Stewed octopus recipe: χταπόδι στιφάδο, jazzed up a tad

Greek recipes are nearly always straightforward, relying on the quality of ingredients to achieve the desired oomph. Even the notoriously difficult to get the knack of avgolemono requires skill rather than any convoluted kitchen gymnastics - and, of course, locally grown organic produce that in Greece is known simply as food. That's, perhaps, why it's so hard to achieve that gobsmacking level of meals so common in Greece when cooking Greek elsewhere.

So I decided to commit a sacrilege and spritz up the good ole octopus stifado with just a couple of very modest innovations. It has proven a major success when I made it for dinner in our vacation house in Lanzarote.

So here are the cooking instructions:

1. Warm up a very generous glug of olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan. Add the spices you are planning to use to infuse the oil with their essential oils. This time I used adobo canario, to pay homage to the host land.

2. Sautee one and a half heads of garlic until golden brown, then add three finely sliced red onions. Sautee until golden brown.

3. Add one gutted, cleaned and chopped up octopus (about 1 kg weight) as well as one and half heads of garlic broken down in cloves but unpeeled. Turn down the heat and stew until tender. Takes about an hour.

4. Add 700-800 g of chopped tomatoes, salt and ground pepper to taste. Stew 10-15 more minutes.

5. Serve with papas arrugadas - potatoes boiled in skin with lots of salt (or even better n sea water) until they get all wrinkly.

Mole con chocolate y chipotle: Mexican chocolate and chipotle stew recipe

I am not entirely sure how I came up with this. I knew of the chocolate stew, the concept pops up here and there in Mexican cookbooks and food blogs. But then when it came down to cooking it, adding the tangy, smoky pepper known as chipotle, just seemed like the most natural thing to do. After all, both are Mexico's gifts to the world. My gut did not lie. The stew came out luscious and scrumptious, definitely chocolatey, yet savoury and spicy.

So here goes the recipe:

1. Briefly marinate bite-size chunks of organic free-range beef in freshly ground black pepper and fish sauce. Pat the beef dry with kitchen rolls and fry in a cast-iron pot with a bit of oil. Do it in batches, if necessary, to make sure that the meat gets nicely browned, instead of getting steamed in its own juice. Remove to a plate once done.
   
2. Slowly sautee crushed garlic, finely chopped onions and celery in the oil until golden brown.
   
3. Add the meat, red wine to cover, bring to a boil and let simmer until tender. 
   
4. Add a nice chunk of good quality chocolate (or pure cocoa powder) and some chipotle peppers to taste, as spicy as you prefer. Let bubble away slowly for another 10-15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
   
5. Serve on top of steamed rice and beans, with red wine to wash it all down. As with all stews, it tastes better the next day, but also benefits from sitting an hour or so on the counter before being served.

Mole con chocolate y chipotle - Chocolate and chipotle beef stew recipe

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.  

 

Puy lentils and Montbeliard sausage cassoulet recipe

In the days before Napoleon III and Eugenie's with their trend-setting fancy lifestyle became the role model for the newly affluent French bourgeoisie, daily food for the majority of the French was like this: all-in-one casseroles. Chopping and cooking whatever is available on the day into something between a soup and a main course is the ultimate way to feed a big family at the end of a hard day. In France this type of dish is actually known as cassoulet or (caçolet in Occitan) and can still be found on lunch menus in bistrots and auberges, always an inexpensive entry.

For me, it is a winter comfort food that reminds me of my Mother's cooking so as the astronomical spring starts on the 20th of March, this Puy lentils and Montbeliard sausage cassoulet may be the last one I cooked this winter.

Cooking a cassoulet takes a couple of hours but you don't need to be present all the time, it's really about chopping and letting it all just simmer away as you delve into your Facebook comments.

1. Soak Puy lentils in plenty of cold water. Peel and slice a head of garlic and a few shallots.
   
2. Slowly fry the garlic and the shallots in olive oil until golden brown.
   
3. Add chopped Montbeliard (or Toulouse, or Morteau) sausages, potatoes and any root vegetables or tubers you can get hold of: carrots, parsnips, root celery, salsify, turnips, topinambour. Mix well, cover with a lid and allow to cook until half-ready, stirring occasionally.
   
4. Add the lentils and enough water to cover it all. Add bay leaf, all-spice berries and pepper.
   
5. Turn the heat to low and allow to simmer until the lentils are ready.
   
6. Salt to taste. I also use fish sauce and a smidgen of liquid smoke for the extra oomph. Serve with crunchy baguette and a glass of red.

