Tamarind and Thyme

Mmmm… cake. I was very much on a baking kick a couple weeks ago, the result being that we gain weight and the blog gains a few recipes. When I went to our local market one Saturday, as soon as I laid my eyes on these fat, glossy, juicy blackberries, I knew they’d end up in a cake. Of course, then Blai asked if they were the same berry that we ate off a wild bush on a recent bicycle ride. Yes, doh! I could’ve just ridden up there and picked some wild blackberries; if you have access to a wild bush, pick them there!

Coffee cake was what I had in mind – and no, there’s no coffee in it; instead it’s a snack cake meant to be eaten while having coffee. Confused? Yes, why can’t it just be called cake?! Or snack cake? Quite often, they have a crumbly topping, as mine did, so why not just… crumble cake? The original recipe I based my cake on made use of sour cherries and I reckon any tart berry would be a good substitute. I reduced the sugar in the original recipe as we tend to find a lot of North American recipes to be too sweet and I thought the sweetness level what resulted was just right.

I love fruit in cakes: the sweet-tartness of the berries burst through the butteriness of the tender cake and the crumbly shortbread-like topping, creating an incredibly moreish snack cake. Heck, late the next evening, we ate over half of the cake for dinner, with Larb Pretz on the side.

Blackberry Coffee Cake
adapted from Martha Stewart Living, via Lottie + Doof

For the topping
50g unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup caster or granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

For the cake
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
50g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
1 punnet of blackberries

Preheat your oven to 180 Celsius. Butter and flour an 8-9 inch square baking pan (or equivalent area pan).

Mix the topping together. In a bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, salt and cinnamon. Drizzle in the melted butter and stir together until mixed together and lumpy. Set aside.

Now mix the main cake batter together. Mix together the flour, salt and baking powder and set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth. Add the vanilla and stir in. Add half the flour mixture, stir until just combined, add the milk, stir again, add the rest of the flour and stir until just combined again. Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Dot the batter with the blackberries and then sprinkle the topping evenly over it all.

Bake in the preheated oven until a skewer comes out clean when poked in the centre of the cake – this should take about 50 minutes to 1 hour. Let cool a bit and serve.

The words “ready meals” suffer a bit of a stigma over here as one initially pictures the sad sweating plastic wrapped packets on the supermarket chilled shelves, ready for a nuking in the microwave. But the ready meals I’ve come across in Barcelona were always wonderful – freshly made croquetes, roasted chicken parts and meat stews, cooked legumes, and trays of prepared canalons ready for a cooking in the oven. Needless to say, you can pick all these up and more at one of the many fabulous markets scattered throughout the city. This is what London is missing!

Anyway, what I wanted to really talk about was what I recently encountered on my last trip there – stuffed aubergines. I saw trays of them ready for the oven – halved aubergines (usually the slim kind rather than the large bulbous ones) stuffed with a meat mixture and slathered in a rich bechamel. They looked fantastic and though I never tasted them, I knew I wanted to recreate something like that at home. But aubergines are not the only vegetable that’s filled; if you take a look at Colman Andrew’s fabulous book Catalan Cuisine, he has a whole section on stuffed vegetables.

It turned out to be quite straightforward – all the components can be cooked ahead of time and put together well before they need to be baked. The meaty filling was so flavourful with the onion and tomatoes cooked down until they were melting together in their sofregit; the silky aubergines, though quite lovely by themselves, were really just carriers for the meat! The bechamel was luxuriously rich and I dolloped it on with a generous hand – the recipe below does make quite a lot. The only things I’d change next time is to try the thinner Japanese aubergines and to be more generous with the Parmesan cheese on top!

Catalan-Style Stuffed Aubergines
serves 4 as a main course.

4 small-medium sized aubergines
olive oil

For the filling
2 tbsps olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 medium or 1 large tomato
500 g minced pork
a large pinch of dried thyme
a large pinch freshly ground nutmeg
salt
freshly ground pepper
4 tbsps fresh breadcrumbs
1 egg

For the bechamel
500 mL milk
80g unsalted butter
4 tbsps plain flour
salt
freshly ground pepper
a large pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

freshly grated parmesan cheese

Prepare your aubergines. Cut each in half lengthwise and scoop out the insides leaving at least a centimetre of flesh (I tossed the insides as mine had a lot of seeds). Arrange cut side up on a baking tray and brush liberally with olive oil. Roast in a hot oven until tender and set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Prepare your filling. First we’ll make a sofregit of the onions, garlic and tomatoes. In a frying pan, heat the oil over low heat and add the finely chopped onion. This has to cook until the onions have become soft and golden – this will take at least 15 minutes on a low temperature. When the onions are close to this, you can add the minced garlic and continue cooking until the onions are cooked and the garlic has lost its rawness. In the meantime, prepare your tomatoes – cut each in half around its equator and deseed them. Use your palm to push each cut half against a box grater and grate the tomato pulp, leaving behind the skins. Add this tomato pulp when the onions are golden and continue cooking over low heat until the tomatoes have melted into the onions and its redness is darker. That’s your sofregit. Add the minced pork and fry, stirring frequently so that the pork is crumbly, until the pork is all cooked (about 10 minutes). Add the thyme and nutmeg and season well with salt and pepper. Stir again and then turn off the heat. In a bowl, beat the egg and add the breadcrumbs to this. Stir together and then add this mixture to the pan with the pork. Stir to incorporate and there’s your filling.

