Burns supper: haggis and deep-fried Mars bar

ondon is one veritable "travel dining without moving" destination. If you wait patiently enough dangling your feet in the flow, all cuisines of the world will come sailing by you. Just grab and enjoy.

It has been six years since I started thinking of going to Scotland. Besides the obvious tourist attractions, I was naturally curious about Scottish cuisine; so much the more that it did not seem likely to come across it anywhere outside its country of origin, even in London.

Well, turns out I was wrong. The time to enjoy Scottish food could not have come at a more appropriate time: the Robert Burns night, the celebration of the life and works of Scotland's dearest son, an 18th-century poet apparently responsible for, by crude estimate, half the Scottish poetry out there.

The centrepiece of what is known as the Burns supper, to which I was most kindly invited, was haggis. Contrary to the belief evidently widespread on the Stateside, it is not an animal but a sheep's stomach stuffed with chopped offal, oatmeal, onions and spices, boiled or baked in the oven. To many it may sound a very odd choice for a celebration meal, yet, just like the rumours of the rampancy of sheep-shagging in Wales, the many a negative review of haggis I had heard proved grossly exaggerated. Served with mashed potatoes and turnips ('tatties and neeps'), and traditionally washed down with copious amounts of whiskey, it is a straightforward, hearty and filling fare, a perfect match for the cold winter weather out there (the Robert Burns day falls on the 15th of January). 

Customarily, an eight-verse poem would be recited over the haggis before carving  it, we did with but the very first one, yet pronounced in an authentic Edinburgh accent (which made the meal ever more delicious):

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

By way of dessert, we partook in another Scottish tradition known as "deep frying ye ole bonnie Mars bar". It is very much what it says on the tin: dipping pieces of Mars bar into batter and deep frying them in hot oil. Whoever came up with this must have been a big fan of hot fat and sugar. Now I am the last one to oppose to sweet and high-calorie fat things, but some sacrifices are worth it and some are not. The hollandaise sauce is worth every whopping dollop of butter it is made from. Japanese tempura, feathery and crispy, is a highlight of one's meal as well as easy on the stomach. All the sugar you put into a rhubarb pie pays back manifold in terms of deep sense of satisfaction that hits you the second the pie hits your palate. Deep-fried Mars bars have none of those redeeming qualities. It is just as gooey, repulsively sweet and un-chocolatey as it is in its original form and shape. 

P.S. Apologies for the picture quality. I said it before and I will say it now: smartphones are shit as phones, shit as computers and shit as cameras. Good luck chasing your fave gadget's latest version.

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.

Feteer meshaltet egyptian puff pastry

Merci Monsieur Lindt: Crema Catalana chocolate

hat a better souvenir from Barcelona can you bring than a bar of Crema Catalana chocolate? Monsieur Lindt was gracious enough to even add crunchy bits of caramelised sugar that normally forms at the top of crema catalana. Scrumptious!

Figs with ricotta and honey recipe (fichi con ricotta e miele)

ome like to spruce up this classic recipe with grilling, blanched almonds, crushed pistachios or vanilla essence. I steer clear of this foppish foolishness and simply enjoy the indulgent mushiness of ripe figs, the creamy crumbliness of ricotta and the rich flavours trapped in the sticky sweetness of honey.

This time I got some plump figs from my favourite Iranian grocer, some ricotta from my favourite (they all are!) Portuguese delicatessen and the honey came from my uncle's own bee farm.

1. Remove the stems and cut figs in quarters.
2. Break ricotta into smallish chunks.
3. Arrange the figs and cheese artfully on a rustic dish.
4. Douse liberally with honey.
5. Profitez bien!

Recipe: Figs with ricotta and honey - Fichi con ricotta e miele

Fini ratluk: Serbian hand-made Turkish delight

A vestige of the Turkish rule in Serbia: hand-made Turkish delight, pistachio flavoured. A nice souvenir straight from Belgrade for a curious foodie like your truly.

Kürtőskalács: Transylvanian stove cake

nglish jokes about Eastern European cuisines are pretty rich coming from the people whose national dish is vinegar-drenched deep-fried potatoes eaten out of a newspaper cone. But then again the English never seem weary of taking the piss out of French cuisine so it is really a local issue.

