food market Archives - Bidmead Bites

Bidmead in Berlin (again) – German Cheesecake recipe

20th March 2018 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

BidmeadBites visited Berlin back in 2015 and ate a bit of everything; from the classic Currywurst to Peruvian ceviche. Revisiting recently with my mum and sister, food highlights included some terrific Taiwanese dishes at Lon Men’s Noodle House and traditional frikadellen (meatball-esque German beef patties) back at Markthalle Neun, the cities funnest food market. But what I want to focus on in this post is cake. Oh, do the Germans know a bit about cake.

Cheesecake, to be specific.

German cheesecakes have a soft shortcrust pastry base and a filling which replaces the cream cheese used in typical New York cheesecakes with quark, a sort of strained cottage cheese which is then mixed in with butter, sugar and whipped egg white. Below are three different slices I tried, with a pastry base/a pastry base and crust/filled with gooseberries. All in the name of recipe research…

Cheesecake no. 1: @ Oliv Caf, Mitte

Cheesecake no. 2: @ Markthalle Neun, Kreuzberg

Cheesecake no. 3: Gooseberry filled at KaDaWe Foodhall

Looking to recreate this recipe at home, I took inspiration from a cheesecake recipe in a wonderfully old retro cookbook named “The Sainsburys Book of Puddings & Desserts” (published in 1980, and still one of my favourite baking books). The use of semolina and ground almonds adds richness to the quark, which is often sold in a very low-fat version. While the traditional pastry bottom in the German cheesecake is definitely a welcome addition, the labour intensive descriptions of handling this dough are less appealing. I anglicised the German recipe to include a traditional digestive base, because biscuits mixed with truck loads of butter is never a bad thing.

Find my tweaked German (ish) recipe below! I slightly overcooked mine, so I recommend keeping a beady eye of for the browning of your cake on the top. Once cooked, do try to wait until it’s fully chilled to eat – the wait is worth it I promise.

Retro German/English cheesecake

Use a 9 inch (23 cm) cake tin.

For biscuit base:

200 grams digestive biscuits
100 grams butter

For cake:

100 grams butter
150 grams caster sugar
Grated rind and juice of one lemon
400 grams quark
3 eggs, seperated
75 grams ground almonds
50 grams semolina (if you don’t have this to hand, you can just sub in the same amount of ground almonds)

Method

Before you start….Preheat open to 180 degrees. Line cake tin.

Firstly make your base. Either put biscuits in a big sandwich bag and bash with a rolling pin until you have fine crumbs, or put in a food processor to crush them up. Melt butter completely and mix in with biscuits, then press biscuits into base of tin until you have a nice compact biscuit base. Pop into warm oven for 10 minutes to cook, then remove.
Now for the filling. Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind together until light and fluffy. Beat in quark gradually, then mix in the egg yolks and beat thoroughly. Add the almonds, semolina and lemon juice and mix well. Whisk the eggs whites until stiff and carefully fold into the cheese mixture.
Spoon into your lined cake line and bake for 50-60 minutes. Turn off oven and leave until cold (if you can manage to wait!).

An English/German lovechild take on the cheesecake

Bang Bang Oriental Food Hall – the gem of Colindale

17th August 2017 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Oriental City, Colindale’s very own China Town in a shopping centre, shut down in 2008, taking with it not only the games arcade where I became a dance-dance machine champion but also its much-loved food court.

While Colindale may seem like an unlikely home to one of London’s newest and most exciting food markets, in what was once Oriental City’s place now stands a newly rebuilt and re-branded food hall – Bang Bang Oriental food hall.

Hosting 33 stalls from all over the Asian continent, Bang Bang is a far cry from its run-down but well-loved predecesor. This newly rebuilt food court is impeccably clean and well laid out, with all the food stalls set on the edge of a large hall.

Buzzing Bang Bang

The variety of stalls include Vietnamese, Malaysian, Korean and a huge mix of regional Chinese cuisine. Visiting for the first time with my family, everyone had a preference: a plate of roast duck for mum, some seafood noodle dumplings for my sister and a beef cutlet katsu for my dad. My requests for chicken feet and tripe noodle soup were sadly rejected, but you can’t blame an offal enthusiast for trying.

As you order from different stalls, you receive a buzzer, which eagerly vibrates once your food is ready. Hold onto your receipt for each purchase, as you trade this in along with your buzzer when you go to collect your plate. The nature of having different vendors means receiving all dishes at once is unlikely, but it’s actually quite nice to go trying each plate as it comes and spreading out the meal.

