Eve Bidmead, Author at Bidmead Bites

Sri Lanka’s tea towns: cuppas and curd

19th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Sat high up in Sri Lankan’s hill country, the air in Ella feels different to the warm breeze on the south beaches, and a world away from the thick hot smog of the capital Colombo. A cooler climate and rolling green hills make Ella a popular stop for tourists, keen to sample the country’s finest tea and hike up into mountains where it is grown.

The rolling hills of Ella

Home stays are popular all over Sri Lanka and in Ella, staying with a family is the perfect way to explore and taste the town. Friendly families arrange everything from your climbs to your meals, and the whole experience feels far more personal than that in larger hotels or guest houses.

We stayed at Restful Inn and were the sole occupants – it has only one room! Upon arrival our host family helped us head straight out to a green tea plantation, where we learnt about the process of making green tea – did you know it comes from the same leaf as your regular cup of builders? Both green and black tea originate from the same plant, but what differentiates them is the process used to obtain the tea we drink.

Tea tasting at the green tea plantation

As well as trips around the town, the family catered our evening meals for us and served up a typical Sri Lankan breakfast. As seen in my previous post, hoppers are thin, bowl-shaped pancakes which are often eaten alongside lentil dahl in the mornings. The hoppers at our home stay were by far the best of the trip. The came either plain, wafer thin with a sweet, coconut flavour, or with egg, a combination of the perfectly cooked egg inside this thin delicate pancake.

Like a perfect poached egg, inside a pancake – oh, yes.

Beautiful breakfasts

Eating al fresco, staring out into the wild greenery and nature that surrounded the house, I’ve certainly had breakfast in far uglier places. First meal of the day down, surely in a few hours it’d be time for a snack?

When elevensies called, we took a stop at The Curd Shop. An uninspired name but doing exactly what it says on the packet, this was supposedly the best place to sample the Sri Lankan sweet of choice – curd and treacle.

Curd and treacle at The Curd Shop, Ella

Much like Greek yogurt and honey but with a tarter yogurt and sweeter honey, I ate a lot of curd in the two weeks away. Some of it veered dangerously towards a distinctly savory feta-tasting cheese, with a questionable, slightly clumpy texture, although on the whole the thick creamy curd was a favourite dessert or morning snack of our holiday.

Another culinary highlight of Ella town was our lunchtime stop at The Downtown Roti Shop. Roti is a soft, buttery thin bread similar to a flatbread. Pol roti, made from coconut flour, is a popular breakfast item, yet the larger and thinner pancake-type rotis are seen more commonly; perfect for scooping up curry or for wrapping around a whole array of fillings.

The roti station – where the magic happens

At the Roti hut, you could see the dough being stretched out and made right in front of you. This would be the rotis used for all the wraps, with a variety of fillings, from beef and prawn all the way to veg-friendly avocado and cheese. As well as roti wraps, another popular plate here was kottu; day-old roti, cut up into thin strips and cooked on a hot plate with vegetables and eggs, with the option to add in meat. My sister chose a vegetable kottu while I went for a chicken roti – a doughy yet crispy roti, filled with slightly mashed curried potato, mixed in with strips of chicken.

My sister’s vegetable kottu

A chicken roti wrap

Essentially a chicken wrap, I think this could well have been up in my favourite eats of the entire holiday. Filled to the brim with a mix of textures and flavours, this roti, once wrapped, was placed back on the hot plate to seal and cement all the flavours together. With Sri Lankan food becoming more popular in the UK, I predict a big roti trend coming our way soon (and I will be the first to tuck in!).

Coconuts and curry for Breakfast

11th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

From one beach to the next, the Bidmead tour of Sri Lanka continued down the coast to another small beach town – Tangalle. Less developed than the small but touristy town of Unawatuna, Tangalle is the perfect spot to spend a couple of days, doing absolutely nothing.

Beaching in Tangalle, Sri Lanka

Nothing, of course, still consists of consuming some truly fabulous Sri Lankan food. Our guest house included breakfast, and although we opted for a continental one morning (sometimes, you just want a dippy egg), on our second day it was time to sample our first Sri Lankan breakfast.

Popular breakfast dishes in Sri Lankan include lentil dahl, spicy but cooled down by the coconut milk it’s cooked in, eaten on top of buttery soft roti bread. Hoppers, eaten either for breakfast or lunch, are bowl shaped pancakes made from rice flour and coconut milk. Sturdy enough to stay erect in the shape of the specially shaped pan used to make them, these pancakes are actually paper thin and delicate to eat.

