Foodie Pen Pals

When I read about foodie pen pals I knew I wanted to get involved. The opportunity to buy delicious foodie treats that I wouldn't normally - or at least not without a shred of guilt - (even if I'm not eating them, a trip to the supermarket/foodie shops is always welcomed!) and the idea of having a lovely parcel of things delivered in return to get my creative cookery juices flowing definitely appealed to me!

I had the pleasure of sending a foodie parcel to Sarah Jane of the atomatosardine blog. Her entry on my parcel is here! All I'll say is that I had great fun picking treats out for someone I didn't know, and trying to get creative with what I could fit in my already full-to-the-brim luggage on my return from Barcelona.

Samantha Bell  sent me a very generous food parcel as shown below...

Where to begin? Well, maybe with the bits in it I've already eaten! I was so excited to get stuck in that the lentil & chilli curls from M&S & some giant corn snacks are already gone. My favourite were the curls - a really nice healthy snack to steer me away from crisps; these were yummy. I've also already delved into the lasagne as Samantha had kindly included some recipes to accompany some of the items - I created Samantha's own courgette lasagne recipe. This was a lovely homely dish, though I never quite get lasagne right (the top sheet of lasagne always seems to go crispy - although I realised this time that I actually quite like that!) so I think I'm going to get Jamie to have a go at it next time. It was a nice autumnal dish though (yes, it's autumn, I hear that's been decided by the continuous Mancunian showers), and I was especially pleased to receive this recipe as we had courgettes that were close to dying!

The BEAR fruit yo yo is actually a replacement one as I love these fruit rolls that I've already eaten the one I was sent. I think I was sold on them as a brand when I contacted them whilst volunteering in the fundraising department at work & although they never actually had a conversation with me, I enjoyed receiving their e-mails letting me know that "Jenny is currently out of the cave resting her paws" & their sign off - "best regrrds"! They're also super tasty too... Pineapple is very good, and I'd also recommend the peach flavour.

I thought I could smell coffee when I picked up my parcel from reception & I was so happy when I found that there was some included - I'm a total coffee fiend. I have tried this in my cafetiere but I think I need an espresso machine to do this fine ground justice. Time to invest!

Samantha said that she's a lady who doesn't usually buy ready-made items but included the Merchant Gourmet lentils because lentils are such a pain to get right, and I definitely agree. I always end up under or over cooking them, so I'm looking forward to using these - but can't decide what to have them with! I'm thinking a ballotine of chicken stuffed with chestnut puree, or a slow cooked duck leg... Let me know if anyone has any other ideas.

The kinder egg was also a very sweet treat, and I think I may just crack into it tonight...

All in all, a fantastic foodie parcel - and I can't wait to eat/use the other bits and pieces shown above! I definitely think that I'll be doing this regularly, and I know that Jamie's keen to get involved too... he was very envious when he saw my treats.

I hope I haven't been naughty in posting this before the last day of the month - I'm off to Harrogate tomorrow for a weekend (well, two nights) sans internet, so thought I better get it up now.

Degustación de Barcelona

Where to start?

A week in Barcelona is never enough time... yet there's still so much to say.

Anna & I found such an affinity with the Spanish way of life, especially that of Barcelona, that it's quite a culture shock returning to Manchester. It's a pipe-dream to imagine that the English attitude towards eating, drinking and socializing could undergo an overhaul of the kind that would bring us more in line with the Spanish mentality. It's also a pipe dream to imagine we would have any money left should we live in a country which offers tasting menus (Menú degustación) at every other restaurant.

Anyway, that's enough of my unpatriotic misgivings, I suspect.

Having gone straight back into work from holiday, we haven't had time to write up reviews of all the places we visited, so the idea here is to give a taster (or a degustación!) of things to come.


Full reviews of the restaurants to come but highlights include...

-Being the sole table on a Friday night in Paco Guzman's 'Santa', the sister restaurant to Santa Maria, and having a fairly frank discussion with the chef/owner about the state of the food scene in Barcelona

-Discovering an ale-centric bar just around the corner from our apartment in Sant Pere and talking to one of the new breed of Spanish brewers (I say talking, I mean smiling and nodding, as he spoke no English, and us little Spanish)

-Sardine with spiced butter, fennel pollen and lemon at Gresca

-Squid with a deconstructed Romesco sauce at Bar Del Pla

-Morcilla with sauteed chickpeas at Casa Delfin

-Beef tartare and beer yoghurt at Igueldo

-The eccentric and laid-back staff at Organic (somewhat reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman in I Heart Huckabees)

-Watching Spanish hipsters dancing to British indie music in Sidecar

Watch this space! (It is a bank holiday, after all...)