Squid skewers and beef katsu

My dad felt a little disappointed with his katsu, as the sauce came separately and was more breaded beef fillet than curry. I thought the batter was nicely crispy and not too oily, although the meat was tough. We ordered cuttlefish skewers which had a wonderfully smokey flavor, but they needed to be eaten quickly before the squid turned rubbery.

Noodle dumplings and deep-fried wontons

These hand pulled noodle dumplings where a success; they had a smooth, gelatinous texture with a fresh and light prawn filling. The fried seafood dumplings were like an oriental-flavored onion bhaji, so had very little about them to not love. I’d give the star plate badge to the roast duck – deliciously rich with a thick layer of soft fat nuzzled under the crispy skin, this was by far my favorite dish.

Hong Kong style duck from the Four Seasons stand

While all these plates sated our savory hunger, of course we still had our dessert stomachs to fill. My sister and I set off to explore and were lured in by the Wonderful Patisserie stall, which smelled like baked cookies and bread – not a taro or bean curd bun in sight.

We went for a Taiwanese bubble tea, which I insisted we ordered with custard rather than the traditional tapioca balls. My moment of madness paid off, as the chunks of custard went surprisingly well against the creamy yet not overly sweet black tea beverage.

Japanese style cheesecake

Doubting that our parents would share our enthusiasm for this cold, textured tea, we took a chance with a Japanese cheesecake. I’d watched videos of these being made with whisked egg whites to create a cake which is now much loved the world over, so thought it’d be something to try.

With no biscuit base, this spongy, light cake was a perfect end to such a rich and varied meal. Although it was structurally rather sound with minimal wobble, the smooth and airy texture was a welcome change from the heavy and rich traditional cheesecake, and between four this was a perfect pudding.

Given that Bang Bang Food Hall is now a 50 minute commute from my new Clapham North home, the fact I’m keen to soon return is testament to its attraction. If you’ve never had a reason to visit this Edgware-bound end of the Northern Line, you’re in for a treat. So venture into Zone 3 and arrive hungry, and preferably in a large group. Order everything and don’t skip the duck. You can even visit the RAF museum after (and who says Colindale isn’t great?).

Bidmeads in Bratislava – stag-dos, schnitzels and stodge

7th March 2017 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Bratislava is a popular stag-do destination, famous for its cheap booze and party atmosphere. While the allure of strip bars and gaggles of drunk British males is debatable, bargainous beer and the attraction of an entirely new country is not. Looking for a change of scenery, Bratislava seemed like the perfect destination for a weekend away with my mum and sister.

We arrived in the city shortly after lunch and headed off in search of a menu del día, Slovak style. Following a Lonely Planet recommendation we tracked down Gastro u Jakuba in the city centre for a spot of lunch.

A little rusty on our Slovak, it was a challenge to work out what was on offer. While one woman enthusiastically shouted ‘chicken!’ while pointing at each dish, we were able to decipher the difference between pork meatballs, beef stew, sausages and roast chicken. The overall conclusion? Slovak food is big on meat, and seemingly little else.

While my mum opted for the huge pork meatball, my sister was less enthused with her veggie dish, a sort-of vegetable risotto in which the rice had condensed into one large starchy mass. Understanding that any hopes of great veggie mains where perhaps better pushed aside, she was able to eat the filling and flavorsome caraway spiced potato soup, which came included in the lunch.

Pork meatball with sauteed veg and boiled potatoes

The pork meatball was like a large chunk of meatloaf, sauteed with vegetables and served with some incomprehensibly buttery and soft potatoes. Arriving hungry and on a rainy day, this was just the kind of meal we needed to perk us up and fuel us for some sight-seeing. Gastro U Jakuba is a good stop for anyone (vegetarians, you not so much) looking for a proper local lunch, for less than the price of a pint (£3.90 for the soup and meal).

From low-cost canteen lunches to fancy five o’clock high tea, we paid a visit to Cafe Meyer, one of Bratislava’s classiest cafes. Lavishly decorated with dark wood and red and gold colors, the cakes are beautiful creations with intricate chocolate decorations and fancy fondant icing.

Cafe Meyer, Bratislava

A popular cake in Slovakia and its surroundings is the Esterházy torte; layers of nutty meringue sponge filled with a hazelnut buttercream. A proper British bake off technical challenge and super complex and fiddly to make, I would never dream of making this at home, but out in a cake shop it’s my first choice. The layers of nutty sponge added just a tiny bit of crunch to the cake, with the buttercream filling merging the whole thing together beautifully.

