Dimbleby's dinners

My eyes snapped open at 0530am this morning but I managed, with heroic effort, to stay in bed until 0650am. It's now 9am and I've read all the papers, including all that stuff about John Terry - the least surprising sex scandal I've ever read about (and I've read a LOT, you know?? Titter) - including all the fun bits of The Guide, including all the recipe sections and Giles' excellent piece in The Times Mag about Americans who don't eat anything (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/giles_coren/article7001699.ece) and dismissed the idea that the photo of him on the front of the Magazine made him look "old and baggy". I've also eaten a massive fry-up and had three cups of tea and one cup of coffee. God only knows how I'm going to fill the rest of the day, until it's time to have a fretful little nap at about 4pm, waking up at 7pm with no idea where I am, feeling queasy.

Just imagine how much earlier I would have woken up, how much worse the jet laggery would have been, how many more things I would have achieved in the cold, snowy dawn, had Henry Dimbleby, the chef and co-owner of healthy fast-food chain Leon and, most important, husband of my first boss, the journalist Jemima Lewis, not invited us to dinner last night.

We had lamb and posh macaroni cheese, red cabbage, roasted vegetables and then an apple tatin using, we were utterly scandalised but also thrilled to learn, Jus-Roll pastry. "Why do they leave off the 'T'?" wondered Henry. "To make it sound more friendly," I said.

Anyway, Henry had rested the joint of lamb for an hour - a WHOLE HOUR - which has got me resolved to do the same in the future. Just use hot plates, hot vegetables and hot gravy and then the less-than-boiling meat doesn't matter a whit. He also made the stunning posh macaroni cheese made especially for my sister, Hannah, who was also there and who had requested for dinner (because she is pregnant AGAIN) "a huge pile of carbs covered in cheese". It was, as carbohydrates always are, the star of the party.

I love macaroni cheese, but mine is very 70s - a floury, cheesy sauce. Nice and everything but Imake it with chedder and, goddamnit, it doesn't half leak grease and bleurgh like no-one's business and it can leave you feeling a bit... heavy.

Henry uses cream and morels as a sauce to bind the pasta and then bakes it in the oven covered in a lot of Gruyere. I didn't grab him by the ears and force him to tell me the exact recipe, because that's a bit like asking a doctor at a party about the funny stabbing pain you get behind your right knee from time to time. But at a guess, he does something like this:

Boil the pasta, saute the morels gently in some butter, with salt and pepper, for a few minutes, then pour in a lot of double cream and mix round for a bit until warmed through but not, I'd guess, bubbling. Then pour in the pasta and stir to combine. Turn out into a gratin dish and cover with about three times as much Gruyere cheese as you think you need and bake in the oven for, I'd guess, about 25 mins, probably 180 degrees.

It's just brilliant. I'm never going to make mac and cheese any other way again.

I thought Henry had a recipe blog but it turns out not! I shall just have to steal his recipes and post them here. But there is a new Leon cookbook coming out in September and it's going to change the way we all cook dinner - all the recipes have 8 ingredients or fewer and can be accomplished in 6 steps.

Curry Lentil Soup

Lentils are loaded with nutrients, fiber, complex carbohydrates, and folic acld. Lentils are a low calorie, low fat, and cholesterol free food.

There are hundreds of varieties of lentils, with as many as fifty or more cultivated for food. They come in a variety of colors, with red, brown, and green being the most popular. Lentils have an earthy, nutty flavor, and some varieties lend a slight peppery touch to the palate.

Lentils are also an important source of iron. Eating lentils with foods rich in Vitamin C, such as tomatoes, green peppers, broccoli, and citrus fruits or juices, helps the body absorb iron more efficiently.

Lentils are also protein rich. They lack only one protein, methionine. Adding grains, eggs, nuts, seeds, meat, dairy products, or egg will provide a complete protein.

Soluble fiber in lentils acts as a scrub brush, cleaning the digestive system. This type of fiber also decreases serum glucose and cholesterol, and decreases insulin requirements for people with diabetes. from Lentil Facts & Lore

300 g Green lentils 3 tbsp Butter 2 Garlic cloves, minced 1 Sweet onion, peeled and chopped

1 Carrot, peeled and grated 1 tin /320 g Tomatoes, crushed 2 tbsp Curry powder 2 tsp Vegetable bouillon powder 6 cup Water Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Rinse lentils thoroughly under cold running water and drain. Heat butter in a skillet until melted. Add in minced garlic and chopped onion, stirring until soft and fragrant. Add grated carrot, crushed tomatoes and curry powder. Stir briefly.
   
