Jamie Oliver – Fifteen, London

That time of the year has come around again, its colder than summer but not quite winter, yet our stomachs are definitely telling us to eat a little more (or maybe that’s just me?!) so what better festival to take place in the hub of all dining; London, than a festival of Restaurants. And that was exactly what I needed, after stepping off the plane from Spain at 3am to be greeted by heavy downfall, the thought of an affordable hearty Lunch from one of London’s finest restaurants, achieved a hastily restoration for my love of London.

It was Jamie Oliver’s ‘Fifteen’ that reeled me in on their offer, not surprisingly utilising the name of the restaurant to provide a very delectable 2 courses at the bargain of £15. Although Jamie ‘Pucker’ Oliver does get on my tits a little I have to say his food always looks and tastes great, so -I thought- why not check out what the band playing, floppy haired, school dinner legend has to offer.

I was pleasantly surprised; the restaurant was relaxed and inviting. The décor was pretty great actually, contemporary and sleek yet kind of retro. Upon entering the building you first go into the Trattoria supposedly typical Italian and ‘Rustic’(jamie quote), with hundreds of chefs buzzing round the place (the reason why becomes apparent when you get your bill, and find that every diner automatically pays £1 towards Jamie’s apprenticeship scheme). We then went downstairs to the restaurant where at first we were presented with the a la carte menu, then slightly disappointedly this was removed from our grasp and replaced with the much simpler, 3 dish option of the fixed menu as allocated for the Restaurant Festival, standard for paying gypo prices.

 

We were first each brought a delicious slice of foccacia and a generous helping of Olive oil to dunk it in. The foccaccia was nice and greasy (olive oil is healthy?!) had a scattering of rosemary throughout and a good sprinkle of Maldon salt on top, as it should. Great stuff…could have had a little more though.

I chose to start cannellini bean soup with truffle oil and toasted crostini…

I was presented with a good sized portion of the rustic zuppa. Packed with flavour the soup had lovely varying textures of soft cannellini beans and slightly firmer beans in a silky creamy broth. The pungent but delicate aroma of truffle added an earthiness to the dish.  Served with a crisp crostini. It was a good bowl of soup, nothing too technical so watch this space for the recipe!

For the main course I had roast porchetta with salse verde, celeriac and apple.

The dish it self was massive I mean literally the plate/bowl, it was an oversized pasta bowl which made it slightly awkward to eat out of, however the food was great. The pork; boned, rolled and slow roasted so that it was moist and succulent, was served on top of soft cubes of celeriac and apple, and curly kale, a good helpful of gravy/meat juices and a crisped piece of pork crackling on top. The dish had an overall fruitiness, with a soft lemon flavour infused into the meat, contrasted with the tangy, salty salsa verde. Overall a simple, bold flavoured, tasty dish.

As the offer was on ordering 2 courses, I was pretty chuffed that Rich wanted a main and desert giving me ‘advantage pudding pinch’– girlfriend’s prerogative! The desert was delicious an almond and raspberry cake with homemade amoretti ice cream.

 

Service with a slight Italian ferocious temper, set in a scene from Observer style interiors, toilets with branded Jamie toilet paper (well almost but the soap was), food from one of Jamie’s many cookbooks (available to buy there an then along with wooden boards and stuff), I felt I had an insight –and I was pretty impressed- into the genius brains that have built the Jamie® empire.

Pork (Cochinita) Pibil, Inspired by Wahaca

       

Wahaca is amazing… I have been there a couple of times, as soon as you step down the stairs it feels as if you are walking into Mexico (well I can assume that’s what Mexico would be like although I have never been). Immediately hit by the waft of lime and tequila as the barmen shake up powerful tequila cocktails. It has always been very busy when I’ve been, the sort of bustling environment which almost sets the scene for a market place where this food would be found in Mexico. A good atmosphere is great but there is a flip side, as no bookings for tables are taken you will be forced to sit and wait with a cocktail or lime laced beer, damn it! But it doesn’t matter you’re a traveler who’s just landed in mexico, time isn’t an issue! If you go, id advise the street food it is all very good, but one little dish stood out and floated with a halo alongside its fellow tacos, and that was the Pork Pibil. Tender shredded pork marinated in a Yucatecan marinade and slowly cooked so that the pork is just divinely tender and tasty.        