A typical Sri Lankan breakfast. To the left, lentil dahl (top) and below, chilli coconut sambol. On the plate (clockwise): hopper, string hopper, egg hopper & roti

The breakfast at our guest house consisted of not only hoppers, but egg hoppers too – the same dish, but with an egg cracked in the middle. Alongside out hoppers we were given a lentil dahl and pol sambol (shredded coconut, lime juice, red onions, chilli and spices). There was also freshly baked roti bread and string hoppers, which are plain cooked noodles made to be eaten along the dahl.

Don’t judge a book by its cover – Saliya restauran

After one long morning of beaching, we took a break from the sand and sun and headed towards Tangalle town for a spot of lunch. We followed a Lonely Planet recommendation and ended up at Saliya, a large wooden hut off the main road. Although its rustic setting and squat toilet would not suggest it, the food was of a very high standard. We shared a large mullet fish and fresh jumbo prawns between us. Both dishes were grilled in a sweetly spiced ginger glaze, with much more of a Japanese flavour than the spicier Sri Lankan flavours we were becoming accustomed to eating.

Grilled king prawns and mullet, served with a fruity salad

The salad was a mix of pineapple, mango, tomato, cabbage and red onion. The sweet fruit mixed with the strong and acidic onions made for a tangy culmination of flavours, with lime juice on top to help them all blend together. It was the perfect light lunch, leaving just enough room for some soft, eggy and sweet coconut pancakes for dessert.

And with a fresh coconut on the beach, it was goodbye to the sea and up into the hills, for our next stop in Ella.

Keep reading for the next Sri Lanka post, where I explore more of the wondrous dish that is roti bread, while sipping lots of tea in the cool and mountainous tea region.

Learning to cook, Sri Lankan style

6th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

A country’s cuisine is an insight into so much more than just what people fancy for lunch. It’s a glimpse into a culture’s daily routines and rhythms; is lunch a quick sandwich inhaled in front of a computer screen, or a two-hour, two-course affair, leaving time for an afternoon siesta? Sri Lankan meals are never a quick one-pot affair, with various dishes and sides present in each meal. Looking to learn the recipes and techniques that make up Sri Lankan cuisine, we donned our aprons on and took a Sri Lankan cookery course.

On a Lonely Planet recommendation we chose a cookery course in Unawatuna, a little beachside village just 10 minutes away from Galle, the colonial town we had headed to from Colombo. Leading the class was the extremely charismatic Karuna, who has been running the course since 2004.

Having read lots about the course, and Karuna, I knew what to expect – a trip to the market, the chance to make an array of traditional curries, and the experience of Karuna herself. Chatty, smiley and an absolute domestic goddess, within ten minutes of meeting her she had her arm around me and was already bossing orders. I felt like Karuna and I would really get on.

Colourful fresh produce at Galle market

Picking up our ingredients in the market, I saw vegetables I didn’t even know existed. Round baby aubergines? Well I never. Leaving the market, we stopped off to buy some fresh tuna. Never one to be squeamish, the sight of a man driving a machete into this enormous tuna fish’s head had even me looking away.

Tuna beheading

We made an impressive 7 curries in total, each using a similar blend of curry and pandan leaves (pandan is similar to lemongrass) and various spices. Each curry contained coconut milk or cream, which we extracted ourselves from just one coconut. Once split in two, the coconut flesh is then extracted out of the shell and then twice drained through a sieve with water; once to obtain the coconut cream, and a second time to get the milk.

Sister Bidmead on coconut duty

Coconut admin out of the way, we could start preparing our many curries. The tuna curry was our spiciest, with an intimidating two teaspoons of chilli flakes. Karuna ignored my pleas for a milder version and continued to add in a handful of baby green chilis. She told me if I didn’t like spice, I just didn’t eat the chilis. Fair enough…and what Karuna says, goes.

Tuna curry

After just over an hour of cooking, we had managed to rustle up a true feast. We all took away mini notebooks, with the recipes scribbled down and top tips noted. It was fascinating seeing how these traditional dishes are made, and to summarise a bit about each recipe…

– They all have a lot of garlic. Want to cook great curries? Don’t scrimp on the cloves – all of the dishes we made contained at least 6.

– Revelation: you don’t need to soften or cook the onions first. Honestly! We just mixed all the ingredients in a bowl with its liquid (either the coconut milk or cream) and then put it straight in the pan. A time saver or what?

– Garam masala, turmeric, salt, ground black pepper and chilli are your key flavours.

– Fresh curry leaves are amazing. All recipes had at least 10 in, shredded roughly by hand. Pandan leaves are also incredibly fragrant, but if you can’t find them, opt for lemongrass instead.

Without further ado, here is my favourite curry recipe from the day.

Pineapple curry

Serves 4 people as a side dish, 2 as a main.

