Langoustine Fregola

One of our favourite meals in Sardinia was a bowlful of comforting fregola, strewn with mussels and fire licked vegetables, laced with mullet stock and lifted by a kick of chilli and a blast of lemon zest. It was our take on a Sardinian classic. Just without the pricey clams, saffron or tomatoes! After we’d devoured what was in our tangerine coloured bowls, I couldn’t help myself from scooping out the residual grains of moistened fregola from the discarded mussel shells.

Fresh from having our fregola virginity stripped away from us, my curiosity took over and lead me into the darkened corners of the information super-highway, where people discuss how to hand roll semolina so it turns into perfectly irregular nuggets of pasta-cum-couscous. It seems that fregola is a culinary palimpsest, showing the influence that Arabic culture has imparted on Italy. All of which is fairly ironic considering some of the nationalistic rumblings that occasionally get expelled from the mouths of officious Italian politicians about evil foreign food.

The main differences between the two are that fregola is toasted, giving it a nutty quality and that couscous tends to be much more granular. Meanwhile, to confuse matter, Israeli couscous is normally the size of a small pea and untoasted.

The fregola we encountered in Sardinia was gnarly and unevenly coloured which gives it a characteristic, hand made charm and could well be the basis for its name. As SFGate says, “The name fregola probably derives from Italian fregare, meaning to rub, an apt description of how moistened semolina is transformed into fregola’s coarse crumbs.”

So back in Sweden I decided to revisit our Sardinian adventures by creating a bowl of langoustine loaded fregola as a sort of Sarda-Scandi fusion.

I blitzed the Fishchurch and left carrying a bagful of langoustines and a hake carcass which I had wangled for free. Brilliantly, the fishmonger had been more careless than frugal so there was still plenty of meat on the bones, especially around the head, so it made for excellent stock.

Ingredients:

1 hake carcass plus accompanying stock vegetables in order to make a litre of fish stock
200 grams of fregola
4 raw langoustines
2 handfuls of spinach
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion – finely chopped
Orange zest
Half a finely chopped red chilli
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Chilli sauce

Method:

Boil the fish carcass along with a carrot, a stick of celery and an onion for 30 minutes. Strain the liquid and discard the bone and keep any meat that falls off. Reduce the stock, but don’t go too crazy because it can go gluey.

Meanwhile sauté the onion until softened and add the minced garlic. Then add the fregola and enough stock to cover. Cook until the fregola is soft and season. Grate the zest of an orange into the fregola and stir through half a red chilli. Then add the langoustines and cook them until they change colour followed by the spinach which you just want to wilt and add colour.

Check the seasoning and serve with the claws hanging over the edge of the bowl. I added a splash of chilli sauce at the end just to give it a lift as well, but that’s optional.

It’s very moreish. Luckily I didn’t eat both portions and managed to save some fregola for my next meal, which found its way into a roasted red pepper.

Further reading:

Chocolate and Zucchini recipe for fregola sarda
SFGate on fregola
Fregola with leeks and sausage
Fregola with goats curd, tomatoes and asparagus on Eat Like a Girl
Fregola sarda with vegetables and wild garlic pesto
Artisan pastas
How to make fregola by hand

Hide the Sausage at Polpo

Tapasification is a good idea. Not only does it give you more choice. But it also means the spectre of food envy is forced to loom large elsewhere. The trauma of missing out on an amazing dish whilst you are tucking into something you ordered in a panic is cast aside. The only downside is that you tend to spend more money and are constantly fighting your fellow diners and deploying clandestine tactics to distract them from the last knee wobblingly seductive morsel.

So well done Polpo for popping up. An Italian, sorry Venetian, tapas, sorry bacari, joint is just what we needed. Being British we rather enjoyed the queue and less than charming welcome from the barman. It made us feel comfortable and fortunate to be allowed to eat in their restaurant. We quickly resorted to rudimentary sign language in order to communicate given that the noise, sorry, buzz was so loud, sorry vibrant.

