Monthly Archives: November 2014

Nov 23 2014
1

Part Two: Lunch at the Colombian Ambassador’s House in London

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2014-11-21-09.49.11A very funny thing: I really didn’t know much about Colombia or Colombian food when I was invited to lunch; as I spent time with the chefs and we all cooked together, though, I felt such warmth (always welcome in our British coolness). I loved the way they prepared the food: not just a job, not a statement of style or personality, not just how it tasted either though all the chefs agreed that was paramount, but the way the food was caressed into being: patted, stirred, and at the risk of sounding trite: made with love.

Our visiting Colombian chefs, Juanita Umana and Diane Garcia cooked with such care and carefulness, not simply professionally, as some–many–chefs might. In fact, the taste that impressed me, stayed with me, was the taste of my grandmother’s cooking–even though my grandmother had never been to Colombia, not even a Colombian restaurant! It was the handwork-intensive, home-like taste that even when served up on the Ambassador’s exquisite China table settlings…..tasted of food meant to be eaten, food as a cultural caress, rather than food meant to impress. And I found it hugely comforting.

There was one dish, though, that spoke to me more than any of the others: Ajiaco Santafereno: chicken soup, with two kinds of potatoes for texture, corn because its such a ubiquitous ingredient, the whole flecked with coriander/cilantro, and served with capers, sour cream and diced avocado. The tangy fresh spunkiness of the capers– oh yes!–almost made me smile, while the diced avocado and sour cream added smoothness and richness each in their own way.

When I got home I made my own version of the soup, adapted from Colombia Cocina de Regiones, a regional Colombian cookbook in both Spanish and English, a book which our chefs contributed to. When I left, I requested a picture of myself standing in front of the national flag, with my new book.

Here is the recipe, a streamlined version of the soup we had for lunch. I cheated and used chicken broth as a base; if you like, you can make your own chicken soup as they do in Colombia. Either way, delightful.

Ajiaco

Serves about 6-8

  • 3 litres/2-3 quarts chicken broth or stock
  • 2 onions, coarsely chopped or thinly sliced
  • 4-6 cloves garlic, cut up coarsely
  • 1 bunch cilantro/fresh coriander leaves, washed, dried, and coarsely chopped, including the stems
  • About 5 floury potatoes, peeled and sliced
  • 8-10 waxy salad potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • 12 ish ounces chicken breast, boned and skinned, and cut into bite sized pieces
  • About 3 ears corn on the cob, cut through the cob so that they look like wheels
  • Salt and black pepper or white pepper
  • 4 tablespoons/ 1/4 cup, aproximately (to taste) capers in brine, plus a few drops brine per bowlful
  • Tablespoons of sour cream as desired, or about 125g/ 1/2 cup
  • 1 avocado, peeled and diced (sprinkle with lemon juice if doing ahead, even by 5 or ten minutes, or it will brown unappealingly

In a large pot place the chicken broth, onion, garlic, half the coriander/cilantro and both of the types of potatoes. Bring to boil, reduce heat and cook at a medium simmer, for about 20 minutes or until the floury potatoes have fallen apart and the waxy ones are film but tender.

Add the chicken and corn on the cob, then cook a further 10 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

When ready to serve, ladle out the soup taking care each person gets a few rounds of corn and some chunks of chicken, then sprinkle avocado into each bowl, then the capers with few drops of the brine, and finally, a spoonful of sour cream.

Pasteles de Yuca

Serves about 8

These stuffed croquettes were wonderful: slightly chewy dough, crisply fried, and filled with meat and egg, a filling almost exactly like the one for piroshki!

I always like to find uses for yuca, which is potato-like but less starchy; fried and fried/roasted, it is fabulous. So eating this stuffed croquette of yucca dough filled with meat, I’m thinking: oh yes, please. yes yes yes. (really, it was delicious.)

The recipe is adapted from Colombia: Cocina De Regiones; I’m still working on testing the recipe, but am posting it here, now, in progress. In case you might like to take up the challenge and work with it. At the moment I don’t have access to either yucca or the cornflour/cornmeal that the recipe needs.

  • The dough:
  • About 1 1/4 kilo/ 3 lbs yuca, peeled and vein removed; i often used frozen peeled and parcooked yuca.
  • About 125- 250 g/ 1/2-1 cup Colombian corn flour, which is finer than polenta but coarser than the Mexican masa harina
  • Salt to taste

Note: Chefs Juanita and Diane emphasized that the dough needs to be put in the freezer for a few hours or at even better, overnight. I suspect they meant the refrigerator because at no point they they mention defrosting.

