Tamarind and Thyme

I always find that I need to get out of London come Easter time (after a particularly busy few months at work) and always try to book a little minibreak out of the city. Luckily, Blai could take a few days off and so it was that at about noon last Thursday, we arrived in Hastings. I was so looking forward to seeing the sea and what 1066 Country could offer.

First, we had to feed ourselves! I had made a lunch booking at Maggie’s, an award winning fish and chip restaurant located on the Stade, Hasting’s shingle beach from which Europe’s largest beach launched fishing fleet launches each day. The restaurant wasn’t easy to find; we got directions at one of the small museums nearby on Rock-a-Nore Road. To get there, find the Stade end of the miniature railway and you’ll see a sign for Maggie’s on the first floor of a nearby building. It’s not really visible from the Rock-a-Nore Road.

We chose to split two different fishes: a single cod and chips (£6.60) and a haddock and chips (£6.30), which turned out to have two pieces of fish.

These were excellent. Seriously, these were quite possibly the best fish and chips I’ve had to date. As you’d expect from a restaurant located on a major fishing beach, the fish was of supreme freshness and quality. And it was beautifully fried with the batter perfectly crisp and the fish perfectly tender and flaky. And the chips weren’t relegated to being the stuff on the side; these chips could also have taken centre stage. Ragged and crisp on the outside, fluffy and soft on the inside, these were just perfect chips.

We had mushy peas (£1.20) on the side, which were pretty good.

Bookings are essential, even for weekdays! The restaurant was booked fully that Thursday and people were turned away. They open very early in the morning and close after lunch.

After lunch, we wandered around Hastings Old Town and somehow ended up at the top of the East Hill. From the hill, we watched as the last of the fishing boats came back to the beach. We explored the Stade after and loved looking at the boats, nets and other fishing paraphernalia. It’s no surprise the fish sold in Hastings is so fresh – more of the fishmongers are located about 100 m away from where the boats get pulled up on the shore.

Somehow, we also managed to spend one and a half hours walking along the beach and examining the shingle. I love holidays, however short they are.

For dinner, we returned to Rock-a Nore Road to Webbe’s Rock-a-Nore. While I had read good reviews of this restaurant online, the meal was a bit of a let-down. The seafood was all extremely fresh, as I’ve now come to expect from anything along Rock-a-Nore, and was all well cooked too. However, the flavours were very muted; everything was underseasoned. For example, our razor clams with garlic and herb butter didn’t taste of the potent bulb. The squid fritters pictured below were the best of the bunch with a tasty, light and crisp batter; the chillli jam on the side did suffer again from a lack of punch.

Luckily, desserts were very good; Blai had a dark chocolate and marshmallow mousse and I chose a pear and blackcurrant crumble.

Even after the improvement in the food, we couldn’t get over a feeling of not being wanted there. We had been greeted with a sneer when we entered the restaurant and service was generally missing throughout our meal. Ah well, we were on holiday and didn’t let it get to us and went back to our B&B with light hearts. And how could you not have that holiday feeling when you wake up to this view?

The next morning, we visited the ruins of Hastings Castle on the West Hill …

… before heading back again to Rock-a-Nore road (I love that road!) to a stand that we’d spied the day before.

This really made up for the disappointment we’d had over dinner the night before. For £2.50, you get two fillets of dab, dusted in flour and fried in olive oil, slapped into a bun. It’s simple and yet satisfying. We had one each for lunch and then split another one after a more extended walk through Hastings Country Park which we accessed via the East Hill Lift. (We came across lots of wild garlic!)

After another stroll through the old town and then an ice cream on the beach, it was time to go home. I wasn’t going to leave empty handed though. Back to Rock-a-Nore Road (Hastings is very walkable!) to visit the Rock-a-Nore Fisheries; I’d heard that they do their own smoking on site. The hot smoked salmon immediately caught my eye and I bought a piece each of the regular, black pepper and hot chilli to take home.

We had a very simple supper when we got home: the salmon, bread and pickles. The salmon was gorgeous – all soft and moist inside – and so much better than any packaged hot smoked fish we’d ever bought at a supermarket. A great way to end our short holiday … but I’m missing all that fresh fish!

All our photos from Hastings can be found in this Flickr photoset.

