Around the Web

Finally, all the Vancouver posts are done! Thanks for bearing with me and I promise some “nice food at home in London” posts for the next couple of months (save perhaps one or two posts on a weekend away I have planned in August!). I can only promise a couple of months as I’m going to be in NYC for a week in September! Do you have any recommendations for a first time visitor?

Now onto the web roundup:

Will it be cold in New York in September? I mean, will it be too cold for ice cream sandwiches?

Mark Bittman does it again - 101 simple recipes for picnics!

Robyn over at The Girl Who Ate Everything has a wonderful guide to Parisian patisseries in three parts.

Steamy Kitchen has posted on four different kinds of fried rice, each featuring a different processed meat. I’ll admit here that I have cooked with two of those processed products!

It’s only kind of related to food but this anatomy of a gummy bear over at Serious Eats just cracks me up!

 

Around the Web

Serious Eats shows us gorgeous ways to bring our lunch to work or to school - the reusable sandwich wrap and the furoshiki, a Japanese wrapping cloth.

The chile lime pistachios over at Cook & Eat look like they’d be great for nibbles before dinner.

The noodles with hot bean sauce at Appetite for China make me crave some saucy noodles! So simple but they look so delectable!

Swirl and Scramble made some beautiful flammekueche that look just fantastic for a light meal in the sun - that is, if the sun ever comes back to London.

Or even more simple is this pizza bianca from Smitten Kitchen. Actually, I think I’ll make a big batch of pizza dough soon and use some of it to make this and freeze the rest.

And very recently, Aidan Brooks has written a good article on the controversial comments by Santiago Santamaria aimed at Ferran Adria.

 

Happy 1st Birthday, Tamarind and Thyme!

Well, it’s been one year! And how better to celebrate than to really tart up the blog with a new look.

Originally, the image in the new header was to be of pods of sweet tamarind from Thailand, of which I was not familiar. But as you can see from the image below, the result was….unsavoury. I think you’ll agree that the new header above is much better!

The tamarind I knew was the especially sour kind that’s either already sold as a block of pulp, to be soaked in warm water for tamarind water, or dried in slices, ready to toss into a curry to add a sour note. This sweet kind was a whole new animal to me. I purchased a boxful from my local Middle Eastern shop - huge boxful for a bargain £1.39. Each pod are as thick as a man’s finger and about the same length as well (except for the outlier at twice that length!). They are light, with a hard and apparently brittle shell.

Cracking one open exposes the sticky, chewy brown pulp surrounding glossy black seeds. The flavour is slightly sweet and somewhat tart and definitely tamarind. It’s a little difficult to eat due to its stickiness and its long fibres that need to be picked out. I’m looking forward to trying candied sweet tamarind when I can find them!

Thanks for visiting my blog over the past year and I hope to get to know more of you in the future!

 

Picnicking on the Train

It’s so easy to put together a terrific picnic in Paris! Our Eurostar train back to London was at 8pm, our dinner time. We stopped at a patisserie/boulangerie close to our hotel and bought these temptations to eat on the train.

A tarte Reblochon

A tarte Provencale

A slice of quiche lorraine

Fabulous!

 

Paris Street Food

Paris street food is wonderful!

No, seriously, there are loads of terrific foods that can be eaten on the hoof. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, all can be covered by stuff you find in little takeaway stalls, stands in the street, and patisseries/boulangeries. Every morning (of which sadly, we only had two), we would head to a random patisserie near our hotel and choose 1 or 2 pastries, one of which would be a croissant au beurre (no margarine for us!). We love the French croissants with a passion! Those crisp flaky shells and tender crumb within. Oh, I’m craving one now.

We had other takeaways for lunch. After we arrived in Paris and checked into our hotel, we walked down towards the Centre Pompidou looking for a bite to eat. And then I saw it. That stand. About 4 years ago, I came to Paris for the first time and stayed in the same area (the Marais) and there was a very long queue at that stand and the bread being baked on that hot dome looked so good but we had limited time and y’know, I’ve thought about that bread ever since. And this time, I got to try it.

We ordered two sandwiches, one a zataar extra (freshly baked bread, zaatar, melted cheese, fresh mint, olives, tomatoes) as shown below, and the other was one with roasted aubergine, mint, olives, tomatoes.

They were fabulous and fresh and huge! They were worth the 4 year wait…though I hope it’s not another 4 years before I taste them again!

Of course, we couldn’t leave Paris without having a crepe.

This one’s ham and cheese - simple and so tasty.

Man’Ouche (the Lebanese place with the freshly baked flatbread)
21, rue Saint-Jacques
Paris, France