Tamarind and Thyme

Here’s another post in my very minor series on Cooking for One. Ever since I saw this post at TGWAE, I’ve been wanting to make this easy meal for one – from what I understand, the name was from a particular Thai restaurant in New York and the dish’s real name is pad krapow, a stir fry with chilli and basil. There’s nowhere around where I live or work that serves this great one dish meal and so I’d have to fend for myself. Again, I had this on a day that I was alone for dinner. However, by cooking for two as usual, I’d have dinner and lunch the next day both taken care of – and my usual recipe doubles easily anyway.

I used my Pork with Basil and Chili recipe and instead of green beans, I used both long beans and sliced red pepper. I increased the amount of sauce as well and topped the resulting dish on white rice with a fried egg. Boy, was this filling! The egg was quite fabulous with it all, its liquid yolk spilling everywhere and adding lots of richness to each spoonful I shovelled into my mouth.

A similar recipe (but with chicken) was recently featured on Serious Eats highlighting the budget-friendliness of this preparation. Like that recipe, this time I didn’t have any Thai holy basil to hand and used Italian – do try to find the Thai holy basil if you can as it lends a totally different flavour to the dish. In London, you can buy it in New Loon Moon in Chinatown or at any of the Thai shops that are scattered throughout the city (well, in the west for sure). Feel free to make substitutes to the meat as well; I used pork as usual but chicken, turkey or beef would all work well.

A long time ago, in a far away place (Vancouver), I once ordered a banh xeo off the menu at a Vietnamese restaurant, hoping to try one of Vietnam’s other specialities. I was already very familiar with pho, the savoury beef noodle soup, and bun cha gio, the cold vermicelli topped with fried rolls, but these were what I always ordered and I wanted to try something new. What arrived was a huge yellow crepe (though yellow, there was no egg) stuffed with lots of beansprouts, pieces of pork and large prawns. While the first few mouthfuls were tasty enough, it soon became terribly monotonous and a bit greasy and quite soggy. Very dull altogether.

But for some reason a few weeks ago, I felt like I should give this dish a chance again. From Wikipedia, I realise where the restaurant version went wrong – they hadn’t served it with any of the lettuce or mustard greens and herbs. These made a huge difference in the dish: crispy pancake (something I found lacking in the restaurant example I tried) and coconut flavour and fresh herbs – delicious! And the crepe doesn’t need that much filling – it even becomes more economical with just a bit of pork and shrimp. I guess making a large crepe chock full of ingredients (which in turn possibly make the crepe soggier faster) is a restaurant’s way of justifying the price of the dish! I’m converted to the charms of the banh xeo and would recommend that everyone just make it at home!

The name banh xeo means sizzling crepe, the xeo being an onomatopoeic word for the sound of the cooking process. Anyway, enough of my rambling; here’s the recipe I put together with based on the ingredients I had and adapted from various recipes around the web. To eat the banh xeo, cut off a piece of the crepe and wrap it, along with some herbs, in a lettuce leaf. Dip the wrap into some nuoc cham and eat!

Banh Xeo
serves 2 for a meal or 4-6 as one dish among many

For the batter
1 cup rice flour (not glutinous rice flour)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 small tin coconut milk (165 ml)
about 1.5 cups water
2 spring onions, thinly sliced (both white and green parts)

100g pork belly (no skin), sliced into small thin pieces
100g small shrimps (I used cooked ones)
1 small onion, cut in half and sliced thinly
beansprouts
sunflower oil

For serving
lettuce
fresh mint
coriander
Thai basil (optional – I didn’t have any)
nuoc cham (recipe below)

Make the batter for the crepes first – mix together the rice flour, salt, sugar and turmeric in a bowl. Add the coconut milk and start stirring. Stir in the water slowly, you may not need it all and you may need more. You want the consistency of crepe batter. Finally, stir through the sliced spring onions. Let the batter rest as you prepare the rest of your ingredients.

Make your salad plate. Wash the lettuce and herbs first. Separate the lettuce into its leaves (dry if needed) and arrange on a plate. Arrange the herbs alongside (people can pick off the leaves at the table). Prepare the nuoc cham (recipe below) and serve in small bowls for individual dipping (read: allows for double dipping!).

