Tamarind and Thyme

I first came across khao mok gai on one of my Flickr contact’s photostream and after a bit of investigation, I found some a very informative post on the dish by Austin Bush. The name translates to “buried chicken rice” and is a Thai version of a biryani and it’s notoriously difficult to replicate at home. Of course, not having tried the original on the streets of Thailand, I was happy to give it a go! From the ingredients, you can see that it’s a Thai-Muslim dish made with a number of spices not typically associated with Thai food. Some recipes use coconut milk while others use regular milk and butter and I went with the latter, as suggested by the recipe I adapted.

Now, I love my rice and I love me some Indian biryani. I found this version to be more subtly spiced than what I was used to but what really made the dish was the accompanying sauce. Spicy and sweet and fresh and green, it went really well with the rice and chicken and I found myself dousing it on the cucumber slices too. So if you do make this recipe, don’t leave out that sauce! And the fried onion (really it should be shallots but I had none to hand) slices – you also need this.

The recipe uses a rice cooker to cook all the ingredients together. Of course, if you don’t have a rice cooker, you could easily make this on the stove. Bring the water to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until done.

Khao Mok Gai
Adapted from this recipe.
Serves 4.

4 whole chicken legs, separated into thighs and drumsticks
2 cups (500mL) basmati rice, washed/rinsed
water (use the ratio that your rice cooker calls for)
1 small onion, quartered lengthwise and then sliced across thinly (or a few shallots)
1 tbsp butter
sunflower oil
1/4 cup single cream
3 cloves garlic, minced
thumb sized piece of ginger, minced
2 bay leaves
2 green cardamom pods, lightly smashed

For the Spice Mix
2 tsp curry powder (I used a Malaysian meat curry powder)
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar

For the Sauce
2 green onions (mine was humongous so I used 1)
4 sprigs fresh coriander
1/4 cup ginger
1 long green chili
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp water
1/4 cup plain vinegar

I found it easiest to marinate the chicken in a large ziploc bag (due to the size of my fridge) but you could also do it in a bowl. Trim the chicken pieces of any extraneous fat, poke the thighs here and there and place them all into the bag. Mix together all the spice mix spices and place half of the mixture into the bag along with the chicken. Set aside the other half. Add the single cream into the bag and zip it up. Toss the bag around, massaging the chicken with the cream and spices, until coated evenly. Place in the fridge for at least an hour (up to overnight).

To make the sauce, roughly chop the green onions, coriander, ginger (peeled), and chili (destem) and place all into a blender or mini chopper. Process until finely minced. In a small pot, heat the sugar, salt and water over medium heat, stirring until the sugar and salt and dissolved. Take off the heat and stir in the vinegar (keep your face out of the way!). Keep stirring until any sugar that’s hardened has dissolved again. Add the green onions, coriander, ginger and chili and stir well. This will keep well in a jar in the fridge for at least a couple days.

Heat a couple tablespoons of sunflower oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Add half the sliced onion and fry until brown. Drain the fried onion well on some kitchen paper. They’ll crisp as they cool. Set aside.

Return the saute pan to the stove and reduce the heat to medium. If there’s any oil left in the pan, leave it or else add another tablespoon of sunflower oil. Add the butter too. Toss in the rest of the onion and cook until it’s translucent. The other half of the spice mixture is added to the pan now along with the bay leaves and green cardamom pods; fry for about a minute. Add the washed rice and continue frying for another few minutes. Transfer all the now seasoned rice to your rice cooker pot.

Place the saute pan back on the stove and increase the heat to medium-high. Add a tablespoon of oil and allow it to heat. Add a layer of the marinated chicken pieces and allow to brown all over. When the pieces are browned, place them in the rice cooker with the rice and continue frying the remaining chicken pieces. As before, transfer all the browned chicken pieces to the rice cooker.

Add enough water to the rice cooker for the amount of rice inside and set it cooking. When it’s done, both the rice and chicken will be cooked through.

Serve with the sauce alongside.