Kürtőskalács (pronounced more or less like 'kewrtersh-kalartch') is said to be Hungary's oldest pastry. It hails from Transylvania, which, despite being populated mostly by ethnic Hungarians, was awarded to Romania after WWI. So, although it is de jure Romanian, de facto it is Hungarian (I'm talking about pastry, not territory here).

Essentially, it is a ribbon of sweet leavened dough wound around a cylinder, heavily sprinkled with sugar and baked over fire. In the olden days it was turned by hand but these days it is all automatic. When ready it can be sprinkled with caster sugar, cinnamon or chopped nuts. Thanks to it peculiar shape it is also known as chimney cake in English. That is what kürtőskalács actually means in Hungarian too.

In London, I found it in the New Covent Garden market where a very friendly Hungarian lady (on the picture above) plies them for one quid fifty pense a pop.  A veritable yum-orama with a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

Ganache - the Lebanese house of fear and cakes

was eyeing this cafe for a long time as it lies on my Asian groceries route on Brewer Street in Soho. The tantalising display of honey-drenched Middle Eastern sweets and the promise of a cup of Lebanese coffee - what else a caffeine-addicted sweet-tooth like me needs? Finally I have found a good company to go, my Italian friend Monica. This fine lady is running a language training company in London and, a highly sophisticated Italian urbanite that she is, is probably the best company for coffee and cake sampling.

There are two tables outside on the sidewalk but we went inside to escape the noise of the passing cars that would have completely drowned the conversation. The curly and burly Lebanese proprietor's thin veneer of friendliness barely seemed to contain a deep annoyance with life. Unfortunately for us, we did inadvertently burst that veneer by asking the Arab names for the sweets that we ordered. Three times. Finally,with exasperated sighs, he caved in and, very reluctantly, barked out quick explanations.

As it was late in the afternoon we had to go for some decaf , no time for proper coffee this time. The cold Turkish pomegranate tea turned out to be a rather ghastly canned instant variety with loads of sugar at the bottom of the glass. My African Temptation tea appeared rooibos with masala-esque spices, Durban-inspired, if I had to put my finger on it. Fir that price, I'd expect a more imaginative concoction than a mere teabag in hot water but never mind that!

The rich, sweet cakes were, as it goes, made of filo dough filled with various crushed nuts and soaked in generous quanitities of honey or, perhaps, treacle, we did not dare to ask. Handsome chunks, each enough for two, really, they definitely did not deserve to be served on stirofoam trays. I hate physical violence so I decided to go local and swallow my objections.

Truth be told, Middle Eastern sweets do not seem to be the main business for Ganache. I should have guessed it by the name (ganache is a French chocolate bonbon filling), these people appear to make more money from luxury chocolate sales.

After a long pleasant chat we headed out. As we were leaving, the curly ogre was busy angrily telling off a delivery boy who happened to deliver some boxes inside the shop instead of leaving them on the sidewalk. As we walked away, the sound of his voice faded into the street hubbub. Hopefully, I won't have to hear it again.

Pro's: Handy location. Nice sweets.
Con's: Scary service. Rather pricey. Stirofoam trays in lieu of crockery.
In a nutshell: The pro's don't outweigh the con's.

Yokan: Japanese bean jelly

apanese sweets, wagashi, are an exquisite affair little known abroad. Yokan, or youkan, is a paste of very fine bean flour, custard sugar and agar-agar.

What seems a simple mixture of basic ingredients, in fact, is a fine art. In Japan there are still a lot of artisan shop specialising in hand-made yokan that fetches very high prices among connoisseurs.

Strangely enough, the word yokan means "sheep broth". Originally, leftovers of slaughtered sheep, like bones, joints and ties, were boiled in water to produce gelatine to give yokan its jelly-like texture. That was the deal in China, where it was invented. However, in Buddhist Japan consumption of animal products (except fish and seafood) was banned for many centuries, so here agar-agar was used instead but the old name has stuck.

Devon clotted cream with brandy

lthough it sounds like a surefire recipe for an early heart attack, it is an indispensable ingredient for cream tea when it served on scones with jam. There is an ongoing argument whether it originates in Devon or Cornwall. One things for sure, it owes its origin to the cows of Southwest England that produce rich milk that is high in fat content.

