Tamarind and Thyme

We arrived to a grey and drizzly Vienna two Friday evenings ago but this couldn’t get our spirits down – we were finally in Vienna, the city that eluded us last Christmas, the city that I’ve been dreaming about for years, the city of coffee houses and cake. Oh yes, and the city of Wiener Schnitzel: we went through a lot of it. My plan for the trip, I mean apart from the sights, was to get as much Wiener Küche (Viennese cuisine) into us as possible. I already knew I’d love it!

By the time we made it to our hotel, it was already dinner time but I hadn’t booked anything in advance. A chat with the front desk confirmed what we anticipated – a walk down to try Figlmüller and their famed Wiener Schnitzel would probably result in our standing in a queue for a very long time. She instead recommended a gasthaus nearby and that’s how our first meal in Vienna came to be at Gasthaus Nestroy. This local restaurant served exactly what I was looking for – Wiener Küche.

It was surprising to see that Austria still clings on to its rights to smoke indoors but luckily, the smoking and non-smoking areas are well separated. We went with non-smoking and were given a short menu listing all manner of Viennese dishes (we later realised that this was the abridged menu probably for tourists – I was in a humph for a while upon learning this but then again, we still would have ordered exactly what we did and not steak tartare as the locals did).

A Wiener Schnitzel mit Petersilkartoffel und Preiselbeeren (veal schnitzel with parsleyed potatoes and cranberries) and a Tafelspitz mit Röstkartoffeln (Viennese boiled beef with roast potatoes) were what we ordered for our first meal in Vienna.

Our first Viennese schitzel in Vienna was excellent – greaseless and crisp and thin yet not dry. We found this to be the case of all the schnitzels we sampled; all were excellently cooked (yeah, we had three over our long weekend there). And they were always big too.

The Tafelspitz (boiled beef) was much tastier than it sounds – we greatly enjoyed this with its accompanying chive sauce (it reminded me of a tartare sauce) and apple-horseradish sauce. The roast potatoes were in a dumpling form – the cooked potatoes had been chopped up and bound together and tasted like the best hash browns ever.

Prices were certainly reasonable and we were the only tourists in the restaurant that night. It’s unlikely you’d go looking for it though unless you were in the area (north of the Danube, near Nestroyplatz station).

Gasthaus Nestroy
Weintraubengasse
1020 Wien
Austria

As we had a limited time in Vienna, we planned to have proper sit down meals in the evenings while trying as many different coffee houses during the day (uh…and night. But that’s a whole other post!). The next day, after a long and exhausting afternoon at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, we headed to a beisl (guidebooks liken them to the Austrian version of the Italian trattoria) recommended by Ute at Hungry in London – Alt Wiener Beisl “zu den 2 Lieserln”.

We ordered yet another Wiener schnitzel (pretty sure it was still veal) and a fiakergulasch (coachman’s gulasch). The schnitzel arrived as three cutlets overlapping each other as well as the plate itself – it was a massive portion. It was delicious too as was the side dish of potato salad, all cold and tangy.

The fiakergulasch was a delicious paprika rich beef stew served with a fried frankfurter, a fried egg and pickles. I hadn’t expected to find gulasch everywhere in Vienna but then memories of history class and the Austro-Hungarian empire hit me and well, duh; the version in Vienna is supposed to be quite different from the kind you find in Hungary though. This gulasch’s thick sauce reminded me very much of a slow cooked curry.

Excellent food and excellent value for money too (with a couple of soft drinks, the bill was about €24). I’m not sure you can appreciate the size of the portions from this photo and so I present you with this one:

Alt Wiener Beisl
“zu den 2 Lieserln”
Burggasse 63
A-1070 Wien
Austria

On our final night in Vienna, the heavens opened just as we came out of the Leopold Museum and my sandals were looking like a bad idea. That coupled with it being a Sunday night when many restaurants were closed meant that finding a good place to eat would prove to be a little more difficult. Again we tried Figlmüller and again we failed but ended up at another touristy spot – Griechenbeisl. While it was quite touristy (it being one of the oldest restaurants in Vienna, dating back to 1447), it was quite fun eating there as we were seated in the Mark Twain room, a room with its ceiling covered with the signatures of the famous dining in this establishment. Mozart! Beethoven! Mahler! Um…Johnny Cash? At first we were skeptical – really? Is that REALLY Mozart’s signature up there? But we haven’t found any evidence to the contrary online and so we’ve come to accept what we saw.

The food wasn’t too bad but it was certainly expensive. We had yet another Wiener Schnitzel vom Kalb mit Blattsalat (veal schnitzel with a leaf salad) and also a Koteletten vom Steirischen Lamm mit Rosmarinerdäpfel und Melanzanipürree (roasted Styrian lamb chops in herbs with rosemary potatoes and aubergine puree). A side of roast potatoes was ordered too. The schnitzel was again excellent, as I’ve come to expect anywhere in Vienna, but the lamb chops were perhaps a bit too rare. The aubergine puree was delicious.