In a pot of salted boiling water, add the yuca, and cook at a medium boil, or slight lower, a robust simmer, until the yuca is cooked through. If you are using frozen yuca, check directions: it might just need a few minutes. You want it soft with a cottony texture so better overcooked than under.

Mash the yuca and mix it with the corn flour, and salt as desired. Knead the yuca puree dough until it is compact, and no longer sticky. Wrap up in plastic wrap and stash in the refrigerator overnight.

  • The Meat Filling:
  • 3 tablespoons annato oil
  • 1 bunch or about 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced green onions/scallions, or about a bunch or bunch and a half
  • 1 red onion, finely chopped
  • 5 plum tomatoes, plus their juices, chopped (tinned/canned is fine)
  • 1/2 red pepper, finely chopped
  • 1/2 tablespoon–2 teaspoons cumin–preferably toasted and ground from seeds
  • half a kilo/ 1 1/4 lbs beef rump, cut into large chunks
  • 2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
  • Salt and pepper

Heat the annato oil over medium heat and saute the scallions, red onion, tomatoes and red pepper, sprinkling it with salt and cumin as you cook. When the vegetables are softened, place the meat in the pot and cook for about 30 minutes or until tender, checking every so often that it isn’t burning; if it threatens to, add a little water. Maybe tender-ish (you are going to chop it all together so doesn’t need to be too tender).

Remove the meat from the pot and the sauce, then puree it in a food mill or food processor. Return meat to pot with vegetables and cook together for about 5 minutes or so, or until it dries. Add the hard boiled egg and taste for seasoning.

Set aside until cool.

Assembling the pasteles:

Take the dough and make balls the size of large golfballs or small baseballs; working one at a time, using your finger, make a cylindrical hole, and fill it with the ground meat mixture, closing the dough over the open end to seal the stuffed parcel well. You can make these either oval or cylindrical: the object is to have a nice amount of stuffing inside the yuca dough.

When all balls are stuffed, heat the oil for frying. This calls for deep frying, and at the Ambassador’s house we used a deep fryer, but i deep fry, in several inches of hot oil, in a heavy frying pan or well-anchored wok.

Fry on one side until golden, then turn over and do the second side. You want the croquettes to be crisp and golden just turning the corner on lightly browned.

Hot Sauce for dipping, spooning

The pink tangy hot sauce that we had at the Ambassador’s was based on tiny pink pickled onions, chopped. It had a gentle and perfumed heat, which to me tasted like amarillo chillies though i’m not sure. This is another part of the recipe I am working on: but if you get to it before I do: I would chop pickled onions and add fresh not terribly hot red chille to the mixture, or finely chopped dry amarillo chile, or amarillo paste, sometimes available in the shops imported from South America.

Seasoned Pioneers spice company should have the annatto. They have EVERYTHING. And they are WONDERFUL

Nov 23 2014
1

Lunch at the Colombian Ambassador’s House

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Friday I was invited to lunch at the Colombian Ambassador’s house; along with a small group of food/travel writers we would hang with and learn from, the chefs in the kitchen before we all met the Ambassador and sat down to dine.

On my way to the kitchen I stopped to wash my hands, then spotted hand towels, embroidered with the British and Colombian flags. Far too delicate to dry my hands on! My snooping didn’t stop there, of course, I managed to wander through one of the side rooms and found the Ambassador’s hats! Arent they wonderful!

Here is the Ambassador, Nestor Osario’s, collection of hats. Dont tell him I snapped them, okay?

The kitchen was full of happy activity, every surface of the room covered with trays and platters of foods and ingredients; the chefs–I noticed that they were all women– were welcoming and busy, so busy: rolling, chopping, stirring, frying; it was all happening.

Our two chefs were visiting from Colombia for a Colombian Food Festival;  Juanita Umana, London-trained,  is a food columnist and restaurant-owner; Gata pardo magazine recognized her as one of the best chefs in Latin America in 2002.  Diane Garcia graduated from the Culinary Institute of America has been recognized as a significant contributor to the cuisine of the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

I put on my Juan Valdez embroidered apron,-we were all issued one–and rolled up my sleeves. Before long I was patting out arepas and filling them with eggs, stuffing pasteles de yucca, and tasting lots of different ingredients: who knew that pink pickled onions were made into a piquant dipping sauce in Colombia? or that guava membrillo was eaten with cheese, or that capers, avocado and sour cream were added to the wonderful chicken and potato soup which seems to be the Colombian national dish known as ajiacco.

