Food faves- Pizza

My food faves are starting to get just a bit predictable and unoriginal at this point. 'Seriously, pizza? Everyone's favourite food is pizza you boring ass!' You might say. But I'm going to carry on anyway.  

Pizza is the fallback food. If you need to grab a quick, failsafe dinner with a mate before the cinema, you choose from one of the 5 million Pizza Express joints on the high street for an American Hot and some dough balls. If you're late home from work and want something easy to eat in front of the box, you hit the supermarket for a goat's cheese and caramelised onion 12-inch with salad in a bag, garlic ciabatta and a bottle of red. If it's a Friday night, been a long week, and you just wanna pig out, it's a super large Pepperoni Passion from Dominos with ice-cream and a 2-litre bottle of coke. 

Pizza is something you can dress up or dress down and can be amazingly good or horrifically bad. At its best it's a wafer thin crust topped with simple, fresh ingredients. Good ol' buffalo mozzarella and torn basil will do me, but I do like parma ham, rocket and ricotta too. And salami. And pesto. I could go on... (I am now starving and salivating over the Pizza East menu). But at its worst, it's a 99p dry piece of cardboard from the freezer section of the corner shop, or a 3am cheese-laden grease monster jobbie topped with questionable meat from the chippie/fried chicken/burger place down the road.  

99c pizza in NYC...damn good

I would be lying if I said that the only variety of pizza to grace my lips is the fancy kind with the good ingredients and proper base. I wouldn't stick any old pizza in my mouth, but I will occasionally slink to the Friday night pig-out style pizza for a Dominos (well, it's Papa John's actually). Is it proper pizza, worthy of Naples finest pizzerias? No, it isn't. But it's a guilty pleasure that I'm happy to admit to.  

Determining which pizzas are good and bad is easy enough. Making pizza is a bit more of a challenge.   It's probably because my oven isn't nearly as hot as it should be, or perhaps I go overboard on the toppings but sometimes my pizzas come out looking like a hot mess. They're not as good as I can get elsewhere, so I tend not to make them very often. Either I get a brick oven, or I need to keep practising...

Homemade pizza in China, with some dubious toppings

Another homemade attempt, not so pretty, but tasted pretty good

Dave's Birthday

I am not a neat cook. It pains me to say it but I cannot make my dishes look beautiful. Tasty maybe, but never beautiful. I've learnt to live with the fact that when my chicken and asparagus pie comes out the oven, it won't look anywhere near like the one my mum bought for us from Tesco's when we were younger, with the even golden pastry and the neat dimpled pattern round the edge. I can guarantee it will taste better, but the golden sheen on top will be uneven where I've splashed on the egg wash in a rush, some of the filling will be oozing out the side where I couldn't stretch the pastry quite far enough.

One particular area that I struggle with is cakes. Whenever I bake a cake, I always have visions in my head of how it's going to turn out. I think it'll come out just like it does on the shop. Every time I say to myself, 'this time, this time, it's going to look like it belongs in a book'.  But it usually ends up looking like a Victoria sponge with a bit of spew on top.

It was Dave's birthday and in honour of his favourite book, Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick', I decided to make a cake with a whale on it. I imagined a beautifully iced cake in dark blue, using lighter blue icing for the wave detailing, and a perfectly modelled, lifelike whale spouting water from his blowhole. I know, it sounds really dodge but it looked lush in my head. Getting home and realising that I had neither blue food colouring, nor the the right icing sugar, was not a good start. What I ended up with was this:

Horrif.  At least my picnic lunch of homemade sausage rolls, scotch eggs (with the soft yolk in the middle, yum), ham sandwiches, pitta chips and hummus in Regents Park made up for it. Preceded by the zoo, and followed by cocktails at Academy. Then we got home and ate the cake, and it was bloody delicious.

Dave doesn't actually look that impressed...

Food faves - Fish and Chips and snippets of childhood

Ahh the British chippy.  It's such an institution and has been written about so many times there's probably not much more to say about it.  I don't tend to go out for fish and chips much anymore because I'm so picky about what I eat; where it comes from, how it's sourced, if it's fresh...yadda yadda yadda.  But when I was younger I used to eat fish and chips all the time.  Actually, I've come to the realisation that I can pretty much map out my life through the prism of fish and chip shops.

Some of my most vivid memories have taken place around my local chippy.  This might seem unsurprising for someone who is completely obsessed with food and has probably frequented the chip shop more often than the average Brit, but they've essentially formed the core of my existence, with all of my life's occurrences hovering around them, like planets, orbiting the sun.  You are going to think I've lost the plot, but hear me out as I explain my life through the medium of chippy...

