Just over a week ago I had the great pleasure of visiting Reykjavík for a week. I was attending a friend's wedding, and we stayed in a lavish (but amazingly cheap) city centre apartment. It was billed as a largely self-catering affair, chiefly to save money. The kitchen was amazing - gorgeous, modern, sleek and well-appointed, with a large fridge-freezer (with a pointless built-in radio and LCD recipe book), dishwasher, microwave, fan oven (again with an unnecessarily complicated computerised control panel), filter coffee maker, toaster, kettle and lots of drawers full of utensils and cookware.
In fact, we ate out more than planned, sometimes in groups, sometimes separately, although we did cook a fair bit too. So here are my impressions of Icelandic food and produce. It's very subjective, but as I knew very little about their food before I went (and virtually nothing before I read a guide book), it might be helpful to anyone thinking of going.
Skyr
This is by far the best uncontroversial Icelandic delicacy I can think of. I guess you can make it vegetarian/vegan, although as it may be curdled by rennet, much of it may well not be (I honestly don't know what kind they use there). It is a dairy product, that comes in pots, plain or flavoured with fruit, vanilla, etc, sometimes with a crunchy topping. If that makes it sound just like yoghurt, that's exactly what it seemed to be, to begin with. However, Icelandic supermarkets also have yoghurt on their shelves, alongside the pots of skyr. It turns out, that the production of skyr is a hybrid process between yoghurt and cheese, as it is produced both by souring the milk with lactic acid bacteria and by curdling it with rennet. The curds and whey are separated, and the former constitute the skyr. I first accidentally bought (blueberry) skyr drink, which was delicious but rather missed the point. So next I got regular blueberry skyr, and I was instantly converted. I didn't try and of the other flavours until I left, when I brought back a pot of plain skyr so I could make my own (see next entry) - it was good, but the blueberry was sublime. What's more, everyone else agreed - skyr is a winner.
Meats
One notable aspect of Icelandic cuisine - both in "traditional-style" (i.e. tourist-oriented, Icelandic-themed) restaurants, and supermarkets - which is definitely NOT for everyone, is the number of meats available that would be considered distasteful or even immoral in the UK. Puffin, guillemot, minke whale, horse, and even (apparently, in rural locations) seal. I didn't go to the Icelandic restaurant my friends visited, where they had puffin, whale and foal, but I did buy a smoked, herb-crusted guillemot breast from a delicatessen in the city centre. Everyone agreed it was delicious, and so it was - dense, lean, and rather like pigeon. And since I was asked by most people what it was, I must tell you that a guillemot is a sea bird, black and white and a bit like an auk. Expensive, but nice. As for whale, I saw huge cubic slabs of whale blubber which, I must say, looked disgusting (I've seen its texture described as "stringy"). Horse was widely available, in steak and sausage form, but I didn't have time to try it, sadly. It resembled beef.
Þorrablót
It turned out that we were there during the closest thing Iceland has to a food festival. In fact, it's derived from an old Norse month, dedicated to Thor, and is now a roughly two week period when Icelanders are most inclined to eat their ancestral delicacies. It must be said that most of these sound repulsive - mostly fish and meat products that have been pickled or fermented to allow them to keep through the long sub-Arctic winter. Whether this was the reason we saw so much hákarl (fermented shark), I don't know. My friend, whose wedding we were there to celebrate, really wanted to try this particular experience, so I bought a small pot of cubes of the white shark meat. On opening, the smell we'd read so much about was impossible to ignore - truly vile, retch-inducing, ammoniac. I had no inclination to try it, but those who did said it was unremarkable once it was in your mouth (though nose-pinching was recommended). The only seasonal produce I tried was a number of Þorrablót beers. In fact, these were only a little more interesting than standard Icelandic beer, which was golden, clean and all the same - pretty boring.
Fish
The star of the show, besides skyr, was the fish. Smoked and cured salmon was so much cheaper than in the UK, and the smoked examples I bought (just basic supermarket stuff, between 600 and 1200ISK, around £3.50-7.00) were delicious. I mostly cooked them with creamy pasta sauces, with Icelandic mascarpone (again excellent), and alternations of herbs, mushrooms, cheese and lemon. Thinly sliced on rye bread was a good way of serving it too. The Icelanders also like dried white fish, but it was really expensive, so I didn't try any. I also bought quite a few pre-made fishcakes. Some were excellent - those that resembled our version - while others were rather bland.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Friday, 7 January 2011
Mulled cider (and juice)
While I remember, the cider I made from my friend's apples turned out to be utterly delicious - with a little help.