Make the bechamel. In a heavy bottomed pan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the flour and whisk together until incorporated. Let cook for about 3-4 minutes, whisking from time to time. Pour in the milk about a quarter of the volume at a time (you could whack in the whole thing but then it always seems to take longer). Whisk very well after each milk incorporation and then continue adding once the mixture gets thick. After all the milk has been added, continue cooking over low heat and whisking often until the bechamel is thick. Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper and a little freshly ground nutmeg, give it a final whisking and turn off the heat.

Put it together. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Lay your roasted aubergine halves in a baking dish and fill them with the pork mixture. Really stuff them well – use all that filling up! Top each filled aubergine half with a good couple of spoonfuls of bechamel and then sprinkle with some finely grated parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes – the filling should be cooked through (that egg) and the tops should be golden brown.

Serve with a salad and bread on the side.

It’s been a while since I put together one of these posts – I’m just highlighting interesting blog posts that have shown up in my RSS reader. This one shall be extra long!

I wish I could wake up extra early every morning to make a breakfast like these breakfast noodles from Cherry on a Cake. Blai laughs at the thought of this and believes that I will be zombie-like in the morning forevermore. I believe him.

Taiwanese pork belly rice. Oh yes. The recipe can be found at Food Mayhem.

There’s something extremely comforting about this dish of shredded chicken with rice noodles on 3 hungry tummies. Maybe it’s the slipperiness of the noodles or the thickness of the sauce but whatever it is, I want a bowlful of it right now.

I can’t stop thinking of aixxx‘s menchi katsu sandwich (last photo). That looks very doable at home.

ieatishootipost in Singapore made roti prata (roti canai if you’re Malaysian) at home! With all the impressive flipping and everything!

Karen at Ramblingspoon captured this photo of a group of girls at a noodle stand in Laos. I love it; there’s something rather nice about young children eating spicy foods willingly – they’ve not been coddled by their parents and yes, chillies are not something to fear!

Shayma of The Spice Spoon blogged about a recipe for a Kolkata style kati roll. The combination of flaky flat bread and spiced filling is just amazing. If you can’t be bothered to make your own, the ones at the Kati Roll Company in Soho are pretty good too.

Fish sandwiches, made with grilled mackerel, are popular in Istanbul. EatingAsia features this delicious-looking waterside meal.

Grab Your Fork blogs a chicken liver parfait recipe. I never knew it was so easy – I love this rich offally treat.

If you grew up in North America as I did, you may have spent many a childhood summer eating Fudgsicles, those icy, creamy, chocolatey treats. A recipe for homemade fudgsicles appears on Baking Bites!

Milli of Milli’s Kitchen made a snakey-cakey (a swirled and filled filo pastry cake) based on a recipe by Jamie Oliver. It looks fantastic!

Finally, if you’re looking to eat noodles in London, there’s no better guide than Mr Noodles‘ Golden Noodle Awards 2009-2010!

I was moaning about the loss of Oriental City and its roti stall one day when a colleague pointed out that Awana, quite an upscale Malaysian restaurant in South Kensington/Chelsea, had a proper man to flip roti canais in their restaurant. If you’ve not seen a roti canai prepared before, you’re in for a treat – check out this video. Roti canai (or roti prata in Singapore) is a flaky flatbread that is just wonderful with curries and it’s quite difficult to find them freshly made here in London. I had to try those at Awana, despite their mixed reviews.

I booked the restaurant through Toptable, taking advantage of the 50% off deal. I’ll list the regular prices here and then you’ll see why this deal is a necessity when eating here! We ordered as we normally would though; when all the food arrived on the table, I did start to worry that perhaps we had over ordered, with the discount on our minds, somehow we managed to finish it all.

We had two plain roti canais (£6.50 each – woah!) and had one each of the sauces – a red curry sauce and a dahl curry sauce. The rotis were alright – generally thin and flaky though a little stodgy in places and they could have used a little more fat between the layers and during frying. The dahl was lovely but the red curry sauce was like nothing I’d ever encountered: there was an all pervading flavour of cinnamon with which someone in the kitchen was a little too heavy handed. It was good fun though watching as our rotis were made; large screen TVs dotted around the restaurant show a live feed of what’s happening at the roti station.

The pai ti (crispy pastry cups filled with prawns, chicken,bamboo, mushroom, carrot and coriander) (£7.50) were the best dish that night, I think. My mother used to make these at home and I have the mould for the cups that she gave to me and these just reminded me so much of her. These were full of flavour and the pastry cups retained their crispness well.

The corn-fed chicken satay (£8.00) were the largest satay I’d ever seen! The meat dark ,tender and moist but there just wasn’t enough flavour coming from the marinade. The satay sauce was very sweet and almost seemed like a pineapple satay sauce that’s quite popular in Singapore nowadays. The accompanying chunks of cucumber and red onion were pathetic – the cucumber was dried out and the onion still had its roots attached.

