drive.

Chazuke: making use of yesterday's rice (お茶漬け)

very national cuisine has great ways to deal with yesterday's leftovers. In Italy they top pizza, the British "devil" them, in Japan cold rice is made into a flavourful breakfast called chazuke, or to sound daintier, o-chazuke.

It is a simple dish: pour some green tea into a bowl with cold rice and sprinkle it with a few condiments. Cha stands for "tea" and zuke for "submerged". Kind of makes sense, innit. Depending on the region or individual preferences it can be anything:

• tsukemono pickles;
  
• salted plum umeboshi;
  
• nori (seaweed);
  
• furikake (savoury rice sprinkle);
  
• roasted sesame seeds;
  
• tarako (鱈子) (salted cod roe);
  
• mentaiko (明太子) (marinated pollock roe);
  
• salted salmon;
  
• shiokara (pickled seafood);
• nozawana (野沢菜) vegetable;
• and, last but not least, wasabi.

However, the Japanese made it even easier: most chazuke these days is instant. That is, all it takes is to open a pack.