2. Add in lentils, vegetable bouillon and water to the skillet. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 40 minutes or till the lentils are soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

Namastasty

Ah me, jet lag hours seem long. It is 0525 in the am, I can hardly believe it, and I am wide awake with mean jet lag after flying in from India yesterday. Or was it today? All I know is that I woke up in Fort Cochin, pre-dawn, at some point in the last 36 hours and now I'm sitting here, pre-dawn, not entirely sure what day it is, with nothing to do. Giles has put a wash on, I made an emergency breakfast out of delicious defrosted Cranks wholemeal bread (sliced up at room temperature and then tucked away in the freezer in freezer bags), Nutella and black tea. (No milk, you see - Sainsbury's doesn't open until 7am).

Anyway, I'd like to say that Kerala all looks like this:

... and some of it does. But a lot of it looks like this:

But what am I saying? God, I'm so bourgeoise. A couple of open sewers, a leprotic (is this a word?), stoned tuk-tuk driver and I go all Valley Girl and start squealing Gross Me Out!!!!
But this isn't about me and my hygiene issues, this is about food.

The thing I noticed most about Kerala is that absolutely nowhere was anyone eating my Keralan curry, which I wrote about back in November:

http://reciperifle.blogspot.com/2009/11/curry-without-bleurgh.html

Yes, there was a lot of stuff cooked in coconut milk, as coconuts literally grow on trees in that part of the world, but it was all pretty tomatoey. I won't say it was nothing special, because it was lovely, but to my narrow, London eyes, spoiled by the Cinnamon Club and Moti Mahal and other Pukka Indian joints, curry has to work pretty hard to be surprising.

It was more the side dishes, extras, drinks and puddings that were unusual. Tea-time on the shores of Lake Kumarakom brought banana fritters; at Munnar hill station it was all about pancakes stuffed with coconut, raisins and cashews tucked up at both ends in a pretty parcel; for pudding at Malabar House in Cochin I had three dainty chocolate samosas on a mango coulis. Yes! Chocolate samosas!

I'm also newly in love with bindi, Okra, ladies' fingers, or whatever you want to call them. Some people think they are gross, which I can understand, but they are my new craving. All over Kerala they are diced up with coconut (obviously) Nigella seeds (I think) onion, turmeric and a bit of chilli and called 'Vegetable Thoran'. This is probably a very obvious dish to a lot of people and me putting it in inverted commas would be like someone discussing such interesting European breakfast foods such as 'croissant' or 'toast'.

Last for now is the marvellous and delicious drink called a Cochin Cooler, consisting of mint, ginger, honey, lime juice and soda. Dipsomaniacs could add a splash of vodka or rum. It sounds familiar and it tastes familiar but I'm pretty sure I've never had a cocktail with ginger in it. Anyway, I'll be covering the Cochin Cooler and the banana fritters, as well as a rice pancake called 'appam' in more detail soon. Right now, I've got some jet lagging to do.

Beetroot Feta Salad

The beetroot are eaten boiled either as a cooked vegetable, or cold as a salad with vinaigrette dressing or raw, either alone or combined with any salad vegetable. Beetroot's main benefits are that it contains no fat, very few calories and is a great source of fibre.

I too added some left-over Dinkel potstickers, that need using up, to the salad. It might look weird, but really really delicious.

2-3 Cooked beetroot, cut into wedges 100 g Feta cheese, cut into cubes 60 g Salad leaves 1 Shallot, finely chopped 1 clove Garlic, sliced

1 tbsp Olive oil 1 tbsp Mazola oil 2 tbsp Raspberry or red wine vinegar 1/2 tsp Dried rosemary Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Heat the olive and Mazola oils in a skillet. Add in the chopped shallot and sliced garlic. Stir-fry for over medium heat until lightly golden. Stir in the dried rosemary and vinegar, tip in the beetroot wedges, and stir for a few minutes, allowing the flavours to develope. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
   
   
2. Take out the beetroot wedges and put them into a salad dish together with the salad leaves. Pour the vinegar dressing over the beetroot and salad leaves. Toss gently to mix through. Finally, just before serving, toss in the feta cheese cubes and taste for salt and pepper.

Curry Fish With Peas

One of my favorite ways to cook frozen fish is in flavourful rich curry sauce together with some veggies. A delicious dish for any time of the year, but particularly welcome and soothing in the cold winter days with some steamed rice.