Soon we were nibbling and noshing, as dish after dish was prepared by the chefs along with a constantly revolving narrative of directions.

When everything was ready, we took off our aprons, and entered the dining room.

Nov 18 2014
1

Cretan Pork and Chestnut Stew

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This week I read an interview with the subject of Joni Mitchell’s song: Cary. You know, the one that takes place in Matala, Crete. Cary apparently is the long lost mean old daddy of the song. So there they were, the song going around in my mind, laughing and toasting to nothing, throwing their empty glasses down…..anyhow, alongside the interview was a photo of Joni and “Cary”, in a grainy sepia, taken in a park in Iraklion by a photographer and his homemade camera. I recognized the setting: a handful of years later, I had MY picture taken in the SAME park, by an old guy with a homemade camera. Much as I try–its not in my online set of photos–I can’t quite find that picture to post here. I know it is here somewhere, in one of my boxes of pre-internet life.

Anyhow, the picture of Joni  got me thinking about Crete and the winter I spent living there. As what seems to have been the pattern with everyone else at the time, I didn’t end up there on purpose: i–and he who would become my first husband– drifted there letting the winds of fate decide whether we go to Spain and Morocco or Italy and Greece: We ended up heading east which kindled my own life-long love affair with BOTH Italy and Greece.

So: Brindisi to Corfu, Corfu to Athens, and after an old night ferry from Athens we splashed up on the island of Crete and rolled into Iraklion.

We found  a youth hostel/hotel, and in what felt like minutes, fell in love with the island.  The owners of the hostel/hotel took us under their wing and before you knew it, we were all like one big happy family. They were giving us gifts, we were  just enjoying everything about life in Iraklion. (And, like real families we eventually had a break-up! in this case they demanded their gifts back!). But during our honeymoon hotel phase, they taught me many things to cook, and eventually let us cook for them  [which I mentioned in my first unsung book Naturally Good (Random House/Faber)]. It was Chanukkah time and I made latkes and borsht; they had huge trepidation at this pink soup and unusual potato cakes, that is, until they ate. Then, they said we could stay for free if I painted murals on the walls,  downstairs which they were turning into a taverna/ouzeria. I said yes, and the painting began.

The hotel was in the center of town, right around the corner from the marketplace, not a million miles away from that park where unbeknownst to me–for i was a huge fan and would have been thrilled to have known–a few years earlier Joni Mitchell had her photo snapped, with her “mean old man”.

I loved living in Iraklion: it was so urban yet small. There was a cultural buzz of city life, the tiny town surrounded by rural idyll–it was so very unspoiled. Recently I went back to Iraklion and found it surprisingly the same: unspoiled. Especially the quaility of dairy products! We bought yogurt dished out from a ceramic bowl, feta dished out of an animal skin, and the best bougatsa (Cretan custard pie). We ate in the tavernas, danced when we weren’t eating and drinking, and when we weren’t eating, drinking or dancing, I was painting those murals!

My memories of that time are overlaid with so much good food, stews and casseroles of meat and vegetables I’ve never seen in cookbooks, just food simmered together from what was available, in season, grown locally: all of this way before it was chic to eat local, farm to table, etc: it was simply the way to eat. The ONLY way possible in fact.

So yesterday, when i read about Joni Mitchell and that park in Iraklion, I thought about the stews we ate there, often from a bowl spooning up the sauce, no extra accompaniment except for some bread and salad on the side. Looking through the kitchen I found pork, and a bag of fresh chestnuts; a few tins of tomatoes and I was ready to simmer.

The ingredients and amounts are flexible; traditionally dry red wine is used, but I didn’t have any and used verjuice (nonalcoholic slightly fermented grape juice), and to be honest: i don’t know HOW many chestnuts I used: a big bag full.

2014-11-17-15.15.502Cretan Pork and Chestnut Stew

Serves 4

  • 1 lb chestnuts
  • 1 lb pork, fatty and lean, in small bite sized chunks
  • 2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1-2 medium sized onions, peeled and coarsely diced
  • 3-4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped/cut up
  • 1 cup dry red wine, slightly (ever so slightly) sweetish white wine, or verjuice
  • 2 cups water plus a little bouillon/stock/seasoning such as better than bouillion, or stock cube, or 2 cup broth mixed with water
  • 2 tins chopped tomatoes plus their juices, each can about 12-13 ounces
  • 2 bay leaves
  • about 2 inches worth of a cinnamon stick
  • Pinch or two allspice
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Dash vinegar, or lemon juice, to taste, if needed

Score each chestnut on its flat side, then roast in a heavy ungreased pan over medium heat, letting it char somewhat evenly. When they are all splotched with dark brown, cover and let them sit and absorb some of the smoky scent as well as cook them through and make them easier to peel.