Now to cook the crepes! Heat a nonstick pan over medium-high heat. I have a 10 inch pan and the recipe reflects this size – adjust accordingly for your own pan. For each crepe, heat about 1 tsp of oil in the pan and throw in a few slices of onion and a few slices of pork belly. Fry until cooked and then toss in a teaspoonful of shrimps. Stir around for a few seconds and then arrange the ingredients around on the pan. Stir the crepe batter with a ladle and then add a ladelful evenly to the pan, turning the pan to coat it evenly. You should hear a good sizzle when adding the batter, hence the name of the dish! I found that if you let the batter go up along the sides of the frying pan, these edges become wonderfully crispy. Add a small handful of beansprouts onto one half of the crepe and then leave the crepe to cook for 4-5 minutes. When the crepe is ready, the edges will have pulled away from the sides of the pan. Fold the crepe in half and plate it. Continue this process with the rest of the ingredients and batter, making sure to stir the batter before using it as the rice flour tends to sink to the bottom. You could put the crepes in a warm oven to keep warm as you continue cooking or just serve as they come out of the pan.

Serve immediately with the nuoc cham and the salad plate.

Nuoc Cham
adapted from Viet World Kitchen.
enough for 2.

3 tbsps lime juice
2 tbsps sugar
1/2 cup water (125 ml)
2.5 tbsps fish sauce
1 clove garlic, crushed or minced finely and smashed
1 tsp chili paste (optional)

Mix the lime juice, sugar and water together until the sugar has dissolved. Add the fish sauce and adjust for lime juice, sugar and fish sauce to taste. Add the garlic and chili paste and stir through.

Scrambled eggs aren’t just for breakfast! I only discovered this when Blai suggested a revuelto, a Spanish scrambled egg dish, for dinner not long after we’d moved into our current flat. We had not much in the cupboards at the time and I think I stepped out to buy eggs and spinach and bread. I softened the spinach in a hot pan and then stirred through some beaten egg come up with a simple dinner that only required that bread on the side.

I found myself alone again one night and needed something quick for dinner, having come home late from work and hungry. I’d found some young garlic (each was a small tender bulb attached to a long tender stem) at my local Middle Eastern shop a few days before and had to use them up so that went into my revueltos. Other ingredients would be lovely too – the aforementionned spinach, or chorizo, potatoes, ham, anything really. Along with some sauteed courgettes on the side, I had dinner on my plate in about 15 minutes.

Revuelto with Young Garlic

Chop a few shoots of young garlic (include the young head and peel the tough outer layers beforehand) and soften them in some butter or olive oil over a low heat. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Break three eggs into a bowl and beat them a little just to break up the yolks with the whites. Pour them into the pan with the now soft garlic and immediately start stirring and lifting the cooked parts onto the uncooked. A silicone spatula is perfect for this task; it’s all just flip flip flip. Don’t let the eggs brown – you want them soft and still creamy. Any residual heat will continue to cook the eggs. Plate and serve.

After enjoying my plateful, I came across this great article by Amanda Hesser on the joys of revueltos in Spain. I’ll have to keep eggs in the flat at all times now!

Last Thursday, a whole gaggle of London food bloggers met for a feast at Tayyabs, that bastion of Pakistani food in Whitechapel. Chris of Cheese and Biscuits and Helen of Food Stories were responsible for the meetup, the booking and the little (actually quite big!) surprise during the meal. I’d read so many great things about this restaurant that I was quite excited about this dinner – I’m probably the last person in London to visit Tayyabs (and probably the last food blogger to post about it)!

We sat down to a table laid with lots of poppadoms and chutneys and salad plates. After all the introductions and the general settling in, we commenced ordering. Actually, we left it to a few seasoned Tayyabs veterans to do the ordering and they did pretty well, keeping everyone full and happy!

The main starters for the tables were mixed grill platters consisting of chicken tikka, seekh kebabs, and lamb chops. I’d heard so much about the almost legendary lamb chops at Tayyabs that I was very keen to tuck into one immediately. I was dismayed to find that my first chop was tough though with a good spicy marinade. The second chop I tried was more tender than the first but these were definitely not the astounding chops I had expected. The chicken tikka was dry and forgettable but the seekh kebabs were excellent, very moist and moreish.