I wanted to try their ikan bakar (whole seabass baked with herbs, lemongrass, garlic and chilli paste served with lime and seafood sauce) (£18.00). It would have been better if it had been grilled (as the name implies) but this one was baked – luckily, it was well cooked and moist and overall a good fish. The garlic and chilli paste on top though was very mild and really needed more of a spice boost; the seafood sauce was a mild, tangy, oniony sauce that helped.

For a vegetable, we had the stir-fried morning glory with garlic (£5.50) – very simple and perfectly passable. I do wish our waitress had told us that we could have this stir-fried with sambal as another waitress told our neighbouring table. Boo.

We had coconut rice (£3.50) with all this food. Yeah, carbs with carbs. Anyway, it was well cooked but with very little coconut milk. And the waitress’ enthusiasm to scoop lots of it onto our plates as soon as it arrived was a little annoying; I mean, we were still eating our rotis.

Somehow, we still had space for dessert! Awana has a very long dessert menu and a few of them involved sweet versions of roti canai. Despite our gluttonous consumption of two of them for dinner already, we ordered a sweet third – the pisang roti canai (sweetened crispy flat bread filled with banana served with chocolate and lemongrass ice cream) (£6.50). The roti again could have been a little more crispy – but it was fine with its mashed banana filling. The ice cream too was excellent – the combination of chocolate and lemongrass was quite novel and we very much enjoyed this. However, the strong flavours in the ice cream did not complement the roti at all – they simply clashed and tasted quite vile together.

Unfortunately, the main theme running through all the savoury dishes at Awana seemed to be dumbed down flavours, which is a shame when generally, everything was quite pleasant. I found service a little uncomfortable too – with the waitresses thanking us after every request during ordering and laying our napkins on our laps and doing a lot of general hovering. And yes, the prices are steep; with a bottle of water, this meal would have cost us £74.48 (including service charge). With that 50% deal, it came to £39.60, what we would normally pay (or maybe even a little more) at a typical Malaysian restaurant in London. If you’re looking for a nice enough meal, Awana is alright; if you’re looking for an authentic meal, I’d recommend looking elsewhere.

Awana
85 Sloane Avenue
London SW3 3DX

Hooray for sales! I know I’ve taken advantage of all the offers on during London’s annual sales (though they seem to take place all the time now) but I never knew that restaurants offer sales too. Sure there are toptable offers around but Cafe Luc in Marylebone took matters in their own hands and offered a limited number of £1 meals during the month of August. For each booking made for this offer, one person could have a three course meal from their set menu (available M-F lunch or everyday in the evening) for only £1. I managed to get one of these bookings and made my way to Cafe Luc with Blai a couple weekends ago for a date night.

Cafe Luc claims to offer classic French brasserie food and the restaurant is set up as one too – I loved the way each table had a good spotlight on it, allowing us to actually see the food we ate. We both decided to order from the set menu (one at £1 and the other at the regular price of £15.50), which offered three options for each of the starter, main course and dessert.

We split the two starters between us. The Tomato gazpacho with basil oil was quite pleasant – a cold, smooth tomato soup with a good garlic hit. Nothing there to surprise you though but it’s a good choice if you want a light and refreshing starter.

The Terrine of duck confit with foie gras, toasted sourdough was quite a large and pleasant slice of a cold terrine with plenty of tender duck studded with rich lumps of foie. Two slices of toast were also provided – quite generous too – we’re always complaining that there’s never enough bread served with terrines or pates but this was just the perfect amount.

We both opted for the Steak & frites, pepper sauce for our main course. These were, I believe, rump steaks, if the flavour is anything to go by and weren’t bad – actually, I had quite low expectations and this did turn out to be better than I expected. The bowlful of excellent frites were salty and crisp and we didn’t expect the generous mound of peppery watercress which went down a treat soaked in the meat juices.

At dessert time, we again split two between us. The Nutella crème brûlée was humongous – it was served in a soup bowl! Strangely, I was expecting Nutella to be swirled through the set custard but here it was blended into the crème brûlée itself – and it worked! It was quite delicious if a little gigantic.

The Lemon tarte with raspberries and Chantilly was more run of the mill but still tasty – think lemon curd in a buttery tart shell. But really, that crème brûlée was the star.

Of course my opinions might be tainted by the fact that I got this meal for quite the bargain but we were both of the opinion that we would gladly pay full price for this meal. Of course, I have no idea how one would fare ordering a la carte – I can’t judge on the value you’d get for your hard earned pennies (and if you have ordered a la carte, do let us know how it was!). Service was a little chaotic, though never in a malicious way; it seemed that most of it stemmed from bad communication between servers. We didn’t experience any of this firsthand but we watched as our neighbours on one side receive incorrect dishes while our neighbours to the other side had to repeat their dessert orders three times as waiter upon waiter came along. If you’re in the area, it’s not a bad place to stop by for a pleasant meal from the set menu; however, don’t go expecting anything novel. That said, we did enjoy our date night!

Cafe Luc
50 Marylebone Street
London W1U 5HN