       

In Mexico this is called Cochinita Pibil, Cochinita meaning suckling pig, and the mayan word pibil means buried, describing how it is traditionally cooked in Mexico in a fire pit buried in the ground. The pork is left to steep for hours in the Yucatan marinade consisting of many spices but one key ingredient ‘Achiote paste’, before being wrapped in banana leaves and slowly cooked for hours. The reason why I felt the ‘achiote paste’ deserved to be in inverted commas is solely down to the effort it took me to try and get hold of it, but I’m afraid it is essential and worth it in the end. Actually it wasn’t that hard, I asked a few people, realised I was pronouncing it all wrong, and soon was on track with the latin shop and butchers in brixton.       

Look at the beautiful vibrant red triangles, aren’t they special, apparently the poormans version of saffron as achiote looks red, but turns whatever (and everything) yellow:       

       

        

Depending on what form of the achiote you can get hold of, you can either make the paste from scratch, or if you can get achiote paste (which already has all the spices etc in it) will save you a bit of time. Il show you both options! You need to make the marinade the morning or night before you want to eat, as it takes time to marinade and cook.       

Ingredients:       

3-4 pounds pork shoulder, diced      

Tortilla wraps or rice to serve       

Banana leaves (if you can get hold of them)    

   

The Yucutan marinade, Version 1 (using bought achiote paste)      

250ml orange juice, freshly squeezed if possible       

juice of 4-5 limes       

1 teaspoons salt       

85g of red achiote paste       

Mix all of the above in a blender. Wash the blender as soon as you’re finished with it as it will stain red.       

The Yucutan marinade, Version 2 (making your Achiote paste)       

2½ tablespoons annatto (achiote) seeds (if you can get ground his will make your life easier)       

1 teaspoon cumin seeds       

2 teaspoons black peppercorns       

¼ teaspoon ground allspice       

¼ teaspoon cloves       

80ml orange juice       

3 cloves garlic, crushed       

1 tablespoon of salt       

Juice of 3 lemons       

½ teaspoon Tequilla       

Put all the dry spices into a coffee grinder or pestle and mortar, and grind into as fine a powder as you can. The achiote seeds are like little bloody rocks so you really need to put your back into it if you are using the pestle! Add the spice powder and remaining ingredients into a blender and whizz until as smooth as poss.       

Pour your marinade all over the meat and leave for about 6 hours or overnight to get all the Flavours into the pork. Preheat the oven to 1500C. Place a double layer of tinfoil into a casserole dish, and pour the marinated pork into this. Seal with the tinfoil tightly and place in the oven, cooking for about 3-4 hours, or until the pork is starting to fall apart.

       

If you were able to get hold of banana leaves prepare them first to soften by heating in a dry pan until they slightly change colour. Then place a leaf on top of the tinfoil base, pour the pork on top before another banana leaf and then tightly seal with the tinfoil. The banana leaves are supposed to contribute additional flavour to the dish, but I couldn’t get hold of them so I don’t know! Check your pork after 3 hours and when ready, remove the pork and shred it with a fork. You will find the liquid from the dish is very thin as none of the condensation has been allowed to escape from the foil. I therefore transferred this liquid to a pan, and reduced it down by half so it was a little thicker before pouring over the shredded pork.       

       

As a celebration for making this dish, I made it into a bit of a Mexican feast for friends with tortilla taco’s, guacamole, refried beans, salsa, and of course Corona! Messy it was but very yummy, worth the effort. Cheers Wahaca for the inspiration on this one!       

    

 

Sweet Basil’s Risotto Ball Stall

I visited Spitalfields market on a Sunday morning (it was in the afternoon, but seen as I had been awake only a few hours I class it as morning) due to my overwhelming hunger and over-whinging stomach, I was greatly appreciative of the small stall that had been temporarily constructed outside the Italian restaurant, Sweet Basil, serving up delicious Arancini and pizza. I opted for the former,  a delicious risotto ball, fried to give a crisp outer crumb, stuffed with bolognaise sauce and gooey mozzarella… so here’s how I made it…

If you are making a bolognese sauce there is no point in making enough for the Arancini alone as they only need a small dollop, so make a batch as you would do normally and take what you need from it before perhaps freezing the rest for another day. I’m going to presume that everyone reading this knows already how to make bolognese so there’s little point putting the recipe up.