Maggie’s
Rock-a-Nore Road,
Hastings, East Sussex
TN34 3DW

Webbe’s Rock-a-Nore
1 Rock-a-Nore Road
Hastings, East Sussex
TN34 3DW

Tush & Pat’s Fishermen’s Rolls
located at the base of the East Hill Lift.
Rock-a-Nore Road
Hastings, East Sussex

Rock-a-Nore Fisheries
Rock-a-Nore Road
Hastings, East Sussex

Jane Mason started Virtuous Bread last year to get everyone to start baking and eating good bread and in the process, also bring about social change. As I understand it, there’s the commercial side with bread baking classes and her Bread Angels, people she teaches to start their own bread businesses, and there’s the charitable side where she gets involved with prisons, schools and shelters with baking classes. She’s got a blog, a newsletter and recipes on her site too; it all makes for an interesting read and one can believe that bread can bring people together. I had received an invitation to attend a class from Emmeline Westin who is currently helping with PR for Virtuous Bread and I chose to attend one last Saturday to learn about baking Celebration Breads – in particular, brioche and hot cross buns.

Jane has a fantastic flat in Hammersmith and an absolutely magnificent kitchen from which to teach. The small size of the class (only four students that day), the fact that Jane teaches from her own home, and Jane’s own warmth and friendliness gave a cozy feeling to the lesson and made for a wonderful day. Jane started by plying us all with coffee and then explaining the idea of celebration breads (breads made with richer ingredients) and how making them differed from baking regular white or brown breads.

It wasn’t all talking and listening to the class (though Jane is a fount of knowledge when it comes to baking and I learned so much that day) – it was hands on too. We first learned to shape brioche using a batch of dough that Jane had prepared earlier as this dough needs to rise for quite a while. You can see a traditional loaf shaped as an S shape and one made of small rolls that would bake into a pull-apart loaf.

We did learn how to make brioche dough but got to take that with us raw to bake in our own homes; the brioche dough has to rise for much longer than the bun dough and there wasn’t enough time during the class. As there were four of us in the class, we were split into two groups, one to make brioche and the other to make hot cross buns; I was assigned the brioche. Both doughs started with pre-doughs to activate the yeast before all the rich ingredients are added. (Totally unrelated but those stainless steel bowls are fantastic. And so light too!)

When the yeast had activated, which you could tell by the mixture bubbling ever so slightly, we added the butter, eggs, and more flour (and spice in the case of the hot cross buns), mixed it all together, and then started kneading.

That’s me (well, my hand) below… kneading! It was surprising how wet the dough is even with all the butter and egg and working it was certainly challenging; amazingly, it did all come together to a smooth dough. Jane was on hand to give us all a hand if we tired – about 15 minutes of hand kneading were required for the celebration doughs.

While all this was happening, the brioche loaves were rising and then were ready for baking. After about 30 minutes in a hot oven, they came out looking and smelling absolutely fantastic, all buttery and sweet.

We were sent to the dining room where, surprise!, we found a table set for lunch. Jane had prepared a beautiful and delicious quiche with leek, endive and ground elder and served it with a couple of salads. And, of course, we had the freshly baked brioche to go with it; it was indeed buttery and fantastic but could have been a bit lighter had it had a bit longer to rise during its second rising.

The bun dough was ready by the time we had finished lunch and so soaked raisins were added and it was on to learning to shape buns. Jane showed us how to roll the dough portions lightly against the table to shape each bun.

Hot cross buns aren’t hot cross buns without their crosses! We all had a go at piping them on. The poor piping bag broke halfway through and so some got thin crosses while others got fat ones.

After another rising, the buns were popped into the oven. About 25 minutes later, hot cross buns! They were light and fantastic and I surprised myself my liking the flavour of cloves in them. We had them unglazed, being easier for transport, but were given instruction on how to glaze them at home.

And that was the end of the class – we took away the recipes, the leftover baked brioche, our portions of brioche dough for baking at home, and quite a few hot cross buns, and, of course, our newfound knowledge of baking rich breads. As I mentioned previously, Jane is very warm and friendly and a great teacher and the timings of the class were excellent with lunch in between the baking activities to give us a rest and the bread a rise.

It’s a little late now for hot cross buns but details of Jane’s other classes (including one on basic bread baking and another on sourdoughs) can be found on her Virtuous Bread website. If they’re anything like this class, they’ll definitely be fun.

Thank you very much again, Emmeline, for the invitation and to Jane too for having me along!

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

To celebrate the passing of a big exam as well as other minor bits and pieces, I had booked a lunch at Hawksmoor Seven Dials for me, Blai and my brother. I’d never been to this or their original restaurant as I just never crave steak enough to warrant a visit; I do cook it at home though. My brother’s particularly fond of burgers, however, and I’d been aware for a while of the other dishes they offer, dishes that are particularly enticing. And so last Saturday, we headed down to Seven Dials to eat at Hawksmoor.