	Sauce	Marinade
200-250 g Alaska pollock fillet 1 Small onion, sliced 3 tbsp Green peas 1 tbsp Cornstarch Oil for frying and cooking	1/2 tbsp Curry 1/2 tbsp Sugar 1. 5 tbsp Ketchup 1/4 tbsp Salt 3 tsp Water	1/4 tsp Jiafan rice wine 1/4 tsp Salt Pinch White pepper

1. Rinse and pat fish dry with paper towels. Cut into the 2-inch chunks and place them in a bowl. Add in the marinade and leave it for 10 minutes.
   
2. Heat a skillet half-filled with cooking oil. Coat lightly the fish fillet with cornstarch and fry them over the medium heat until light golden. Remove and drain.
   
3. Heat a little of oil in the same skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Stir-fry sliced onion until aromatic, add in peas, return the fish to the skillet, pour in sauce and gently stir to combine. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Dish up and serve with the steamed rice.

Belgium Endive Salad With Walnut And Feta

The delicate, tangy and sophisticated flavours of Belgian endive matches perfectly well with the Feta cheese and walnuts.
Belgian endive, also known as French endive and witloof, or white leaf, is a leafy vegetable that looks like a thin cylinder of tight, pale green leaves. The tangy, deep, well-rounded flavor is unmatched by any other endive.

• 1 Belgium Endive
  
• 50 g Feta cheese
  
• 50 g Walnuts, roasted
  
• 1 tbsp Olive oil
  
• 2 tsp Raspberry vinegar
  
• Salt and pepper
  
• 1/4 tsp Dried parsley

1. Roast the walnuts in the 180C/350F oven for 5-8 minutes. Remove and leave to coll completely. Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper together in a bowl to make the dressing.
   
2. Trim off the base of Belgium endive with a knife. Gently remove the 9 outer leaves, one at a time. Rinse leaves and pat dry with paper towel. Cut the remaining endives into the small pieces. Rinse and pat dry. Place in a large bowl with roasted walnut pieces and crumbled cheese. Drizzle the prepared dressing over and toss until blended.
   
3. Spoon the salad into the endive leaves and arrange them on a serving plate. If there’s any left, then place them in the center of the serving plate. Sprinkle the dried pasley over. Serve with melba toast or crackers if desired.

Thank you, Happy Cook@Foodie's Kitchen and PearlYn@A Full Time Housefly for sharing this cool award with me. Thanks!

German Lemon Cake with Cranberry aka Cranberry Zitronenkuchen

This is a dense lemony pound cake with cranberries and a lemon glaze all over the top and soaked into the cake itself. The recipe is adapted from the Essen und Trinken

3 Lemons 375 g German#405 flour, sifted 1 tbsp Baking powder 190 g Butter, softened 370 g Sugar (I used 250 g)

Pinch of salt 6 Eggs 75 ml Whipping cream 175 g Cranberries, dried 150 g Powdered sugar

1. Grate the zest of two lemons, careful that you are grating only the coloured part of the rind. And squeeze the lemon to extract 11 tablespoons of juice. Grease and flour a 32x11 cm loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Whisk together the flour and baking powder in a bowl.
   
2. Cream the butter, sugar and pinch of salt with a hand-held beater until light and fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time, alternately mixing in a tablespoon of flour mixture after each addition. Pour in the whipping cream, and then 8 tablespoons of lemon juice and finely grated zest. Fold to combine. Sift in the rest of the flour mixture and gently stir to combine. Finally fold the dried cranberries into the batter.
   
3. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Place the pan on the lower second rack and bake for about 80-90 minutes. After 35 minutes, cover the cake with a foil greased with butter. Remove and cool the cake in the tin briefly. Then remove the cake from the tin and allow it to cool completely.
   
4. Sift the powdered sugar in a bowl and add in the rest of lemon juice. Stir to combine. Pour evenly over the cake. Allow the glaze to set before slicing and serving.

Lotus Root Sandwiches

The lotus root is a root vegetable that is indigenous to Asia, and is found underwater. The meat of the lotus root has a texture that is slightly crunchy, and mildly sweet. They can be eaten as fruit, sliced and stir fried, or stuffed with glutinous rice in its flue-shaped holes and steamed as dessert. Tender young lotus roots are good for salads while starchy mature lotus roots are good for making soups.