I didn't add anything to the juice - no sugar, honey, stabilisers - except, of course, yeast (I didn't trust "wild yeasts" to do the job). This meant the resulting cider was as pure an expression of the apples as I could make it, but it was tooth-meltingly sour once the fermentation was done. Not a pleasant drink at all - until I mulled it (I'd expected to have to do this anyway, in case the cider wasn't very nice; it *was* clean and clear, but unsweetened). Simply adding sugar to the cider returned the balance that had been in the juice - and the wonderful taste those apples had had revealed it was still there in the finished product. It occurred to me, too, that I'd need not worry about bottles exploding from unwanted secondary fermentation if there was no residual sugar.
Anyway, December being much colder than normal, mulling the cider was the perfect way to re-sweeten it in a seasonal way. I'd been mulling fresh apple juice for a few weeks in order to satisfy my craving for something warm without getting drunk every night (and using up my surfeit of homemade apple juice). I was experimenting with unusual spices, too.
So, here's a template for mulling dry cider (don't make the mistake I did once, and waste your money on sparkling stuff - it will obviously lose its bubbles when heated), apple juice, wine, grape juice and whatever else you can think of. It's very loose, because the tartness of the base ingredient, and the availability of spices will vary so much.
Ingredients
Liquid (e.g. cider)
Sweetener (I don't mean artificial sweeteners; white sugar is the least interesting option - try unrefined, brown, or honey)
Whole spices, roughly crushed (cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, cassia, green cardamom - these are great, if standard; try black pepper, nutmeg (freshly grated), black cardamom, grains of paradise, or anything similar).
Fruit (optional; orange slices are good in mulled wine, apple slices and sultanas are excellent in cider; finely-pared lemon peel can be interesting)
Method
I didn't add anything to the juice - no sugar, honey, stabilisers - except, of course, yeast (I didn't trust "wild yeasts" to do the job). This meant the resulting cider was as pure an expression of the apples as I could make it, but it was tooth-meltingly sour once the fermentation was done. Not a pleasant drink at all - until I mulled it (I'd expected to have to do this anyway, in case the cider wasn't very nice; it *was* clean and clear, but unsweetened). Simply adding sugar to the cider returned the balance that had been in the juice - and the wonderful taste those apples had had revealed it was still there in the finished product. It occurred to me, too, that I'd need not worry about bottles exploding from unwanted secondary fermentation if there was no residual sugar.
Anyway, December being much colder than normal, mulling the cider was the perfect way to re-sweeten it in a seasonal way. I'd been mulling fresh apple juice for a few weeks in order to satisfy my craving for something warm without getting drunk every night (and using up my surfeit of homemade apple juice). I was experimenting with unusual spices, too.
So, here's a template for mulling dry cider (don't make the mistake I did once, and waste your money on sparkling stuff - it will obviously lose its bubbles when heated), apple juice, wine, grape juice and whatever else you can think of. It's very loose, because the tartness of the base ingredient, and the availability of spices will vary so much.
Ingredients
Liquid (e.g. cider)
Sweetener (I don't mean artificial sweeteners; white sugar is the least interesting option - try unrefined, brown, or honey)
Whole spices, roughly crushed (cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, cassia, green cardamom - these are great, if standard; try black pepper, nutmeg (freshly grated), black cardamom, grains of paradise, or anything similar).
Fruit (optional; orange slices are good in mulled wine, apple slices and sultanas are excellent in cider; finely-pared lemon peel can be interesting)
Method
- Fill a pan 1/2-2/3 full with the liquid. Place over the lowest heat on your hob.
- Add enough sweetener to balance the flavour - and remember, when it's hot, it may taste stronger, so you may want to marginally over-sweeten it. Ideally, start out with too little sugar, and keep adding and tasting until you reach the perfect level.
- The best way to add the spices is in a muslin bag, tied up, or a mesh infuser - I have one especially designed for spices, but you can use metal "tea bags", the sort to allow brewing of loose tea without any mess. This just stops people having to pick bits of spice out of their mouths as they drink.