The minimal entrance didn’t give much hint of what we’d find beyond the reception. It turned out to be a basement restaurant (and a bar) that was much larger than I expected. The generously sized tables were spaced well and the chairs were supremely comfortable and when even half full, there’s a great buzz to the place (that said, booking is highly recommended). By default, when you sit in the restaurant, you are, of course, given the restaurant menu with its starters and steaks; if you’re looking for the burgers, they’re on the bar menu and you’re going to have to ask for that. We did.

To start, we ordered one of their Pork Belly Ribs (£9.00) to split between the three of us. Two large chunks arrived and we dove in. Unctuous, melting, tender, soft, savoury…these were the ribs of dreams. We almost licked the plate clean.

For mains, the boys both went for burgers. My brother went for the classic Hawksmoor Hamburger (£15.00) and declared it to be the best burger he’s had (so far). I had a bite and it was indeed meaty and gorgeous and everything you’d want in a burger. The best? I don’t know – I haven’t really been keeping track but it was certainly excellent.

Blai went for the Third Burger (£15.00 and it changes often); that day, it was a hamburger topped with a Welsh rarebit sauce and a fried egg and served with fried pickles on the side. This was as rich and delicious as you can imagine with the fried egg just gilding the lily.

Perhaps one day we’ll try their famous kimchi burger but today wasn’t going to be that day. And, oh yes, the fried pickles were excellent.

The burgers came with an order of chips each and in the interests of science, we chose one of the triple cooked chips (left) and one of the beef dripping ones (right). While my brother preferred the outside crunch of the beef dripping ones, both Blai and I preferred the triple cooked ones. I felt the cut of the beef ones were just too thick and while they would be fine by themselves, the dripping was too rich when paired with the already meaty burgers.

I went all out and ordered the Warm Lobster Roll (£25.00). It wasn’t cheap but it’s a good size and there is the meat from a whole lobster mixed with a garlic and hazelnut butter stuffed inside the toasted soft bun. A small ramekin of bearnaise just added to the luxuriousness of it all. And indeed, it was gorgeous but I did suffer from lobster fatigue while I still had one or two bites remaining.

You know what would be fantastic? One of those pork ribs (boneless) stuffed into the roll used for the lobster roll. I’m just saying.

There’s always room for dessert, right? It being a relatively warm day and to counteract all that rich food, we wanted something cold on our tongues. That called for ice cream!

My brother’s “scoop” of cornflake ice cream (£3.00) had us wondering whether they had mistakenly served the cornflake sundae instead; nope, they hadn’t. The ice cream tasted like the milk you’d have at the bottom of your bowl of cereal and was full of chunks of cornflake pralines.

Blai and I split two different things. His chosen blood orange sorbet (£3.00) was light and very refreshing and, like my brother’s dessert, again was an oversized scoop.

I thought the winner was my chosen sticky toffee sundae (£5.00) with its toffee sauce and chunks of sticky toffee pudding. See that darkness at the bottom of the glass? It’s a big lump of pudding stuffed down there. Oh yeah.

One day we’ll actually return for the steaks but what we had was excellent. With a couple of drinks and service, our bill came to about £92, making the bar menu a more affordable way to enjoy the restaurant.

Hawksmoor (Seven Dials)
11 Langley St
London WC2H 9JG

A fried chicken cutlet? Yes, please! But how about an Asian-style one, one that originated around where I was born? I cannot recall eating this Hainanese chicken chop when I was growing up in Malaysia or Singapore but it’s quite a well known local dish with a western influence. Other Hainanese dishes that have western origins include Hainanese mushroom soup, lamb stew, macaroni pie, and chicken pie – I like to call it all historical or traditional fusion! I don’t know much about the original Hainan cuisine from the island in China but I can already see that their most famous dish, Hainanese chicken rice, must have derived from Wenchang chicken.

But how did so much of the Hainanese cuisine in the Straits become so influenced by Europe? The story goes that during the British colonial era, there were many Hainanese cooks who ended up fusing the two cuisines into this modern one. Apart from combining with British cuisine, I even found a reference to Hainanese-Russian cuisine! From what I understand, other Hainanese dishes incorporate Nyonya ingredients and preparations too, bringing the two Asian cuisines together.

The chicken chop is one such Hainanese-western dish and is a fried chicken cutlet topped with a thick Asian style gravy. I love how the ketchup and Worcestershire sauce are included in the sauce; they must surely be the Western ingredients! If you’re more partial to pork, you can make it with that too – that variant is also very common in Malaysia and Singapore. I’d recommend serving this with white rice or increasing the potato count to make it a meal in one.