To our enormous excitement we were seated on a table next to none other than Charles “Dinner-Party-Average” Campion and a companion. Cowie could barely contain herself as she rubber necked as if she was studying the fine detail of a particularly interesting car crash. Our waiter helpfully pointed out that he was a food critic who likes the food so much that he lets the kitchen cook him whatever they feel like.

If this wasn’t a debossed wax seal of approval then nothing is. Inspired by Campion and his insatiable appetite we threw ourselves into our task of eating as if there were medals at stake.

Arancini were texturally accomplished and a triumph of what some would call subtlety and others blandness. Chopped liver on toast was loamy but under-seasoned. Salt cod on grilled polenta was far more interesting causing me to hide the second half of it behind a wine bottle. Spratti in soar were the least popular, but that’s fine by me because I rather liked them. I chuckled as I thought of them as the Mini Me to Mackerel’s Dr. Evil.

And just as I thought this is all good without being thrilling, out came some pizzetta bianca. Like Dawn French in a Philadelphia advert I tried to mask my look of greedy glee as I chewed my first bite, spluttering to the others not to eat it because it tasted horrible. But they didn’t fall for it! I’ve been pining for some ever since reading Jeffrey Steingarten’s ode to pizza bianca. It’s a very simple dish. And in many ways the epitome of pure Italian food. It consists of a perfect pizza base that has a specific degree of thinness. According to the chaps at Wikipedia it is “topped with olive oil, salt and, occasionally, rosemary sprigs”. It is then cooked very quickly and served without any fuss or accoutrements. There is an outside chance I enjoyed the idea of this dish as much as the real thing. But either way my debut was a thrill that has inspired me to explore the real thing in Rome.

Main dishes ranged from the excellent calf’s liver, flank steak and polpette to the decent pork belly and polpette. I found myself playing hide the sausage with the Cotechino. Mackerel tartare almost gave me a funny turn and fritto misto was crispy and well fried but bordered on tasteless. Slow cooked duck was inexplicably dry – if it was an actor you’d describe it as wooden. Two vegetarian dishes outshone most of their meaty table companions – a creamy slew of pumpkin again found itself cowering behind a wine bottle which was soon joined by the remnants of the wet polenta and some expertly roasted vegetables.

To finish we shared two rather ill conceived desserts – a semifreddo in a cone and a hot chocolate soup which were a bit of an afterthought. Maybe an affogato or just an espresso would have been a better idea. But it wasn’t all bad in the pudding department – Cowie’s almond tart was sensational.

Throughout our meal the service was swift, assured and helpful. I’ve only got two complaints but they are about the sludgy brown ceiling and crappy loos. But who cares about that when the atmosphere is so alive, and the food is so interesting. Charles Campion obviously doesn’t. And how can I not love the restaurant that plucked my pizza bianca cherry.

La Barca – Ideal for Dinner before the Old Vic

Image from Celebdu on Flickr

Choosing restaurants to take your parents to is tricky. Especially when you’ve got the added parameters of having to be finished by 7pm and be near Waterloo so we could make it to the Old Vic in time to see The Cherry Orchard. A spot of research on Twitter led me to La Barca. Luckily, I didn’t look at the reviews on London Eating, otherwise we would never have gone…

“The service was slow, rude and pompous.”

“It’s one of the most overpriced restaurants I’ve been too.”

“La Barca used to be great; there’s clearly something seriously awry with it now.”

“My advice – only visit here if you’re prepared to put up with badly cooked food and poor customer service, we certainly won’t be going again.”

On the night the air was stickier than a fly catcher and more saturated than a toner cartridge. Sweat clung to my back and made me feel like a filthy urchin. Just typing it makes me feel clammy. So the beautifully air-conditioned interior of La Barca was gloriously welcome.