- Add any fruit, if using.
- Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.
- Heat until just hot - do not boil, as this drives off the alcohol (although not as quickly as you may think). If it cools down between servings, reheat - but never boil.
- Serve in heat-proof glasses or cups.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
The (Latest) Device
It occurred to me tonight that I haven't mentioned my latest kitchen gadget. Actually, "gadget" implies something gimmicky, which is unfair - this is something found in many homes and businesses: a juicer.
I had a juicer years ago - a combined centrifugal machine/blender. It was okay, and I learned the basics with it (like, I love carrot and apple juice). It was what you'd expect for a few tens of pounds - pretty basic, but reasonably reliable, if a bit messy. It died a while ago, and although I've not yet disposed of it, I think it can't be resurrected.
Back in 2005, I was into (apologies in advance) Gillian McK*ith (asterisk to prevent her coming up in searches - she's hopelessly litigious). I enjoyed her early shows, which seemed to preach the virtues of fruit and veg, fish and lean proteins, as opposed to processed sugars, starches, and excess fat. And her diet programmes seemed to work - the people (admittedly obese) lost a lot of weight. Someone in my family (I suspect my mother) bought the accompanying book, and I took it to university after the Easter holiday.
It was dire. The first day was a "detox", which involved such delights as hot water with lemon juice, hot water with flax seeds, and the most amazing of all - various root vegetables (turnip, mostly) boiled; you didn't eat them, you drank the water they'd been cooked in: wasteful.
Anyhow, the only thing I took away from that, ahem, experience, was that there are two kinds of juicer (in fact there are at least three), and the best is something called a "masticating juicer" (again, not strictly true). I knew that if I ever got another machine, that would be the one for me.
I came into some money recently - a combination of inheritance and tax rebate. It coincided with my first home cider making, thanks to a tree in my friend's garden. The house her partner inherited from his grandmother has the remnants of a small orchard, with plums, apples, pears and blackcurrants. This year only the apples produced much (or at least, we missed the blackcurrants), but there was a large tree laden with fruit. No idea what variety, or even if it was a cooker or an eater (her boyfriend thought the former). We picked, at my behest, as she would otherwise have left them for lack of inspiration. I said I'd make cider, and give her some when it was done.
Anyway, trying to juice 13.5kg of apples with a blender and a sheet of muslin is not fun by any means. After the first few kilos, I decided to put some of my spare cash to good use and get a juicer to speed up the process. I read into the subject for over a week, weighed up all the options, and plumped for the best masticating/augur machine I could get for the budget (I paid just over £200).
Since then I have juiced a good 40+ kinds of fruit and vegetable, and almost all of them have been great. Soft things don't go through any juicer so well, so figs, pears, and overripe guavas won't be tried again. Conversely, the hardest stuff juices best - think carrots, hard apples, beetroot. Some surprising combinations, especially apple with cabbage, and apple with yellow pepper, as well as many mixed beetroot and fruit juices, work very well. I'm yet to be convinced on sweet potato - the juice it yields is strangely creamy.
Anyway, I am currently experimenting with the next level of juicing - namely, clarified juices. I ran across perhaps the best food blog I've ever read (on which more soon), which introduced me to two techniques: agar clarification, and enzyme clarification. As I happened to have both dry agar and pectolase in my kitchen (the former from curiosity, the latter for the cidermaking project), I have tried both - and the results are very exciting. A few days ago I transformed apples into a cinnamon and apple syrup that was sensational with premium bourbon. Lime juice clarified with agar was even better, and has a bright future in my kitchen (please excuse the pun).
Much more on clarification in the near future, I hope...
I had a juicer years ago - a combined centrifugal machine/blender. It was okay, and I learned the basics with it (like, I love carrot and apple juice). It was what you'd expect for a few tens of pounds - pretty basic, but reasonably reliable, if a bit messy. It died a while ago, and although I've not yet disposed of it, I think it can't be resurrected.
Back in 2005, I was into (apologies in advance) Gillian McK*ith (asterisk to prevent her coming up in searches - she's hopelessly litigious). I enjoyed her early shows, which seemed to preach the virtues of fruit and veg, fish and lean proteins, as opposed to processed sugars, starches, and excess fat. And her diet programmes seemed to work - the people (admittedly obese) lost a lot of weight. Someone in my family (I suspect my mother) bought the accompanying book, and I took it to university after the Easter holiday.