When they are cool enough to handle, using a paring knife, peel off the skins; you’ll probably need to cut through the hard sort of base of each chestnut; see how it goes. Some of the chestnuts can be broken up if that happens, but try to keep as many whole as possible. When they are all done, set aside.

In a heavy bottomed large cooking vessel, lightly very lightly saute the pork with the onion and garlic, adding a spoonful or two of olive oil as needed to keep it from sticking and to keep it glossy. When the meat looks opaque, pour in the wine/verjuice and water/broth; Bring to oil, then reduce heat and let simmer over medium low heat for about 20 minutes.

Add tomatoes, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, allspice, salt and pepper, and cook over low heat another 30 minutes or so, or until the meat is tender and the sauce rich. If the sauce hasn’t condensed a bit and become delicious, try adding a little more broth, or pour the sauce off and boil down separately for a few minutes before returning to the pan with the meat.

Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, vinegar/lemon juice if/as needed.

Nov 06 2014
0

Lyon, France with June Jacobs and Paris-Brest at PlumLyon Cooking School

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2014-10-25-12.31.572As with so many of life’s great adventures these days, this one began with an email: “I’m headed to Lyon, France, and have a GREAT flat there, want to come meet me?”. The email was from June Jacobs, New York based food and wine expert/writer.

Lyon was one of the only towns in France I had never been to. And oh, did I long to visit: its gastronomical wonder had tempted me for most of my Francophile and food-o-file life. I booked easyjet immediately.

The idea of being in Lyon with June Jacobs was too enticing to pass up. June LOVES Lyon, with the sort of affection that one has towards a person. She has spent as much time as she can there over the years: going to Lyon with June meant that my life during my visit would be like a gastronomic map of Lyon.

I knew I wanted to visit a few bouchons (Lyonnaise version of bistros), eat fromage de canuts, quenelles with sauce Nantua, or perhaps a Lyonnaise salad piled high with cured meats and the requisite poached egg. I wanted to shop in a farmers market or two as well as the glorious market of Paul Bocuse, and sit in a wine bar admiring whichever little pooch was sitting next to me.

June’s flat was located right in the center of town: so atmospheric, gorgeous architecture, ancient brick walls, and a huge art-deco downstairs door that I found myself standing in front of, a week or so after the email, shlepping my backpack and ringing the doorbell.

Staying in a flat meant we could cook: staying in Lyon meant that we had access to the most marvelous of foodstuffs: from the excellent breads, to the local cheeses (Lyon is in the vicinity of my favourite: Epoisses, which has a fascinating history of coming back from near extinction. A story for another time?). The cheese of Lyon would be St Marcellin, and after a week there, I became so nuanced to the various stages of St Marcellin: appreciating and sensing each temperature change in its aging, each blade of grass and each temperature variation that all contributed to the taste of the milk, that went into the cheese. I think I could taste the mood of the cows, too. In other words, what a joy to get to know something so well.

The other cheese speciality of Lyon is cervelles de Canut. Cervelles de Canut is literally silk-workers brains, as Lyon was once a silk-working center, and the substances the workers were exposed to were said to distroy their brains. But this charming story aside, oh this cheese is fabulous: curd cheese or a sort of ricotta/fromage frais, mixed with chopped shallots, garlic, chives, tarragon, chervil, maybe a drop or two of dry white wine. Its like the original onion dip, but so fresh!

Another great thing about hanging out with June, is that she is a wine expert. She would be in charge of the wine, I would be the one mostly in the kitchen. I could hardly wait.

We met up with Lucy Vanel of PlumLyon cooking school.  So you see, there is method to my madness, and yes, we really are going to get to the part about making a Paris-Brest.

Anyhow, I had always wanted to meet Lucy, as we had been internet buddies on the once upon a time heydey of the eGullet food website. June and Lucy went way back. We met up at the independant wine fair: a fair of independantly owned wineries from each region of France. It was a wonderful opportunity to taste with two experts: June and Lucy.  The immediacy of the wines: the variety of personalities and unique styles, artistic statements, gave rise to our giving them nicknames such as “shoes” for the glorious aroma of new leather/new shoes that one of the wines wafter. The smallest amount of wines one could buy was a case; Lucy wanted to choose a house red, white and sparkling, for her school. And, well, her house!