With 5 of us eating (and Dad paying) we were able to sample a wide range of their impressive, but robustly priced menu. My Mother and Sister guzzled their enormous prawns, still enveloped by their terracotta shells, in garlic and lemon butter before any of us got a look in. They looked sensational. When quizzed Mum said it was the best thing she’d eaten in ages. Dad’s smoked salmon parcel contained a cushion of crab meat that had him purring like our geriatric Siamese cat. Meanwhile Cowie’s bresaola with truffle oil and parmesan was a treat. My grilled sardines were, grilled sardines.

Whilst the starters were good, the mains stole the show. Cowie devoured her pink centred tuna. Dad demolished his mixed platter of fried white fish with a grin on his face that apparently I’ve inherited. Whilst Mum enjoyed her rosy best end of lamb with a slightly dodgy gravy. But, it was my dish that stole the show.
Because we’d arrived late I’d ordered very quickly and without much thought. Why I ordered sardines, I’m not quite sure. But where I’d missed out on the first course I won on the main course. It was like accidentally filling in a lottery ticket and winning the jackpot.

My “Spaghetti a La Barca” arrived in a paper bag and was lovingly spooned, tableside, into my bowl. Squirmy spaghetti jostled with plump mussels, clams, squid rings, tentacles, scallops and a vast tiger prawn. And mingled with a spiced tomato sauce that I managed to splatter all over my white shirt. It’s one of the best bowls of pasta I’ve ever had.

I loved it so much I asked them how it’s made. Apparently they boil the pasta and make a rich tomato sauce with some mild chilli to give it background heat. They then pour the pasta and sauce into a paper bag and add the seafood before baking it in the oven for 10-15 minutes with the lid on.

The technique is elaborated upon by John Thorne, in “Simple Cooking”:

“With the paper bag method, the pasta is cooked in the ordinary way until it is almost done, then mixed with the sauce and put in the oven to bake. Since the bag is collapsed around its contents and sealed, the flavour of the sauce completely penetrates the pasta.

There is also a second advantage. Because no moisture escapes, the cook has the opportunity to get a maximum amount of flavour from a minimum of undiluted sauce…”

As we walked across the road to the Old Vic, Mum and Dad said it was one of the best meals they’ve had in London for many years. It’s not cheap, but if you just order the pasta in a bag and have a bottle of house wine you can’t go too far wrong. The negative comments on London Eating seemed very wide of the mark. If you are planning a trip to the Old Vic with your family, then a trip to La Barca before hand is just the ticket.

A Very Wild Caper, Brixton

Brixton is blessed. Not only have Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo opened the best pizza palace in London in Brixton, but they have also brought joy to the heart of South London with a fantastic little organic café/deli called Wild Caper.

Feeling peckish, I went for a walk through Brixton Market and found myself marveling at how busy Franco Manca was. A friendly crowd gorged themselves on heavenly pizza and glasses of yellow lemon syrup. It took all my mental strength to resist settling down and ordering a spot of lunch.

A sign for the Brixton Fish Market dragged me further into the alleyway, luring me towards some interesting little stalls and shops. I walked past an intriguingly anonymous café and had a double take. Something about it had caught my attention. And I haven’t got a clue what it was. See for yourself…

Inside I was greeted with impeccable organic produce and charming staff. The first thing I spotted were some lovely chanterelle mushrooms, that Rosie from the café around the corner has mentioned on her café’s blog. Then my attention was caught by the organic wine selection. I busily checked my change and worked out how much pocket money I had to spend! I selected an organic bottle of red wine called Diogene which is the house red at Franco Manca down the street. It should make a good impromptu Christmas present.

Then I found my left hand had grabbed a pack of brown paper with the number 2.70 cryptically written in black marker pen. I looked down at the label and realized that I had grabbed hold of a pack of organic garlic, fennel and pork sausages. Lunch. It was strange because I had no control over my hands at all. It was like I was being controlled by someone else with a remote control. My next movement was to lunge towards the small bread counter. The assistant explained that all their bread is baked from organic sourdough in Franco Manca’s pizza ovens up the alleyway. I plucked a baguette from the stand and paid up.