There was also a plate or two of masala fish, grilled chunks of spiced coley. Though they sounded quite promising, this too was a bit dry – was the grill having an off day?

Then the legs of lamb arrived. Legs of lamb!!! Our organisers had arranged for this very big surprise – three legs between the 24 of us or so. The lamb was ever so tender and came off the bone easily and I loved it; it had a very spicy yet fresh spice paste smeared overtop that had me licking my lips with every bite. It was served on a bed of delicious spiced rice and shredded lettuce (the lettuce was quite refreshing with it all). To me, this was the best thing we had at the table that night and I gorged on it. Then again to our massive surprise, these legs turned out to be on the house. Thank you, Tayyabs!

Now for the second round of ordering. Though we were starting to fill up on the lamb legs, we still wanted to try their specialities. Dry meat was one of them – it’s a very dark and dry curried lamb, very rich but a bit chewy. While good, to me it wasn’t as mindblowing as others have stated.

Chicken keema. Again, while tasty, it wasn’t amazing. It was a bowlful of pieces of shredded cooked chicken in a pleasant curry sauce. One thing I adored was the fried onions on top!

Bindi (okra). This was quite nice – I’ve always loved okra.

Tindi masala. This was the famed curried baby pumpkins which reminded me very much of a lot of the Chinese gourds I ate growing up. Again, while good, it wasn’t life changing. I think perhaps my expectations were much too high coming into this meal!

And of course, to go with everything was a huge plateful of very good naans. Each of these fluffy, chewy flatbreads came with a good slick of ghee. These I also loved with their crispy puffy bubbles… these were excellent naans.

Between all of us, this meal (with the exception of the legs of lamb) came to only £12 per person (including service). The restaurant was BYOB and many at the table had brought along their choice of tipple.

I couldn’t believe the queue when we left! The waiting area was packed and there were even a few people waiting outside – I’d also been told that sometimes the queue goes down the road. I’m not sure I’d be willing to wait for so long though, especially since I live in West London, so very close to Southall, where excellent Punjabi food can be found. However, I can understand the excitement people have for the place as it’s one of the few restaurants in central London that serves proper Punjabi/Pakistani food and it’s ridiculously cheap too; if I was in the area, I’d probably visit it again (that leg of lamb!). To me though, while the food is generally good, I don’t think it lives up to the hype of being the best Indian food in London.

But it’s not all about the food, is it? It was great meeting and catching up with lots of London’s food bloggers. An incomplete list is here (those that I remember and met!):

Chris – TikiChris, Londonist
Jonathan – Around Britain with a Paunch
Jeanne – Cook Sister!
Kerri and Stephen – Dinner Diary
Anthony – Silverbrow
Helen – Food Stories
Helen – World Foodie Guide
Niamh – Eat Like a Girl
Lizzie – Hollow Legs
Chris – Cheese and Biscuits
Oliver – Thring for Your Supper

There were a few people I didn’t get a chance to meet – next time! Chris (TikiChris) has posted a full list over at Londonist. Thanks for organising it again, Helen and Chris!

Tayyabs
83-89 Fieldgate Street
London E1 1JU

Almost all Asian food links today! And one Quizno’s commercial.

This is just about the weirdest commercial for soy sauce I’ve ever seen. Via Serious Eats.

Umami‘s fragrant noodles recipe is a dead ringer for all the konlo mee I ate growing up – basically dry noodles tossed with lots of aromatics and seasonings.

I cannot stop staring at this banh mi so (Vietnamese meatball sandwich) over at Scanwiches. That’s my usual order at the Vietnamese sandwich place back in Vancouver.

Check out these innovative gyoza made with daikon wrappers over at Obachan’s Kitchen & Balcony Garden!

The Lay Gastronomer blogs about a sweet potato dish encountered in China – look at the stands of sugar!

Finally, that Quizno’s commercial – being in the UK these past 10 years or so, I never encountered this Spongmonkey’s ad. Fantastic. Again via Serious Eats.