Ingredients:

– ½ kilo pineapple (can also use plantain/green mango/chicken – for chicken, alter cooking times*)

– 1 and a half tsp curry powder

– ½ tsp chilli powder

– ½ tsp ground pepper

– ½ tsp garam masala

– ½ tsp salt

– Ginger

– Garlic

– Onion

– 20 curry leaves

– Lemongrass

– Cinnamon

– 1 cup coconut milk

Method:

– Mix all ingredients together. Cook in 3 tsp of oil (sunflower/vegetable/coconut) and simmer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, add in 2 tsp sugar. Stir, simmer for 5-10 more minutes*.

*If you’re going for the chicken version, make sure you’ve cooked the dish for at least half an hour, and that no flesh remains pink!

The fruits of our labour: tuna, pineapple, green bean, pumpkin, beetroot and lentil curry, eaten with brown rice and poppadums

Not one to blow my own trumpet (and of course this plate is due mainly to Karuna’s knowledge in the kitchen rather than any skill of my own), but this meal was one of my favourite of the entire holiday. This huge mix of flavours on one plate meant every mouthful was exciting, with different tastes in each dish, from the sweet pineapple right through to the spicy, meaty tuna fish. It was incredible how every dish was so unique, despite all of them using a similar mix of spices and herbs.

If anybody is eager to know any of the other recipes we made, feel free to drop me an email and I will happily share them with you.

Sri Lankan BidmeadBites from Colombo

4th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

With ‘rice and curry’ as the national dish, Sri Lankan food, at first glance, doesn’t reveal much to the foreign palate. But this is no anglicized chicken korma affair. Think of a jackfruit curry with a surprisingly meaty texture, or a lentil dahl spiced with sweet cinnamon and cooked in coconut cream, piled on top of sweet, yet ever so slightly charred, soft roti bread.

These, along with many other dishes, form a cuisine that is both richly spiced yet soothing and comforting, which at each meal allows itself the chance the present three or four dishes, made to be shared and eaten in company. I was lucky enough to head to Sri Lanka on a two week holiday with my mum and sister.

After arriving in the countries capital of Colombo after a long flight and unsure whether it was lunch, breakfast or dinner, the three Bidmead’s ordered a distinctly odd array of dishes for our first bite to eat. Porridge for my mum, a banana roti for myself and a vegetable kottu for my sister.

Vegetable Kottu

By far the most interesting of all three, kottu is chopped up roti bread (a roti is similar to a flatbread) mixed with either egg, fish, meat or vegetables. It’s similar to egg-fried rice if the rice was replaced with small slices of flat bread, and the whole thing was bursting with spices.

With just a day in Colombo, I made sure we made it down the Galle Park pier for sunset. An expansive stretch of green on the sea, this charming spot fills up on a Sunday evening with families, couples and kite flyers, but more to my interest…a truckload of food vendors too. Selling typical street food, known as short eats, it was the perfect place to gain more insight into Sri Lankan cuisine.

Fresh crabs and fried prawn cakes filled the glass cabinets of the street food carts, as well as richly spiced fruits (think pineapple with chili and mango with salt) sold from huts behind.

Fresh crab and fried prawn and sweet potato pancakes

As we sat down at a barbecue shack with tables and chairs, I admired their fresh seafood, marinated in a wealth of spices, ready for the barbecue. The meaty menu options caught my eye too; my offal enthusiasm seemed to be shared by the Sri Lankans, as waiting to hit the grill were trays of tripe, prepped in herbs, onions, and spices.

A tray full of tripey goodness

After having a rest from a day walking in the fierce sun and heat, we decided for our first dinner we’d opt for a taste of the North. We sadly wouldn’t have time to make it up to the Jaffna, one of Sri Lanka’s biggest Northern towns, but thought as second best, we’d at least be able to give the cuisine a go.

Famous for their curried crab, Yaal Restaurant was a very casual, low-key local diner, where no dish cost over £4. Knowing we had to order crab but otherwise feeling quite overwhelmed by the amount of dishes to choose from, options ranged from savoury curried porridge to devilled kidneys and livers.

Jaffna style crab, cooked in a spicy curry sauce

Fiddly to eat (as all crab is), we wasted no time in cracking, sucking and biting our way into this curried crustacean. A hot and spicy dish, the crab was slightly cooled by the rich coconut milk in which it was cooked, and this sauce had us all slurping away to the very last mouthful. Along with the crab, we ordered a cuttlefish pitthu, with bears some resemblance to egg fried rice, yet instead of rice the grains are actually made out of rice flour, mixed with spices and steamed in a banana leaf.

Two prawn paratha plates, top right is the cuttlefish pitthu and bottom rigtht, Jaffna style crab

The wraps were parata flat breads filled with crispy prawns and served with dahl and a curried coconut sauce and were a great mix of crunchy prawns wrapped in the soft, doughy bread. Northern Sri Lankan food is typically spicier than that of the south, and for a first meal in Sri Lanka, I realised I would have to get my spice tolerance up for the duration of the trip!