It’s a very curious shop. It’s the dimensions of a medium sized bedroom and was staffed by 3 or 4 people despite me being the only customer. It has been in existence for 2 months and boasts an olive oil urn, some fantastic fresh herbs, organic veg, an interesting organic wine collection, proper spices and salt, amazing sourdough bread, a small café serving soup and home made pasta from their pasta counter and a small but top quality range of fresh organic produce. Apparently they also serve very good Monmouth coffee.

I took my goodies home and made THE BEST EVER sausage sandwich for lunch. I’m not going to patronise/bore anyone with how I cooked it etc. but this is what it looked like.

I wasn’t really prepared to have a sausage epiphany. But I guess you have them when you are least expecting them. This was no ordinary sausage. Somewhere, in the ozone above Greece, in the depths of Plato’s Platonic forms, sits a sausage. And it should be ashamed of itself because it is an impostor. The truly perfect sausage is to be found at Wild Caper. Inside the casing hid bite sized chunks of beautifully tender pork, accompanied by slithers of garlic and hints of fennel seed. The bread was tangy, smelling slightly of hay – the texture was ideal for a posh hot dog. I am gobsmacked and greedily keen for a return visit.

The return visit didn’t take too long. I returned the next day, drawn in by an enormous magnet. I was in desparate need of lunch. Unfortunately, they had run out of soup, so I opted for some pasta, sauce and some olives to take back home. It may sound quite humble. But it was sensational.

I got chatting to a South African lady who I think was Bridget who explained the vision behind the business. My googling of Bridget has thrown up lots of interesting leads – it seems she is a singer, artist, activist and restaurateur – either she is like a modern Leonardo Da Vinci or there’s more than one South African “Bridget Hugo” in Brixton. Her passion and generosity were tangible. I was offered a chunk of amazing nougat to make amends for the lack of soup. I raved about their sausages – proclaiming them to be the best I have ever have. They were horrified that I had roasted my sausage rather than poached it like I should have!

And then Guiseppe Mascoli arrived wielding a pepperoni pizza from Franco Manca and very kindly handed me a slice. I could have stayed there all afternoon, chatting and eating gorgeous freebies. But I had my pasta and sauce to attend to.

My penne pasta with tomato sauce could not have been more simple or more perfect. I found myself drinking the left over cold, sauce straight from the container. Seriously good. Would make a perfect Bloody Mary.

It seems that Wild Caper has already caused quite a stir – on Urban Path there is a 5 page thread debating the merits and downsides of Wild Caper. In fact some of it is pretty heated. I won’t even attempt to paraphrase it here – just read the banter for yourself! It cuts to the very core of Brixton’s yuppification. One of the main criticisms is Wild Caper’s high prices – but I happen to think that it is very good value when you consider the quality of the produce. It’s best I’ve found in Brixton so far.

Thank you Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo. I can’t wait to see how Wild Caper evolves and to see what you pull out of your hat next.

Strada Sampling

Good old Strada. I quite like them. In fact I am warming to them more and more. Especially when they decide to do free samplings on a sunny lunch time on Baker Street. There’s nothing quite like a bit of unexpected good will to make you feel good about a brand.

Oli, me and Ed tucked into mini portions of delicious prawn risotto, rich mushroom polenta, olives and then a mini piece of tiramisu. The best bit was the antipodean person running the sampling. She was fantastic. Well done Strada. Keep it coming.

Tentazioni, Italian Restaurant in Bermondsey

Tentazioni is tucked away in deepest darkest Bermondsey and is well worth the walk along puddle strewn streets. Cowie and I were going to whistle up to Manchester to dine at Juniper, but thrift got the better of us. So in the grand scheme of things a visit to SE1 is hardly a million miles away.

We used our Taste London card which meant we got our food in BOGOF format. We would never have come to Tentazioni if it wasn’t on special offer.

I guess they aren’t on the beaten track so they need to entice people away from the familiarity and safety of the West End to pay them a visit. Which is exactly how they got us to come here.

It’s a charming, modern space with staff who are eager to help, with walls decked out in red, passionate art. It’s got a really intimate feel that lends itself to romantic evenings.