Gaeng som cha om kai: something hot in a cold country (แกงส้มชะอมชุบไข่ทอด)

rarely cook the same dish two times back to back. With all the diversity available to us these days, it would be a shame to get stuck in a culinary rut. Moreover, my penchant for dietary diversity is in line with the little theory that I have recently developed. See, most of us eat the same stuff , week in, week out. It will be mostly what we like, what we know how to cook, or what is available in our local supermarket.

That kind of skewed pattern of food intake deprives our bodies of a multitude of nutrients. Your body, like a house, needs constant maintenance and you need as many various amino acids, polysaccharides and enzymes as possible to make sure that you keep the temple of your soul in the best possible condition.

This week the sunny and crispy cold weather in London has put me in the mood for some spicy food. The contrast between the chilly air outside and the warm, fuzzy glow of chilli peppers and ginger inside is one of the greatest carnal pleasures. I decided to whip up some gaeng som (แกงส้ม, alternative spellings: kang som, kaeng som, gang som) - spicy-and-sour Thai soup normally served with an acacia omelette. I cooked it on Sunday, to give my cold limbs a perk after a nice afternoon hang-out in Regent's Park, and then once again on Wednesday for a dear guest.

Here, in one serving, I had a most cosmopolitan congregation: mussels from New Zealand, rice from India, shrimp from Greenland, eggs from Britain, fish sauce and tamarind from Thailand, tomatoes from Italy and onions from Egypt. To paraphrase Confucius: "有菜自远方来，不亦乐乎?" ("When food comes from afar, is that not delightful?")

So here is the recipe:

Kai cha om (ไข่ทอดชะอม) (acacia omelette)

1. Take 100 g fresh cha-om (see the picture below) and pinch off the soft leaf parts and the most tender twigs. Discard the branches and stems. Watch out for the thorns!
   
2. Tear cha-om in two half-inch pieces and fold 4 fresh free-range eggs and a dab of fish sauce.
   
3. Heat a skillet, cover the bottom with a bit of vegetable oil and, when the oil is hot, tip the egg and cha-om mix.
   
4. When the omelette is ready on one side, flip it over and wait until the other side gets nicely golden brown.
   
5. When ready, remove from the fire and cut into inch-by-inch squares.

Gaeng som (แกงส้ม):

1. Peel one medium red onion, half a head of garlic, one-inch piece of ginger. Mince it all with 3-4 prik kee noo peppers in a mortar, and mix with juice of one lime, half a glass of tamarind juice, a tablespoonful of kapi (shrimp paste, crucial for the right flavour!) and a nice glug of fish sauce.
   
2. Marinate whatever you are planning to put in the soup - shrimp, shellfish or fish - for at least half an hour.
   
3. Bring 2 glasses of water to a boil, add a handful of haricot beans and a few garden eggs cut in quarters.
   
4. Add the marinating mixture (1) to the soup, simmer gently for a couple of minutes, then add a can of chopped tomatoes and the fish/shellfish.
   
5. Gently simmer for a few more minutes.

Serve gaeng som in a bowl topped with a pieces of omelette and freshly steamed rice on side.

Now for the soundtrack: Something Hot In A Cold Country by Echobelly

Marine cornucopia: assiette de fruits de mer

t is my birthday, that is why I will write about my single most favourite dish. No it is not sushi, but its European equivalent, the French assiette de fruits de mer, seafood platter.



I discovered its pleasures on my first trips to Normandy. Unlike in Holland, where I lived then, the French do not feel compelled to deep-fry every bit of taste out of fish and seafood. Half is consumed raw or blanched. No heavy sauces are used so that one can enjoy the gentle fragrance of the gifts of the deep brine.


First year I would just go to France and order it in a restaurant, granted Amsterdam is just a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the French border. As my French improved and I learnt the names of seafood I started arranging my own platters, put them on ice and take them back home. You can by a ready-made one for 20 euros on Auchan but it takes the fun out of it.

If you are too intimidated to do your groceries at a French market (I used to be), go to the poissonnier section in Auchan and pick

• a lobster,
  
• a crab,
  
• a box of oysters,
  
• then shrimp,
• bulots (whelks) and amandes (cockles, aka poor man's oyster) half a kilo each,
  
• perhaps some crevettes grises (brown shrimp) and bigourneaux (periwinkles) if you like those (I do!)

