Tamarind and Thyme

I always feel extremely uninspired in the kitchen when there’s only myself to feed. These days, easy creations appeal to me such as a simple sandwich. I don’t normally like sandwiches - I’ve eaten one too many packaged ones in the UK - but when tomatoes are at their best, I’ll eat them every which way and now it’s time for a sandwich; this time, it’s in a BLT. Whoever created the BLT was obviously celebrating the finer things in life. Crispy, savoury bacon; soft, tender lettuce; and juicy, succulent tomatoes (I’m starting to sound like a M&S commercial): what a terrific combination!

I’ve always preferred to use American bacon here so that it can go crispy when a lot of the fat renders out during cooking. It’s a shame that you can’t find the really nice stuff here…we used to have a really lovely black pepper bacon back home. And the lettuce - I’ve never been fussy about the variety I use but a soft, floppy leaf, please. Do any of you prefer a crunchier leaf? The tomatoes have to be the finest obtainable. No middle of winter, supermarket “best of” packages but a lovely vine-ripened specimen towards the end of summer, grown yourself or purchased at your local farmers’ market. The bread’s the only place where I can hang my head in shame a bit. Sliced white from a supermarket - I forgot to buy a proper loaf. But hey, it was a nice sliced white!

It’s great to just pile all your ingredients on your bread and just eat it like that but there needs to be something to hold it all together. I like a schmear of mayonnaise on the top slice of bread (from the bottom: bacon, tomato, lettuce) and my current preference is Japanese mayo, Kewpie brand! Or if that’s too creamy for you, perhaps a little drizzle of olive oil?

Salt and pepper? No salt for me but I like a good grinding of pepper onto the mayo. And that’s it. Nice. While eating it, I can even sort of pretend that it’s really summer outside.

Another installment of interesting recipes from around the web.

These Viennese whirls from Cafe of the East look melt-in-your-mouth good!

A Jacques Pepin recipe for glazed ham steaks is featured on Serious Eats. The post makes Pepin sound like a real slacker but the result looks good! Take a look at the first comment too as there’s an equally easy glaze for salmon.

Over at Tasty Treats, there’s a good-looking recipe for a northern Chinese stir-fried dish of julienned potato with chili and vinegar.

Similar homestyle Chinese recipes can be found over at Umami. The post also features the tininess of a Parisian kitchen.

I love Dorie Greenspan’s recipes! I’ve had great success with her recipe for Lemon Weekend Cake. And now she’s showcasing a weekly recipe for Serious Eats - the first recipe is for an easy strawberry tart.

That samosa was very good - loved the chutney that went with it. The London Mela is an annual East Asian music festival in Gunnersbury Park; this year, it was this past Sunday. All my London Mela photos are on Flickr.

Something the other day must have got me thinking about meatloaf. Perhaps it was this delectable looking example over at the Food Pornographer? I think it was also mainly this one recipe for an upside-down meatloaf I’d bookmarked a while ago in one of my Saveur magazines and the idea had been sitting, festering at the back of my mind. Whatever it was, I felt the need to make one and I couldn’t wait till the weekend.

Meatloaf isn’t popular in the UK (they don’t know the delights of cold meatloaf sandwiches!) but this is typical comfort food in North America, where every family has their own recipe. It’s easy to put together and doesn’t need any watching while it’s in the oven. Somehow the idea of meatloaf being comforting transferred to me even though I hardly ever ate it at home.

Of course, stupidly, I decided to make one when I was again by myself in the flat. Not to worry, half of it was left to cool and then immediately wrapped up and stashed in the freezer; meatloaf freezes well. Whatever I didn’t consume from the other half was refrigerated, ready to be sliced and sandwiched between thick slices of white bread, with extra ketchup! On the day itself, I also made this corn casserole from The Pioneer Woman Cooks to eat with my fresh meatloaf. Ooh, creamy, corny goodness.

Meatloaf
serves a lot, maybe 6 or so.

the loaf
500g beef mince
250g pork mince
2/3 cup cracker crumbs (I’m posh, so I used Ritz crackers. Haha!)
2 eggs
1 small carrot, grated
1 stick celery, grated
1 small onion, grated
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsps ketchup
2 tbsps Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp prepared mustard
salt and black pepper

the toppings
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
3 slices American streaky bacon (I use Oscar Meyer which is easily found in most UK supermarkets)

Preheat your oven to 180 Celsius.

