Tamarind and Thyme

Update 24-06-2009: Taro in Knightsbridge has now closed! We went yesterday to get bentos for lunch and the place was stripped and boarded up. No more cheap bentos for us. Sigh…

There are few good and cheap lunch places around where I work in South Kensington so when a new place pops up on our radar, we’re all over it. That latest place is Taro in Knightsbridge. You may be familiar with the two branches in Soho (Brewer Street and Old Compton Street), you know, the ones with the cartoon faces? But what differentiates this branch are the lunchtime takeaway options.

In front of the restaurant is a refrigerated display case full of packets of sushi and edamame. A large at £2.50 gets you a variety of maki sushi while a small at £1.50 will procure you two nigiri sushi. £1.50 will also get you a packet of ready to eat edamame.

It’s not very clear in the photo but this was some thickly cut maki sushi – I got a few California rolls and some avocado and quite a few avocado and salmon hosomaki (the little rolls). The two packets filled me up nicely for lunch. The California rolls were a bit heavy on the rice but I couldn’t fault the rest. It’s nice finding affordable sushi!

If you’re not in the mood for sushi, walk into the restaurant and ask to see their takeaway bento menu. There’s a list of about 10 choices for the main dish and each comes with rice and a few accoutrements. They’re priced right too, with most running at £4 and a few at £5. An extra 50p gets you some miso soup on the side.

Here’s my fried chicken (chicken katsu) bento (£4).

The chicken is freshly fried and most pieces remain crisp by the time I get around to eating it. It came with some Bulldog sauce to drizzle over the fried chicken and a delicious sweet soy sauce on the rice, in case you feared that the meal would be too dry! I hear the tonkatsu (pork instead) bento is also very good!

And here’s Mirna’s eel bento (£5). Notice the different side dishes. Her reports indicated that it was great!

These aren’t just for weekdays either – my friend Rach picked up a bento on a Saturday too! The restaurant’s location makes this a good lunch time option for those working in the area or the many tourists visiting Harrods or any of the three big museums nearby (Science Museum, Natural History Museum, V&A).

Taro
136 Brompton Rd
London SW3 1HY

Thank you so much to my good friend Kim Kian for inviting me along to this fantastic event held at Hampton Court Palace this past Saturday. There was loads of Singaporean food and goodies and the weather was great and it made for a fun day out. Singapore Day is an event organised for Singaporeans somewhere out there in the world – previous events were in New York and Melbourne. Where will it be next year?

All my photos (with descriptions!) can be found in my Flickr set.

And here are the cookies from the previous picnic post. I don’t normally bake many cookies – I’m always afraid I’ll scoff the whole lot in one sitting. These very scoffable cookies come from a recipe I clipped out from the Guardian ages ago by baking extraordinaire Dan Lepard. They are crisp with a slight chew from the oatmeal within. The toasted seeds give a lovely nuttiness without any actual nuts, of course, thus making it perfect for those with nut allergies.

Back then, when I tried the recipe for the first time, I even threw in some chocolate chips I had lying around and I do like them in there! They’re like healthier chocolate chip cookies. Well, “healthier” – I think the seeds really do fool me there. Blai likes them without the chocolate and honestly, they’re still pretty good that way.

One-a-Day Cookies
adapted from a recipe by Dan Lepard
makes 12-20.

125g unsalted butter, softened
100g caster sugar (I used golden)
100g soft muscovado (brown) sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
75g sunflower seeds (shelled)
75g pumpkin seeds (shelled)
100g rolled oats

Lightly toast the seeds first. Place both seeds into a dry nonstick frying pan over low to medium heat. Toss the seeds around occasionally. When they’re ready, they will have a light toasty nutty smell to them and you’ll hear them pop a bit. Leave to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

Cream the butter and sugars together. Mix in the egg and vanilla until combined. Stir in the flour and when all mixed in, add the seeds and oats and stir together carefully.

Place heaped tablespoons of batter on the baking sheet (only 6 at a time as they’ll spread), flattening each heap slightly with the back of the spoon. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are just turning brown. Take out of the oven and let cool for 1 minute before transferring the cookies to a cooling rack.

