Tamarind and Thyme

I love falafel. I love those crispy crunchy nuggets of ground chickpeas and herbs and spices. However, I know that it’s quite difficult to get a good one. Supermarkets are the worst offenders – the leaden balls of dry crumbliness they sell give falafel a bad name. A passable falafel can be had at many of London’s Lebanese restaurants and in a pinch, Maoz Falafel in Soho is pretty good. But I knew they could be better. There had to be a place in London somewhere that produced superior falafel. I had faith. I had faith in London.

I’d heard a rumour that Shepherd’s Bush Market was the place to go for falafel and for a couple of years, I thought that place might be the little black and white stall that you see just at the entrance facing the tube station. But it was this post by the Syrian Foodie in London that pointed me in the right direction. It’s easy to get confused though – I counted at least three falafel stands in the market. Mr Falafel is located in the New Shepherd’s Bush Market, behind a produce stall and across from a clothing stall and a luggage stall, just off the Uxbridge Road.

Mr Falafel claim to have the best Palestinian falafel in London and to date, I’d say it’s the finest falafel I’ve had in the city so far. Of all the options available on their menu, I chose a Medium Deluxe Falafel Wrap (with fried caulifower, potato and aubergine). Would I like chili sauce? – Yes, please! I sat down at one of the tables and my order was brought to me when it was ready.

The medium size was perfect for my little lunch – I wonder how large the large size is! And that wrap was delicious. The fried vegetables were all tender and tasty but it was the falafel that were the stars; the chickpea nuggets were beautifully browned and crunchy on the outside but so so light on the inside. No dense leaden balls here! Wrapped in a flat bread with lots of crunchy, tangy pickles and garlic sauce aplenty, this was a fine lunch.

Mr Falafel, we shall meet again.

Mr Falafel
Units T4-T5
New Shepherd’s Bush Market
Uxbridge Road
Shepherd’s Bush
London W12 8LH

(I’m not sure what their opening hours are during Ramadan but otherwise the normal opening hours are available on the website.)

There’s something wonderfully primal about tucking into a whole roast beast. Last Tuesday, about 40 or so food bloggers and twitterers gathered in the back garden of The Red Lion and Sun in Highgate to do just that, partake in a big hog roast, put on by owner Heath and chef Vincent.

Apart from the moist and tender pork, there were salads galore: green, potato, bean, tomato, and coleslaw, as well as baps and foccacia. It was pretty much all you can eat – a 75 kg Gloucestershire Old Spot pig does feed many!

Thanks again, Lizzie, for organising the meat-up! And you can organise one for you and your mates too – there’s some information and contact details on their website below. Do also check out Ibzo’s post on their spit-roast lamb.

All my photos from the night can be found in this Flickr photoset.

The Red Lion and Sun
25 North Road
Highgate
London N6 4BE

I came home last week craving meatballs; in particular, I wanted meatballs with toasted pinenuts and the sweetness of raisins – just like in the recipe by Molly from Orangette, whose recipes have always been dependable. Instead of turkey, I used pork and I also substituted flat leaf parsley for the coriander; they’re very customisable. I highly recommend making them – they’re juicy and meaty and yet have the nuts and raisins to keep them interesting.

But what was I going to pair with the meatballs? I was already going to buy yogurt and lemons for the accompanying sauce and so thought of the seemingly recent pairings of grilled aubergines with yogurt – the first time I had this was at Ottolenghi a number of years back. I’ve still not got his eponymous cookbook but with that dish in mind, I threw this together based on what I had in my cupboards. And I got to christen my new grill pan with the aubergine slices! (If you don’t have one, just stick them under the grill.)

The result? A great vegetable side dish – the tang of the yogurt and lemon goes so well with the neutral aubergines and gosh, I love pinenuts. I do wish I had doubled the recipe though but for normal people who expect normal portion sizes, this recipe will do!

Grilled Aubergines with Lemon and Yogurt
serves 2 as a side dish.

2 small/medium aubergines
olive oil
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 clove garlic
juice from half a lemon
ground cumin
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsps pine nuts, toasted
a few sprigs of flat leaf parsley
Piment d’Espelette or pimentón

Slice each aubergine lengthwise into 4 slices (each slice will be between 1-2cm thick). Brush one side of each slice liberally with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and slap onto a hot grill pan. Cook each side for about 5 minutes, brush liberally with oil again and flip and continue cooking. They should be soft when fully cooked – at this point, remove them onto a plate and continue cooking the rest of the slices.

Crush the garlic clove into the yogurt and stir in the lemon juice too. Add a good pinch or two of ground cumin and season well with salt and pepper. Stir again and adjust the seasonings if desired.

Dollop the yogurt on the aubergine slices – you may not use all the sauce and it’s great on the meatballs (should you decide to make them!). Chop the parsley and sprinkle that and the toasted pinenuts on top. Sprinkle with Piment d’Espelette or pimentón and serve.

I felt like I lost my cooking mojo a couple weeks back (caused in part by the summer weather and also my being ridiculously busy at work and I’m tired when I get home) but after forcing myself into the kitchen recently, I do feel like it’s back and now I’ve got a few recipes ready for the blog. Reading other blogs helped too and one recipe that helped get me out of my funk was this creamy carrot pasta that Donny cooked on his blog Eat to Blog. A creamy pasta dish isn’t necessarily what one might make in the summer but the weather lately hasn’t been exactly summery, eh?

