Veal and mash.

Hungry and in the mood to cook, I found some veal fillets in the fridge but couldn't decide what to do with them. As usual when in doubt, I turned to Google. I came accross a recipe by Michael Caines (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/panfriedvealfilletwi_88996) and inspired by his recipe I made this dish.

Ingredients:

Mashed potato

Potato
Milk
Butter
Garlic

Sauce:

5 shallots
few sprigs of thyme
110g Button mushrooms, sliced.
100ml Pedro Ximenez
100ml chicken stock
100ml double cream
butter

Veal:

2 Veal fillets
Thyme, few sprigs
Garlic, 3 cloves.
Shiitake mushrooms
Lemon juice

To make the sauce soften 5 chopped shallots in butter. Add thyme and button mushrooms, cook until mushrooms are golden. Add Pedro Ximenez, reduce by half. Add chicken stock, reduce by half.

 Add double cream, reduce by half. Sieve. Season. Whisk in a few knobs of butter. Keep warm.

I absolutely loved the flavour of this sauce, but next time I will double the recipe because once I had sieved it there was a disappointingly small amount.

Next the mash. Made in the usual way, but using my favourite kitchen gadget.

Behold my Williams Sonoma potato ricer! I don't know how I lived without it, I now have smooth lump-free mash every time.

I roasted 3 cloves of garlic (on some salt wrapped in tin foil at 180) until golden and mashed into a puree with the back of a knife. Stir into the potato with the milk and butter. Season

Melt some butter in a pan, add a few sprigs of thyme, 3 cloves of garlic (squished with back of knife, skin on), and the veal (seasoned on both sides). Cook on a medium heat for 3 minutes each side. Remove veal, cover with foil and leave to rest.

Add shiitake mushrooms to the same pan, cook for 3-4 mins. Season and squeeze of lemon.

Stir the veal juices from the resting plate into the sauce, and serve with wilted greens.

Delicious. I will definitely be making this one again.


Afterthought: Could have done with more sauce.

Takeaway Heaven.

I am a fussy eater, and there's nothing I can do about it. I would love to be able to eat my way through all the various offerings in my environs, but on the whole I find myself dissatisfied and wishing I hadn't eaten at all. Too salty, greasy, soggy, bland, unidentifiable, overcooked, raw, of dubious origin...are among my most common complaints. I often feel that even someone prone to culinary ineptitude such as myself,  could have done a better job. Not so with Izgara, an unassuming Turkish Ocakbasi restaurant in North London.

This place does what it does amazingly well (photos do not do it justice), and when I find something I like, I stick with it. Religiously. This is why I always order the same thing- lamb shish (large). Generous cubes of lamb, perfectly cooked, marinated in who knows what, that makes it so delicious its ridiculous.

I get everything separately so I can put it together just so. First, I spread a generous layer of hoummus onto the flatbread. Next a layer of shredded carrot and red cabbage, and on top the meat. By this time there is at least a tablespoon of meat juices in the container, which I pour on top. Finally a generous squeeze of lemon, roll up, and eat (with green chillies on the side).

I had intended to take a photo of it all put together, but greed got the better of me and I ate it.  Can only be a good sign.



Izgara, 11 Hendon Lane, N3 1RT.

£-  Just over £20.00 for 3. Bargain.

Spiced Yellow Split Pea Soup

When my house feels like an igloo,  there's nothing better than a steaming bowl of thick, hearty soup to keep the cold at bay. Today is one of those days.  This is originally a Mark Hix recipe, but I have fiddled with it a bit, natch.

Ingredients:

500g yellow split peas (soaked overnight if poss.)
2 large onions
2 sticks of celery
1 large leek
large chunk of ginger, chopped (hate the watery slosh when you grate it)
2-3 red bird's eye chillies (careful!)
3/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 cloves of garlic, grated
3 litres chicken stock
lemon juice
yogurt.

                                      Chop onion, leek, celery, ginger, chilli and grate garlic

Fry onion in olive oil and a little salt, 5-7 mins

                      Add leeks, celery, garlic, ginger, cumin, chillies, chilli flakes, cook for 5-7 mins

Add yellow split peas and chicken stock, bring to boil, simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until split peas are soft, skim any scum that forms on top

Blitz & Season. The soup at this stage is not super smooth, but I like finding a rogue piece of ginger to chew on and don't mind a few lumps. For a smoother result, pass through a sieve.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt in the middle (you WILL need it, this is seriously spicy), and a generous spritz of lemon.

NB If the consistency is too thick, thin with stock.

Afterthought: Needed a bit more ginger.

Feedback: The general consensus on this soup is that it does need to be passed through a sieve to make it smoother and less grainy.

Guacamole

I love Guacamole. Seriously. But I have yet to find one in a restaurant that I actually like. I find hunks of red onion and seedy tomato deeply off-putting, and so have devised my own (Mexicans please look away now)- here it is:

                            Add about this much garlic to the juice of around one and a half limes.            

         Add 2-3 chopped ripe avocados (my 'perfectly ripe' avocados were anything but).Mash up a bit.

Add 1-2 chillies...  

                                                  and chopped coriander stalk and root.

                                          Next, olive oil, salt, and more lime to taste.
                                          Stir in chopped coriander leaves.

Thats it, and although slightly chunkier than is ideal due to rock hard avocados, it was still pretty damn good.