From Colombo, it was onto Galle, an old Colonial town down in the South. Keep reading for the next Sri Lankan Travel BidmeadBites!

Food and a fair bit of drink…4 days in Prague

23rd February 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Prague is famous for its stag-dos and beer that costs less than water, and with return flights for under £50, it was the perfect New Year mini-holiday for me and my three friends. Gloves, scarfs and beer hats at the ready, we set off for a few days of sightseeing, beer drinking and beef eating in the capital of the Czech Republic.

Typical Czech food is meaty, carb-heavy and lacking in fresh vegetables. Vegetarians, fear not, because there’s plenty of apple strudel, and who needs their veg fresh when it comes perfectly pickled instead? Here is a rundown of some culinary highlights from the trip.

Oatmeal pancakes

Our first day in the city saw us breakfasting at Kare cafe – half cafe, half trendy interior shop. Given it was the day following Shrove Tuesday, I nodded to Pancake Day with these oatmeal pancakes served with vanilla cream. The chopped fruit served on top was mixed with fresh mint which worked well in cutting the rich vanilla-specked custard.

There was also the lighter option of yogurt, granola and compote – all homemade and a fantastic combination, prettily arranged in an appropriately fashionable mason jar.

Homemade yogurt, granola and compote

After working up an appetite on our walk up to the top of the funicular railway, we lunched at a friend’s recommendation, the popular spot Lokal. Serving typically Czech food, brain, pickled herring and at least five types of sausage featured on the menu.

Lunching at Lokal

Changing the phrase ‘when in Rome’ to fit the Czech capital and you end up with something like ‘when in Prague, eat all the goulash and drink an awful lot of beer’. At Lokal, we ordered some goulash and bread dumplings, along with a mixed sausage platter to share.

The vast mound of bread dumplings and my poor photography skills mean the goulash is lost, but alongside these carby bread pillows was a smooth beef shin stew – the perfect plate for a cold day and a large appetite. The trio of sausages came accompanied with some mild mustard and horseradish cream.

When unsure of what to order for dessert, a tried and tested approach is just to get it all. The top two plates here are chocolate and caramel eclairs. The chocolate eclair was just far too rich, replacing any custard for an overly dark chocolate ganache, but fortunately the caramel variant was a dream. The caramel was not just mixed in with the icing but also the whipped cream sandwiching the two eclairs together.

Something sweet at Lokal

What looks unfortunately similar to a nut-crusted turd is actually a hazelnut biscuit topped with chocolate ganache, covered in dark chocolate. Despite its uncanny physically similarities to poo, it tasted fantastic and was essentially just a large dark Ferrero rocher chocolate.

Prague is famous for having beer that’s cheaper than water, and as someone who loves a pint but not the £5 London price tag, this was music to my ears. After having tried, and failed to see the Jewish Museum (because it obviously closes early on a Friday for sabbath), we thought we’d do another museum instead.

Working their way in – The Beer Museum’s tasting selection

The Prague Beer Museum is not a museum at all, although its title may allow you to believe you’re involving yourself in Prague’s rich cultural history while you sink several pints from their 30-strong collection of beers and ales. An overwhelming amount of choice and subsequent confusion as to what to actually order is all remedied in the option of the ‘taster platter’, where you can sample up to 10 different beers.

Another great Prague watering hole is the slightly more upmarket Bugsys Bar, a swanky cocktail bar serving up expertly mixed drinks to Prague’s well-to-do. Checking out the fancy interior and dolled-up customers, upon arrival we started to worry drinks would cost more than our return flights. Currencies converted, it seemed most cocktails were around the £5 mark, which for the quality of the drinks was a real bargain. I tried a classic Negroni, followed by a rum-based long drink and then finished with a sweet and fruity iced-tea of some sort. Clearly, three drinks in and my attention to detail waned slightly.

Cocktail drinking at Bugsy’s

Not letting any cocktail induced hangovers hold us back, it was out bright and early to continue seeing Prague’s sights. Walking around the centre of town and a smell of sweet pastries filled the air. Trdelník, or chimney cake if you’d like a name you can actually pronounce, is a traditional Slovak cake which is extremely popular in the Czech capital. Soft, sweet dough is rolled around a stick, grilled and then topped with sugar and filled with chocolate or fresh strawberries.

The tastiest chimneys around

For more sweet cakes and treats, Bake Shop is a cafe based in the old Jewish Quarter. Serving some of the best coffee in town, this cafe is extremely popular with tourists as it features in every guide book – with good reason too. Beautiful looking cakes sit alongside savoury tarts, sandwiches and a whole host of small biscuits and bakes. We popped in on more than one occasion to sample some of the goods on offer, with these pretty Valentine’s biscuits being a favourite.

