Brixton Caldo Verde

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I love soup. Warming, nourishing, easy to make and very useful for using up bits and bobs in your fridge, it’s a very useful addition to any cook’s repetoire. Some soups are just a delicious dinner and rarely thought of again, but some are classics that end up defining a nation and becoming famous outside their home. Vichyoisse, gazpacho, tom yum, minestrone, we all know and love them. But one that deserves to be on that roll call is the Portuguese staple caldo verde or ‘green broth’.

Originally published at Brixton Blog…

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Apple and Amaranth Granola

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At this time of year I struggle for breakfast ideas. It’s not cold enough for porridge and I find it hard to get the lovely plums and greengages the season offers so find my bowls of bircher muesli less alluring without a fruity topping. I need something to shake me up a bit and hopefully wake me up a bit as well. The bite of granola seemed to fit the bill.

Raw amaranth grains

I’d been wondering what to do with the amaranth I’d impulse purchased at Whole Foods a while back and decided that a granola might lift it from looking like birdseed to something more appetising. As terrified to get it wet as Zack should have been with his Mogwai in Gremlins after hearing it goes gluey, I popped it in a hot pan first, turning it from plain seed to toasty treat.

Popped amaranth seed

Amaranth is an ancient grain (from a grass I believe) and is similiar to quinoa in that it is gluten free* and high in protein and fibre. It makes interesting sounding porridges, but I think it most appetising dry cooked to keep it nutty and crunchy. Bearing in mind that the seed is so crunchy, I decided to make the rest of the granola a little bit softer by coating it with stewed apple instead of oil. Everything about this recipe was impulse based so it’s in cups, not weights.

Apple and Amaranth Granola:

  • 2 apples, stewed down to make one cup of apple puree
  • 2 cups jumbo oats
  • 1/2 cup amaranth
  • 1/4 cup wheatgerm (optional if your granola is wheat free)
  • 1/4 cup sesame seeds
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
  • 1/2 cup pecans, halved
  • 1/2 brazil nuts, halved
  • 1/2 cup honey (or treacle)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

First, stew your apples. Back in Belfast where I made this, it’s dead easy to get proper Bramley apples for cooking, but I struggle to find them in London, so just use anything sharp and tangy. Peel, slice finely, add about a tablespoon of water and stew until soft and like a puree. They’ll collapse in on themselves if left at the lowest heat with a lid on for about 20 minutes.

Then using a hot dry pan, toast your sesame seeds and set aside. Have a lid handy and then into the same pan, put your amaranth and toast until about 40% of it looks like tiny white popcorn and the rest is golden brown. It won’t all pop, but what does will go everywhere so you’ll need that lid!

Place all your dry ingredients in a bowl. You can add more types of nuts if you like. Hazelnuts would be lovely. Some flaked coconut is fabulous. You could add in some linseeds or sunflower seeds. Play around to get your perfect mix. Heat the pureed apple and the honey together and then mix into the dry ingredients, mixing well to make sure they are all coated.

Cook on a shallow tray so the granola is well spread out in the oven at 200℃ for about 20 minutes. Turn it over at this point and give it another 10 minutes until golden and crispy looking but not burnt. Cool in the tray and put in an airtight container immediately as this granola is a bit softer than oil based ones and will wilt gently if left out for too long.

Eat clusters of it with your bare hands while doing so or wait until you can get it into a bowl where it is fabulous with fresh berries and yoghurt. Healthy and filling, this doesn’t taste wholesome or lacking in flavour. The amaranth is nutty and packed with flavour and the chunky nuts make this feel very luxurious indeed. Considering it takes so little time to make, I’ll definitely be doing this again instead of spending serious money on boxed mueslis or granolas. Their packaging migh look nice on the table, but you don’t get to pop your own ancient grains with those….

*this whole granola can be gluten free if you choose oats that guarantee themselves GF in processing. See the Coeliac Society for more info from people in the know.

A trilogy of fried chicken…

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Three gluten free fried chicken recipes

I hear fried chicken is the next ‘junk food’ to get the gourmet treatment and because I live in Brixton, my tolerance for hipster venues is plummeting, I decided it was time to conquer my fried chicken demons and learn how to do it at home where the whole thing would take less time than queuing up in Market Row. I also decided to set myself the challenge of making it all gluten free as well…

I’m not gluten or wheat sensitive, but for some reason three different people have had conversations with me recently about fried chicken coatings that happen to be gluten free, so inspired by their enthusiasm, I thought I’d steal their ideas and do a fried chicken crunch off, testing each version against each other. All three were good. All three were easy. One was a clear winner.

