Jerk Cook Out, Brockwell Park

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I have just returned from the outdoor food event of the year and one of the best reasons to live in South London: The Annual Jerk Cook Out. This feast of Carribbean food has outgrown its previous home at the Horniman Museum and is now hosted at Brockwell Park in Brixton, making it much easier to lure some hungry friends along to get stuck in!

We arrived just after one o’clock and things were building up nicely, but weren’t too packed. A quick saunter round eyeing up the offerings later and we joined the burgeoning queue at the Tasty Jerk Ltd stall. The busiest of all the stalls, we were also drawn by the magnificient jerk spit roast lamb out front and phalanx of jerk drums along the side of the stall. This was serious business.

The queue moved quickly and we just had time to decide on a jerk pork and jerk chicken, plus a helping of the lamb which I have never seen offered before. We got some rice and peas on the side of the pork too as it looked particularly moist and delicious. The pork and chicken was with us in a trice, but we did have wait about five minutes extra for the lamb, while the queue for the stall expanded rapidly.

Finally clutching our well filled plates, we found a spot to sample them and realised how worth the wait it had been. The pork was glorious. Stained as pink on the edges from peppers and sugar as char siu, it was soft and succulent enough to cut through with the rather flimsy plastic fork we were given. Tangy with chilli and deliciously charred and chewy from the barbeque, we loved it.

Jerk pork with rice and peas

The chicken was equally good. Cooked on the bone and roughly chopped into pieces there was a good mix between white and dark meat. It sparkled with the fruitiness of scotch bonnets and our lips tingled in no time, especially when we scooped up some of the homemade chilli sauce on the side.

Jerk chicken

But the star of the stall was the jerk lamb. We’d managed to get pretty much the first serving (thanks to E and S for waiting it out!) off the spit roast and our thickly carved slices were a good proportion of crispy skin and juicy, still slightly pink meat. The skin was rich with fat, musky allspice and sweet chillis, melding beautifully with the luscious meat, dripping sweet juice down our hands as we feasted on slice after slice of the lamb. Not only is this the best jerk I’ve ever eaten, it’s some of the best lamb I’ve ever eaten. I would definitely venture all the way to South Norwood any day of the week for this, especially at the bargain price of ÂŁ5 per plate without sides!

Lovely lamb...

With empty plates in front of us and a mountain of wet wipes to show how hands on we’d been, we moved on before the the ever growing queue for Tasty Jerk Ltd trampled us. Another wander between the stalls led us in search of jerk ribs, but watching them grown cold and unappealing as we queued put us off. We contemplated trying something totally different with a refreshing shaved ice, but our eyes were caught by a stall advertising jerk brie…

Utterly intrigued, especially by the cute little V for vegetarian beside it, we just had to try it. And since we were getting it, we thought we might as well get some festival and fried plaintain as well to add some carbs to our feast! And we are glad we did! Partly to see how one jerks cheese and partly because it was actually delicious!

Festival of carbs!

Goo-on then!

The sweet creamy brie went very well with the spicy jerk breadcrumbs it was wrapped in before being deep fried. The cheese was gorgeously gooey and molten inside and if it wasn’t so rich, I could have eaten another one! But I wanted to leave room for the delicious festival, which if you haven’t had it, is like a less sweet version of a doughnut. Carbs finished we strolled round checking out the rest of the stalls, debating whether to go back to Tasty Jerk Ltd, but being scared off by how big it had got! Feeling more than replete and with still tingling lips, we decided to avoid the increasing crowds and head home before it all got too stressful for one’s digestion!

I’ve already put next year’s Cook Out in my diary already and will be there bright and early next year to make sure I’m first in line again for that jerk lamb. I’ll also remember to bring something to sit on and a few beers to go with it!

Royal China, Queensway

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I seem to have got out of the way of meeting friends for tea and cake once a week and developed an obsession with Asian food and jasmine tea instead. After whetting my appetite at Pacific Plaza the other week, I’ve been craving dim sum daily. Eventually I gave in to these urges and went to visit the highly esteemed Royal China on Queensway for some of the best dumplings in town. Read more

Scandinavian Kitchen

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This week’s destination for cake was a bit special in that it involved the chance to revisit some tastes of a fondly remembered childhood holiday at the fabulous Scandinavian Kitchen in Great Titchfield Street. Mister North and I visited Norway when I was about six and it has certainly left me with a lifelong soft spot for Scandinavian cuisine, particularly their luscious chocolate cakes.