This makes 2 large balls or 3 smaller ones.

¾ cup of alborio or risotto rice

Knob of butter

½ onion finely chopped

1 clove of garlic, crushed

about 1 Pint stock (chicken or vegetable)

4 tbsp of your bolognese sauce

¼ ball of mozzarella

Handful of polenta or fine breadcrumbs for a crispy crust to the arancini

A lot of vegetable oil for deep-frying

 

After making your Bolognese sauce, take out about 4 tbsp, placing on a sheet of cling film and wrap up into a firm sausage. Place this in the freezer whilst you make your risotto as it will make the stuffing part a lot easier.

To make a simple risotto gently fry the onion and garlic in a little butter on a low heat for a few minutes to soften, then add the rice turning up the heat for about 30 seconds for the rice to toast a little, then add the stock ladle full at a time stirring as you do whilst the rice slowly absorbs it as it cooks. I’d advise to make the risotto to a slightly more stodgy consistency than usual as this will help the risotto balls hold together more firmly. Set aside from the heat and if you are in a rush onto a baking sheet to cool quicker.

Whilst you are waiting for the risotto to cool prepare you mozzarella by cutting into about 1x2cm chunks, and place the polenta in a bowl ready for coating the balls.

Once your rice is cool enough you can start assembling into balls, take the Bolognese out of the freezer and cut into about 2cm rounds. This is the messy bit…and you’ve just got to get stuck in with your hands! Take a good handful of the risotto, compressing into a tight ball, then make a bit of a well in the middle with the outside being quite well-formed. Poke the mozzarella and Bolognese into the well as deep as you can without them coming out of the bottom or side, if you got some space put a little more in. Now grab about a desert spoon size of the risotto and put on the top like a lid, completing the ball into its well deserved round shape. 

Arancini assembled and ready for cooking, fill a deep pan with the vegetable oil, and bring up to a high temperature. If you have a spare grain of rice around drop it into the oil to see if its hot enough, i.e. comes to the surface and bubbles. once that happens you are ready to deep fry. Depending on the size of the pan, place 1 or 2 arancini in at a time using a large spoon,  have a plate with kitchen roll on at the ready, and once the balls are nice and golden transfer them on to the plate to drain excess oil.

Now they’re ready to be enjoyed, delicious as a snack on their own or serve with a side salad and a little roast tomato sauce as a tasty starter.

The Abbeville’s Crab Ravioli

It still impresses me the standard of food in gastro pubs around London. This little hero of a pub known as The Abbeville saved us from falling into complete discontent with the standard of ‘Delicious FOOD daily’ (as the generous signs reveal)  served throughout the pubs of England. After driving back from the countryside myself and my boyfriend Rich were after a spot of Sunday grub, upon entering a roadside pub in surrey our expectations for a quality meal were mildly lowered when faced with a menu of ‘bangers and mash’ ‘steak and ale pie’ etc. blah blah blah. We ummed and arred  before we decided that the effort to leave and find somewhere else would be far greater than capitulating to the rubbish that was on offer,  we were hungry.  Unfortunately we were not pleasantly surprised, instead increasingly disappointed by sausages containing probably less than 50% pork, and soup that wasn’t homemade, thus we swore never to enter a pub establishment of this variety EVER again. Which takes me to the happy end of this journey, we then returned back to London, to be happily greeted by our local pub options The Abbeville of which was our chosen destination.

As this is what my Blog is all about I am of coarse bringing to you my rendition of the meal which I ate, homemade crab ravioli served in a crab bisque. Delicious silky smooth ravioli filled with fresh brown and white crabmeat, in a light sauce packed full of flavour, I then simply served this with rocket and spinach.

Making pasta is a bit of a faff but is worth it because you can fill the pasta with whatever you want and actually the main laborious task is rolling it out which is easily resolved by using a pasta maker. This dish is actually quite simple, I used bought dressed fresh crabs from sainsburys, scopped out the middle and used this to fill the pasta. I then used the shell to make the bisque sauce.