Clotted dream is made from unpasteurized cream left for hours to allow the fat content to raise to the surface and form clots.

In the olden days when appropriate calorie intake was a problem, this was a true luxury and nutritional boost. In our days of dietary overconsumption and sedentary lifestyle, it has become a guilty pleasure. Perhaps, it would be a wise marketing move to try and come up with some other word than clotted, which brings about not particularly favourable associations, but then clotted cream would not be the same by a different name.

In Devon, clotted cream is used instead of butter with the jam spread on top of it, while in Cornwall the opposite is true.

Cheesecakes @ PAUL, Old Compton St., London

lga was all over herself about these cakes. I can see why. Crunchy crust, light and moderately sweet, stuffed with blueberries. Rhubarb with its delightful inherent acidity is a great cheesecake idea too. These cakes are in my eyes the star attraction at London's premium class chain bakery shop PAUL. Established in 1889 by some French people, nowadays they are all around the town. Olga's choice was Old Compton Street: perhaps she enjoys the sight of me being drooled over. We enjoyed our time together except the tea that was made by dumping tea bags in warm water. Tsk tsk tsk.

P.S. To PAUL's credit, we received complimentary cups of truly excellent coffee when we complained about the inadequate tea.

Welsh cakes (teisen gri)

am not a big fan of vacuum-packed commercial pastry. Glitzy packaging only reminds me of how many chemical they are infused with. These little Welsh cakes, however, I bought from a baker at a market in the picturesque village of Abergavenny, South Wales.

Their humble appearance belies an exquisite crumbly texture. This could easily be the only type of pastry where I actually enjoy the raisins. They go perfectly well with the subdued sweetness of the cakes. Their Welsh name is teisen gri, although they are also known as bakestones after the kind of cast iron griddle they are baked on.

Russian dainty: physalis jam (варенье из физалиса)

hubarb, elderberries, pumpkin, green tomatoes and aronia - what is common between them? My Mom makes amazingly delectable jams from those.

This is one of her wonderful concoctions: physalis jam. It is not really your traditional Russian preserve but as it is made by a Russian woman in the midst of the Russian countryside from berries grown in Russian soil I might as well categorize it as a Russian dessert.

The land of eternal winter for Westerners, Russia has intensely hot continental summers. My parents grow on their estate peaches, grapes, walnuts and olives as well as a host of exotic flowers and vegetables from as far afield as Argentina and Thailand. In Southern Russia orange and lemon orchards as well as tea plantations are a common place. So much for stereotypes.

Groninger koek: Dutch succade cake

ou won't hear me (or anyone else for that matter) raving about Dutch food. The typical Northern European fare is, if put it charitably, unexciting. However, like in every dung heap (really?) there are a few pearls.

Groninger koek is one of those. Hailing from the Northern province of Groningen, it is made from rye flour, spices and bits of candied fruit. The Dutch usually will have a slice for breakfast with a cup of coffee. I can eat it any time of the day. In fact, I like it so much that I even bother my friends who come to visit from Amsterdam bring a couple for me.

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.

Turkish sweets (Türk tatlılar)

he other day I was in Shepherd's Bush and happened upon an Afghani grocer. The owners have lived in Moscow in the mid-90s so we had a nice chat in Russian. They had all kinds of amazing stuff among which I recognised a familiar sight.

The translucent ones are chewy and called lokum. The speckled white blob is full of spices and called macun. They all are very sweet and taste great with black coffee.

Chinese jelly grass dessert on ice (仙草蜜)

Simple and lovely dessert common in South China and South East Asia: grass jelly with liquid cane sugar and ice. The Chinese name can be roughly translated as "honey from mountain hermit's grass". It tastes just like that: faintly bitterish jelly reminiscent of Chinese herbal medicines or licorice drenched in sweet nectar. It is made by boiling the aged and slightly fermented stalks and leaves of Mesona chinensis (member of the mint family) with potassium carbonate for several hours with a little starch and then cooling the liquid to a jelly-like consistency.

I find that too far-fetched and just buy it canned in my local Chinese store. Sweetened and chilled, there is nothing like it on a hot day. Add a few stripes of sweetly fragrant jackfruit for an extra kick.