It was dire. The first day was a "detox", which involved such delights as hot water with lemon juice, hot water with flax seeds, and the most amazing of all - various root vegetables (turnip, mostly) boiled; you didn't eat them, you drank the water they'd been cooked in: wasteful.
Anyhow, the only thing I took away from that, ahem, experience, was that there are two kinds of juicer (in fact there are at least three), and the best is something called a "masticating juicer" (again, not strictly true). I knew that if I ever got another machine, that would be the one for me.
I came into some money recently - a combination of inheritance and tax rebate. It coincided with my first home cider making, thanks to a tree in my friend's garden. The house her partner inherited from his grandmother has the remnants of a small orchard, with plums, apples, pears and blackcurrants. This year only the apples produced much (or at least, we missed the blackcurrants), but there was a large tree laden with fruit. No idea what variety, or even if it was a cooker or an eater (her boyfriend thought the former). We picked, at my behest, as she would otherwise have left them for lack of inspiration. I said I'd make cider, and give her some when it was done.
Anyway, trying to juice 13.5kg of apples with a blender and a sheet of muslin is not fun by any means. After the first few kilos, I decided to put some of my spare cash to good use and get a juicer to speed up the process. I read into the subject for over a week, weighed up all the options, and plumped for the best masticating/augur machine I could get for the budget (I paid just over £200).
Since then I have juiced a good 40+ kinds of fruit and vegetable, and almost all of them have been great. Soft things don't go through any juicer so well, so figs, pears, and overripe guavas won't be tried again. Conversely, the hardest stuff juices best - think carrots, hard apples, beetroot. Some surprising combinations, especially apple with cabbage, and apple with yellow pepper, as well as many mixed beetroot and fruit juices, work very well. I'm yet to be convinced on sweet potato - the juice it yields is strangely creamy.
Anyway, I am currently experimenting with the next level of juicing - namely, clarified juices. I ran across perhaps the best food blog I've ever read (on which more soon), which introduced me to two techniques: agar clarification, and enzyme clarification. As I happened to have both dry agar and pectolase in my kitchen (the former from curiosity, the latter for the cidermaking project), I have tried both - and the results are very exciting. A few days ago I transformed apples into a cinnamon and apple syrup that was sensational with premium bourbon. Lime juice clarified with agar was even better, and has a bright future in my kitchen (please excuse the pun).
Much more on clarification in the near future, I hope...
Monday, 6 December 2010
Continuing the Odyssey
The quest for exotic spices didn't end with my first order from Steenberg's. I knew I wanted more, and after confirming I wasn't bankrupt, I put together another shopping list - of even more exciting things.
However, before this, I needed cloves. I'd previously ordered orris root powder as I'd decided to make pomanders (oranges studded with cloves to me), and traditional recipes all called for this ingredient in order to fix the scent, along with powdered cinnamon (I guess the latter is for extra fragrance). However, I quickly ran out of cloves, and I wasn't prepared to buy them at full price. I had an inkling that there were a few ethnic grocers (mostly South Asian and African) on a road not far from my house. The trip was eventful - light snow the night before had frozen, and the first step I took sent me crashing to the floor, smacking my head on the driveway, and cracking my back, hip and pulling my stomach muscles (it's taken a few days to recover). But I was determined not to be beaten, and I was rewarded - I found a spartan, but spice-filled grocer, who sold cloves for 99p per 50g bag (not bad).
What's amazing is how my home town has changed so much in just a decade. When I was growing up here, it was around 98% white British, the only significant "outsider" community being Scottish. Now, we have numerous Polish grocers, a couple of West African stores, and a handful of South/Southeast/East Asian shops too. For someone looking to cook all sorts of exotic dishes, this is a boon.
A case in point is black cardamom. A month ago, I'd only read about this spice, and expected never to see it. In London, I snapped it up from the Borough Market (very classy, quite expensive), then again at a Turkish minimarket in South London (cheaper). But to see it here, a few hundred metres from my house! Amazing. Anyhow, I didn't need to buy any this time, but I'm glad to know I can. I did, however, get two other spices, just as exotic, and similarly fabled to be (in that I've read about them, seen pictures of them, but never expected to encournter them in real life): ajwain (ajowan) and black cumin.