Lotus roots helps stop diarrhea, clears Heat and improve appetite. They contain much iron, vitamins B & C. The rich fibre content of lotus roots stimulates peristalsis and relieves constipation. Drinking 2 to 3 glasses of lotus root juice a day can stop bleeding of the esophagus an stomach (vomiting blood); bleeding of the rectum, intestines or stomach (blood in feces); nose bleeding or gum bleeding. Lotus root soup also serves similar purposes. Patients with high fever can drink it cold, while those with steady temperature should drink it warm. Drinking water chestnut juice mixed with pear juice can help clear phlegm while mixing it with grape juice and carrot juice eases dry tongues. Chinesefood Recipes

Filling	Sauce
100 g Chicken breast, minced 1/4 Onion, finely chopped 2 slice Ginger, minced 1 Egg, lightly beaten 1 tbsp Cornstarch 1 tbsp Light soya sauce 1/3 tsp Salt White pepper powder to taste 300 g / 16 slice Frozen lotus root, thawed Oil for frying	130 ml Stock 1 tbsp Sugar 1 tbsp Light soya sauce 1/2 tbsp Jiafan rice wine 1/2 tbsp Cornstarch

1. Stir-fried the finely chopped onion with a bit of butter until fragrant. Mince the ginger and lightly beat the egg. Pat the lotus slices dry with kitchen paper towels. Finely chop the chicken breast, add in stir-fried onion, minced ginger, egg, cornstarch, soya sauce, salt and pepper. Stir vigorously in one direction until the mixture has become thick and elastic.
   
2. To make a sandwich, spread the meat mixture onto each 8 lotus root slices, and cover with the rest of lotus root slices. Lightly coat each lotus root sandwich with cornstarch. To fry, set a large deep pan half filled with oil on medium heat until hot. Fry the prepared lotus root sandwiches until both sides lightly golden. Remove, drain and place them in a serving dish.
   
3. Stir all the ingredients of the sauce in a small saucepan on low heat until it has thickened. Pour the sauce over the lotus root sandwiches. Serve.

Back from the dead

I'd like to take a moment, if I may, to deviate, briefly, from food. It's because I haven't really been able to eat much for a while and so haven't posted anything. The other day, the spectre of my semi-abandoned blog made me so depressed that I deleted it.

I thought no more about it until the lovely Claire B Twittered me to ask me where it was. Well hell, I thought, if one person is reading it, that makes it worthwhile.

But the not eating thing is a bit of a problem. I've been a bit stressed lately and most things turn to ashes in my mouth, or make me sick. I've written here before, boringly and at length, about how I am cursed with being anxious, fearful and weedy and, alas, all it takes is small application of pressure on my scared little head and nothing can pass my lips for weeks. I guess you could call that lucky: some people gorge themselves at the slightest provocation - sadness, stress, anxiety - I on the other hand, sit on the stairs and fade away. It doesn't make me much of a foodie, I suppose.

I'll get back to the food, in time. I bought for myself before Christmas a Jamie Oliver cookbook and the Ottolenghi cookbook - I'm also going to India on holiday for a bit, where I hope to bring back more easy peasy Keralan curries.

For now, though, the only thing that seems to go down okay is a cup of tea with sugar in it. I'm on my third of the day.

Strawberry Fruit Tea Chiffon Cake

This strawberry tea chiffon cake has the flavor of refreshing fruit tea and is moist, tender, and light with a fluffy texture. I also used matcha tea powder for this chiffon cake as I wanted to clear up the cupboard. You can use the cake flour instead for the recipe if you have no green tea on hand.

The high oil and egg content creates a very moist cake, and as oil is liquid even at cooler temperatures, chiffon cakes do not tend to harden or dry out as traditional butter cakes might. This makes them better-suited than many cakes to filling or frosting with ingredients that need to be refrigerated or frozen, such as pastry cream or ice cream. Chiffon cakes tend to be lower in saturated fat than butter cakes, potentially making them healthier than their butter-heavy counterparts. The lack of butter, however, means that chiffon cakes lack much of the rich flavor of butter cakes, and hence they are typically served accompanied with flavorful sauces or other accompaniments, such as chocolate or fruit fillings. Wikipedia

Egg Yolk Batter	Meringue
210 g All-purpose flour 1/2 tsp Baking powder 15 g Matcha tea powder (optional) 190 ml Strawberry fruit tea 20 g White sugar 100 ml Salad oil 5 Egg yolks 1 whole Egg	6 Egg whites 1/3 tsp Lemon juice 1/4 tsp Salt 1 package / 8 g Vanilla sugar 3/4 cup White sugar

1. Sift flour, matcha tea powder and baking powder together in a mixing bowl. Beat together 20 grams of sugar and strawberry-scented tea until blended and sugar has completely dissolved. Whisk in the salad oil until emulsified. Add in sifted flour mixture and mix until just blended. Add in one whole egg and egg yolks. Combine all the ingredients until you obtain a smooth batter.
   