SoLIta Bar and Grill

The prospect of eating at SoLIta had my mouth salivating, my stomach rumbling, and my arteries looking frantically for the nearest exit...




Artery-assault: deep fried Mac 'n' Cheese

After attending a press review lunch at SoLIta, I initially wrote a small preview for tasteofmanchester.com, with the view to writing a full blog post soon after. Then the shit hit the fan and every food blogger in Manchester was reviewing the place. So, I decided to wait for the storm to subside, bide my time, then give my two cents, for what it's worth.


Out of the ashes of Sole, SoLita is born.


The restaurant brings the bar and grill concept to the Northern Quarter for the first time. The idea is to serve comforting, homely food in a New York-Italian vein, or what owner Dom Sotgiu understatedly calls ‘posh kid’s food’.

The menu is a carnivore’s dream - even the ice cream, made by Cabrelli’s, comes with bacon candy. Nibbles come in the form of fried chicken skin, a lighter alternative to pork scratchings; starters include bacon jam on sourdough, deep-fried cod balls, and the amazing pulled-pork sundae, which is sure to become a firm favourite among customers.

Pulled pork sundae



For the main courses, Dom has chosen some of the cheaper, tastier cuts and made them shine with the help of the Inka charcoal oven, which produces results that rival the best outdoor barbecue. The Short-ribs, aka Jacob’s Ladder, are slow-cooked for two days before being finished in the Inka, a recipe for deliciously tasty meat. A hanger steak (the tail end of the sirloin), notoriously difficult to cook, is exquisite and a steal at just over £16.

Other standout dishes include the behemoth deep-fried mac ‘n’ cheese burger, which has to be seen to be believed, and the sumptuous beef and bone marrow burgers on a perfectly light, yet sturdy demi-brioche bun. Even the side salad and chargrilled vegetables are brimming with flavour.




Cheeseburger

Desserts come in the form of ‘deep-fried coke’ (coke-flavoured churros), cheesecake, and the astoundingly good chargrilled pineapple with coconut ice cream. Dom has also been lucky to get hold of some fine mixologists and baristas and with a fine range of cocktails there’s more to the place than just meat.

SoLIta is not somewhere I can imagine eating very often however. This is perfect comfort food (read: 'having had a few too many beers the night before' food). The salt, fat, and sugar will satisfy all your desires for excess. Not to be indulged in more than once in a while but very good when you do.

They will undoubtedly have stiff competition from Almost Famous and Home Sweet Home but I do hope that the owners can make a go of this difficult dining spot.


Deep fried 'Coke'

A simple supper... and a simpler lunch

Being a passionate and often fastidious cook, I sometimes get bogged down in the intricacies of cooking complicated dishes and neglect simple combinations of ingredients. Reading through a recipe by Heston Blumenthal or Thomas Keller can leave one feeling overwhelmed and wishing simply to concoct an easy dish with tried and tested flavour pairings.

Here it's mackerel, beetroot, and horseradish for a light lunch which takes only a few minutes to prepare; and then a slow cooked duck leg seasoned with five spice, stir-fryed cabbage and sauteed potatoes for dinner.

Mackerel and beetroot with horseradish dressing

Smoked mackerel fillet, 1 per person

Beetroot, pre-cooked

Dressing:

Horseradish sauce, 1 tsp

Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp

Sherry vinegar, 1 tbsp

Salt and pepper

• Tear the mackerel into bite-size pieces
• Slice the beetroot into thin circles
• Combine the horseradish sauce and sherry vinegar then whisk in the olive oil  until emulsified, then season and taste
• Dress the mackerel and beetroot