I was going to order ajwain from Steenberg's anyhow, but I got it much cheaper from the grocer's, so I was pleased. And black cumin is even rarer - I'd only seen it on Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages (my spice bible, the best website I know on the subject). I tried the ajwain in a tomato sauce (see previous post), where it added a rich fragrance of thyme, but I've yet to experiment with the (apparently less appealing) black cumin. Anyhow, I need to go back to the shop for more cloves - and to explore their vast range of dhal, and maybe the bizarre fish they had in the freezer.
So my online spice order consisted of: sahlab (salep), which is a ground orchid root, used in Turkey to make a milky drink, but even more excitingly, a stretchy ice cream; mastic, a tree-derived gum from the island of Chios in the Aegean, also used in this ice cream, but also in a few baked goods from those parts; Tonka beans, a vanilla-scented South American seed, slightly controversial due to the presence of toxic coumarin; ground sumac, a sour powdered fruit from the Eastern Mediterranean; and furikake, a Japanese mix of seaweed and sesame, for sprinkling on rice. Additionally, though not strictly spices, I chose frankincense and myrrh, partly out of curiosity (there can't be many people in the Western world who haven't heard of these, but how many have seen them for real, or even know what they are?), and partly because I've been getting back into incense as the nights have lengthened and the weather turned sub-Arctic.
And yet, there are still many more spices I want to try! After Christmas perhaps...
However, before this, I needed cloves. I'd previously ordered orris root powder as I'd decided to make pomanders (oranges studded with cloves to me), and traditional recipes all called for this ingredient in order to fix the scent, along with powdered cinnamon (I guess the latter is for extra fragrance). However, I quickly ran out of cloves, and I wasn't prepared to buy them at full price. I had an inkling that there were a few ethnic grocers (mostly South Asian and African) on a road not far from my house. The trip was eventful - light snow the night before had frozen, and the first step I took sent me crashing to the floor, smacking my head on the driveway, and cracking my back, hip and pulling my stomach muscles (it's taken a few days to recover). But I was determined not to be beaten, and I was rewarded - I found a spartan, but spice-filled grocer, who sold cloves for 99p per 50g bag (not bad).
What's amazing is how my home town has changed so much in just a decade. When I was growing up here, it was around 98% white British, the only significant "outsider" community being Scottish. Now, we have numerous Polish grocers, a couple of West African stores, and a handful of South/Southeast/East Asian shops too. For someone looking to cook all sorts of exotic dishes, this is a boon.
A case in point is black cardamom. A month ago, I'd only read about this spice, and expected never to see it. In London, I snapped it up from the Borough Market (very classy, quite expensive), then again at a Turkish minimarket in South London (cheaper). But to see it here, a few hundred metres from my house! Amazing. Anyhow, I didn't need to buy any this time, but I'm glad to know I can. I did, however, get two other spices, just as exotic, and similarly fabled to be (in that I've read about them, seen pictures of them, but never expected to encournter them in real life): ajwain (ajowan) and black cumin.
I was going to order ajwain from Steenberg's anyhow, but I got it much cheaper from the grocer's, so I was pleased. And black cumin is even rarer - I'd only seen it on Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages (my spice bible, the best website I know on the subject). I tried the ajwain in a tomato sauce (see previous post), where it added a rich fragrance of thyme, but I've yet to experiment with the (apparently less appealing) black cumin. Anyhow, I need to go back to the shop for more cloves - and to explore their vast range of dhal, and maybe the bizarre fish they had in the freezer.
So my online spice order consisted of: sahlab (salep), which is a ground orchid root, used in Turkey to make a milky drink, but even more excitingly, a stretchy ice cream; mastic, a tree-derived gum from the island of Chios in the Aegean, also used in this ice cream, but also in a few baked goods from those parts; Tonka beans, a vanilla-scented South American seed, slightly controversial due to the presence of toxic coumarin; ground sumac, a sour powdered fruit from the Eastern Mediterranean; and furikake, a Japanese mix of seaweed and sesame, for sprinkling on rice. Additionally, though not strictly spices, I chose frankincense and myrrh, partly out of curiosity (there can't be many people in the Western world who haven't heard of these, but how many have seen them for real, or even know what they are?), and partly because I've been getting back into incense as the nights have lengthened and the weather turned sub-Arctic.