We had our first and only proper Viennese dessert here – a Mohr im Hemd (the uh…not politically correct Moor in a Shirt). This steamed chocolate cake with a thick chocolate sauce and whipped cream went down a treat.

This restaurant with its history and obvious attraction to tourists was more expensive and just the food part of the bill came to €50. The food was fine but it’s the building one really comes for; if you’re not seated in the Mark Twain room, ask your waiter to see it – they’ve got this whole spiel where they point out the major signatures with a long stick.

Griechenbeisl
Fleischmarkt 11
1010 Wien
Austria

All three restaurants are either in or not far from central Vienna (within the Ringstrasse). As anticipated, we loved Viennese cuisine and I even brought back a few ingredients to try to recreate some of it at home. Next up, the Kaffeehäuser!

I have paprika on the mind. We’ve just come back from a short trip to Vienna and I picked up a bag of a lovely paprika in the hopes of making a gulasch at home soon. Coincidentally, I had already had a go at making chicken paprikash prior to my trip, not knowing that I was going to a land full of this magnificent spice.

I’ll have my Vienna posts up soon (I love going through the photos) but first, the chicken paprikash recipe. It’s spicy and creamy and rich and everything I was looking for that day. I chose to use chicken thigh fillets, thus cutting down on the cooking time and making it very suitable for a weeknight dinner. We had ours on rice but buttered noodles would be good too (and more traditional) and even bread would be excellent to sop up the sauce. Try to use a Hungarian paprika if you can find it – it’s flavour is totally worth it.

Chicken Paprikash
serves 3.

6 skinless, boneless chicken thigh fillets
flour
salt and freshly ground black pepper
sunflower oil
1 tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 tbsps Hungarian paprika, sweet or sweet-hot
2 tomatoes, chopped
350 ml chicken stock
50-100 ml sour cream

Heat about 200ml sunflower oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Mix flour, salt and black pepper in a shallow bowl and dust the thigh fillets in this mixture. When the oil is hot, fry the thigh fillets on both sides until browned. When browned (but not necessarily cooked through), drain and set aside.

Drain all but about 1 tbsp of oil in the saute pan and melt the butter in too. Add the chopped onion and fry until softened. Throw in the garlic and continue sauteing until the raw smell of the garlic becomes the mellow sweetness of cooked. Add the paprika and chopped tomatoes and continue frying for another few minute. Pour in the chicken stock and stir thoroughly to combine. Place the chicken thighs back into the saute pan and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pan, and let simmer for about 10 minutes, turning once halfway through. Stir through the sour cream (start with a bit and add more if you’re happy – I ended up using all 100ml as I felt like it!) and bring back to a simmer. Season to taste and serve on top of rice or buttered noodles or with bread.

At the end of June, I was asked if I’d like to take part in the shooting of an internet promo ad for the new Lenovo IdeaPad K1 Tablet. It sounded like fun – two days of filming and eating and just being myself really; it certainly did turn out to be fun and it was the production team who invited me to lunch at The Sportsman. A few days ago, the result was put up on YouTube. The video was made by the production team at HMX Media and filmed by Matt Uhry and it was terrific working with them all. A few of my photos from those two days can be found in this Flickr photoset.

Here are the recipes for the sweet treats I made for my Marie Curie tea party. They all have a link to my childhood somehow, well except the cupcakes…those were an experiment!

Kuih Bakar

I definitely wanted to bring a kuih of some sort to the tea party; kuihs are Malaysian and Nyonya cakes, usually very brightly coloured and certainly very different to western-style cakes. Coconut and glutinous rice usually feature heavily. I didn’t want to steam, the cooking method used to make many of these sweets, and instead chose to bake one. Kuih bakar it was going to be, literally meaning roasted cake. Coconut milk and pandan and eggs are used, giving it a flavour similar to that of kaya, a Malaysian coconut jam, another popular sweet spread that I loved as a child. However here flour is used to make it a proper cake.

I used this recipe from My Kitchen Snippets, but used only one 400ml can of coconut milk with water to make up the total volume. The batter is alarmingly thin but fear not, it does set in the oven. It was quite delicious with a firm custard like texture but I don’t think it keeps very well; it became a bit too firm after a spell in the fridge. It’s probably one to make and serve on the same day.

Graham Cracker Toffee

Here’s one that my mother used to make for us when I was in high school. It’s pretty much a tooth-rotter but hey, what’s wrong with a bit of that (followed by lots of tooth brushing) once in a while? I remember that she found the recipe on the side of a box of crackers – the recipe does work with savoury crackers such as saltines or matzo (and the recipe is all over the Internet in all its guises); if you use them, leave out the salt on top. If you’re wondering where I purchased graham crackers in London, look for them in Asian shops – I purchased a Filipino brand.