Esterházy cake

While Cafe Mayer earned top patisserie points, it was on a day trip to Vienna that we’d really find our cakey nirvana. Just an hour away from Bratislava by train, our first stop in the city was Cafe Central, where we would sample the height of Viennese patisserie.

Cafe Central, Vienna

Cafe central opened in 1876 and is steeped in history. The famous Viennese journalist Alfred Pogar once said “Central is not a coffeehouse like any other – it’s a philosophy”. A philosophy based on coffee and cakes? Now there’s a subject I’d like to study.

I choose a rhubarb and cream cake in which layers of flaky pastry served as construction shelves for lashings of patisserie creme streaked with rhubarb coulis. My mum chose the cheese strudel and my sister the pear cheesecake – together it was a veritable sweet creamy cheese fiesta.

Creamy cheese delight @ Cafe Central

After much sight-seeing and museum visiting, we stopped off at Naschmarkt, a food-cum-flea market where you can browse for second hand furniture and then dine on anything you fancy, from Schnitzels to salads and everything in between. There’s a clear middle eastern influence at this market, with the majority of food stalls offering up mezze style bites to nibble as you go.

Mezze madness at Naschmarkt

For a modern middle eastern meal with a twist, in a trendy spot with seats and table service, head to Neni right on the main strip of the market. The restaurant was swarming with a mix of locals and tourists with an attractive menu made up mainly of small plates to share. We ate homemade pillowy pitta bread accompanied by silky smooth hummus (some of the best I have ever eaten), marinated artichoke and muhamarra, a red pepper dip I had tried previously using an Ottolenghi recipe. Neni’s muhamarra was made with red peppers grown in their very own farm, blended up with walnuts to create a sweet, smoky and nutty dip.

Back in Brat for dinner, it felt time to try some more typically Slovak food. Following the number 2 top rated restaurant in Bratislava we chose to go to Zeleny Rodrigez, which despite sounding like some kind of Slovak-Spanish hybrid, turned out to be a very nice restaurant serving modern Slovakian meals (some of which even turned out to be vegetarian, hurrah!).

While my mum kind of copped out of the Slovakian dining and just went for the steak, I chose a typical dish – beef with sautéed paprika vegetables served in a potato pancake. I liked it; the beef had a soft texture due to its slow cooking, and although the pancake was a nice accompaniment after having been sat on top of the stew for some time it disintegrated into a sludge, which was less delicious.

Slow cooked beef with potato pancake

My sister’s vegetarian dish was essentially made of up pasta, cream and cheese; sheep’s cheese dumplings topped with a creamy dill sauce. The sweet licorice flavor of the dill complimented the salty sheep’s cheese very well, and it was this combo of sweet and savory that added depth to what could potentially have been an overly rich dish.

Cream on cheese with a lot of dill

I’ve not written about how cheap the beer was in order to swerve the conclusion that all we did was drink beer for three days, but…it really is very, very cheap. The craft beer scene is gaining popularity, with a couple of really cool breweries in the city centre.

Craft beer bar in the city centre

Bratislava is a long way from winning any culinary capital awards, but I enjoyed everything I tried during my time there. The old city centre is filled with beautiful buildings and it makes for a lovely weekend away, while the cities proximity to Vienna makes it a great base for exploring into Austria, where perhaps for a keen sight-seer there is a little more on offer. In short, as mini-breaks go, don’t come to Bratislava expecting the buzz of Berlin or museums and art galleries of New York. But do visit, enjoy the relaxed vibe all around the city, eat a lot of meat, get drunk on one pound pints and tick another country off your bucket list.

Kandy’s culinary and cultural offerings

24th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Moving away from the small town of Ella and onto Sri Lanka’s second largest city, we reached Kandy, the capital of culture. The city centers around a large lake and on the lake’s edges stands the impressive Temple of the Sacred Tooth temple, home to a molar from the mouth of the very Buddha himself.

Eager to get our own teeth into some of Kandy’s culinary offerings, we hunted down the central market. A mix of meat, spices and more teas than I had ever seen before, friendly stall owners invited us to smell and sample their goods, with many enticing Ayurvedic beauty products too. We stocked up on spices, buying sweet cinnamon bark in bulk and sniffing our way around the huge array of curry mixes on offer.