And yet, there are still many more spices I want to try! After Christmas perhaps...
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Tomato Sauce
I make basic tomato sauces on a regular basis, mostly for pasta and pizza. In fact, I made one just over an hour ago, so I thought I'd explain how to turn a very few ingredients, that most people probably have in their cupboards, into something that tastes wonderful (and which costs a whole lot less than store-bought sauces).
Essential Ingredients
Tomatoes*
Onion, finely chopped
Olive oil (extra virgin offers the most complex flavour, but virgin or light will do)
Salt
Black Pepper
Sugar
Wine vinegar/Balsamic vinegar
Optional Ingredients
Herbs**
Red chilli - fresh, dried, whole or flaked, or Tabasco
Garlic
Red/orange or yellow pepper, chopped quite fine.
Method
Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onion, cook until slightly softened. Add the garlic and chilli, if using, fry another minute or two. Add the tomatoes, and peppers if using. Season with salt and black pepper, a pinch of sugar and a dash of vinegar. Stir, and taste - adjust the last four ingredients to taste. Cook on a low heat until everything is breaking up and the sauce is thickened. Add water if it gets too dry. Blitz in a food processor/blender if you want a smooth sauce.
*You can use fresh tomatoes of any size, if they are really ripe and full of flavour. Out of season, I would opt for tinned, either chopped of whole. A squirt of tomato purée adds extra intensity, and can make up for insipid fresh tomatoes (don't use too much though, as it can make the sauce taste too much like neat tomato purée). Passata is possible, but it tends to be more expensive.
**Great herbs to use are copious amounts of basil, generous quantities of oregano or sage, a couple of sprigs of thyme or one of rosemary, a small quantity of lovage (all fresh), or one or two bay leaves (fresh or dried). The basil after cooking but before puréeing (as basil loses its fragrance if cooked), the others would be added with the tomatoes.
Theory and Substitutions
The idea is to make a rich, balanced, and versatile sauce, without spending much money. The sugar and vinegar enhance the natural sweetness and acidity of the tomatoes, and the salt works with its savouriness - but you can leave it out if you are trying to avoid it. I find it best to use an unprocessed cane sugar, or a golden sugar, rather than white sugar, because the latter lacks complexity and tends not to integrate as well, but use whatever you have to hand. Note also, that bell peppers make the sauce sweeter, especially if you purée it. It may be better to make a big batch of plain sauce, and then add garlic, or chilli, or herbs, to each batch when using. It will keep in the fridge for a few days, and freezes well. If using for pizza, it is probably best to purée the sauce for ease of spreading.
I try to vary the recipe every time I make it, just to see what works. Today, for example, I used ajwain (a South Asian seed with the intense fragrance of thyme) instead of herbs, and Tasmanian mountain pepper instead of black pepper, as I'm trying to find uses for it. Paprika can be added in addition to or instead of chilli. Different colours of tomato can lead to wildly different coloured sauces (from pale gold to orange and purple). A cup of dry red or white wine can be added with the tomatoes, in which case be careful with the vinegar and sugar (they may not be necessary, depending on the wine).
Depending on the type of tomatoes you use, the cost per batch (say, 750ml finished sauce) can be as little as £1. If you grow your own, it will cost a few tens of pence. Either way, it's a great standby to have in your fridge or freezer - and making it in large batches should work out a bit cheaper.
Essential Ingredients
Tomatoes*
Onion, finely chopped
Olive oil (extra virgin offers the most complex flavour, but virgin or light will do)
Salt
Black Pepper
Sugar
Wine vinegar/Balsamic vinegar
Optional Ingredients
Herbs**
Red chilli - fresh, dried, whole or flaked, or Tabasco
Garlic
Red/orange or yellow pepper, chopped quite fine.
Method
Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onion, cook until slightly softened. Add the garlic and chilli, if using, fry another minute or two. Add the tomatoes, and peppers if using. Season with salt and black pepper, a pinch of sugar and a dash of vinegar. Stir, and taste - adjust the last four ingredients to taste. Cook on a low heat until everything is breaking up and the sauce is thickened. Add water if it gets too dry. Blitz in a food processor/blender if you want a smooth sauce.