Then get some lemons, baguettes, mayonnaise and a couple bottles of Muscadet or cidre brut and you have a slap-up seafood dîner for two. Drive on to a scenic location for an additional aesthetic kick.

Jaeyuk bokkeum: spicy Korean pork stir-fry (재육볶음)

hen it is gloomy and raining outside, I like to spice up my day with hot food. For myself, I would normally whip up something quick like Thai phad phak ruam mit or Korean gochujang-flavoured udon. For guests, I go to greater lengths. When Muhabbat and Jitte came to visit me from Amsterdam, I treated them to jaeyuk bokkeum.

Jaeyuk bokkeum (재육볶음) is a Korean stir-fried pork. Basically, you marinate thinly sliced pork and vegetables, stir-fry them and serve with lettuce, seaweed, and bean sprouts.

1. Slice thinly 400 g lean pork (or veal for Jews and Muslims), 1 big carrot, 1 big onion, 6 shiitake mushrooms pre-soaked and 1 green bell pepper.
   
2. In a large bowl mix 2 tbsp gochujang (less if you are not into spicy food), 2 tbsp shoyu, 2 tbsp rice wine (dry white wine may also do), 1 tsp brown sugar, 4-5 cloves chopped garlic, 2-inch piece of ginger finely shredded, 1 tsp black sesame and 1 tsp white sesame. I also add 1 tsp kapi paste but this is not obligatory.
   
3. Mix 1 and 2 well and leave to marinate for at least 40 minutes.
   
4. Heat well a thick-bottomed cast-iron skillet. Add 1 tbsp sesame oil and fry 3 until the pork is done.
5. Serve with lettuce, seaweed, bean sprouts and freshly cooked rice.
   

Time to get cracking: American boiled lobster

obsters are the ultimate luxury food, just one notch below caviar. Or, at least, when they are served in restaurants at overinflated prices.

This day and age, however, even Lidl carries lobsters as standard fare, eight quid a pop. Seven if you wait for a sale. At the same price, it may not be as satisfying as a Tesco grilled chicken, a family-size bag of crisps and a gallon of generic Cola for dinner but, hey, there's no perfection in this world!

Frozen lobster is not exactly quite like fresh Maine lobster but it is a very good and honest approximation, especially if you consider the price difference. The Dutch in me can't help getting micro-orgasms just thinking that I pay thirty quid less for the same pleasure as some hedge fund manager in a posh Chelsea eatery. That's how socialism corrupts you.

Celebrity chefs keep coming up with more and more convoluted and far-fetched ways of cooking lobster to please the jaded gourmet but I prefer the good old American boiling. Why interfere with the sweet succulence of God's created crustacean when you only need too accentuate it with melted butter and, perhaps, some dry white wine?

The recipe? Boil, melt, crack, eat, be grateful!

P.S. In our age of luxuries becoming commodities, there is probably only one way to tell a real culinary aesthete from a casual supermarket hound. You can only claim to be true blue-blood food connoisseur, if you have the right utensils to eat fancy food in your kitchen drawer.

Moules à la marinière: can classics be improved?

ust when I thought there is no way to improve a classic, there we go I did just that!

Moules à la marinière is perhaps the most popular way to cook mussels: after all, who knows how to do it better than the fishermen (les marinières )! The basic recipe guarantees best results and seems wanting no improvement.

However, after years of sticking to the authentic recipe, I have discovered the added twist of fresh Florence fennel. It gives the molluscs a warm, faintly anisey aroma. And the fragrant broth at the bottom of the pot is to die for!

1. Wash 2 kg mussels in running water. Remove the remaining beards, if necessary.
   
2. Melt 50 g unsalted butter in a mussels pot (you can use any other type of pot but then it would be like drinking wine out of a tea mug!).
3. I give it a generous dash of freshly ground black pepper at this point for the sake of intensity but this is optional. It's just that my pleasure threshold is somewhat high, I need more stimulation.
4. As mussels are naturally salty, you will need not add any salt.
   
5. Sweat one stalk of leek, thinly sliced and half a Florence fennel, thinly sliced, with (optional) one carrot, peeled and thinly sliced .
6. Add the mussels and cook them on medium heat, stirring periodically.
7. When the mussels start opening add a cup of white wine.
8. Once all mussels are open it's time to serve!
   