Preheat your oven to 190 Celsius. Toast two large handfuls of flaked almonds in a dry frying pan; set aside to cool. Line a 36cm x 25cm Swiss roll tray with foil and arrange graham crackers in a single layer on top of it. Put 120g unsalted butter and 120g brown sugar in a heavy saucepan and melt together over medium heat. Let it bubble together for about 5 minutes. Pour over the graham crackers, using a silicone spatula to spread it roughly (it will spread more in the oven). Place the tray in the oven for about 10 minutes – the toffee should be bubbling furiously and make sure you pull it out of the oven before it burns. Let it cool for a couple of minutes before scattering on top about 120g chopped dark chocolate. Let it sit for a few minutes before spreading the now melted chocolate evenly over the toffee – top with a bit of fleur de sel (I used a vanilla one) and the toasted almonds. Let cool completely (you can place the tray in the fridge to hasten this) and then snap into presentable chunks.

Mango Cupcakes with Lime Buttercream

OK, here’s something I have to admit – after tasting these, my little experimental cupcakes, I felt that mangoes have no place in baked goods. Perhaps on top of baked goods, yes, but certainly not in the batter/dough itself. That said, some of my colleagues really enjoyed them and perhaps the issue of mangoes-in-baked-goods is quite like Marmite – it must be a love-hate thing.

Anyway, the cake recipe can be found here at The Baking Stone. I used alphonso mango puree and just straight up all plain flour rather than a mix of white and wholewheat. I also baked the cakes in fairy cake pans so ended up with about 20 cakes altogether rather than 12.

For the lime buttercream, I used 112g of softened unsalted butter and 112g of icing sugar, along with the zest and juice of half a large lime. This was enough for all my cakes. Frost the cakes when they’ve cooled fully.

There was one more sweet cookie that I made for the tea party – lemon blueberry drops.

However, I feel like I wouldn’t be giving them the respect they deserve by lumping them with the other recipes! It was a recipe my mother made often in Canada and they feature a lot in my memories. I have no idea where she first found the recipe – anyway, I hope to blog them soon!

I’ve been eating a lot of Thai food recently! I recently met Rahul and Marco for lunch at Chaam Thai in Fulham; thanks for organising it, Rahul. He frequents the restaurant quite often and it was he who vouched for its lunch menu. Due to its slightly odd location in Fulham (it feels like it’s in no man’s land across from the Waitrose), it was quite empty during our lunch – I do hope it’s doing well though as our meal was quite good. This lunch certainly made up for a recent disappointing Vietnamese dinner I had at Me Me nearby.

We ordered a few starters first to shut up our grumbling tummies – some well fried vegetable spring rolls…

…and a chiang mai sausage (homemade with thai curry paste, shredded lime leaves and pork). The sausage was a real winner with a good balance of flavours; it would make for a fantastic snack if someone were to sell it as one. Actually, we ordered it twice – two sausages are better than one (wait, that sounds wrong…)!

We each selected a main course from the lunch menu; the lunch deals are quite good, starting at £5 for the vegetarian options and only a couple of pounds more for the addition of various meats. There are both noodles and dishes with rice options. First to arrive was the kao soi, a northern Thai noodle dish that I’d never seen in London before – it’s a large bowl of egg noodles and chicken in a yellow curry soup with crispy fried noodles on top and served with preserved cabbage, shallots, coriander, and lime on the side. While not reaching the heady heights of the kao soi I had in Chiang Mai, it was still a tasty soupy treat for lunch.

The kheang kuah saibalot bet, a coconut milk rich red curry with roast duck and pineapple, arrived next. This was alright, nothing particularly special about it though I know that sometimes a coconutty curry can really hit the spot.

Our final main was the neau nam prik pao, beef slices fried with a hot and sweet Thai chilli paste (the nam prik pao). I quite enjoyed this.

I wanted to balance the meal a bit with a salad and as they were out of our first choice of som tam, we ordered their popcorn chicken salad instead. What arrived was something only a fool would order to be healthy (whoops)! Battered bits of chicken were tossed together with cherry tomatoes and lots of crunchy fried cashews all bound together with a delicious chilli dressing – not at all diet food and unsurprisingly, it was utterly fantastic.

For all this food, we paid about £45 in total for the three of us but keep in mind that we totally overordered; what we ordered could easily have fed 4-5 for lunch. One of the lunch deals (a one bowl or plate meal) would definitely be enough for one – we were just very greedy that day.  The a la carte menu at dinner appears to be the same but the dishes don’t have rice included and I may be incorrect but the prices appear to be a little higher. There’s a rumour that there may be a secret Thai menu (I don’t like secret menus – everyone should be offered everything available) but this hasn’t been verified yet. If you do know of one, do let us know please!

