You have to visit Borough Market!

Of course, no visit to London is complete without visiting Borough Market. This was my first visit on a weekday rather than Saturday, so it was a bit different for me too - only a few thousand people, rather than a few million (at least, that's what it feels like!). Unfortunately, there are also less stalls on a Thursday, but it is still an impressive market, especially for my visitors from Brisbane!


I was also excited to see Jun Tanaka filming a segment for Market Kitchen - he was making Rabbit Navarin and the segment is supposed to air some time in early March. Mum and Dad didn't know who he was, of course, so were less impressed than I was!


Dad, however, was very impressed with the Pieminister Pies, so we decided to get those for dinner. They were very good with some creamy mash and really good sugar snap peas.


Mum found it hard to go past the Baklava, so along with an Apple Strudel, that was the dessert decision made. Unfortunately, the strudel in particular was quite disappointing.

That did not detract from how good these markets were - always a great foodie excursion in London!

Sampling the culinary delights of Blackstock Road

I am incredibly proud of the food around where we live and wanted to convey this to Mum and Dad when they came to visit. We decided to visit some of the local food shops to pick up some goodies for lunch.

To start, we headed to The Fromagerie where the very French fellow there recommended a nice mature cheddar and a Brie so ripe it melted before we got home! We also picked up a fresh loaf of 12 grain bread from there. We moved onto Da Mario, the Italian deli, for some ham and delicious kalamata olives and the fruit shop for some strawberries.

We then paid Sean at Highbury Vintners a visit and he helped us pick out a dozen wines (not all for lunch!) from around the world. This is something you don't really get in Australia, because it is a wine-producing country. One of the things I love about living in the UK is trying all the wines from different countries and different grapes that we don't get in Oz - the range is really extraordinary. He talked us into trying a Chapel Down white wine, which was very nice with our roast chicken the following week. Other highlights for me were the Tannant from Argentina - very tasty. We also picked out a classic Pinot Noir from Burgundy to go with our lunch.

We finally headed home to feast on our Blackstock Road treats, as well as my homemade chutney, some duck sausage we got from The French Show back in January and some fresh tomato. Yum!

Mum & Dad come to London

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mum and Dad were popping over from Oz to check out our London lifestyle. There would be much eating and drinking in the two weeks ahead!

After about 36 hours of travel time, they arrived at 10am on Sunday 15 February - which meant they had to stay awake for a quite a while or risk never-ending jetlag. We started our two week 'Food Fest' with Nigella's Christmas breakfast option of Triple Cheese and Onion Strata followed by a refreshing fruit salad of blackberries, raspberries and pomegranate with lime juice. It is prohibitively expensive to just eat berries in Queensland, so I knew this would be a treat.

After a trip on a London bus, the London Eye and a couple of drinks in a London pub, we headed home for dinner. I had given this meal an enormous amount of thought. I wanted yummy things that I could make in advance and also had the bottle of Billecart-Salmon champagne Kyle had bought me for my birthday to match with a starter.

I decided on Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese rolls to start, champagne and smoked salmon being a classic combination. As they were part of a Delicious magazine picnic article, these could also be made easily the day before and were on the table in minutes. They were very tasty and the Billecart-Salmon was every bit as good as I remember from my one glass in France.


I have to say - this picture does not do justice to the Lamb and Date Tagine with Pomegranate Couscous we had for main. I have made this dish before - it keeps very well made a day in advance. The lamb is so tender and the dates actually melt into the dish and make the sauce all sweet and yummy. I don't think you really need the pomegranate in the cousous, it would be fine just made with chicken stock instead. This is certainly a tasty dish and one of my new favourites.


Despite Mum and Dad really starting to flag now (Mum actually did that head dropping thing at the table and knocked over her wine while Dad started slurring his words - it is interesting to see how extreme fatigue resembles drunkeness!), we pressed ahead with dessert. One of my other new favourites since coming to London is rhubarb and particularly this Apple and Rhubarb Crumble with oats and ground hazelnuts in the crumble. It was served simply with single cream and a bottle of French dessert wine Domaine de Grange Neuve Monbazillac recommended by the very knowledgable Sean from Highbury Vintners.

Hopefully a fitting introduction to their visit - at the very least, I certainly enjoyed it!

Lamb and Date Tagine with pomegranate couscous (From Delcious magazine - Jan 2009)
Serves 6-8
Takes 20 minutes to make and about 3-3 1/2 hours to cook

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 large knob of fresh ginger, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds, lightly crushed
1.5kg boned shoulder or leg of lamb, cut into cubes (I use shoulder)
200g medjool dates, pitted
400g can chopped tomatoes
400ml lamb or chicken stock, hot
1 lemon and 1 lime, cut into wedges, to serve

For the couscous
500g couscous
1 tbsp olive oil
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Handful fresh mint, roughly chopped
Seeds of 1 pomegranate

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based pan and gently cook the onions, ginger and garlic for 10 minutes, until softened. Add all the spices and cook for 5 minutes, then add the lamb and cook for a further 10 minutes.
2. Add the dates, tomatoes and stock. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer gently for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, until the lamb is very tender.
3. Place the couscous, oil and lemon zest and juice in a bowl and cover with 600ml boiling water. Cover and leave to cool completely, then use a fork to fluff up the couscous and stir in the mint and pomegranate seeds.
4. Serve the couscous with the tagine and garnish with citrus wedges.