I standardised a bit. Each recipe does 4 pieces of chicken. All the chicken was free range and was bone in and skin on thighs. I marinaded them in yoghurt loosened with lemon juice to save you all hearing my obsessive rant about why you can’t get proper buttermilk in England again. This would be brilliant marinaded overnight, but a couple of hours will do nicely. About 20 minutes before you need them, drain the thighs in a sieve so they aren’t too wet. Then turn attention to the coatings.

Potato fried chicken: (first piece from the front)

This is basically going a bit 70s and using dehydrated instant mash flakes as your topping. You need the cheap ones from a Basics range so that you don’t accidentally end up with potato paste over chicken skin. It’s dead simple. Put 1/2 cup or about 50g of flakes in a shallow dish and add the seasoning of your choice. I went with thyme, black pepper and paprika. Then dredge your chicken well each side without shaking too much coating off and shallow fry for 10 minutes, turning gently or spooning hot oil over the other side to firm it up before turning. Finish off for 10 minutes in the oven at 180℃. Or simply cook in the oven the whole time without adding any extra oi at 200℃. It won’t be as golden, but it’s quick, easy and crunchy at the same.

Rice flour and cornflour fried chicken: (middle piece)

Slightly more complicated than the first recipe, this has three ingredients instead of one. Mix 1/4 cup of rice flour and 1/4 cup or 25g of each in a dish and add your choice of seasoning. I used Old Bay and cayenne. Then add 4 tablespoons of the yoghurt/buttermilk mix and with your fingertips, rub together until you get what looks like slightly damp breadcrumbs. You don’t want it sticky or too clumpy so keep rubbing til it’s right. Then coat the chicken on each side making sure there are no lumpy bits and shallow fry as above. Or again, oven cook the same way.

Egg white batter fried chicken: (furthest from the front)

A little bit Chinese in style, this one uses egg whites and cornflour beaten together to make a batter. I used 2 egg whites (from the approximately 9000 leftover from my ice cream making) and 1/4 cup cornflour whisked together. I’d run out of seasoning ideas, but some garlic powder might have been good here. Your batter needs to be thick, not liquidy and move quickly or it’ll solidify into something like cement.  Coat the chicken well and then fry. This one needs oil, not the oven. I ended up with a light puffy batter on each side and an uncooked seam from shallow frying. I basted it with hot oil to rid me of this, but it might have been easier to deep fry it. Rest it in a warm oven for 10 minutes after cooking through.

All the chicken was incredibly juicy and tender from its lactic acid bath. Each one had a good contrast between the coating and the meat, but my winner was the potato coating. The rice/corn flour one had a floury squeaky mouthfeel that cloyed slightly, while the batter one was a bit greasy as it absorbed a lot of oil in comparison to the others and both lost their crunch quickly on the plate, becoming a bit gluey, while the potato flakes held up well after cooking and had the most interest to me. It would also have worked well as an oven dish and would be good with fish instead.

I liked all of these better than my usual wheat flour recipe which required marinading, egging and coating and then double dipping to get a good crunch on. The gluten free ones were all very simple and it pleased me the simplest one of all won out. I served my chicken with some roasted plaintain and chilli rubbed corn on the cob for a carb fest, but some slaw would cut through it all nicely and add some colour to the plate. Serve with a refreshing beer and you’ll be frying tonight without having to leave the house…

 

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream

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Last month I finally got the chance to try an iced coffee for the first time since an ill advised carton of Nestle Frappe back at primary school which scarred me for life (I think it’s where they got the idea for that 3 in 1 monstrosity they were pushing at Tube stations recently). This time I showed more sense and went to the Vietnamese cafe Banh Mi Bay and sampled this summer drink made by the people who do it the best.

Strong, but not bitter and slightly sweet from condensed milk, it was so refreshing I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to re-live its cooling caffeine hit and when Kavey mentioned that July’s Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge was a condensed milk custard, I knew what I had to do…

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream (makes about a litre)

  • 410g can of condensed milk or two small cans (Polish shops usually sell the bigger ones & are great value)
  • 3 tablespoons freeze dried coffee dissolved in 60ml of water, cooled slightly
  • 5 egg yolks
  • 250ml double cream
  • 250ml whole milk
  • pinch salt
  • freeze dried raspberries (optional)

First make your coffee. You’re probably having kittens at the thought of using instant coffee, but I always keep some in the house for baking and cooking as you want a good strong coffee flavour without too much liquid and proper ground beans don’t do this. If you really object to the instant stuff, this is a good time to try cold brewing coffee and using the concentrate that method creates instead. I wasn’t organised enough so instead I used 3 tablespoons of freeze dried espresso powder in 60ml or 1/4 cup of boiling water and left to cool a bit while I made the custard. I find when you freeze ice cream it lessens the flavour and I like a proper coffee kick from my custard so heaped the coffee in.

