Mini Restaurant Review: Dim Sum at Gerrard's Corner, China Town, London

One of my long-time regular China Town haunts for dim sum is Gerrard's Corner (on the corner of Gerrard and Wardour).

I'd arranged to meet an out-of-town friend and her husband there for a dim sum lunch. I met Carol l on a foodie chat board and we've met a few times at GTGs now. Although she's my mum's age we have so much in common and are very much alike.

Over a couple of chat-filled hours, we slowly worked our way through 16 dim sum items!

Whelks with satay sauce
King prawn dumplings
Seafood and scallop dumplings
Paper wrapped prawns
Crispy bbq pork puff pastry
Deep fried squid
Deep fried stuffed prawns with sugar cane
Steamed lobster dumplings (x 2)
Octopus thai style
Deep fried dough stick cheung fun
Scallop cheung fun
Yam croquette
Glutinous rice in lotus leaf
Deep fried prawn rolls with garlic
Crab and mashed prawn dumplings

All washed down with copious amounts of tea (Jasmine for them, Oolong for me) it was a bargain at only £15 each!

Read More...

Summary only...

Off The Cuff Port, Shropshire Blue and Cream Sauce

Just thought I'd share a very simple steak sauce I made on Saturday night ... I made it up as I went but it came out very well.

I used a flat-bottomed and heavy-based cast aluminium pan that I allowed to get really hot before cooking the rump steaks (oiled the meat not the pan) to medium-rare (which was pure guess work but spot on).

The steaks were then put aside in covered dish to rest.

Turned the heat down to low.

With the pan still hot from the higher heat I'd been using for the steaks, I sloshed in a generous glug of sweet red port which bubbled fiercely and immediately reduced. Within 30 seconds I had a thick, sticky reduction.

To that I added a very generous glug of double cream and stirred the two together to create a beautiful pink sauce.

Into that I threw a generous handful of crumbled Shropshire Blue (had been thinking of Stilton when deciding what to eat a few hours earlier but remembered I had a chunk of this that I bought back from Wales with me). Stirred until the cheese melted in.

Pete was, in the meantime, making a creamy mash (with home-grown potatoes) which he served onto the plate along with the steaks. I mixed the juices that had come out of the meat during resting into the sauce before serving.

It was GORGEOUS! Far better than I expected having so completely made it up! And we've not had steaks come out so well before either!

Read More...

Summary only...

I've finally found a beer for Kaveys!

I was working at a client site on Friday; Pete was at home. In our emails discussing what to have for dinner Pete mentioned that he'd gone to the Tallyho pub for lunch at that they had a beer festival on and did I fancy going there for dinner. I am not usually keen as I've been disappointed with the food at this Wetherspoon's pub more times than I can count. But you've got to keep a husband sweet by playing to his beerloving now and again so I agreed!

Not only was my meal really good but we found a beer I really, really liked!

It's called Namyslow Original Plum Beer and it's Polish, made by a brewery that's been brewing since 1321. It's a dark red-brown colour and it's bitterness is balanced by fruity sweetness. Gorgeous!

The only downside is that the brewery doesn't bottle so, short of buying it by the barrel, I'm left hoping the Tallyho bring it back for another beer fest sometime soon!

Read More...

Summary only...

Restaurant Review: Moti Mahal, London (3rd Visit)

Toptable had an offer giving 50% off the £30 set menu at Moti Mahal so I booked it for dinner with a friend last night.

My friend arrived first and was waiting in the little seating area next to the bar. We took the bowl of spiced cashew nuts they bought over with our drinks across to the dinner table with us and made quick work of them!

On being seated we were served a complimentary amuse bouche. This was a miniature mug of pea and mint soup topped with a teeny-tiny naan bread topped itself with a little dollop of a fresh tomato chutney. The soup was delicious and warming. Lovely.

For our starter we both had Tandoor grilled salmon with honey and dill, smoked salmon and bell pepper mousse, summer berry chutney.

This came with a small pile of mixed watercress-like leaves, some green and some dark red. The grilled salmon was incredibly moist and packed with flavour. The mousse was a good contrast to that in terms of texture and taste. And who'd have thought of such a fresh and fruity chutney to go with something like salmon but it really worked.

For my main I had Country style chicken stir fry with cashewnut and curry leaf. I asked for them not to make it too hot as my main last time was slightly too hot for my tastes. This dish was perfect. I'm not sure where the "stir fry" comes into it, perhaps just the way they finish the dish before serving. It was a creamy, tomato-based curry, not disimilar in flavours to my mum's chicken curry. But the meat was incredibly tender and delicious as were the lovely cashews. Beautiful.