Chip Shop 1 - Chaplin's Fish Bar

The chip shop of my formative years, in Tonteg, near Pontypridd.  It was part of a small shopping area near my house which I went to almost everyday after school and on weekends.  Barratt's the Newsagents was across the way - I used to go there to buy sweets and once even tried to buy 27 pence worth of strawberry chews with only a third of the cash, so a stranger (remember how we all used to be afraid of strangers) had to lend me the money and my mum went mental on me.  Next door was the Happy Shopper, the scene of my first Curly Wurly, Chomp and Hubba Bubba, and also where I lost my Barbie's shoe on my birthday forcing my Dad to search all over looking for it.

I digress...Yes, the fish 'n' chip shop was named after Charlie Chaplin.  Portraits of the eponymous actor and clapperboards adorned the walls, creating its black and white theme.  I remember going there after gymnastics/swimming/ballet classes and staring at the battered fish, hoping that one day I would be big enough to order it.  Until then, it was half a bag of chips and a fish cake, served in newspaper.  If I was very lucky I might have got a pie.

Chip Shop 2 - Top Fry Fish Bar

This originally named chippy graced the second half of my childhood on Gwaunmiskin Road in Beddau (Welsh for 'graves', yes, it is a shit hole).  It was part of another soulless row of shops, next to the chemist and a pet shop where I bought my first hamster, a Spar, where I spent many an hour buying banana milkshake, dairylea lunchables and apple and cinnamon cookies, and in my later years bottles of vodka and cans of fosters.  Next door to that was Fulgoni's newsagents, where my Nan used to take us for two chocolate bars every Friday (I always chose a walnut whip, Fry's chocolate cream, white crunch bars or a caramac) and we were always eyed beadily by the owner in case we stole 1p sweets.

The chip shop was bare and drab, unlike the luxury of Chaplin's which had seats and a bit of decor.  All top fry had was a signed, framed picture of a Welsh Darts Champion (who apparently my Nan was well acquainted with) and faded posters of deep fried rissoles and Clark's Pies.  But what it lacked in looks, it made up for in taste.  The chips were delicious, and by this stage I could have fish, or battered sausage AND mushy pies or whatever I wanted.

Chip Shop 3 - Family Fish Bar

By number 3 I was in university in Cardiff, and Family Fish was THE place to go for chips if you were a student, well, at least if you lived part of Cathays (aka studentville).   Over a period 5 years I must have frequented this place hundreds of times.  If I wasn't going inside, I was either walking past on the way to the pub, stumbling past on a night home, or walking back from the Salisbury Store after buying cheese for my sausage and cheese burgers, mars bars for ice cream with mars bar sauce and pitta breads for stuffing my super noodles in.

To be honest, I can't remember exact details, as most of the time I went there it was 3 o'clock in the morning.  But I could vouch for it even when I wasn't under the influence 2 bottles of lambrini and 3 vodka-lemonades.  The batter on the fish was always crispy, the chips always fat and soggy from being doused in vinegar (I prefer fat chips to crispy chips), the mushy peas were a wonderful hue of toxic green and the Clark's Pies - if you've never eaten one, make sure you do on your next trip to Wales - were as gorgeous as always, with pastry to die for.  Luckily I managed to avoid the battered burgers.

If I couldn't wait the 10 minute walk home to Family Fish, then there was always Cardiff's infamous Chippy Lane, although I think that's another story.

Chip Shop 4 - George's Fish Bar

The latest instalment in my chippy saga.  Unfortunately the closest China got to a fish n chip shop was the filet-o-fish meal from McDonald's, so I was devoid of the chippy for that portion of my life. George's is just round the corner from where I live and I always use it as a backstop for Dave's dinner if I get in too late to cook. Most of the time I'm walking past it with bags full of vegetables bought from the Turkish grocers on Green Lanes.

George's unfortunately doesn't rank among my favourites. I'm not sure whether it's because my taste buds have evolved since Chaplin's or whether it's just not very good, but the fact that it doubles up as a fried chicken joint as well as a chip shop just demonstrates that they're not concentrating on what's important.  The fish batter is soggy, and I'm sure the fish is neither fresh nor ethically sourced. It would do in an absolute emergency for chips alone, which are just dry and disappointing, but for a good fish supper I have to delve into London proper, or better still, the seaside.



I'm not sure what exactly I'm trying to get at here, apart from egotistically wittering on about mundane moments of my life and how chip shops are occasionally involved or nearby.  I suppose what I'm trying to illustrate is how a dish so simple and commonplace as fish and chips can mean so much.

Just mention the words 'fish and chips', and a hundred smells, tastes and memories come to life. Leaning against the hot glass and staring through the brightly lit warmers in anticipation; clutching the paper parcel on the way back home and breathing in the wafts of vinegar and grease; biting into the light crispy batter to find the warm, smooth slithers of white fish inside; finding the perfect fat chip - soggy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.  This all spells perfection.

Ooh, and below (and above) are my own versions, with mushy peas and Heston’s triple cooked chips to boot.