I’ve been a big fan of Jing Tea since I first encountered them at the first Real Food Festival in Earl’s Court back in 2008. With a very striking (and apparently heavy) wooden table/water tray, they had a most impressive stand where I parked myself for about half an hour, sampling various high quality teas. I walked away with a few teas to drink later. I’ve always liked teas (my mother used to pack green tea for me to bring back to London) but I reckon it was that visit that really piqued my interest in high quality teas. In a way, perhaps this interest is similar to that of a budding oenophile. As I’m not fond of alcoholic beverages (partially due to the fact that my body cannot process alcohol very well), my drink interests turn to teas, coffees and various fruity concoctions. In general, when it comes to teas, I don’t like flavoured teas (with the exception of Earl Grey and jasmine and perhaps a slice of lemon in black tea) and never add sugar or milk.

Quick background: Jing Tea was founded by Edward Eisler in 2005 and the team sources some of the finest teas in the world. Their teas are all available online through their website or also at various hotels and restaurants. I love the way they give lots of information on their site, from explaining how the teas are processed to showing the best way to enjoy your tea.

Thanks to David at Jing Tea (we made contact on Twitter), I met him in The Botanist in Sloane Square (they stock their teas) for a tea tasting at their invitation. It was clear from the outset that David is very passionate about tea and I was quite excited to learn all I could from him. The restaurant knew we were coming and so reserved a large table for us in their quietest corner and very kindly emptied teapots and brought freshly boiled hot water over from time to time throughout the afternoon.

David had brought a few teas to sample as well as one of their Gong Fu teasets with a bamboo water tray (envy! want!). As he unpacked everything, we realised how odd we must have appeared with all sorts of paraphernalia strewn on the table! All the bits and bobs did have a function. Tea was brewed in the teapot and after David deemed the tea done, it would be strained into the pitcher from which the tea was poured into the tiny tasting cups. This prevents the tea from oversteeping as you enjoy it. When the tea is of this quality and price and the teapot so small, it may seem like this is a particularly expensive habit but the tea can be resteeped up to 4-5 times and so it’s not as bad as it seems.

Now, I’m not an expert in teas; I’ll leave the descriptions and full reviews to the proper tea blogs. But I’m going to take a stab at it here anyway!

The first tea David brought out was a Lishan Oolong Tea (Taiwan Lishan Wu Long). As someone used to fresher green teas, this oolong was quite a revelation. It was…creamy. Not creamy like milk obviously but it did coat the throat in a rather soothing way. After brewing, the leaves unwrap and look to me like spring greens…so much so that I wanted to shove a few into my mouth. I held back; it wouldn’t have made a good impression.

We moved on to a Jun Shan Silver Needle (Jun Shan Yin Zhen) Yellow Tea. This was my favourite that day. The tea is made up of just the buds, making it quite expensive (I feel guilty for drinking it!). The full process of its preparation is documented in that link above but very briefly, this is a wok-fired and baked tea – quite a lot of work goes into it. The flavour was quite exquisite – very smooth and fresh and not at all bitter.

His final tea sample was of Organic White Peony (Fuding Bai Mu Dan). If I had to judge tea on its beauty, this one would be quite high in the competition. The bud, still covered in fuzzy white down, and its closest two leaves are picked together, giving it a very close-to-nature appearance. The words melon and cucumber are bandied about when describing its flavour and I can see where that comes from – there’s a refreshing and crisp aspect to the tea. In terms of favourites, this was tied with the oolong in my opinion. They’re two entirely different teas but I enjoyed them equally.

The final tea was ordered off the Botanist’s menu. The Organic Bohea Lapsang Black Tea (Wuyi Bohea Hong Cha) was chosen mainly because I’d had a lapsang souchong in the past (I think I was about 19) and took an instant dislike to the strong smokiness of that tea. This lapsang was an entirely different beast. There was a light smokiness, reminiscent of roasting chestnuts, but it was entirely drinkable. But while I didn’t dislike it, it was still my least favourite of the four we drank that day. That said, it definitely changed my opinion of lapsang teas.

We did have a bite to eat at the Botanist too. I had the double eggs benedict, which weren’t bad at all – the eggs were a bit small but the ham was generous and I liked their not-overly-tangy hollandaise. David had the salmon fish cake which he pronounced just the thing he wanted – and it did look good. The restaurant itself was very busy and so booking is probably essential. I just might return to try more of their menu.

Thanks again to David and Jing Tea for the invitation. It really was an eye-opening tasting for me – in particular with the lapsang. David’s still looking for a new venue to hold their tea tastings (previously at their office near Oval) so watch their blog and website for updates.