My friend had Kashmiri style lamb curry with turnips and fennel and again it was delicious. Very tender chunks of lamb in what I think was a yoghurt-based sauce. Very more-ish.

Served with these were two side-dishes. The first was Stir fried aubergine with sesame seed which was very nice. The second was a small dish of potato and cumin raita, also nice.

The Tandoor baked naan bread"was fantastically soft and light. I much prefer naan to rice and so does my friend so we were happy.

Dessert was an apricot tarte, vanilla ice cream which came with a salsa of extremely finely diced apple (think 1mm cubes) with a really strong appley flavour; perhaps there was an additional concentrated juice used to boost flavour.

We were the first to arrive/ be seated and service started well but, as previously, towards the end of our meal when every table was full, it proved really difficult to get service when we wanted it.

I'd add that wine by the glass was expensive for a very small measure.

But overall we enjoyed a lovely set meal which I'd describe as reasonable value at full price; excellent value on the discounted offer.

Read More...

Summary only...

Did I say we bought a 4-5 kilo bag of carrots last weekend?

Silly me. We've used over 1.5 kilos so far (1 for the soup and another half since) and just weighed the remaining. There's just under 7 kilos left!

For £2!

At Martine's VERY cunning suggestion we're making LOTS more of the carrot and coriander soup we made recently plus some fresh bread too for the meal we're catering at Centre Parks this weekend. That'll get rid of another 1.5 kilos at least!

Read More...

Summary only...

Variation on Angela Nilsen's Carrot and Coriander Soup

On the way to somewhere else we passed a farm shop and popped in for a quick look. We ended up buying a huge bag of carrots for £2. I think about 4 or 5 kilos!

Coincidentally, last weekend we picked up The Ultimate Recipe Book by Angela Nilsen, featuring a rather handy Carrot and Coriander Soup recipe!

Since we also had a large bunch of coriander leftover from last weekend's Indian feast we decided to make the soup and also to try Nilsen's soda bread (to compare it to the recipe I use currently).

The soup was delicious! I absolutely loved it and Pete really liked it too.

We did adjust the recipe. As per the recipe we stripped the coriander leaves from the stems and put the stems in with the carrots, potato, stock etc. The rest we were meant to half; chopping one half to sprinkle over/ stir in to the soup after blending and blitzing the other with some olive oil into an oily paste to drizzle over the finished soup (with some single cream) once in the bowls, for presentation. Since we were freezing more than half of the soup we decided to put all the fresh coriander leaves into the soup at the blending stage giving us a beautiful greeney-orange soup rather than the bright orange one we would have got otherwise.

Ingredients (adjusted)
• 25g butter
• 1 tbsp sunflower/veg oil
• 1 medium onion
• 3 plump cloves of garlic
• 40-50g coriander, including stems
• 500g carrots
• 100g potatoes
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1.5 pints vegetable stock

Instructions (for adjusted version)
1. Peel and dice onion
2. Peel and chop garlic
3. Peel (or just scrub for young, fresh carrots) and slice or dice carrots
4. Peel and roughly dice potatoes
5. Heat butter and oil in large pan/ stock pot.
6. Gently fry onion and garlic until soft, at least 5 minutes, probably longer.
7. Add carrots, potatoes and coriander stems (don't bother to remove leaves completely from stems, just chop off and throw in the visible stems below the leafy tops) and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Add cumin seeds and coriander powder and stir/ mix well for a minute.
9. Pour in stock, bring to boil, lower the heat and cook, covered for about half an hour until carrots and potatoes are soft.
10. Turn off heat and leave to cool for a while.
11. Once cool enough to easily handle stir in coriander leaves and blitz in blender or food processor, in batches if necessary.
12. Season to taste and serve or freeze!

Did I say GORGEOUS?! This is definitely one we'll be making again!

The soda bread was nice enough; lighter than my existing recipe since it had no oatmeal in it at all. But I think I like the oatmeal one a little more and will stick to the recipe I've already been using.

Read More...

Summary only...

The Ultimate Recipe Book by Angela Nilsen

A few days ago I picked up a copy (for less than half price) of The Ultimate Recipe Book produced by the BBC Good Food magazine, written by Angela Nilsen.

I read almost all of it through the same night.

Nilsen has picked 50 classic recipes and not only researched the history of each one but looked up as many recipes and variations as she can, sought advice from top chefs and experts and then tried out different options until she's achieved her ultimate version of each dish.

I love the way that each recipe includes an introduction to the dish, comments from various chefs and experts and then feedback on some of the steps she took during the trial process which really helps understand why she's gone for the final ingredients and steps she provides for the final recipe.

Most, but not all have photos of the finished dish.

I'll be trying out recipes soon!

Read More...

Summary only...