Not just tasty, but beautiful treats at Bake Shop

Before we knew it, our brief holiday was drawing to a close. To bid farewell to the city we had enjoyed so much and had kept us so entertained (not to mention well-fed), we had our final meal at Pivovarský dům. A local place serving the best of traditional Czech food, it was beef, bread dumplings and goulash galore. I eyed up the interestingly named ‘Knights Platter’. With duck, beef and pork all on the same plate, served alongside yet more bread dumpling, and of course some pickled cabbage, this seemed like an awful lot of food for just one person.

The Knight’s Platter

Despite my impressive appetite, I was relieved to learn this was a two-person platter. I was even more pleased when I realised I actually had a friend who wanted to share it with me. We got stuck in and did a sterling job of finishing it off. The pork ball dumplings were particularly good although I prefer not to spend too much time thinking about what combination of animal parts they actually contained. Post Knight’s Platter and there was even some room left for dessert.

A classic Apple Strudel cake is one of my favourite desserts, and eating it in this traditional Czech diner felt as authentic as it gets. The soft, buttery and flaky pastry encased the delicately spiced apples and raisins perfectly, and despite having consumed three animals in the main course, this went down a treat.

All to soon and we were on our Ryanair flight back to blighty. Prague was a perfect 4-day mini break, and I’m now incredibly keen to check out more central and eastern European cities. I may go steady on the pickles beforehand though.

Barrafina, Frith Street

26th January 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

My experience of Spanish food in London has never been great. Sad jugs of overly sweet sangria and soggy patatas bravas, drowning beneath a mound of flavourless chopped tomatoes is hardly inspiring. It always fared pale in comparison to the simple, pared back, yet impeccably executed traditional tapas I grew accustomed to eating on family holidays to the small Andalusian town where my grandparents retired. But last week, that all changed – I ate at Barrafina.

With three London locations, Barrafina does not accept reservations, so you should be prepared to wait. I had tried to visit the Frith Street branch once before, but after being told it’d be two and a half hours before I could sit down, my rumbling stomach and I went elsewhere. This time, I arrived less hungry and more determined. An hour’s wait? With pleasure.

Serving up simple, classic Spanish dishes, ranging from the famous tortilla – Time Out’s 10th best London dish of 2015 – to the hispanic black pudding morcilla, Barrafina is more than worth the wait. Friendly staff (all Spanish speaking) advise you on the menu and keep the bustling bar running smoothly as you agonise over what to order. If bottomless wallets and stomachs existed, I would still be propped at the bar.

However, with only so much cash to spend and an impressive, yet not invincible appetite, we ordered a solid, varied spread. Opting for a mix of the characteristically carby traditional tapas options (the beiger the better), we went for meat and fish dishes too, with a pudding to share.

Pan con tomate

If it’s wrong to say that this plate above, toast and tomatoes and very little else, was my favourite dish of the entire meal, well…I don’t want to be right. The sweet, tomato sauce is slightly tinged with garlic, providing this bready bite with a wonderfully contrasting savoury taste, enhanced by the addition of salt and a sprinkling of chopped parsley on top.

Ordering the Spanish tortilla was a given, and even when presented with variations (one with prawn and one with ham), I knew it has to be la classica. Sitting by the bar, you can admire the chefs at work, creating this small yet perfectly formed dish. Brown and golden on the outside but meltingly soft in the middle, this is yet another dish that uses minimal ingredients, but used to their best potential to create an exceptional result.

For the gambas al ajillo, I took nose-to-tail eating onto seafood, quite literally devouring them from ears to end. Salty, meaty and served with thin slices of chilli, to have left any part of the prawn uneaten just seemed wasteful.

Tortilla classica y gambas al ajillo at Barrafina

Tortilla classica and gambas al ajillo

Barrfina do a brilliant job at quashing the myth that pork has to be cooked right through, as they serve their pluma ibérica bloody and rare…so much so, I thought it was beef. This particular cut comes from the shoulder of the loin, and when left medium rare as it was, the outside caramelises while the inside is left a glorious red, the marbling fat left to melt into itself. This results in an incredibly tender pork dish – a far cry from the tough, grey pork chops I remember from my childhood (sorry, mum).

My love of offal is no secret – from genitals in Colombia, duck liver in Berlin and some hearty (literally) skewers in Buenos Aires, it’s been well documented. Alongside organs, I’ve really got a thing for black pudding, and seeing my old friend morcilla on the menu at Barrafina made me all nostalgic for my beef-filled days in Buenos Aires, where I reckon I single handedly upped my local butchers sales of this beautiful blood sausage by at least 50%.