Jing Tea

The Botanist
7 Sloane Square
London SW1W 8EE

These biscuits were inspired by some I bought at the Japan Centre last year: little brown, crisp, buttery biscuits with bits of adzuki bean. They were ridiculously moreish and I scoffed the lot at my work desk in under an hour. I had to recreate them and after a bit of investigation discovered that they were just smaller, slightly overbaked langues de chat (cat’s tongues). This and finding toasted black sesame seeds at the Japan Centre led to a modification of that biscuit.

Inspired by this post, I made spoon shapes to give away for Christmas – they’re much cuter than the original shape and would also be adorable presented with a scoop of ice cream. For myself, I made little one-bite dots that disappeared alarmingly quickly…

Oh, and they’re perfect with a cup of tea!

Black Sesame Langues de Chat
adapted from Bouchon Bakery’s recipe.
makes about 48 traditionally shaped ones.

4 tbsps/60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed icing sugar (85g)
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup/75g flour
black sesame seeds

Cream the butter, sugar and salt together until well combined and very creamy and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract and the egg whites, adding them one at a time and combining well after each addition. Fold in the flour until well combined. Stick the mixture into the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180C.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone line. Fill a piping bag with a 1/4 inch tip or a plastic bag (snip the corner after filling) with the batter and use to pipe lines (for a traditional shape) or blobs (for circles) or lines with a large blob at the end (for spoons) on the baking sheet. (See the photos.) Leave at least 3cm between the biscuits as they’ll spread a lot. Sprinkle with black sesame seeds. Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until the edges are just tinged brown; don’t be afraid to let those edges brown – if not, they insides may still be a bit chewy. Halfway through baking, turn the baking sheet around – I found that this helped with even baking in my oven. If you’re using two baking sheets at the same time, switch and turn the sheets around halfway through baking.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days. I doubt they’ll last that long!

Su-Lin¹ and Su-Min (yup,my brother)²*
¹West London, UK
²Somewhere north of London, UK

Introduction

The Kati Roll Company (KRC) [1] is a New York chain of restaurants offering Indian wraps based on a street food originating from Kolkata in India [2]. A kati roll is defined as a flatbread wrapping a mixture of spiced meat and vegetables. Mooli’s is a recent addition to Frith Street and also offers Indian wraps. While Mooli’s has recently been making news in the blogs, coverage of KRC has been more quiet.

The aim of this paper is to compare the Indian wraps offered in London’s Soho. Samples of Indian wraps from both KRC and Mooli’s were obtained and compared. The results of the comparative analysis of the wraps are presented here. The paper concludes with a discussion of both rolls and restaurants.

Methods

1. The Kati Roll Company

Samples were obtained from KRC at 13:00 on 24 December, 2009. A chicken tikka roll and a shami kebab roll (comprised of spiced minced lamb) were procured as representative examples of the genre. The two rolls were shared equally between the two researchers and eaten on the premises. Figure 1 shows the rolls purchased.

Figure 1. A chicken tikka roll and a shami kebab roll from KRC.

2. Mooli’s

A sample was obtained from Mooli’s at 14:00 on 24 December, 2009. As the lunch special seemed to be a good deal, this was purchased. A Goan pork with pomegranate salsa mooli, roasted papads with tomato chutney, and two lime and mint drinks were obtained. This was split equally between the two researchers and consumed on the premises. Figure 2 shows the Mooli’s roll.

Figure 2. A Goan pork wrap from Mooli’s.

3. Comparison

The preparation and presentation of the wraps, flavour of the wraps, restaurant environments, service, and price were analysed and compared for each location.

Results

1. The Wraps

A comparison of the wraps procured and tasted is presented in Table 1. With respects to size, the KRC roll was described as being a perfect snack size (two for a meal) while the Mooli’s roll was enough for a meal.

Table 1. A comparison of the wraps from both restaurants.

The KRC rolls were chock full of meat and in the case of the chicken tikka roll, a bit of onion too. The Mooli’s roll was as big as a fast food burrito but mainly contained a lot of salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomato). Figure 3 illustrates the cross sections of the KRC rolls while Figure 4 shows the innards of the Mooli’s roll.

Figure 3. Cross sections of the KRC rolls: (left) chicken tikka and (right) shami kebab.