We were seated upstairs away from the ghastly Christmas music. I wonder what the people downstairs had done to deserve being subjected to Slade and Cliff Richard all night…. they even had the nerve to have their special Christmas CD on sale!

Whilst Cowie nipped off to the loo, I ordered a couple of Belinis to get us in the mood. They were beautifully sweet and reminded me of Dad’s pre Christmas cocktails that normally send us all into oblivion. A distinguished neighbour of ours once had to leave early in a fit of outrageous drunkenness and opened his umbrella in our kitchen and fell over backwards into all the champagne glasses! Smash!

We demolished two bowls of salty, deep olives whilst decoding the Italian menu. So often you think of Italian food as being salads, pizzas, pasta and tiramisu. But the only pasta you could find on the menu was the occassional reference to “open ravioli” or “al forno”. It reminded us massively of our trip to Croatia earlier this year.

Cowie’s langouistine and cougete salad with a seafood dressing was like a work of edible art. The langoustine was sweet and super soft. And the cougette actually tasted of something… which is unusual. They’re normally all soft and msuhy.

My carpaccio of beef was sensational. Deep red. Just like the artist’s pigment it was named afterwards. Here’s the story of it’s origins from Wikipedia which I bored/wowed Cowie with over dinner:

“According to Arrigo Cipriani, the present-day owner of Harry’s Bar, the Carpaccio was invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice, where it was first served to the countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo in 1950 when she informed the bar’s owner that her doctor had recommended she eat only raw meat.[citation needed] It consisted of thin slices of raw beef dressed with a mustard sauce. The dish was named Carpaccio by Giuseppe Cipriani, the bar’s former owner, in reference to the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio, because the colours of the dish reminded him of paintings by Carpaccio.”

Vittore Carpaccio. Healing of a Madman. 1494

It was juicy and as tender as a the stems of that expensive brocoli when you’ve steamed it for too long. Combined with griddled aubergine, cougette and a big poached egg sized blog of deep tasting mozerella it was the perfect way to start our meal.

Already feeling quite full we were glad that we were given time to linger over our wine before the next course arrived. I had a fit of experimentaion whilst ordering and went for tempura pheasant which was moist and crispy with a delicious garlic sauce and some flaps of buckwheat open ravioli which added a great slipperiness to contrast with the crispy tempura. I loved it to bits and at this point was on the brink of cardiac arrest!

Cowie’s navarin of venison came with crispy polenta croquetas and a deep bacony red sauce that was the very essence of autumn comfort, in the same way that Hagen Daz is the way that hormonal girls feel normal again. The meat was tender and the sauce had that Ramsay sheen. Glossy, tasty and so, so tasty.

Our side order of green beens with thinly sliced shallots, controversially, were probably the star of a very sparlky show. They were drizzled in olive oil and bolstered by a good hit of garlic. Oddly, for us we ordered some chips, which we certainly didn’t need. Which is what the staff must have thought because they never arrived!

We didn’t need pudding, but becauase I wanted to give the white chocolate tart a go, we had the second one free anyway. So Cowie had a brilliant collection of sorbets: lemon, passionfruit and blackcurrant. They were far better than my sluggish white chocolate tart. But that’s my fault for ordering the wrong thing.

Things got even better once we had paid the half price bill… our charming waiter gave us a Christmas present of fresh Tentazioni pasta and a jar of their mushroom sauce. What brilliant service. I cooked it for lunch today and was transported straight back to SE1!

Don’t be put off by the Bermondsey address. Give this place a try. With the Taste London BOGOF deal can you afford not to?

Shin of Beef Lasagna and Coconut Rice Pudding

The beauty of days off work is that you can indulge your cooking fetishes to your heart’s content. I’ve been keen to make some fresh pasta and a rice pudding for a while so today seemed like a good opportunity to have some fun.