Morcilla ibérica topped with quails eggs

This morcilla ibérica was served on top of roasted red peppers and wore a hat made of tiny, baby quails eggs. A visually stunning plate, I was slightly disappointed at the actual amount of sausage given in a portion. Now don’t tell the Spanish speaker in me that ‘small plates’ is very much the point, and definition of tapas. I am aware. But two bites of morcilla? That’s just a bit mean. Portion size aside, the morcilla was rich, as you’d imagine a sausage made of blood would be, but actually with a taste far more like a smoky chorizo than the rice-filled Spanish morcilla I’ve eaten in Spain. And while I love smoky chorizo and its peppery pimentón flavour, it’s not quite what I’m expecting when I opt for my beloved blood sausage. All the same, this morcilla was marvellous…I’d perhaps just like to have eaten a bit more of it.

Other items we ordered included the patatas bravas, so very unlike the description of the sad and soggy potatoes I opened this post with. Served on the side rather than on top of the potatoes, the sauce was a fluffy cloud of roasted red pepper puree; I’m now concerned that any tomato condiment eaten on future sides of chips will never compare.

For dessert we chose a crema catalana to share, the Spanish cousin of the French creme brûlée. Just like the kids at school who seem all tough on the outside but are just big softies underneath, as we cracked into this dessert’s hard, caramelised outer layer, our spoons were met with warm and creamy custard below.

This meal between two, with a bottle of wine to share, was £40 a head. For the quality of food, so good that tomatoes on toast taste better than far fancier dishes at other restaurants I’ve eaten at, I think it’s good value. Maybe not what you’re looking to spend on every meal out, but then you’re probably not keen on queuing for an hour every time either. So find a friend who appreciates good food, have a little snack beforehand to see you through the wait, and go to Barrafina. Because it is really, really rico.

Berry Smoothie Breakfast Bowl (or anglicized açaí)

9th January 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

As the smell of meat grilling, multiple chickens slowly cooking on a spit roast and sweet, freshly baked cheesy bread wafts past me, I know I’m back in Latin America. This time, I’ve ditched my Spanish and taken to speaking Portuguese (extremely, extremely poorly) in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

1 of about 100 açaí bowls I consumed while in Rio

On street corners and along the beach front people quench their thirst with ice cold coconuts, slurping its water of the shell. Juice bars churn out sweet, creamy avocado juices and serve up salty and deep fried salgados. While I enjoyed the abundance of beige fried food and sugary avocado, my favourite Brazilian bite was a purple bowl of beauty, otherwise known as açaí.

A berry native to Central and South America, açaí has been touted as a ‘superfood’, supposedly even richer in antioxidants than cranberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, or blueberries. Served frozen and blended, either on its own or mixed in with other fruits like banana or strawberry to make a thick smoothie, açaí is served in a copa (cup) or na tigela (in a bowl, topped with granola and chopped banana).

Since the beachfront of Copacabana has been swapped for the streets of Camden, I’m now looking to recreate this Brazilian delight in my own kitchen. You won’t find any açaí down your local Asda, so I’ve opted for a mix of raspberries and blueberries instead. You could, of course, top this with shop bought granola, but try this recipe for a decidedly unhealthier version to balance out all the pesky vitamins inside this superfood smoothie bowl.

Replacing the Brazilian berries for British ones obviously gives this bowl a different taste to those I ate in Brasil, but it makes for a brilliant breakfast all the same. There’s a fair bit of oil in the granola, but it’s the fat and sugar that give it that crunch. My use of coconut oil here is a nod to those cocos sipped beachside and gives a rich and warm flavour to the granola.

Coconut and cinnamon granola

(This recipe makes two large trays, which is about one large jar)

Ingredients

350g oats (the real deal jumbo ones, certainly no instant quick cooking ones)

25g light muscovado sugar

120 ml honey (4 tbsp of solid or runny)

120 ml coconut oil (4 tbsp hard coconut oil)

1 and a half teaspoons of cinnamon

175g raisins

Method

Heat oven to 150 degrees.
Heat sugar, honey and coconut oil on a low heat, stirring constantly to achieve a golden syrup consistency.
Combine warm syrup with the oats and cinnamon, covering oats in liquid.
Divide onto two baking trays lined with baking paper, and put into oven for 25-30 minutes. You want the oats golden but not overly so, and should poke oats around every 5-10 minutes, as for this granola clusters are not what we’re after.
Remove from oven, leave to cool and add in raisins.

Raspberry and blueberry smoothie bowl

(Makes one large bowl)

Ingredients

1 banana, chopped up and frozen

50g frozen raspberries

80g frozen blueberries

200ml milk

2 tbsp runny honey

Method

Place ingredients in blender. Blend. Simple!

To assemble, scoop smoothie into bowl, sprinkle on a generous amount of granola and decorate with finely chopped banana slices.