Figure 4. Inside the Mooli’s roll.

3. Restaurant Environment

The walls of KRC were filled with Bollywood film posters and the restaurant itself was filled with low tables with stools. Ordering was done at the small counter at the back. A drinks fridge was positioned on the left hand side and was filled with all the usual soft drinks.

Mooli’s looked newer, with colourful postcards scattered everywhere and flat screens displaying their menu. Seating was at counters along the sides or at a few regular tables in the centre. Again, ordering was done at the counter at the back.

4. Service

Service was found to be excellent at both restaurants. The women at the counters were happy to explain the ideas behind the wraps and the flavours within too. At Mooli’s, the researchers were offered complimentary chai teas, after their meal, which were accepted.

5. Price

The KRC chicken tikka roll was priced at £3.25 for one (two for £6.00). The KRC shami kebab roll was priced at £3.75 for one (two for £7.00).

The Mooli’s lunch special deal was priced at £5.00 for the roll, roasted papads with tomato chutney, and a soft drink. The roll can be bought individually at £3.95. The extra lime and mint juice drink was obtained for £2.00.

The prices of all the rolls at both locations is summed up in Table 2.

Table 2. Mean and standard deviation of the roll prices at both KRC and Mooli’s.

Discussion and Conclusion

KRC offers delicious kati rolls with nicely spiced fillings. There is a wide variety of fillings, with all of them available with a spicy egg omelette also. However, while the price of a single roll is reasonable, one requires at least two to fill up, making KRC the more expensive option. As well, there are no interesting drinks (except for chai) nor are there any side dishes available. A few sandwiches with Indian fillings are offered.

Mooli’s strength lies in their satellite offerings: their roasted papads were good and crunchy (Figure 5), the juice drinks excellent (lassis are also available), desserts are offered, as well as a number of sauces for the wraps. Their wraps are very healthy but require more spice in the filling. Apart from wraps, they also offer a no-carbohydrate version as a salad.

Figure 5. Roasted papads with tomato chutney from Mooli’s.

To conclude, the researchers favoured the KRC kati rolls but Mooli’s wraps are not to be dismissed. The former is more of a treat with its fried bread but the latter is healthier and more suited to everyday lunching.

References

[1] The Kati Roll Company, 24 Poland Street, London, W1F 8QL.

[2] Kati Roll, Wikipedia.

[3] Mooli’s, 50 Frith Street, London, W1D 4SQ.

* Yeah, my brother and I have matching names and they did make for some confusing moments growing up! And we’re both quite nerdy and we wrote this post together for a laugh during the Christmas holidays.

Once upon a time (ok, last Friday), 16 ladies (or perhaps 16 little piggies) journeyed to St John Restaurant for PigFest, a celebration of absolutely nothing other than a love for all things porky; it was mainly just an excuse to eat their famed roast suckling pig.

The feast started not with pork but with roast bone marrow and crabs with mayonnaise. All very nice but this wasn’t the reason we were here.

It was all about the pig! And after a very very very long wait, the pig finally came. And the paparazzi descended, scaring the poor waiter.

Boiled potatoes and greens were provided to go with the porcine delights: the meat was tender and flavourful, the stuffing within moist and so moreish, but the crackling was only somewhat crackly and crisp. This last was a bit disappointing.

More was yet to come. In case we weren’t full enough, two very heavy desserts were set down to fill any empty tummy space. Eccles cakes with Lancashire cheese and spotted dick with custard; the former was too large and bit burnt but it was the latter that was the best pudding this little piggy had ever had.

And just in case even that wasn’t enough, a plateful of madeleines hot from the oven was placed on the table.

Thank you, meemalee, for organising (via Twitter) this event! She’s written an excellent post on the unexpected service failures we encountered which I’ve only touched upon here. Due to the lengthy delay between courses, at least 3 participants had to rush off to catch their trains, missing dessert in the process. Not good.

Twitter ladies in attendance (in alphabetical order): alexthepink, BribedwithFood, eatlikeagirl, everythingbut, GreedyDiva, KaveyF, LibbyEAndrews, MathildesCuisine, meemalee, R_McCormack, rudehealth, ruduss, sulineats (that’s me!).

All my photos can be seen in this Flickr photoset.

St John Restaurant
26 St John Street
London EC1M 4AY