Mix all the meatloaf ingredients together with your hands but don’t overmix; you want a meatloaf, not a meatbrick. Place it into a 9″x5″ loaf pan - but you can also shape it into a loaf on a sheet pan. My loaf pan comes with a rack insert that allows for extra fat to drip out of the meatloaf - do find this if you can…there was a lot of stuff that came out of my meatloaf.

Mix together the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar for the topping and spread over the loaf. Cut each slice of bacon in half and drape over the loaf. If you’ve got a freeform meatloaf (i.e. not in a tin) you can increase the glaze and bacon amounts to cover the sides and then it will taste even better! Bake for 1 hour.

I found my meatloaf to be tasty and very moist and the glaze and bacon crust that forms on top is divine! If I had to do anything again, I’d increase the amount of ketchup, mustard and Worcestershire sauce slightly in the loaf and reduce the amount of milk to keep the same liquid level overall. An interesting idea would be to embed hard boiled eggs in the middle of the loaf, like the Food Pornographer did. Other variations I’ve seen include either mixing in sausage meat or embedding whole sausages in the middle, making a Swiss roll like meatloaf with ham and cheese slices rolled up inside, or topping the meatloaf with a mushroom sauce. The cracker crumbs can also be replaced with breadcrumbs - but heck, sometimes I don’t even have any bread in the flat for days on end.

Oh yes, and here’s that sandwich a couple days later! Meatloaf is one of those dishes that improves with a little time in the fridge and this sandwich was mighty good! There’s still another slice in the fridge which will be panfried and served with garlic, scallion and coriander rice and a salad. Yummy!

Or, The Packing-It-Myself Picnic.

It was hot on Sunday - I mean, really hot, with a high of 30 degrees. We had no plans and a lazy day at the park seemed ideal. After a bit of hemming and hawing, the plan was then to hop a bus to Gunnersbury Park - if you’ve never been there, it looks a lot bigger in real life than it does on a map. There’s plenty of room to spread out and it’s not as chock-a-block as the more central royal parks.

A quick trip to the shops resulted in purchases of roasted chicken legs, a ball of mozzarella, a basil plant, a bag of tortilla chips and some bread. From our cupboards and fridge, I pulled out some tomatoes, a bit of cheddar, the rest of the sweet pickles, a bottle of salsa and some German cocktail-sized frankfurters (labelled party wieners!). Incisions were cut into the frankfurters to make crabs and octopi (I was feeling silly) before being simmered. The mozzarella and tomatoes were chopped up and tossed together with lots of basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. I admire those who put a lot more effort into picnics; I tried that once…but it’s too much work when you’re feeling lazy!

Everything was packed up in tupperware and placed in a canvas shopper along with a carton of juice. Other picnic essentials included lots of paper napkins, plastic cutlery, disposable glasses, a folding knife, and a paper plate or two. Oh, and a frisbee which proved to be too light to fly properly, a big thick Sunday paper (the Observer, with its Woman magazine makes for excellent trashy reading), a novel, and blankets, of course.

An enjoyable 5 hours indeed! Well, except for what seemed like the constant bombardment of wasps. And other unknown creatures. Anyway, needless to say, we gobbled up everything and then fell into a post-gluttonous stupor.

Need a recipe? The salad only takes about 2 minutes and is better suited to a picnic on a hot day than a mayonnaise based one.

Tomato and Mozzarella Salad
serves 2 as part of a picnic

3 large tomatoes
1 ball mozzarella
a small handful of basil leaves
extra virgin olive oil
salt and black pepper

Roughly chop the tomatoes and mozzarella. Rip the basil leaves up, add to the chopped up goodies and mix together. Drizzle with lots of olive oil, a scattering of salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper and mix again. Lots of tomato juices will come out so it’s important that you either pack this in a watertight container or make sure that your container doesn’t overturn. Serve with lots of bread for dipping into the oil and juices.

This is also terrific when mixed with hot pasta - fusilli or penne is good here but I’ve also had it mixed into spaghetti.