Bizcocho con bocadillo, A Colombian guava cake

24th December 2015 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Turtle stew, fried lungs and malted fizzy drinks may sound like acquired tastes. But acquire them I did, during my year in Colombia. Certain food items I was less keen on, and I had particular dairy dilemmas when I realised all yogurt was either watery or contained gelatine and came in a jelly-like block. Total greek, Yeo Valley, Rachels Organic, donde estan, I would ask?

Despite my yearning for real yogurt, Colombian cooking captured my heart. Colombian food is never going to compare to classic French cuisine, but it comes from a totally different angle. The main dishes serve to feed and fill a crowd – big stews, rice and meat dishes and a lot of carbohydrates dominate.

With so many regional differences within the culture, Colombian food varies hugely: from the creamy potato and chicken soup ajiaco in cold and central Bogotá to more tropical flavours such as coconut and the fruit chontaduro on the warm yet wet pacific coast. Despite its regionally varied dishes and interesting, complex flavours, Colombian cuisine is still relatively unknown to the British palette, but I’m on a personal mission to make Colombian food more popular within the UK.

There’s a huge Latino population within London and some pockets of the city seem almost entirely Spanish speaking. I think it’s brilliant that I can buy empanada flour, the infamous bright pink fizzy drink postobon and achiote chilli powder less than half an hour away from my house and the fact the cashier will speak to me in Spanish without a second thought.

Corn flour for arepas and empanadas and guava jelly, bought at Brixton market.

With Colombian products so readily available, I decided to recreate one of my favourite Colombian cakes – a wonderfully dense and moist vanilla sponge marbled with bocadillo, a sweet paste made of guava pulp and sugar. I bought my bocadillo in Brixton market and I’m certain you can find it in either Elephant & Castle or Seven Sisters too. If you’re not London based, you can find it here, or you could also use membrillo, the Spanish quince jam available in most larger supermarkets near the cheese.

Enough waffle, time to bake cake.

Bizcocho con bocadillo (Vanilla and guava cake)

Ingredients

-200g flour

-200g butter

-160g sugar

-5 eggs

-100g warm milk

-2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

-300g bocadillo (or membrillo)

-Dash of vanilla extract (1 tsp)

-4 tbsp water

Method

Line a grease a large round cake tin – I used a 9 inch x 3 inch springform pan.
Start your sponge mix by mixing the flour, bicadrbonate of soda and sugar together. Melt the butter completely, leave to cool slightly and whisk into the sugar and flour mixture, adding one egg at a time, mixing it all together. As you whisk add in the 100 ml warm milk and the dash of vanilla extract. Your cake batter is now ready.
To make the bocadillo marble, you need to cut your bocadillo into small cubes and place it in a pan over a low heat, with 2 tbsp of water. As the bocadillo starts to melt down, stir it gently and add the rest of the water (and more if required). Take off the heat. You’re aiming for a liquid consistency you’re able to drizzle, but not something that’s overly runny.
Quickly, as you don’t want the bocadillo to re-solidify, pour half the vanilla mix into the tin and then drizzle in half of the bocadillo mixture, swirling it around to create a marble pattern. Top with the rest of the vanilla mix and then repeat the bocadillo swirls on top.
Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, and if top is overly browning, cover with foil. Cake is done when a a knife poked in comes out clean.

Vanilla sponge marbled with bocadillo – A Colombian guava cake, brought all the way to NW London!

A very pretty cake and a bit more exciting than a Victoria Sponge. Give it a go!

My mother’s Jewish Chicken Soup

8th December 2015 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Since returning from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where 27 degrees with a breeze is considered arctic, I am quite enjoying winter in London. However, recovering from my third sniffle of the season already, it seems that the cold and drizzle might be getting to me somewhat. Given that climate control is not a power I possess, I decided that the best way to warm up during the winter chill is from within – queue a big batch-cook of some good old fashioned Jewish chicken soup.

Having long been called Jewish Penicillin, this traditional dish is just the medicine to fight pesky winter colds. My mum, like any good Jewish mother, makes a mean chicken soup, and it’s her recipe I share with you today.

My mum’s chicken soup contains no spices and relies on the chicken and it’s bones (with the help of added stock) for flavour. You can add in some chopped parsley or dill at the end, but I think the beauty of the dish lies in its unapologetic blandness.

Many chicken soup recipes call for skimming off the fat which rises to the top as the chicken bubbles away. Us Bidmead’s leave it be, and I’m a firm believer that it’s this beautiful golden fat itself that adds to the soup’s medicinal properties. As for the use of instant matzah ball mix, it’s like my mother always used to say – there are some things you should cheat at. Maths tests, no, making matzah balls, yes.