I bought a shin of beef from the local Halal butcher in Balham and agressively browned it in medium sized chunks. Next I cooked a batch of pancetta and then tossed in 5 cloves of garlic to bring their flavour out. All this was lobbed into Stewie, my slow cooker along with a jar of passata and some choppoed tomatoes. In too went a splash of red wine, some pepper, some sweated shallots, a smidgen of mushroom ketchup and a small prayer. I let this tick over for around 12 hours until the shin had transformed from being a tough brute into a silky princess. The soft beef pulled apart and broke down into a rich, deep ragu. Perfect for my lasagna.

Whilst the ragu was slowly spluttering away I had ample time to make my pasta from scratch. I bought some special pasta eggs and tipo 00 flour from the Northcotte Road in order to do it properly. The eggs were bright orange and the pasta was super fine.

Making pasta is easy. Simply use 100gr of flour for every egg. I used two eggs and 200gr of flour which by sheer chance turned out to be exactly the right amount. Kneed the eggs and flour together to make a dough. After a while it will begin to cohere and look like the picture below.

Pop it in the fridge and leave it there until it’s time to roll it out. Use a pasta maker to roll the dough out into thin sheets that fit the dish you’re going to cook the lasagne in.

To make the white sauce simply make a white sauce and add some cheese. You can add some mustard and nutmeg if you want but it doesn’t matter too much. The bechamel is very straight forward. Just don’t burn it or let it get lumpy. Whilst it was finishing off I tossed some spinach in a hot wok and blasted some mushrooms to use in a secret layer!

When filling the dish put the ragu at the bottom then top with a layer of pasta. On top of this I put the wilted spinach and mushrooms which in turn were topped with a layer of pasta. Add more ragu on top of this making sure to push it into all the corners then add another layer of pasta. Then slosh the bechamel sauce on top and grate some parmesan on to finish.

Place in the oven.

Romove.

Enjoy.

We guzzled our lasagne with a light salad with flame grilled red peppers and some roasted tomatoes. It was delicious and worth every ounce of effort and time!

As if a vast helping of gooey lasagna wasn’t enough we tucked into our coconut rice pudding with glee. To make it simply visit the BBC Food site, look at the recipe and bastarise the hell out of it. I used 200gr of pudding wine, 2 tins of coconut milk, a tin of evaporated milk, about a litre of full cream milk, some single cream, a few tea spoons of sugar and some coconut shavings. Pop this in the oven for a few hours at 150 degrees celcius and try not to burn your hands!

Add some milk if it gets too dry – I found I had to top it up quite a few times. And enjoy.

I can’t think of many better ways to enjoy a day at home than to cook for friends.

Italian food in a prison

Quite brilliantly the Metro had a feature on an Italian prison which is running an excellent restaurant. All the food is cooked by inmates and delivered to tables by a host of murderers, rapists and thieves! All cutlery is plastic and guests are frisked on arrival.

From the Telegraph:

“Diners are flocking to what could perhaps be termed the most exclusive restaurant in Italy – one located inside a top security prison, where the chefs and waiters are Mafiosi, robbers and murderers.

Serenaded by Bruno, a pianist doing life for murder, the clientele eat inside a deconsecrated chapel set behind the 60 ft-high walls, watch towers, searchlights and security cameras of the daunting 500-year-old Fortezza Medicea, at Volterra near Pisa.

Under the watchful eye of armed prison warders, a 20-strong team of chefs, kitchen hands and waiters prepares 120 covers for diners who have all undergone strict security checks. Tables are booked up weeks in advance.

The prison director, Maria Grazia Giampiccolo, said the inmates had developed a flair for their cooking: “I feel haute cuisine in a place like this prepares the inmates for when they are eventually released. The guests enjoy their meals and although the security seems at first very daunting and imposing, they get over it quite quickly and forget about the guards.”

The Mafia may be in charge, but there is no horse’s head on this menu. Instead, a smart, middle-aged crowd tucks into a vegetarian signature menu, cooked up by head chef Egidio – serving life for murder – and keenly priced at €25 (£17.50), including a glass of wine with each course.”

Both pictures are from the Telegraph.