*You can use fresh tomatoes of any size, if they are really ripe and full of flavour. Out of season, I would opt for tinned, either chopped of whole. A squirt of tomato purée adds extra intensity, and can make up for insipid fresh tomatoes (don't use too much though, as it can make the sauce taste too much like neat tomato purée). Passata is possible, but it tends to be more expensive.
**Great herbs to use are copious amounts of basil, generous quantities of oregano or sage, a couple of sprigs of thyme or one of rosemary, a small quantity of lovage (all fresh), or one or two bay leaves (fresh or dried). The basil after cooking but before puréeing (as basil loses its fragrance if cooked), the others would be added with the tomatoes.
Theory and Substitutions
The idea is to make a rich, balanced, and versatile sauce, without spending much money. The sugar and vinegar enhance the natural sweetness and acidity of the tomatoes, and the salt works with its savouriness - but you can leave it out if you are trying to avoid it. I find it best to use an unprocessed cane sugar, or a golden sugar, rather than white sugar, because the latter lacks complexity and tends not to integrate as well, but use whatever you have to hand. Note also, that bell peppers make the sauce sweeter, especially if you purée it. It may be better to make a big batch of plain sauce, and then add garlic, or chilli, or herbs, to each batch when using. It will keep in the fridge for a few days, and freezes well. If using for pizza, it is probably best to purée the sauce for ease of spreading.
I try to vary the recipe every time I make it, just to see what works. Today, for example, I used ajwain (a South Asian seed with the intense fragrance of thyme) instead of herbs, and Tasmanian mountain pepper instead of black pepper, as I'm trying to find uses for it. Paprika can be added in addition to or instead of chilli. Different colours of tomato can lead to wildly different coloured sauces (from pale gold to orange and purple). A cup of dry red or white wine can be added with the tomatoes, in which case be careful with the vinegar and sugar (they may not be necessary, depending on the wine).
Depending on the type of tomatoes you use, the cost per batch (say, 750ml finished sauce) can be as little as £1. If you grow your own, it will cost a few tens of pence. Either way, it's a great standby to have in your fridge or freezer - and making it in large batches should work out a bit cheaper.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
An Ingredient Odyssey
I went to London recently. I used to live there, with my brother, and I took advantage at the time of the opportunities to buy exotic ingredients. I am now much better educated with regard to fruits, vegetables, and spices in particular, and was hoping to get a few bits in between painting my brother's new flat.
I did well. I took my mother to the Borough Market, an old favourite of mine, and although I was mostly there as a guide, and to soak up the atmosphere before it's swept away by future redevelopment, I did see some great spices. At a stall I've not seen before, I got grains of paradise, cubeb, long pepper, black cardamom - all things I've only ever read about - and really cheap cinnamon sticks.
The next day I went to Waitrose - a supermarket that hasn't made it this far north. Although we have a similar establishment, Booths, I still saw some things I wanted: rennet, Israeli (giant/pearl) couscous, Kashmiri chillies, and dried borlotti beans. A couple of days later I popped into a fairly large Sainsbury's - a supermarket we do have here, but too far for me to get to on foot. I spotted barley couscous - something I've had before, and enjoy as an alternative to the wheat-based variety. Finally, I went to an awesome Turkish minimarket (in fact, it sells food from several cultures), and got more black cardamom (even cheaper), pomegranate molasses, citric acid, carob pods, coconut oil and something so exotic I couldn't identify it - it turned out to be terebinth, which is used by the Turks (who call it menengiç, although it was labelled "melengiç") to make a coffee-like beverage, at least according to Wikipedia. As an aside, I saw raw, untreated olives for the first time in a grocer's - goodness knows how you use them.
And today, I ordered some even more obscure spices from an online supplier - I'd only intended to get orris root (for making pomanders for the festive season), but also chose anise, Habanero chillies, Tasmanian mountain pepper leaves and berries, Madagascan wild pepper, and grains of Selim. Now the difficult but exciting task of finding recipes to incorporate them! :)
I did well. I took my mother to the Borough Market, an old favourite of mine, and although I was mostly there as a guide, and to soak up the atmosphere before it's swept away by future redevelopment, I did see some great spices. At a stall I've not seen before, I got grains of paradise, cubeb, long pepper, black cardamom - all things I've only ever read about - and really cheap cinnamon sticks.