So with a slight diversion to Soho to collect some fresh Yorkshire free range eggs from Mister North, I took my cake craving north of Oxford Circus as fast as my little legs could carry me. I arrived just as my dining companion ordered a plate of meatballs accompanied by three delicious looking salads. I decided cake could wait and I ordered the same thing…

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Do-Re-Mi-So-Fa-ttoush!

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After the hale and hearty (but somewhat heavy) dishes of central Europe it’s been good to eat lighter and ostensibly more healthy food back home. Good weather, joint birthdays and football fever (sigh) all created the excuse for a barbecue this weekend. There are certain dishes I tend to fall back on for barbecue fare: for me East Mediterranean / Middle Eastern flavours are so redolent of summer, with their cooling, fresh flavours. In the last year I’ve raided the Leon cookbook for inspiration (their sweet potato falafels and sesame chicken wings have become firm favourites) but deeper in the pantry of culinary influences is another inspirational character, Claudia Roden.

There was always something very exotic and other-worldly about her recipes in the cookbook on our parent’s kitchen shelf: unfamiliar ingredients sat cheek by jowl against old favourites. Later I learned about more about her extensive writings around the Med, but it was the Middle Eastern recipes which captured my imagination the most. Her recipe for fattoush, from her book ‘Tamarind and Saffron‘, can be found on the Waitrose website, and is the template I tend to use when making this stunning salad.

The first time I had fattoush was revelatory: clean, sharp, distinct and delicious flavours jostling for attention. I think it was probably in the Cedar Tree, a Lebanese restaurant in the Northern Quarter in Manchester, and I was intrigued by the banality of the description as a ‘bread salad’. Sounds rather dull, I thought, but my assumption was duly blown out of the water on the first mouthful. The citrus-y notes of the lemon and sumac dressing enhance the cooling qualities of the leaves, cucumber and mint, and the toasted bread provides texture and crispness. Can you tell I like this dish 🙂 ?

Making fattoush isn’t challenging, but it is reasonably time-consuming. I tend to associate it with standing in a sun-drenched kitchen, radio on in the background as I get engrossed in comforting routine of washing, slicing and dicing the ingredients. Wonderfully relaxing. A note though, it really is worth tracking down some real sumac, to give this salad the necessary ‘zing’. You should be able to get it in most shops in cities which cater for Middle Eastern/Persian/Arabic customers, or buy online. I’m lucky enough to be able to buy from the inimitable Alex Med in Todmorden Market, whose imported and home-prepared mixes are quite wonderful. His sumac is Syrian, and perfectly piquant.

Stir it up…

Ham, cheese and malt toastie heaven

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Sometimes simple pleasures are the best. For me, this ticks all the boxes: great local cheese, great local ham, and not-quite-so local but equally great bread. The cheese was the remains of some of the original Calderdale Cheese which needed eating up, and I had a few small pieces of the air-dried ham left over, so I whipped up a bit of a rarebit-like mix. Miss South was visiting at the time I made this (this post is prompted by me finding these photos from early in the year), so I raided my stash of precious Veda bread from the freezer in celebration.

Veda, you say? Yes, these are slices of Veda bread (truly one of the high points of Northern Irish baking culture), and for the uninitiated, Veda is a dark, malty loaf. A bit like Soreen, but without the fruit, and not as dense a mix. It seems at one time Veda was widely available across the UK, but over time tastes have changed and the last remaining backwater of the country to keep Veda in a place close to their heart is Norn Irn. Several bakeries still produce it over there, but try as I might I’ve never managed to track it down on this side of the Irish Sea.

Miss South and I grew up eating (and loving) the humble Veda bread. One wouldn’t do much with it… possibly toast it, or add a few slices of mature Cheddar… the slightly sweet malty flavour, and almost sticky texture was enough. I’d often eat half a loaf of this diminutive loaf in one sitting: something encouraged by the fact Veda never comes sliced, so you tend to cut off big doorstep-like wodges to toast. I’m salivating at the very prospect, just writing this now… I’ll be filling a suitcase with Veda next time I go back to see family. Over the years I’ve converted more than a few folk to the exquisite delights of Veda… I would dearly love to proselytise further. Let me know if you fancy a slice of Veda toast some time!