Hainanese Chicken Chop
adapted from Rose’s Kitchen and 3 hungry tummies
serves 2-3.

6 chicken thigh fillets
plain flour and salt
2 eggs
dry breadcrumbs
sunflower oil for frying

3-4 medium sized potatoes
1 tbsp sunflower oil
salt

For the sauce:
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic, minced
350 mL vegetable stock or water
3 tbsps ketchup
2 tbsps oyster sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1-2 tomatoes or a handful or two of cherry tomatoes
a handful of frozen peas
salt and white pepper
2 tsps cornstarch/cornflour

Scrub and peel your potatoes and slice them into wedges. Either fry them or roast them – I did the latter. To roast, heat your oven to 200 Celsius. Place all your wedges into a resealable bag, pour in the tablespoon of oil and a few pinches of salt. Seal the bag and toss together to coat the wedges evenly. Pour out the wedges onto a lined baking tray and arrange into a single layer. Roast for about 20-30 minutes, until golden brown. Flip about halfway through cooking.

Set out three shallow bowls to prep your chicken. In one, add flour and season it well with salt. In another, beat your two eggs, Finally, in the third, pour in the dry breadcrumbs. Pound the chicken thighs flat – you want them of even thickness. Dredge in the flour, then dip in the egg, and finally coat thoroughly in breadcrumbs, pressing them on to stick.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add sunflower oil to a depth of about 1 cm. When oil is hot, shallow fry your chicken pieces. The oil should bubble around the chicken. Fry for a few minutes on each side, until the cutlet is brown. Drain on kitchen paper.

Time to make the sauce. Slice the onion thinly from top to bottom. Cut your tomatoes into wedges or cut your cherry tomatoes in half.

Either clean out your original frying pan or use another one. Heat it over medium heat and add the oil followed by the sliced onion shortly after. When the onion has softened (after frying for a couple minutes), add the minced garlic and continue frying for another minute. Pour in the stock/water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to bring it all to a simmer.

Add the sauces (oyster, ketchup and Worcestershire) and stir to combine. Add the tomatoes and peas and stir through. Let simmer for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and white pepper. Create a cornstarch slurry with the cornstarch and cold water and use to thicken the mixture.

Slice the chicken into strips and arrange on a platter with the potato wedges. Pour over the sauce and serve immediately.

This wasn’t a meal at a restaurant, nor is it a recipe, but instead it’s a most interesting dinner we had a couple weekends ago. About a week prior to this dinner, I was cussing at my usual second bus home as it failed to show up, forcing me to take two more buses to complete my journey from work. This route took me past the London Buddhist Vihara in Chiswick, where I saw a large banner announcing a fundraising Sri Lankan vegetarian dinner that following Saturday (I imagine my head turned like an owl’s as I tried to read it all as we sped past). Um, an extraordinary Sri Lankan vegetarian dinner? I’m in! (I love reading the posts on the vegetarian Sri Lankan cooking at le sauce.)

There wasn’t much information online but I did manage to find someone’s comments about a similar event in the past and I learned that one could either eat there or takeaway. I chose the latter option and swung by to pick up two dinners (£5 each) and they even came with dessert! If you chose to eat there, a number of communal tables had been set up inside the hall with the dinner served buffet style. It all looked good and I hurried home with my bag of goodies, just as many of Chiswick’s residents also did.

At home, I opened the tin foil containers and uncovered a treasure trove of what I imagine must be home-style Sri Lankan treats. I’ve not had much Sri Lankan cuisine and what I’ve had were in restaurants and totally different from what I found here.

On a bed of basmati rice were tender green beans, stewed cashew nuts with mixed vegetables, spiced potatoes, a delicious dal made from red lentils, and a hotter-than-it-looks coconut sambol. There were even freshly fried poppadums in little baggies on the side.

We adored the new flavours to us; everything was spiced quite gently (except for the chilli hot sambol) and was indeed very different to the northern Indian food we come across more frequently here. The cashews had been stewed to softness, a texture I can’t say I normally associate with the nuts, but they were still excellent. I doubt I’d be able to reproduce any of it but it was all delicious and I really should explore Sri Lankan cuisine more.

Dessert was an utter delight; I believe it was called wattalapan. The lady dishing it out called it a custard and a steamed custard it certainly was, but one made with coconut milk, eggs and jaggery and topped with cashew nuts. Creamy and sweet, it was the perfect end to our takeaway dinner.

I have no idea when the next fundraiser is but I imagine it’ll be on their online newsletter. I found it a fantastic way to learn more about a new cuisine; are there any similar places or events near you that serve home-style food like this?