Slow-cooked duck leg with cabbage and sauteed potatoes

2 Duck legs

Sea Salt, 2 tbsp

Five-spice powder, 1 tsp

Sweetheart cabbage, finely sliced

Shaoshing rice wine, splash

Soy sauce, to taste

New potatoes, cut into bite-size pieces

Corn oil or butter

• Sprinkle the salt over the duck legs and rub into the skin and underside, then leave covered overnight in the fridge
• Preheat the oven to 200 degress then rinse the salt off the duck legs, pat dry, and season with five spice
• Fry the duck skin side down until most of the fat has been rendered down
• Place duck legs in a covered casserole dish, put in the oven and cook for roughly an hour and a half
• To saute the potatoes, pat the cut pieces dry, then heat the oil or butter in a frying pan over a medium heat
• It is important that the pan be hot enough to brown the potatoes but not too hot that it will burn them
• Fry the potatoes turning occasionally to make sure all sides are browned (this will take about half an hour)
• For the cabbage, heat a little oil in a wok then stir-fry the cabbage, seasoning with the rice wine and soy sauce
• Do this when you are ready to plate up as the cabbage will not take long to cook
• Sit the duck leg on top of the cabbage and serve with the sauteed potatoes



Sirloin Steak with Chimichurri

The perfect combination

Mmmm, steak.

For the meat lovers who read this post, I bet you won't be able to resist uttering (even mentally) something similar to 'I wish I had one of those'; and with my sincere apologies to the vegetarians and vegans, I admit that I cannot behold a well-cooked steak without salivating. It speaks to my inner carnivore like nothing else.

In 2009, I travelled around South America for four months. From gorging on coxinha's in Rio to nibbling guinea pig in Cusco, from gigantic pizzas in La Paz to coconut water in Cali, there is one food memory that stands out: carving into slabs of delicious Argentine steak.

The Argentinians tend to cook their steaks on outdoor grills known as parillas, which impart a smokey, char-grilled crust to the already flavoursome cuts of beef. The British weather being slightly more inclement, I tend to cook steaks in a cast-iron griddle pan, and you can still get a delicious brown crust with this method.

Adding some chimchurri sauce I am transported back to those small restaurants in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and Salta. In Argentina, chimichurri is the condiment of choice for steak and as with anything in the cooking domain there are various recipes for it, but they all revolve around a few central ingredients: parsley, garlic, red wine vinegar and olive oil. Some add coriander, dried oregano, chilli and lime juice.

Chimichurri sauce

For the chimichurri:

Flat-leaf parsley, small bunch (80g packet from the supermarket)
Coriander, small bunch
3-5 garlic cloves, peeled
Red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp
Extra-virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp
Oregano (preferably Mexican), 1tsp
Crushed chillies, a pinch

-Blend all ingredients in a food processor


When it comes to cooking steak, my tips are culled from Heston Blumenthal and his idol, Harold McGee:

• Take your steak from the fridge, remove any packaging and let come to room temperature for about half an hour (optionally, air-dry in the fridge for 2 days a la Blumenthal)
• Put a cast-iron pan over a high heat for roughly 5 minutes or until smoking hot
• Brush one side of the steak with oil then season with table salt (two decent pinches for a normal size sirloin should do it)
• Lay the steak seasoned side down in the pan, season the other side then turn every 20 seconds or so, until each side had a nice, brown crust and the steak is cooked to your taste
• The best way to check how the steak is cooked is with a temperature probe (but with a little practice simply pressing the meat will give you a good enough idea)
• Once cooked, remove from the pan and rest for at least 5 minutes

Another simple method is to brown each side of a steak then put it in an oven at around 100 degrees celsius and check its doneness with a probe. This will tend to give a very evenly cooked piece of meat.

There are other tips and tricks, but if you follow these you can be guaranteed a tasty steak. For me the most salient points are getting the pan really hot, the resting period. and making sure you season the steak enough. It'll take more salt than you think.

With Aldi now doing Aberdeen Angus 28-day-matured sirloin and rib-eye steaks for just less than £4, it's now pretty affordable to eat a decent cut of meat every now and again. While I would always advocate sourcing meat from a reputable butcher, I think it's understandable to go occasionally for the cheaper albeit not so ethical option. I prefer a rib-eye for its flavourful marbling of fat which melts deliciously when cooked.

Wash this all down with a decent Argentine Malbec and dream of eating steaks the size of your head for less than the price of a Big Mac meal. No wonder they restrict how much of it gets across the channel!

Just how I like my steak