The next day I went to Waitrose - a supermarket that hasn't made it this far north. Although we have a similar establishment, Booths, I still saw some things I wanted: rennet, Israeli (giant/pearl) couscous, Kashmiri chillies, and dried borlotti beans. A couple of days later I popped into a fairly large Sainsbury's - a supermarket we do have here, but too far for me to get to on foot. I spotted barley couscous - something I've had before, and enjoy as an alternative to the wheat-based variety. Finally, I went to an awesome Turkish minimarket (in fact, it sells food from several cultures), and got more black cardamom (even cheaper), pomegranate molasses, citric acid, carob pods, coconut oil and something so exotic I couldn't identify it - it turned out to be terebinth, which is used by the Turks (who call it menengiç, although it was labelled "melengiç") to make a coffee-like beverage, at least according to Wikipedia. As an aside, I saw raw, untreated olives for the first time in a grocer's - goodness knows how you use them.
And today, I ordered some even more obscure spices from an online supplier - I'd only intended to get orris root (for making pomanders for the festive season), but also chose anise, Habanero chillies, Tasmanian mountain pepper leaves and berries, Madagascan wild pepper, and grains of Selim. Now the difficult but exciting task of finding recipes to incorporate them! :)
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Adobo
Here is a dish I have come to via my brother. This is pretty unusual, as he's only become comfortable expanding his culinary horizons in the past few years. His girlfriend's mother is the origin of this dish, which she brought from her native Philippines. There are many variations, as a cursory glance across the internet or oriental cookery books will show, but this is adobo at its most pared-down. It is, nonetheless, balanced, pure, intense, and delicious - all essential aspects of my favourite recipes.
Requires
Tough and/or fatty meat - for preference, pork (such as belly)
White wine or sherry vinegar
Garlic
Bay leaves
Salt
Black pepper
Method
Cut the meat into roughly 1.5cm chunks. Finely chop the garlic. Combine the meat, garlic, a few bay leaves, salt and pepper, and enough vinegar to coat the meat in a bowl, but only just (say, no more than 200ml for 1kg meat). Leave to marinate for 45 minutes. Heat a pan, add the meat and juices. Simmer very gently for up to 1 1/2 hours, covered for the first hour. If the liquid boils dry, add a little water to keep it moist. Serve with rice.
Notes
The fattiness of the meat ensures it is moist - chicken breast ends up very dry, but thighs might work. If cooked long enough, fat and skin can become melting. Tougher meat is ideal, as the acidity tenderises it. Tomato purée or passata might work as an addition, mostly for colour and moisture. Don't worry about the quantity of vinegar - the finished dish is intensely savoury, but balanced, and in no way sour - but if it is not to your taste, a dash of sugar might help. Other possible additions are annatto and monosodium glutamate (which are fairly traditional, and add colour and savouriness respectively). If you like lots of sauce, do not allow to boil too dry.
Requires
Tough and/or fatty meat - for preference, pork (such as belly)
White wine or sherry vinegar
Garlic
Bay leaves
Salt
Black pepper
Method
Cut the meat into roughly 1.5cm chunks. Finely chop the garlic. Combine the meat, garlic, a few bay leaves, salt and pepper, and enough vinegar to coat the meat in a bowl, but only just (say, no more than 200ml for 1kg meat). Leave to marinate for 45 minutes. Heat a pan, add the meat and juices. Simmer very gently for up to 1 1/2 hours, covered for the first hour. If the liquid boils dry, add a little water to keep it moist. Serve with rice.
Notes
The fattiness of the meat ensures it is moist - chicken breast ends up very dry, but thighs might work. If cooked long enough, fat and skin can become melting. Tougher meat is ideal, as the acidity tenderises it. Tomato purée or passata might work as an addition, mostly for colour and moisture. Don't worry about the quantity of vinegar - the finished dish is intensely savoury, but balanced, and in no way sour - but if it is not to your taste, a dash of sugar might help. Other possible additions are annatto and monosodium glutamate (which are fairly traditional, and add colour and savouriness respectively). If you like lots of sauce, do not allow to boil too dry.
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