Split market: exactly where Diocletian used to grow cabbage

On the sunny Dalmatian coast of Croatia is where the Roman emperor Diocletian famously retired to grow cabbages. Inside and around his former palace sprawls Split's fresh market...

 

Splitsko tržište

Vietnamese beef and lemon grass soup: Canh Thịt Bò Xáo Sả

ietnamese cuisine is pure poetry in the pot. Their soups alone are celebrations of agriculture, flavours and wholesomeness. Don't believe me? Try this recipe: beef and lemon grass soup (Canh Thịt Bò Xáo Sả).

1. Finely slice some lean organic outdoor-bred beef and marinate in fish sauce, brown cane sugar and black pepper.
2. Sweat some chopped shallots in vegetable oil.
3. Add some pressed garlic, one crushed and chopped stalk of lemon grass and the meat. Gently sautee until the meat is cooked.
4. Add water and bring to a simmer.
5. Add some bean sprouts (and some noodle, if so desired). Simmer until ready to eat.
6. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped green coriander.

Kimia dates - best dates in the world

here are dates, nice dates and then there are great dates. At the lower side of the spectrum are those dry, unexciting dates from your local grocer or supermarket. Then there are dates with someone cute, kind and funny, who makes your heart skip a beat. And then there are Kimia dates: fragrant like wine, lusciously sweet, soft like set honey. As a lot of great food (and good people), they hail from a country from the US Axis of Evil, Iran. And truely so, Iranian gastronomy does sound like something favoured by very wicked folks: rose petal tea, chicken stewed in pomegranate molasses, saffron rice and black caviar. Yes, and Kimia dates for the dessert.

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.

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.

Best Chardonnay ever: Quantum, Domaine Boyar, Bulgaria

ou know how tricky finding a good Chardonnay can be. That particular sought-after Chardonnay flavour, when tipped just a notch off the right balance can vary from obnoxious, as in many a New World brand too ripe from too much sun, to uninspiringly faint like in a French one from a bad year. Getting it just right requires a lot of skill and, even more importantly, time-proven knowledge of what a good wine should actually be like.

The only thing amiss in this Bulgarian Chardonnay brought back from a trip to, surprise, Bulgaria was its somewhat incongruous name, Quantum. Everything else was utter perfection: the balance of acidity, the understated smell, the bisquity nose, the round finish. In fact, practically every Bulgarian wine I have sampled was superlative or very close to it, reminiscent of the quality consistency and Olde-Worlde elegance of, who would have ever though, Chilean wines. At least when it comes t wines, the media-propagated image of horse-cart-riding and cabbage-munching uncouth and dim Eastern Europeans could not be farther from reality.

We paired it with a plain boiled Canadian lobster for one our traditional welcome-the-Americans dinners. Last two years we have dropped the "turf" part from the menu as an outdated and not really such a wise tradition and it works just fine.

Saffron rice.. wthout saffron

ave you ever been frustrated with saffron like I am? The pesky bugger may give that sought-after flavour to your Persian rice, yet it is so finicky in handling. It is never really enough to offer an ample, full-bodied flavour, it needs to be pre-chopped and pre-soaked before you even dare to use it, then the flavour so easily escapes when cooking, and to boot it does not even colour the rice uniformly, leaving it instead tantalisingly spotted here and there. 

Luckily, by pure chance, I have discovered a mighty alternative to it, giving everything we have been begging saffron to deliver for so long, as of yet to no avail. Ta-dam, here enters the perfect couple: dry dill and turmeric powder. By some strange twist of fate, when paired together, they produce the flavour identical to saffron, at a fraction of the cost and effort, The colour too, albeit lacking saffron's reddish notes, with the addition of dill's dark green acquires a depth, elegantly finishing off with the golden brown of the tahdeg (caramelised crust). 

I also truncate the elaborate Persian procedure in favour of the more  straightforward, yet nonetheless effective Asian steaming method. Few more tricks that make this saffronless saffron rice a hit with my discerning guests.

• Add butter generously. I use about 70 g for 11 handfuls of dry rice. Butter is good for you: French people eat a lot of it and don't get fat. Junk food, snacking and eating on the run  - that's what makes you fat, not butter.
  
• Add a dash of sea salt. Without salt, your rice will come out bland and boring. I use fish sauce because it gives an additional level of depth to the flavour, thanks to the naturally occurring MSG, which is not bad for you.
  
• When the rice has been brought to a boil, stir it up to make sure that the dill is evenly spread. Very important: do that while the water has not yet been completely absorbed into the rice. Thus you will ensure that the rice does not turn into a solid slab, allowing for passages for the steam to travel through it, which is how the whole shebang actually gets cooked.
  
  
• Once ready, fluff up the rice. At the bottom, you will find a deliciously caramelised crust, tahdeg. Serve it separately, it tastes like savoury cake. Don't drag our feet though: it's only good while it's warm. To make your rice fit for a celebration table, the Nowruz only being a couple of months away, mix in some finely sliced dried apricots or sultanas as well as pistachio or almond flakes.