(This recipe serves about 6 hungry people)

MY MOTHER’S JEWISH CHICKEN SOUP

INGREDIENTS

¾ whole skinless chicken, cut into about 10 pieces (I got my butcher to do this, and saved a thigh, leg and breast for cooking at a later date)
2 carrots, peeled and cubed
1 leek, with all the white part chopped into little cubes
1 onion, finely chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped and cubed
5 tbsp chicken stock concentrate in 2 litres of boiling water (by all means use homemade if you have. This concentrate equates to the strength of about 2 litres of normal chicken stock).
Pinch of salt
1 sachet of instant matza ball mix (makes 12 matzah balls)

METHOD

Heat 1 tbsp of rapeseed or sunflower oil in a large pot. Add celery, leeks, carrots and onions and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Do not brown – you just want to sweat them, not cook them.
Add in the chicken and stock, and make sure all the chicken and veg is covered in the liquid.
Once this reaches a boil the heat turn right down to a gentle simmer and leave for about 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, remove the chicken pieces from the liquid and leave on a plate to cool down while the soup continues to bubble away.
About 15 minutes later, the chicken should now be cool enough for you to shred it into very small pieces. (Here I like to nibble on the bones and giblets – personal choice). Add chicken back into pot.
To make the matzah balls, you simply need to add one egg to a sachet mixture and leave for 3 minutes. Then wet your hands and roll into 12 mini balls. These double in size so don’t worry if they look small. Add the matzah balls into the soup and let it all simmer for just a little bit longer – 15 minutes is fine, although half an hour is better.
This soup can be garnished with chopped up parsley or dill and goes brilliantly with some freshly ground pepper on top.

As good as any medicine, my mother’s chicken soup

Food writing faux pas

3rd November 2015 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

“The meat was cooked to perfection and enrobed in a decadent, fruit-tastic plum sauce. The beef joint was so tender it just fell off the bone. This delectable meal was decadent from start to finish, and totally addictive…”

At the Guardian Masterclass on food writing I attended last week, I learnt why the snippet above reads as a textbook example of how not to write on the topic of food. One food cliche after another, it makes for a cringy read where a lot of words are used to say not much at all.

During the Masterclass food cliches were touched upon more than once, and by the end of the day I had a clear list in my mind of what food writer stock words and phrases to avoid. Not just a mental list, these cliches are written out for all to see on the food website GrubStreet’s aptly named post, Stick a Fork in ‘Em.

While you’ll never catch me describing a food’s ‘mouth-feel’ (sounds like a synonym for fellatio if I ever heard one) or choose the term ‘bill of fare’ in place of ‘menu’ (I didn’t even know that existed), I have a confession to make…

I’m guilty of having used almost every food cliche on said GrubStreet list. Just see the incriminating evidence below, all extracts taken from blog posts of mine.

1) from From Peru to Texas while in Buenos Aires:

‘One of my old favorites in the area is the Peruvian eatery, La Rica Vicky’.

2) from Note to self: do not eat endangered animals:

‘The lobster was flavorsome beyond belief – completely fresh and cooked to perfection’.

3) from New York – I’ll take my fried chicken smothered in gravy, with a waffle on the side please:

‘Think of all the flavor of fried chicken, with it’s soft tender meat and addictively crispy skin…’

Bollocks. And that’s not even all of them either.

Ed Smith, owner of the hugely enjoyable food journal Rocket & Squash and all-round food writing wonder, gave a brilliant piece of advice in his talk during the Masterclass. Just be good. Be good at food writing, and it should get you somewhere.

Obviously, Ed expanded on this and we’re all well aware that ‘just being good’ does not then lead to regular columns, articles or book deals. But here’s where I pick my bone. Everybody’s ‘good’ is different. Nigella’s style of writing is good. Excellent, in fact. But it’s her style. If I tried to imitate it, I’d lack the overt sexiness her writing exudes, for the sheer fact I’m not Nigella. Ed’s own writing, as another example, is really very funny. Not everyone writes humorously, nor should try to either— it just isn’t everybody’s thing.

There’s really no one-size-fits-all food writing formula. So while generally speaking these food cliches should be banned, I don’t much agree with the school of thought that says we have to avoid them altogether. Nor do I want to feel that I’m a bad writer for having used them already.

Yes, in hindsight some of my previous posts aren’t as well written as I may have initially thought. And even when re-reading more current posts I find errors and spot a few of those dreaded cliches. But I think sometimes they work.

I don’t object to ‘eatery’ at all. If it’s a cafe/restaurant hybrid, why not just use ‘eatery’ and highlight the important bit — that it’s a place you can eat in? Admittedly the majority of cliches on GrubStreet’s list should be avoided, but I can empathise with the writers who have used them (hello, me). Sometimes you just want to avoid writing delicious, restaurant, or food, 100 times in the same article – is that a sin?