Spices at Kandy market

After spending what felt like hours in the whirlwind of smells and sights within the market, we moved onto a popular local spot for lunch. The Kandy Muslim Hotel is not a place offering accommodation and is not particularly Islamic either. No religion, or lodging, but instead, some of the best food in Kandy, eaten in a busy café right on the main road.

Serving buttery, pillowy roti breads with sweet and creamy cinnamon dahl, customers quenched their thirst slurping down avocado lassis and fresh lime juice while selecting from a pick and mix of savoury pasties and bread being brought round to each table. Famous for its kottu, a dish of day-old roti, finely chopped and cooked with vegetables and meat on a hot plate, we ordered three portions.

Kottu for three?

Three portions were enough to feed a family of six, and despite all the willing in the world, I was defeated. Not too quickly, though…I still made an impressive dent in this dish, which was a textural mix of soft and crispy roti strips, combined with golden roasted chicken and vegetables.

One of my favourite things about Sri Lankan food is their style of eating. I envision the ‘one pot dish’ to be a crime in their eyes, as each meal I ate came with at least three dishes, all made to be mixed and eaten together, shared amongst your other dining companions. This culture of mixing various plates comes to its absolute peak at the almighty curry buffet. In truth, with a tendency to cook large amounts and such a variety of dishes, almost every meal in Sri Lanka was like a buffet. It’s really just the difference between a Sri Lankan and a greedy Brit that earns these meals their ‘buffet’ title.

Being the aforementioned greedy Brit, I reached a true glutton’s paradise at the infamous Sharon Inn dinner buffet. Contradicting the age-old buffet mantra ‘quantity over quality’, every single dish on offer was delicious in its own way, a feast of flavours, textures and food types. Smooth, velvety chard with desiccated coconut sat next to a slow-cooked and richly spiced dish of jackfruit, a fruit that when cooked takes on an almost disconcertingly lamb-like appearance, soaking up the intense curry flavours of turmeric, chilli, cinnamon and cumin flavours like a greedy, fruity sponge.

Jackfruit curry

Aubergine came cut into fine julienne strips, cooked in a sweet and sour style sauce which was sticky and dark, contrasting with a bright yellow mango curry which was light and tangy. Radish and banana leaves featured in curry dishes too, as well as green beans and yellow peppers. Fresh naan and hoppers were brought out throughout the meal, and I made a sterling effort to squeeze them in alongside the other twelve dishes on offer.

Sharon Inn curry buffet

Vegetable curries completely stole the show, leaving little need for the one token meat (chicken) dish on offer. This is a point that bears repeating; Sri Lankan cuisine is a dream for vegetarians. With such inventive use of all fruits and vegetables, Sri Lankan food is bursting with options for a meat-free diet.

Yet despite an abundance of meat-free meals throughout the trip, we ended our holiday with a seafood feast. Back in Colombo for our final night before the flight home, we paid a visit to The Ministry of Crab. Highly regarded as one of the best restaurants in Colombo, there’ll be no prize given for guessing their speciality.

Crab is, of course, their dish of the day, with customers choosing the desired size of their crustacean for consumption. You are then a given the option of which sauce you’d like it cooked in. Having eaten a fair amount of spice over our trip, we veered towards a garlic sauce without chilli. Garlicky enough to keep vampires at bay but not a touch too much, the garlic flavour melted in with mounds of extra virgin olive oil and together this mix of flavours sat perfectly on top of the crab.

Sri Lankan prawn curry

With an enormous crab to share, naturally, we felt the need to order yet another dish. The prawn curry came with impressive, almost lobster-like king prawns, cooked in a coconut curry sauce and served with freshly baked slices of bread. The prawns had a perfect, firm texture, yet for my very last meal on this earth, I may well just request a load of bread and the sauce these prawns were cooked in. A mix of coconut, large amounts of oil, gentle curry spices combined with lots of garlic and soft onions made for an all-around blow-out of a dish.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better holiday. Two weeks was a wonderful amount of time to travel around, and while we by no means covered the whole country, we managed a relaxing and fascinating mix of city, culture, beach and nature. To anyone thinking of going to Sri Lanka, this is a country with so much to offer. So go travel, eat and cook, and try for yourself all the incredible tastes of Sri Lanka.

