The first sunny summery Friday night of the year found my friend L and I hungry for Carribbean food in Brixton. Too late for the stalls and shops around Brixton Village, we decided to try the Brixton institution that is Bamboula. Tucked away opposite the Town Hall, its bright frontage brings a bit of cheer to the bottom of Acre Lane and some home cooked charm to Brixton.
The locals love lángos
(Mister North’s in Budapest for an old university friend’s wedding this weekend). I was determined to enjoy lángos for breakfast, as I’d read it’s as Magyar a food experience as paprika or goose liver, and much more unhealthy.
The local English language edition of Time Out recommended a stand-up gaff in Fény utcai piac market near Moszkva Tér. My friend and I wandered about, eyes on stalks at the profusion of local produce, from freshly picked cherries and strawberries, kohlrabi and paprika to kolbász sausages and fogas (pike-perch from Lake Balaton). Eventually we tracked down a tiny stall at the back of the building: the smell of fat and garlic wafted across the queue of punters waiting patiently for their cholesterol levels to be boosted heartily.
We tried ordering two sima lángos (the basic kind where one paints on a garlic paste and flakes of salt) in halting Hungarian, but the nice lady behind the counter helped up out by replying in much less poor English. We also decided to accompany these with a pint of the local dark beer (well, most locals seemed to be doing this even though it was only mid-morning, so who where we to argue?)
It may’ve been unhealthy, but boy was it ever good. Think deep-fried garlic bread or focaccia; light yet filling, with a superbly nutty beer on the side. Next time I’d like to graduate to the significantly more unhealthy sour cream and cheese numbers which are so popular with the locals. Who needs an Ulster fry when you can have your heart attack on a napkin in your hand, with a pint on the side? Marvellous!
I’m surprised we Norn Irish folk haven’t fully embraced lángos: they may be ‘foreign’ but after all they’re made with flour and potato, deep fried, and salted heavily. If it wasn’t for the lashings of garlic on the top I’d suggest this would be a prime candidate take over kebabs and pizza as a post-pub meal in Belfast on a Saturday night.
Spring was in the air at May’s Invisible Food Walk and we were on the look out for the newest shoots, buds and flowers the land had to offer. After such a long hard winter everyone was excited to see the trees and flowers returning to life and the promise in of a feast of dandelion fritters, hawthorne flower syrup, stuffed lime leaves and nettle soup only added to that feelingof optimism and newness.
Our ever expanding group began by walking over to Wyck Gardens to pick some particularly succulent looking leaves from the local lime trees. Not to be confused with those that produce citrus fruit, these towering trees are a common sight on London’s streets with large heart shaped leaves of the brightest green. We picked handfuls to take back to the centre and stuff to make a delicious light canape.
We also discovered an excellent patch of comfrey close to the proposed new site for the Ebony Horse Club in the far corner of the park. Both promise to bring new life to the plants of the area. Comfrey makes a wonderful plant feed and horses create excellent fertiliser! Hopefully the recently planted fruit and nut trees in the area will see the benefits first.
We moved onto Loughborough Park in search of dandelion flowers and hawthorn flowers. This small park is tucked away just off Moorlands Road and if you didn’t know it was there, you would never suspect that this shady park filled with winding paths, open spaces and a large playground is there. It is one of Brixton’s lesser known and unspoilt green spaces, making it perfect for foraging. We filled containers with handfuls of sunshine yellow dandelion flowers and delicate white hawthorn blossoms while the kids worked up an appetite on the swings. We also found a new variety of chickweed and picked some beautiful tender young nettles for the pot.
Back at the centre with our spoils still warm from the sun, we set to work turning them into the freshest meal imaginable. The nettle soup was first on the go, peeling and chopping potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots and garlic to form a savoury base. These were sweated down over the wood pellet stove before adding some bouillon and leaving to cook. The nettles would be added just before the end and everything blended to a creamy consistency.
Next to be prepared were the flowers. The delicate white hawthorn blooms needed removed from the stems and placed in a sturdy glass jar where they could infuse and form an aromatic syrup. Unfortunately this wouldn’t be ready for us to try today, but would be a perfect accompaniment to the next batch of dandelion fritters in around two weeks time.
The dandelion flowers also needed separated from their stems. This is easily done using a pair of scissors to snip them off and make sure they are free of any of the milky sap that dandelions produce when torn. The flowers need to be clean and dry to allow the batter to adhere to them evenly. Ceri had already made the batter before we went out foraging as the best batters need time to sit before cooking. She used a simple egg, flour, sparkling water recipe to give a light tempura-style coating to the flowers.
As the fresh lime leaves were being stuffed with rye and hand rolled by an army of volunteers, a friend of the group began to set up a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony to accompany the food we were cooking and wash down the banquet of buffet foods that people had brought. The pale green beans were slowly roasted in a pan over a portable stove and the smell of freshly roasting beans was spectacular. They were then ground and brewed in a tradional boiling pot, before being served with small chunks of Eritrean bread called hembesha. This slightly chewy dense bread flavoured with cardamom and coriander seed is delicious on its own and perfect with coffee!