I warmed the cream and whole milk, adding in the condensed milk so it all melted and looked like thick creamy custard. I separated the eggs and beat the yolks, adding in a bit of the condensed milk custard to temper it before adding it all back into the saucepan to thicken. Add in the coffee and the salt and str until blipping gently and thickening nicely. It’s like a regular ice cream custard base but much easier to do without splitting or it not coming together. Chill well. It will look as set in the bowl at this point as pannacotta and will be a little bit difficult to get into the machine without ladling.

From reading the expertise of the people organised enough to get their posts up on Kavey’s blog in time, it looks like you could freeze other condensed milk based custards without a machine because of the texture of the custard is airier than usual and wouldn’t just make a big icy block (see her comment below). I used my machine as normal as this is egg based and while it was churning, turned my attention to the garnish.

I adore coffee and raspberries together. The tang of the berries works especially well with coffee desserts and I decided I wanted to cut through the richness of this ice cream with a sprinkle of freeze-dried raspberry. Unfortunately I wasn’t organised enough to mail order these and instead spent an afternoon trekking round London trying to find them in Whole Foods and Waitrose and Fortnums and not getting very far. Instead I bought a bar of 36% cocoa milk chocolate with raspberry from Marks and Spencer and took my frustration from my failed shopping trip out on it with a rolling pin.

I sprinkled some crushed chocolate chunks into each section of my silicone tray and poured the ice cream in, topping with more crushed chocolate and freezing as ice cream bars. I served these between wafers and the crunch of these and the chocolate chunks made the ice cream seem even creamier than it was. Not to toot my own horn, but this was the best coffee ice cream I’ve ever had and coffee ice cream is my favourite…

 

In praise of fat…

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Our ancestors were afraid of many things they didn’t understand, conducting many a witch hunt and seeking out scapegoats. We like to think we’re different with our knowledge and scientific skills, but we do the same today. But instead of women with cats, we’ve gone after fat with a flaming pitchfork for the last forty years, pushing it off our plates and yet seeing it on our bodies more and more.

We’ve all heard the theories from Ancel Keys to the French Paradox to Paleo eating or Atkins around whether we should eating fat or not and its enough to make your head spin. We’ve certainly been sold the idea that low fat is better and products modified to fit that category are now abundant on our shelves to the point where it’s almost impossible to buy yoghurt that doesn’t say 0% on the label.

Some of that demonisation of fat has rubbed off on me, compounded by developing gallstones at the age of 18. Fatty food became my nemesis and a slice of cheese or side portion of chips could leave me in so much pain I ended up in A&E. Things didn’t improve much after I had my gallbladder removed and I was put on a low fat diet by my doctors to try to ease the discomfort. Fat was forbidden and I was encouraged to learn the fat content of all the things I ate. I dreamed of butter and triple cooked chips and I’d have sold my soul for whipped cream.

My gallbladder issues resolved slowly and I was allowed to re-introduce fat back into my diet gradually, but I remained suspicious of it as if it might strike back at any time. Learning to cook allowed me to experiment and see that fat wouldn’t attack me over the plate and I began to shake over that guilt from the food industry a bit. But the turning point came when my food budget shrank and I had to re-embrace the thrift that my grandmothers might have employed in their kitchens.

The cuts of meat I was eating were fattier and as well as being flavoursome, they left a legacy of bones and grease that could be used to add interest to soups and stews without adding actual meat. I discovered that preciously hoarded bacon fat could lift simple lentils into a feast or that lard rendered pastry perfect with little effort and that beef dripping makes Yorkshire Puddings the star of the show.

Soon my fridge became a shrine to solid animal fats. Along with blocks of butter, salted, unsalted and homemade to infuse with anchovies and herbs, there was creamy white lard, a jar of duck fat pinched from a friend, a kilner of goose fat treasured from the Christmas roast, schmaltz rendered down from each chicken I’ve cooked, bacon fat from the homemade rashers from Porcus and my own cure, beef and pork dripping bought from Morrisons, pork fat from those belly slices over the months and the cupboard always contains proper suet for dumplings. (I’m also envious of Mister North having used caul fat earlier this year.) Because these fats have to be melted down to use them and are packed with the taste of the place they came from, I find I use less than I did of vegetable oils and yet enjoy them more.

I also find they sate me and my hunger is less rampant. I’ve started buying full fat versions of dressings, mayonnaise and yoghurts where I can (don’t even start me on the slimification of the humble yoghurt) and without commiting to anything as rigid or faddy as Atkins, my appetite has stablised and by desire of to snack has eased. My body has changed shape for the better and I feel contented with my food. I’ve also saved money and waste, making my small shopping budget stretch much further and having to empty the bin less.

Fat has become my friend and few things thrill me more than seeing all those jars and blocks in my fridge and deciding what to use today (although the day I finally get to render my own lard according to Shu Han’s amazing instructions will knock it into a cocked hat). I feel that everytime I use a proper solid fat, a margarine fairy loses its wings…