Pommes frites are the traditional side dish for mussles but I never used those. It is the 21st century and we should know better than deep-fried food! I make low-fat oven-baked potato chips myself. The delish brown colour comes from a wee dab of French Caribbean liquid cane sugar, normally used for rhum-based cocktails. A sprinkle of herbes de Provence gives a herby tone, while a piece of charcoal in the oven ensures an appetizing smoky scent.

As it goes, moules frites are best accompanied by good friends and a bottle of white.

Mrs. Doubtfire's chocolate sponge: the art of frugal trickery

call this a Mrs. Doubtfire dessert. If you have no inkling about the art of patisserie you can still surprise your guests.

This principle works with almost any commercially available ready-made dessert. The principle is that anything can be improved with:

• chocolate,
• nuts,
• berries/fruit,
• alcohol.

The original product, a one-quid sponge from Lidl, which by the way does carry some better quality products than most mid-range chains, already contained chocolate. I only had to add

• some peeled pistachios,
• some pitted cherries,
• a glub rhum,
• a sprig of mint - I was in a rush so I totally forgot to add but I know you won't!
  

This way you achieve the sour-and-sweet balance, the alcohol cuts off any last trace of greasiness and the nuts add the crunch and the flavour. I have been practising this kind of trickery for about 15 years now and it never fails to impress.

Russian salmon roe sandwich (бутерброд с красной икрой)

ussians who have a very good (affluent) life are said to have "enough money to put butter and ikra on your bread". Ikra can means both salmon roe or caviar. I can't have caviar too often, but thanks to visiting friends and family I have a steady source of salmon roe. It used to be one of the most sought-after delicacies in the USSR's product deficit economy. Along with black "Volga" sedans and smoked salami, it was a status symbol of the Soviet nomenklatura. My parents did not belong to the number, so my Dad had to go to great lengths to make sure we would have some on the table at least for the New Year's. I still remember how wonderful these fishy drops of goodness tasted, a rare, very special treat.

These days ikra is a frequent guest on the tables of the Russian middle class. It is not cheap but if you want some you can just buy it in the supermarket. Mom and Dad are retired now and their cat Musya is very fond of it. We like to laugh now that in the olden days the Communists must have eaten it all up so that nobody else would have it.

I upgraded the traditonal Russian salmon roe sandwich by halving the butter amount and using it to grill the bread. I find the contrast of the crunchy crust and unctuous roe is highly delectable.

Stuffed Russian bell peppers

Russian food is much influenced by the cuisines of Russia's own Near East, which consists of Caucasus, Central Asia and the Muslim nations of the Volga basin.

Stuffed bell peppers are one of such Oriental goodies that quite commonly appear on the Russian table. It is a festive dish and takes some time to prepare but the result is totally worth the fuss.

Equal quarters of mince, cooked rice, chopped onions and a pre-stirfried and pre-seasoned vegetable mix go into the stuffing. I gentrify the original recipe with a few sophisticated touches:

1. I use tartare mince which is low-fat;
2. Rice is cooked with quarter less water than necessary, thus it helps trap the juices inside the peppers;
3. I add shiitake and Iranian spices in the veggie mix;
   
4. I steam the peppers in a glass of white wine added at the bottom of the pot.

I have found that Chilean white wine from the Pedro Jiménez variety of grapes, it goes perfect with my stuffed peppers. It is dry with just one tone of passion fruit that rings like an A sharp. It is slightly gassy and tastes the best when left in the glass to warm up and oxidise a bit.

What's in a name: bak kut teh (肉骨茶)

My first time in Kuala Lumpur I had a little shock. On every street there would be a very busy no-frills café with a huge Chinese sign saying "Meat and bone tea". It sounded so cannibalistic to a simple Northern lad like yours truly, it took my friend Ani some effort to drag me into one.

Bak kut teh was invented in Malaysia in the 19th century to supplement the meagre diet of Chinese coolies. Nowadays, people eat itmore for the savoury taste than for the nutrient kick.

It is never cold in Malaysia but I discovered that bak kut teh can brighten up a gloomy Dutch winter day like nothing else. The recipe is simple, you will need:

• 700g pork ribs (I use calf ribs as a more health-conscious choice)
• 2 litres of cold water
• one head of garlic unpeeled, broken down into cloves
  
• 5-6 aniseeds
• 2-3 quills of cinnamon
• 1-2 tablespoonfuls of danggui
• 5-6 cloves
• a teaspoonful of whole white peppers (that will make it Teochew style)
  

Bring it all to boil, then simmer for 30-40 minutes. Skim the fat and froth. Add soya sauce to taste.