A Bisque is effectively a very tasty soup originating from France, it is usually made by extracting every morsel of flavour from crustaceans, in this case crab shell. I made this into more of a sauce than a soup by cooking it down for a bit more, allowing the liquid to reduce.

Serves 2

For the Pasta

300g Flour (type 00 is the best for flour as it is very finely sieved, however if you get a good quality fine flour like doves, then this is also good)

3 eggs or 6 egg yolks

The remainder ingredients

2 dressed crabs

1 stick of celery

1 small carrot

1 small onion

1 clove of garlic

1 bay leaf

1 glass of white wine

500ml stock (fish or vegetable)

Handful of rocket and baby spinach leaves

A little parmesan for grating

20g butter

Salt and pepper

Sieve the flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle and add the eggs to the well. Beat the eggs with a fork until smooth, then mix the eggs into the flour, gradually incorporating the flour bit by bit. I find using fingers here is the easiest! When you have it all combined you have a bit of a mottled looking dough, but you’re just a few kneading minutes away from a nice smooth pasta dough. The purpose of kneading is not just to make a smooth dough, but also to work the glutens in the flour so that when your pasta is cooked it is nice a springy and al dente. There is no technique to kneading, just bash it about a bit on a board, pulling, pushing and stretching for a few minutes. When you’ve got a and smooth dough, wrap it in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for about 30 minutes to rest  before rolling out (otherwise it would be very hard to roll out).

While the dough is resting prepare the bisque. Start by spooning out the crab meat from the dressed crab onto a plate and setting this aside (this is the filling for the pasta that you will use in a bit)

Roughly chop half the onion, carrot, garlic, half the stick of celery and fry these in a sauce pan with a splash of oil for a few minutes, before adding the stock, the 2 crab shells, and bay leaf. Allow to simmer on a gentle heat for about 40 minutes.

Now roll your pasta out, don’t worry if you don’t have a pasta maker, how many big Italian mommas do you think have a little metal contraction for rolling pasta? but at the same time you can see why they are big muscley mommas, from their daily pasta work outs. Split your pasta into 2, and either put your back into it with a rolling pin or…starting with the first ball of dough work it through all the settings on the machine, from the widest down to around the narrowest. Lightly dust both sides of the pasta with a little flour every time you run it through. When you’ve got down to the narrowest setting, to give yourself a tidy sheet of pasta, fold the pasta in half lengthways, then in half again, then in half again once more you’ve got a square-ish piece of dough. Turn it 90 degrees and feed it through the machine at the widest setting. As you roll it down through the settings for the last time, you should end up with a rectangular silky sheet of dough with straight sides. If your dough is a little cracked at the edges, fold it in half just once, click the machine back two settings and feed it through again. Stop rolling your pasta when the pasta is so thin you will be able to see lines of newsprint through it. Do exactly the same for the 2^nd part of the dough.

 Now lay one of the rectangular sheets of pasta onto the lightly

dusted worktop, spoon teaspoonfuls of the crab meat at regular intervals (I made 8 large raviolis in total – 4 per serving). Lay the other sheet of pasta over the top, then cut around the crab lumps, before sealing the edges, making sure you get every air pocket out that you can (otherwise the air lumps will cause the pasta to open inthe water and you will lose your delicious crabby filling). When these are all sealed, dust with flour, gently cover with cling film and leave in the fridge wile you finish your sauce.

By now it will have been gently extracting all the crab flavour from the shells, and you should have about 2 small mugfulls of intense stock. Remove from the heat and sieve. Finely chop the remaining half of the onion and celery and fry in the butter on a gentle heat until soft and translucent. Turn up the heat to quite high and add the wine, let bubble and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the stock back to the pan, and allow to reduce until you are content with the thickness for a sauce. Add a couple of knobs of butter then your sauce is ready.

Cook the pasta by adding to a large pan of salted boiling water. Stir so the ravioli doesn’t stick together, and cook for 2 minutes or until the pasta is just slightly al dente.

Drain the pasta then put this into a large mixing bowl with the rocket and spinach leaves, season with salt and black pepper and toss to mix a bit.

Serve the pasta onto plates, and spoon the sauce around the pasta. Finish by grating a bit of fresh parmesan on top.