In the midst of all this activity, it was time for the chopped nettle leaves to be added carefully to the soup. They will sting until cooked so should not be handled unless you like getting hives! The soup was cooked until the leaves wilted and was taken off to be blended. A frying pan went onto the stove and the butter was melted in preparation for frying the fritters as Ceri lightly dipped the flowers in batter. Each dinky little fritter goes into the foaming butter for a minute or two before being drained on kitchen towel.
They are ready to eat as soon as they are cooked. We passed platefuls of these gorgeous golden little morsels around and people who had finished eating the buffet with its Ethiopian lamb curry and injera, doused them in lemon juice and dredged them in icing sugar for a sweet treat to finish their meal. Others who had resisted the home made treats of the lunch table and had held out for soup as a main course dipped them in the gloriously savoury green liquid as the plain batter made them appealing to either a sweet or savoury tooth.
Once we had eaten our fill, fighting over the last few fritters and wiping our bowls spotlessly clean with the remaining chunks of hembesha, we savoured the coffee at the end of the meal. Sadly I was so busy making sure I didn’t miss a drop of soup, I didn’t get any photos of the coffee being brewed or poured. This made me even more determined to try a cup of it and I’m glad I did. Surprisingly light, yet rich and smooth in flavour, it was absolutely delicious. Despite not being much of a coffee drinker, I could have drunk several espresso sized cups of this. Taken black and very hot, it was incredibly refreshing and was the perfect end to to the meal.
This was another fascinating and delicious Saturday afternoon in Brixton filled with new experiences, flavours and textures. I look forward to trying the fritters again with elderflower as we had originally hoped to do, but were thwarted by the chilly May weather that had stopped them from blooming in time. I’m also a lot more keen to weed my flowerbeds now I’ve discovered such a tasty use for dandelion flowers!
After our epic Colombian lunch the other day, Mister North and I did eventually manage to work up an appetite again and turned our attention to the stunning chorizo Colombiano we had already picked up from Carniceria butcher in Brixton Village.
Chorizo Colombiano is less like the cured Spanish product and more like the great British banger, featuring raw chopped pork, garlic and coriander in a casing. It varies from our sausage in size, looking big and plump enough to use as a draught excluder in a pinch! Slightly greedily we bought 4 of these meaty beauties for a mere £3.60 and decided to make a slow cooked stew with them.
Having been reading the extremely comprehensive The Art of South American Cooking by Felipe Rojas-Lombardi earlier in the week, we agreed that the stew needed long slow cooking, robust flavours and some heat behind it. We bought some black beans and scotch bonnet peppers at the market and decided to make the rest of it up as we went along!
This primarily involved sauteeing a red onion and some scallions over a high heat before adding two of the sausages chopped into chunks along with some chopped carrots and potatoes to brown slightly. Meanwhile we blitzed two scotch bonnets, 3 or 4 cloves or garlic and a good dollop of green seasoning in the hand blender to make a piquant paste which was then used to coat the meat and vegetables as they softened.
Once everything was gently softened, we added a tin of black beans and some liquid with a portion of my homemade home grown slow roasted tomato sauce and a glass or two of water before popping the Le Cresuet in the oven at 140˚C and going out to drink mojitos for an hour or two…
When we came back, the whole flat smelled amazing. On closer inspection the stew had thickened up beautifully as the sauce had reduced and the sausages had broken down to a texture similar to coarse mince rather than remained in chunks. We took the lid off the casserole pot and popped the stew back in for another hour or so to allow the flavours to mingle and mellow nicely.
Kicking ourselves that we hadn’t gone the whole hog and got some quinoa to go with the stew, we opted to serve the stew as it as was without a carb on the side to get the full flavours. And what flavours they were! The sausages were rich and toothsome with a good flavour of garlic throughout while the sauce had a sweet fruity undertone from the tomatoes and the scotch bonnet peppers coming together in a tantalisingly tingle of heat in the mouth. The whole dish was just packed with flavour and texture and was the perfect one pot dish.
We used two of the sausages and got two good portions of the stew each from it, albeit bulked out slightly with rice or couscous on the second night, making this one of the best value meals I’ve had in a while! Despite this frugality, this was a stew that you could serve to anyone for dinner with pride. Simple, hearty and flavoursome; when stew is this good it almost makes me glad the weather is still so miserable so I can indulge in a warming bowful for longer!
Sirloin with shallot and wet garlic, finished with Blacksticks Blue
As part of Miss South’s trip north at the end of March I wanted to ensure we could enjoy what is rapidly becoming a prerequisite for our family gatherings: excellent beef steak. As usual the wonderful Stansfield’s of Tod market was able to supply the required cuts, in this case two glorious Yorkshire sirloins. Once I’d bought these I picked up a brace of oh-so-fresh wet garlic bulbs from Alex Med – the first of the year – and decided that this, alongside a few rogue shallots which were crying out to be used, could provide the basis of a very pleasant main course. With a starter of Woodcock and a dessert of Buckfast sorbet this was shaping up to a helluva meal… Read more