Delicious recommends an Australian Shiraz with this - we had an Argentinian Malbec, which was also nice.

A Valentine's Day feast

I usually prefer to stay in and cook on Valentine's Day. If you go to a restaurant, you pay over-inflated prices for generally average food and are surrounded by couples with nothing to say to each other! Last year, we deviated from this typical course of action and did go to a restaurant and of course, paid too much for average food in an environment of contrived romance. So this year, I reverted to type and decided to cook instead.

I wanted to do something different and special but was somewhat restricted by the additional challenge of also pre-cooking the next day's meal for when my parents arrived from Australia. So with limited time (although at least it was a Saturday), dishes and fridge space, the menu looked like this:

Pancetta-wrapped scallops with hazelnut and rocket salad
Stuffed lamb breast with flageolet beans and artichokes
Silky chocolate coffee pots with raspberries

I don't normally cook scallops as they are quite expensive, so this was a special treat. The scallops were wrapped in pancetta and skewered with a rosemary stalk then pan-fried in butter. They were served on a salad of rocket and toasted hazelnuts with an olive oil and balsamic glaze salad and accompanied by a glass of an Italian Pinot Grigio. Yum!


I cheated a bit with the main meal and asked our lovely local butcher for some of his stuffed lamb breast rolls that I had seen in the window the previous week. The accompaniment was a very easy warm salad of flageolet beans, grilled artichokes, roasted garlic, creme fraiche, dijon mustard and mint. I had never tried lamb breast before and while it was a bit tougher than I expected, served sliced on top of the salad and drizzled with gravy made from the pan juices, the flavour was excellent. I would definitely try it again but perhaps cooked more slowly for longer. We drank a Spanish Pinot Noir with this one.


Finally, we finished the night with Silky Chocolate Coffee Pots - an absolutely brilliant dinner party dessert as you make them the night before and they just sit in the fridge. These were super rich but a really lovely balance of sweetness (all that sugar!) and bitterness (good strong coffee and dark chocolate). The raspberries were also a nice addition to cut through the richness a little.

Here are the recipes (they are all from various Delicious magazines):

Pancetta-wrapped scallops with hazelnut and rocket salad
Serves 2

6 large scallops
6 thin pancetta slices
6 small fresh rosemary sprigs, all but the topmost leaves stripped
Knob of butter
Handful of rocket
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic glaze (or vinegar)
1 tbsp of toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Wrap each scallop in a splice of pancetta and secure in place with a sprig of rosemary, skewered through the scallop. These can now be chilled until ready to cook.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a high heat. Add the scallops and cook for 2 minutes each side until golden and the pancetta is crisp and cooked.

In a bowl, toss the rocket with the oil, vinegar, hazelnuts and some seasoning. Spoon onto two serving plates, top with the scallops and spoon over any pan juices.

Stuffed lamb breast with flageolet beans and artichokes
Serves 2

2 stuffed lamb breast rolls
olive oil

Half a small garlic bulb, top sliced off
1 tsp olive oil, plus an extra drizzle
Few rosemary leaves
400g can flageolet beans (cannellini would probably be fine too), drained and rinsed
130g grilled artichoke hearts
1 tbsp creme fraiche
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 tbsps fresh mint, chopped

1 tsp plain flour
100ml chicken or lamb stock

Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and brown the lamb breast rolls. Move to a tray. Drizzle some olive oil on the garlic and add this to the same tray. Place in the oven. Remove the garlic when soft (about 30 minutes) and the lamb after 45 minutes. Set the lamb aside to rest.

For the salad, heat the tsp of olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Squeeze out the roasted garlic (discard the skin) into the pan and add the rosemary. Fry for a minute. Add the beans and artichokes and cook over a low heat until warmed through. Add the creme fraiche, mustard and mint. Season and stir until combined.

For the gravy, heat the fat in the tray used to cook the lamb over a medium heat and add the flour. Mix, scraping the bottom of the pan. Add some stock to make a paste and then gradually pour in the remainder until combined. Simmer until thickened. Season.

Slice the lamb breast and serve on top of the bean and artichoke salad with the gravy drizzled over.

Silky chocolate coffee pots with raspberries
Makes 4

125g caster sugar
125ml strong espresso
100g dark chocolate, chopped
250g marscapone
cocoa and icing sugar, to decorate
raspberries, to serve

Put the sugar and coffee in a small pan and heat slowly until the sugar has dissolved, stirring all the time. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave for a minute, then add the chocolate and stir until melted. Cool.

Put the marscapone in a bowl and beat until smooth. Slowly beat in the coffee and chocolate mixture, a little at a time. The mixture should be the consistency of thick pouring cream. Pour into individual espresso cups or small glasses and chill overnight.

Put the raspberries on top and sprinkle with cocoa and icing sugar to serve.

Scrambled eggs with feta and spinach

Some leftover eggs and feta inspired this creamy scrambled eggs with feta and spinach for brunch this morning. With a little bit of cream in the eggs and served on toasted Poilane sourdough bread, this was very tasty indeed!