These cookies will keep for a few days in an airtight container at room temperature and they’re actually better after a night’s rest than on the day they’re baked.

Wasn’t the weekend glorious? Sun in the sky, light breeze to keep things cool – it was perfect for a picnic. The first of the year! We’re getting pretty good at packing picnics now; I remember a poor one we had years ago when we first started going out and we didn’t have napkins or plastic cups or anything to even sit on. We have two mats/blankets, even a few throw pillows, all manner of plastic cutlery and cups, napkins, …. and camera, of course!

To keep things simple this time, I packed some cookies I’d baked the night before (recipe in the next blog post!), some strawberries, a few individual yogurts, and some sandwiches. We based these sandwiches on some we bought in Barcelona this past trip – we were going for a day hike and that morning, we stopped into the local bakery and picked up a few plain-looking sandwiches: they were small baguettes, one with ham, one with chorizo, and one with some other preserved sausage. They didn’t look particularly exciting but when we unwrapped them, we found that the bread was rubbed with tomato and olive oil which lubricated everything nicely and made that sandwich utterly fantastic. (Well, I was surprised while Blai and his brother were not. Apparently, it’s the usual thing over in Catalunya to make sandwiches from pa amb tomàquet, that very Catalan combination of bread with tomato).

This is again one of those no-recipe, more-of-a-description posts. To make these sandwiches, use a small baguette per person; we used those half baked ones that you get at the supermarket and baked them that morning and allowed them to cool before preparing the sandwiches. Slice them in half horizontally lengthwise. Take a couple of very juicy tomatoes, slice them in half along their equators and then rub the cut sides into the cut sides of the bread. Really squeeze those tomatoes and get all the juice and seeds and flesh that squishes out onto the bread. The bread shouldn’t be soaking wet but there should be enough that the cut side is stained red. Sprinkle with salt if desired (I usually leave this step out) and then drizzle with extra virgin olive oil (never skip this step!). If necessary, press the two halves together to prevent the oil from leaking everywhere! You now have pa amb tomàquet! It’s lovely eaten by itself or topped with some ham (open-faced) or with some cured sausage on the side but we’re here to make sandwiches!

Now choose your filling – we had some thinly sliced honey roast ham and sliced cheese. Don’t be too generous with these fillings! You want a nice balance between them and your pa amb tomàquet. A few slices will do. Wrap up your sandwich (we just used plastic wrap) and it will be good for when you’re ready to eat it! I’m not usually a fan of sandwiches but I am a sucker for these!

Or, an artichoke recipe for lazy people. Fresh artichokes always look so intimidating: that spiky exterior, the amount of prep required, the amount of work needed to eat them. Well, this method (told to me by Blai) ignores the first point (ha!) and removes the need for any difficult prep whatsoever. I got to test this technique last week when we acquired 5 globe artichokes for the bargain price of £1. Yeah, that’s 20p a choke – excellent!

Again, this is one of those recipes that doesn’t really need to be in recipe format – I’ll just describe it. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Allow for two artichokes per person if they’re to be served alongside another main course. Wash each artichoke and shake off all the water you can. Slice off the stem and a little of the bottom of each artichoke and sit the artichokes in a roasting dish. Sprinkle salt all over, piling it a little on top of each choke. Roast for 45 minutes. The artichokes will go quite dark and tender and the salt will crust on top.

To eat it, give each person a little shallow dish of extra virgin olive oil or serve each artichoke in a little pool of it. Peel off each artichoke petal, dip into the olive oil, and chew/suck the tender part at the base. As you move further inwards and closer to the heart, you should be able to eat more of the petal. There’s definitely work involved when eating an artichoke but getting to the heart is reward itself! If your artichoke is young-ish, the choke (that fibrey, hairy bit above the heart) won’t be so mature and you should be able to eat everything; if not, just scrape off the tough choke and eat the tender heart with lots of olive oil!

Of course, you don’t have to serve this with olive oil. The traditional hollandaise or melted butter would also be lovely and the internet is full of recipes for artichoke dipping sauces. I can imagine an allioli would be superb!