And then, of course, there were sandwiches……..

Nov 04 2014
0

A Pasta Party in Gragnano!

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Gareth Jones, Giusseppe di Martino, and me!

They are so cute, aren’t they: food writer (legendary) Gareth Jones and pasta-maker (legendary) Giuseppe Di Martino! And there I am, happily sandwiched inbetween these cute guys, aprons tied on, all of us cooking pasta!

We were at La Citta del Gusto Napoli, a Neapolitan culinary centre for teaching and partying. Giuseppe was our host, the guy throwing the party.  Gareth is esteemed British food writer extraordinaire, who can be found these days, more often than not, in Italy, sniffing out stories of deliciousness.

Giuseppe is the third generation of the illustrious Di Martino family, one of the oldest and most famous pasta-making families in Gragnano. He is president of the consortium Gragnano Citta della Pasta and owns Pastifico Di Martino and Pastificio dei Campi as well as Pastificio Antonio Amato in Salerno. He travels the world spreading the goodness of fabulous pasta, and has been a strong motivator in Pasta di Gragnano recieving the prestigious P.G.I mark of excellence and terroir.

No one knows more about pasta than Giuseppe. I say this enthusiastically having eaten pasta with him on so many occasions, over the past decade. These days,  is the President of the Gragnano Pasta Makers Consortium;  pasta di Gragnano has become a DOP product of internationally known excellence in large part to sheer ebulliunce and devotion to the subject.  He travels the world as a goodwill ambassador for his family pasta. Just seeing his smile is enough to make you think: is this (happiness) what pasta can do for me?

Our teacher in this pasta-making extravaganza, besides Giuseppe,  was Michelin star Chef Raffaele Vitale, of the Michellin-starred Ristorante Casadelnonno, and his crew. Vitale works in Salerno to promote the cuisine of Campania region.

Our theme for the pasta-licious evening was tomatoes,  because 1. we were in Napoli! and in Napoli, when you talk pasta, its ALWAYS about tomatoes. 2. it was the annual tomato harvest and canning. Canning tomatoes is a long held tradition in Campania. When the tomatoes are ripe, of course, fresh tomatoes are everywhere; but when they are not perfectly ripe and in season, no one turns their noses up about canned. That tin, those tomatoes: fabuloso! Of course, they are not just ordinary tomatoes: being rich and sweet and flavourful, preserved with a canning technique  that gives care and attention to every detail: the canned/tinned tomatoes of Campania truly are so delicious you can just open a tin, dig in with your fork, and feel goooooood!

Gragnano–where the pasta is made, not far from where our cooking party was being held– is a tiny town slightly inland from the Sorrento Coast whose history of pasta-making is so ancient that the name itself: Gragnano, means grains.  Pasta-making in Gragnano  dates back at least 2,000 years, so when people start talking about Marco Polo bringing it back from China, Giuseppe just chuckles. “It was a local invention”, dating back to 3 B.C.E, when the local grain harvest needed to be preserved. As hard wheat grew well in the area, unlike the softer wheat (much like the noodles of China) that grew north of Rome. This grain was piled high after harvest for the winter but became infested with insects. It was discovered that by milling the wheat the insects were killed; then the powdery substance was mixed with a little water and spread out to dry. Lagane, the forerunner of lasagne, was the first shape, next came Macari, which we know as macaroni.

Epicious wrote about pasta and gave recipes: not recipes for gourmets and parties, but rather, for feeding the Roman Army, how to build the strength of the Roman soldiers. Gragnano became famous for the excellence of its pasta: the soil that grew the best durun (high protein, high gluten) wheat, and the breezes that blew through the little town drying the sheets of pasta hanging in the piazza.

The menu for our cooking show, class, and party was: 1. bucatini pizzaiola style of cherry tomatoes and a lovely slice of veal which gave the tomatoes the umami of, say, a Japanese sauce with a chunk of seaweed or bonito 2. mezzi canneroni lisci with peels tomatoes and basil, and the dish of celebration 3. ziti with Neapolitan ragu! Because we didn’t have time for the long simmering of a Neapolitan ragu, someone brought in a large potfull, saying that his own nonna, or grandmother, had made it for us! The excitement of everyone in the room, upon seeing and smelling, that gorgeous ragu, was….palpable! what a happy frisson went through the room as Chef Vitale went about cooking the pasta, and serving it up, “just so” and with such loving attention.