This recipe made a feature of carrot, a vegetable that I have no particularly strong feelings for and one I’d never thought of combining into a pasta dish – but the idea of combining it with cream sounded fantastic. I couldn’t help playing around a bit with the recipe and used a leek instead of the onion and crumbled the sausage into the sauce too. The result was very tasty with the sweetness of the leeks and carrots and cream playing nicely with the savoury sausage and the greenness of the parsley. And it’s very quick to put together for a weekday dinner.

Carrot, Leek and Sausage Pasta
adapted from Donny’s recipe on Eat to Blog.
serves 2.

250g pasta
1 medium-large carrot, thinly sliced
1 large leek, thinly sliced
3 sausages, chopped roughly
50 mL double cream
2 tbsps olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
a small handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Set a large pot of water to boil.

Set a large saute pan over medium heat and add about 2 tbsps of oil when hot. Throw in the chopped sausage and let the pieces brown well. When cooked, use a slotted spoon to remove the sausage and set it aside.

Pour in a little more oil if the pan is looking dry. Add the leeks and saute for about three minutes. Toss in the carrots and continue cooking until they soften. If the vegetables start to stick, add a little water and scrape up the goodness stuck to the pan.

When the water is boiling, salt well and add your pasta (we used fusilli). Cook until al dente.

Return the sausage to the pan and then add the double cream. Stir through and let bubble together for a few minutes. Thin with water if desired and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Add in the cooked and drained pasta and the chopped parsley and stir well to combine. Add some of the pasta water if it’s looking too dry and if it’s difficult to stir. Serve.

I’m submitting this post to Presto Pasta Nights, hosted this week by Amy of Very Culinary.

Well, it’s only a journey if you consider getting to Edgware Road an epic adventure; I call it a journey into yet another new cuisine to me: Burmese. A couple of weeks ago, MiMi of Meemalee’s Kitchen (who herself is Burmese) organised a large group dinner at Mandalay up on Edgware Road and so introduced us to the delights of Burmese food. (You’re probably aware that Burma isn’t doing so well politically and I learned that its name is even a contested issue; its official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.)

The restaurant has been there for absolutely ages; I visited once when I was still a student living in that area a good decade ago and had one of their cheap lunch specials (curry and rice and their excellent banana fritters, if I recall correctly). The restaurant hasn’t changed one iota in that time – it’s the same little crowded restaurant and even the prices on the lunch specials have remained constant!

MiMi took charge of ordering and not long after we returned the menus, a flood of food came out. Starters were made up of salads and fritters. Of the salads, the most unique was a rice and noodle salad which had quite a good bite of chili. I quite enjoyed the cabbage and chicken salad too while the green papaya salad was very similar to northern Thai versions.

Mandalay’s fritters were outstanding. My favourite was the shrimp and beansprout fritters – who knew that beansprouts could be battered and fried and they’d end up so delicious?! The calabash (bottle gourd) fritters weren’t too bad either.

The main courses were mostly curry-like stews that went well with rice (the curry I had with my lunch special ages ago was one of these, I think). However, with so many curries on the table, they started to meld together on our plates and it became difficult to distinguish the flavours in each dish. I’d like to return to taste these more carefully.

For vegetables, we had some lovely stir fried okra and a unique pickled bamboo shoots dish (not photographed). The latter could have been improved though through the use of fresh bamboo shoots rather than canned.

I loved the side order of balachaung – a condiment of dried shrimp and shrimp paste, garlic, shallots, and chillies. It’s dry and slightly crispy and goes marvelously with rice.

The noodles were pretty good too. Mokhingar is the national dish of Burma/Myanmar and is a fish soup with rice noodles (at least I think that’s what the first photo below shows! I can’t find any other photo that matches to the name and in any case, there was definitely fish in the soup). The coconut and chicken noodles reminded me of khao soi in Chiang Mai though with less of a spicy punch; still, it was a very comforting and soothing noodle dish.

For dessert, MiMi went ahead and ordered a few of everything! They were a mixed bag with my top three in order being the banana fritters, the tapioca and then the blue jelly. I was surprised to see that faluda (the pink drink with jelly and noodles and cream in the last photo) is also popular in Myanmar.

I’d love to return to get a better taste of a few dishes – I wasn’t sure whether to blog this dinner at first but I did learn so much during it and really wanted to collect my thoughts on it. And if you’re going too, book ahead – there were no spare tables when we went on a Tuesday night! The next day, MiMi did fill me in on a few points: (1) pork is popular in Myanmar but I suspect the restaurant is halal as this is left off the menu, and (2) peanuts should also be in some of the dishes (my gut feeling is in the salads) but these too are left out. Still, this is one of the few places in London where Burmese food can be had and good on them for doing so well – the food is still delicious! For all this food (there were multiples of every dish on the table) and drink, the total came to about £20 per head – not a bad price at all as there was more food there than we could finish. Thanks again, MiMi, for organising this!

Mandalay
444 Edgware Road
London W2 1EG