Chaam Thai Eatery
461-465 North End Road
London SW6 1NZ

Want even more Thai food? Selfridges is running a Senses of Thailand promotion in its food hall and selected restaurants for approximately two weeks, until July 30. I attended the launch of the event last week and sampled some of the treats from food stalls manned by Thai restaurants in London as well as the Thai menu offered by Nahm at the oyster bar. Samples that stood out for me were the mieng kham (a betel leaf parcel of nuts, dried shrimp, chilli, shallots and lime), the fruit with som tam dressing, and the green curry ice cream – all dishes I’ve not encountered in Thai restaurants here. They’ve got quite a few Thai products in stock too. All my photos from the event can be found in this Flickr photoset.

I held my Marie Curie Blooming Great Tea Party (my original post on this is here if you’d like to read more on the charity) this past Monday and I think it went well! I opted to hold mine at work, incorporating two neighbouring offices (about a dozen people), and to my surprise, everyone was quite enthusiastic about it – no one can turn down cakes and biscuits come 4pm. There was even a theme to the tea party – food from your home country, home being quite varied in our office as we have quite an international group here.

It’s not a a tea party without tea and our little work kitchen (if you can call it that) with its hot water dispenser sorted us out. We drank black tea (assam) with condensed milk, a nod towards the teh tarik (only without the pulling) from my birth country.

For eats, portability was the key when I planned my tea party menu; apart from the hot and cold water dispenser, we only have a fridge and sink in our kitchenette. Almost everything I made was prepared at home and transported to work – just the sandwiches were made on site. I made a platter of savouries, kuih bakar, lemon blueberry drops, graham cracker toffee and rather experimental mango cupcakes with lime buttercream. Yes, they’re almost all linked to my growing up and I’ll be blogging most of the recipes.

I had invited my colleagues to bring food if they wished and I was chuffed that they took me up on that offer! As the general theme was foods from your country, we also had an American blueberry cheesecake, British cakes, Pakistani pastries, Taiwanese mochi cakes and Chinese sesame sweets. All very yummy and we had so much food, we were snacking on the leftovers for a few days after! (Somehow we also ended up sampling American spray cheese…)

I do have to say a big thank you to my colleagues for coming and donating generously – we raised over £100 for Marie Curie, not a bad effort for our little party, I reckon. If you’d like to donate to Marie Curie too, you can do so online.

Recipes! I’ll split these into two posts – savouries now and sweets another time. These were the three savouries I made and I think they went down quite well as the platter was quite empty at the end!

Curried Potato Mini Croissants
My mother used to make curry puffs at home but when she wasn’t in the mood to make the pastry and deep fry, she’d just make the filling and stuff them into hot, buttery, flaky croissants. I couldn’t heat them up at work but they still went down a treat cold.

Peel approximately 500g of floury potatoes and dice them into 1cm cubes. Chuck them into a pot of water and bring them to a boil, cooking until they are soft but not mushy. Drain and set aside. Chop two medium-large onions finely and fry with a little oil until soft. Add 4 tbsps meat curry powder and 1 tsp turmeric and a little water to form a paste and continue frying. After a few minutes, add the cooked potatoes and stir well to combine – add some water if this is difficult. Continue frying until the entire thing is quite dry. Season with salt and sugar. If desired, a little chopped chicken can also be fried in too – I left the meat out for safer storage. Stuff the mixture into mini or regular sized croissants.

Sardine Rolls
Apart from curry puffs, sardine puffs are also popular in Malaysia and Singapore. When pushed to create another dish for the table (we regularly ate multiple dishes with rice for dinner), she’d put together canned sardines in tomato sauce with lots of sliced chillies and shallots and lime juice. This is based on that combination.

Take two tins of sardines in tomato sauce (mine were 120g each) and take out the fish, removing the backbone. Add about 2 tbsps of the tomato sauce and 2 tbsps of chilli sauce and mash the fish roughly. Chop an onion finely and fry in a little oil until soft. Add in the fish and fry until hot. Add the juice of half a lime and continue frying until quite dry. Season with salt and sugar. Roll out shortcrust pastry, fill with this mixture as you would sausage rolls, brush with some beaten egg and bake.

Sambal Dried Shrimp Sandwiches
I’ve described this one before – essentially this is hae bee hiam and you make it just like the filling in this recipe. I used to get bags of this stuff sent to me from my mother when I was in university for putting into sandwiches or topping boiled noodles. I was actually very surprised at how well these went down – I didn’t expect my colleagues to take to the strong dried shrimp flavour. I would have made more if I had known!

Make sandwiches with plenty of butter, a good sprinkling of the hae bee hiam and some sliced cucumber (optional). Slice off the crusts and then slice into triangles or fingers.