From Peru to Thailand in just one night – Berlin’s Thursday Night Food Market

1st September 2015 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

German food is not really something I’d ever eat at home, so while in Berlin it made sense to sample some traditional cuisine. Clearly a country with excellent taste, the Germans seem to share my fondness for offal, with calf’s livers and pig’s kidneys featuring on many traditional menus, along with some absolutely incredible mashed potatoes and an awful lot of cabbage. This food is really quite delicious but not something I, or indeed many people could eat every day. Just as well, then, that Berlin is absolutely heaving with different cuisines from all over the world…even better that many of them are conveniently packed into the glorious Thursday Night Food Market.

The creators of this Thursday evening market describe it as ‘edible proof that Berlin is a center of culinary creativity, a melting pot whose diversity is visible in its multitude of authentic food cultures’. With an eclectic mix of cuisines from all over the world including vegan Egyptian food, Brazilian tapioca pancakes, as well as tempting French sweet treats and some brilliant looking Belgium waffles, I would have to agree! Held in the market hall on Eisenbahnstraße in Kreuzberg, this event runs every Thursday from 5pm-11pm.

My mum and I ensured we arrived hungry so as to be able to sample a little bit of everything (you have to have a game plan with these sorts of things, you know). Not quite knowing where to begin, our eyes were drawn to this Peruvian pop-up, Chicha. Offering ceviches of salmon and corvina, a white fish found frequently in South America, this fresh fish dish was just calling out as the perfect starter to a lot of food ahead.

Sweet and soft chunks of cooked yam combined with salty, crunchy popped corn as the perfect accompaniment for the fresh raw salmon. Bathed in lime juice and scattered with red onions and coriander, the salmon ceviche we ordered was a party of flavors in a plastic bowl. Brilliantly balanced, each element of the dish perfectly complemented the other. Tragically, they couldn’t actually offer any Pisco (a dangerously drinkable grape brandy produced in Chile and Peru) as they hadn’t got their license. We survived all the same, and despite wanting to sample some more of this incredible ceviche, we saved room for what was ahead.

Salmon ceviche

Initially, it was our desire for an alcoholic drink which led us to a French champagne and oyster bar, where we ordered two (rather large) glasses of rosé wine. Seeing everyone around us slurp on their oysters made us think we should probably order a couple – I’d never tried them either, and was keen to see what they’d be like. I picked the oyster away from the shell, squeezed over some lemon and was ready to be blown away. Oysters are like, dead fancy and expensive right? Therefore, they must be delicious. I’m not sure if it was just a particularly underwhelming type of oyster, but I was left rather indifferent to this slimy shellfish. Still glad to have tried it anyway, at least the rosé went down a treat. Oysters slurped and wine swallowed, it was onto the next foodie station.

Food trends are funny. One minute we’re all going mad for pulled pork, the next it’s crazy pastry hybrids (hello, cronut)…what is it that makes one particular cuisine or dish so sought after? Without a doubt, the latest food trend to hit us in a huge way is Gua Bao, steamed Taiwanese buns. The mixture of the perfectly plump steamed buns, slow cooked pork belly, pickled greens and fresh coriander, topped with sugary ground peanuts is pretty damn delicious and means that this dish has more than earned its trendy foodie points. Berlin being as on-trend as any city I’ve ever visited before, I was unsurprised to see a Gua Bao stand at the Thursday Night Market – and equally unsurprised to see it had the longest line of any of the stands.

Some things are worth queuing for, though. My mum suggested just sharing one steamed bun between us. She clearly hadn’t tried this Taiwanese treat before – I assured her she’d be wanting her own. The pulled chicken filling looked good, but as I said to my mum, it’s just not pork belly is it? Barely stopping to take a photo, I ate this Gua Bao in a state of bliss. The fluffy steamed bun is a dream vehicle for all the goodness it contains inside, and with the sprinkle of chilli on top, it had a slight kick to tie in all the flavors together.

Finally feeling like we could be full, I explained to my mum that this was only in the savory stomach compartment, and, in fact, there’s always at least 10% room left for sweet. Intrigued by my solid scientific theory, we headed onto desert. My mum opted for a mini cheesecake from the beautiful selection at the French patisserie while I chose a couple of scoops of gelato from the ice-cream stand next door. So good were these deserts, we had consumed them before I had even remembered to take any photos. Must have been the summer heat and one too many glasses of delicious German Riesling wine.

Leaving the Thursday Night Market, I was very pleased with Berlin’s foodie fare so far. And the best bit? There’s still more to come! Stay posted for the final installment from BidmeadBites in Berlin, where I sample some very odd savory macaroons and revel in the best food hall ever.