2. Beat egg whites with salt and lemon juice over low speed until frothy and foamy. Gradually add in sugar in 3 portions, increase speed and beat until stiff but not dry. Carefully fold 1/3 of egg white mixture into flour mixture to lighten it and then another one third, finally fold the mixture with the remaining whites. Make sure no white streaks remain.
   


3. Pour into a 26-cm ungreased tube pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 75 minutes until done in the center of 155C/310F oven. Remove pan from oven and immediately turn upside down on the neck of a glass bottle to cool for at least 1 hour. Unmold after it's thoroughly cool.

Frikadellen German Meat Patties

Frikadellen, one of the most popular German meat dishes, are flat, pan-fried patties of ground meat, chopped onions, bread crumbs, herbs, and the seasoning. Frikadellen are like the German equivalent of a hamburger. They are often served with potato salad, or German dumplings, or Sauerkraut. They take a sauce (I like black pepper sauce the most) very well too. A common variant of Frikadellen are prepared with minced chicken.

500 g Ground meat (a mix of pork and beef) 70 g Onions 1/2 tbsp Oil 4 tbsp Breadcrumbs 1 Egg

60 ml Milk 1 tsp Basil, dried (or marjoram) 1 tsp Salt 1 tsp White pepper

1. Peel and dice the onions, then saute in oil until transparent. Add sauteed onions to ground meat in a mixing bowl. Stir together breadcrumbs and milk and add to meat mixture.
   
2. Add egg, basil, salt and pepper and mix well. Dampen hands and form meat mixture into palm-sized patties.
   
3. Preheat non-stick skillet with a little oil. Pan-fry the meat patties over medium high heat until browned on both sides. Serve them with salad, fries and tzatziki. Alternatively they can be served with German dumplings and black pepper sauce.

Glutinous Rice Poppy Muffins

Glutinous rice, also called sticky rice, or mochi rice, is a type of short-grained Asian rice that is especially sticky when cooked. Glutinous rice does not contain dietary gluten and thus should be safe for gluten-free diets. It is called glutinous in the sense of being glue-like or sticky and not in the sense of containing gluten.

Glutinous rice can be used either milled or unmilled (that is, with the bran removed or not removed). Milled rice is white in colour, whereas the bran can give unmilled glutinous rice a purple or black colour. Both black and white glutinous rice can be cooked as grains or ground into flour and cooked as a paste.

200 g Glutinous rice powder 1 tsp Baking powder 200 g 4% Evaporated milk 1 Egg 50 g Sunflower oil

60 g White sugar 100 g Poppy fix 30 g Raisins Some poppy seeds 1 tbsp Sunflower oil

1. Stir together the evaporated milk, egg, oil and sugar in a mixing bowl. Sift in glutinous rice flour and baking powder and blend thoroughly.
   


2. Divide half of the rice batter into 8-10 paper muffin liners, spoon in some poppy fix and add in a few of raisins. Finally cover with the rest of rice batter. Sprinkle with some poppy seeds.
   


3. Bake in a preheated 190C/375F oven for about 30 minutes. Take out the muffins and brush the tops with a thin layer of oil. Return to the oven and continue to bake for another 10 minutes.

Syrian Meatballs

Syrian meatballs are made with ground beef (or lamb), rice, carrot, garlic and curry. They are fast and easy to make. The recipe is adopted from Hackfleisch Leckere Rezepte für die ganze Familie.

500 g Minced beef (or lamb) 125 g Cooked carrots, minced 1 clove Garlic, minced 100 g Rice, cooked

1 Egg 1 tsp Curry powder Salt and pepper 7-10 tbsp Sesame seeds Cooking oil

1. In a mixing bowl, add in the minced beef, cooked carrots, minced garlic, cooked rice, egg, curry powder, salt and pepper to taste. Stir until the mixture is well-blended.
   


2. Roll the beef-rice mixture into 3cm balls, about 35 balls. Coat each ball evenly with sesame seeds. Heat the oil in a large skillet until hot. Lower in the meatballs, several at a time and fry until cooked through and nicely golden. Remove and drain. Serve them warm with sour cream.

May this New Year bring newly found prosperity, love, happiness and delight in your life.