Food faves - Lasagne

A new place, a new job, a new start and an old favourite.  I am now officially a Norf Londoner, and have waved goodbye to Dave's mum's wonderful utensil-filled, fridge-stocked kitchen to my very own.  The moment I saw the kitchen, in fact, the flat had my name on it.  For a start it's twice the size of the living room, with more worktop space you can shake a stick at, just enough cupboard space for all my flours, spices and vinegars and best of all, a gas hob.  What more could you ask for. 

One of the first meals I cooked in my lovely kitchen is an old family favourite - Lasagne.  More British than Italian now I'm sure (with chips, seriously?), I've been eating this ever since I can remember.  Apparently my Dad got it from an the owner of an Italian restaurant he knew, or something like that, and I just love it.  It's one of those dishes that I just can't order in a restaurant for fear of it not tasting the way I like it, the way I grew up with. I'd go round to friends' houses when I was little and their Mums would  make lasagne, or shepherd's pie, but one bite in and I refused to eat anymore, because 'it doesn't taste like my mummy makes it'.  I think I wasn't allowed back to a lot of friends houses for sticking my foot in it like that.  

I've made very few changes to the way my Mum made my lasagne.  As you can see I make the pasta sheets myself, and I now add celery and carrots when I'm sweating the onions to give it even more of that delicious umami flavour.  I'm not going to write the recipe as I'm sure everyone has they're own, and it's so simple. I fry the onion mixture with combined with chopped peppers, bacon and mushrooms, add tomato puree and red wine, then minced beef, chopped tomatoes, mixed herbs and beef stock (not in exactly that order), and let it all simmer for as long as I can without gobbling it all up.  A couple of pasta sheets, a bit of bechamel sauce and a handful of cheese later and this layered dish of gorgeousness emerges from the oven to be devoured within seconds.  No matter how much of this stuff I make, it always seems to be eaten in one sitting.

Behold the messiness of my kitchen 

Back to basics 3 - Ravioli

I got a pasta machine for Christmas and was very excited about cooking my own pasta.  A few people who had pasta machines told me there wasn't really much point in making pasta and that it didn't really taste much different to fresh pasta, and certainly didn't taste any better that shop bought.

Whatever they said didn't stop me from wanting to cook my own pasta.  Firstly, I judgementally thought that they couldn't be making it right if it didn't taste that good, but secondly I am obsessed with cooking things from scratch, to the point of ridiculousness.  

I would cook everything from scratch if I could, as I'm sure every foodie would.  I suppose I love it because I like to see what's going into everything I eat, and because it feels like a big achievement cooking something most people usually get from a packet.  But now there's no going back.  Now I can't buy anything from a packet if I know I can cook it.  At first it was just pesto, hummus and guacamole.  Now it's fast becoming pastry, mayonnaise, bread and...pasta.  I don't know where it will stop.  It drives Dave mad, because every night's cooking sesh turns into massive faff.  Soon I'll be rearing my own cows, churning my own butter and growing my own wheat just to make a bechamel sauce. 

The ravioli was delicious.  I filled it with a mix of smoked salmon, dill, creme fraîche and black pepper, and dressed it very simply with a few tomatoes, parsley, parmesan and olive oil.  The two don't really sound like good combination, but it worked pretty well.  I loved making the pasta. The dough was simple to make, and the rolling process was quite therapeutic.  I felt like an old washer woman drying my clothes through one of those wringer things.  It was a little thick if anything as the picture might tell, but the second attempt a few days later was much more successful.

I think I'll certainly be making ravioli from scratch from now on...   

Food faves - Linguine ai frutti di mare

Sometimes there's nothing I love more than a big bowl of pasta. I know gastronomically it's not very exciting, and I'm perfectly aware that Italian cuisine has so much more to offer, but sometimes this is all I need.   Linguine ai frutti di mare, or in Layman's terms seafood pasta, is my favourite of them all.  A gigantic bowl of this with a rocket salad, a few slices of garlic bread and a large glass of wine spells perfection for me.  Easily in my top five favourite foods.   

I'd love to tell you that I first discovered this dish while summering in Naples, in a small family restaurant down a cobbled backstreet somewhere, and the old lady who owned it told me how the recipe had been passed down through generations and the seafood had been caught locally that day by her nephew.  

I probably discovered it when I was eight in a caff on Taff street in Pontypridd, made using frozen mixed seafood from Makro (a glorified cash and carry for those of who aren't fortunate enough to have visited the Trefforest branch) and cheapo spaghetti, as a change from my usual ham, egg and chips.  When I was younger I always wanted the most exotic and most expensive thing on the menu  - and still do probably -  and whenever I went to an Italian restaurant this was always what I chose.  

Nowadays I like to think I'm a bit more discerning about where the seafood I eat comes from, as a lover of all things fresh and local, so I don't eat it all the time.  I adore seafood. If I lived near the sea I'd probably eat it all day everyday, and would probably turn into a giant clam.

Ahem, anyway...here's my take on linguine ai frutti di mare:

I am terrible at recipes, so I'm going to do this Elizabeth David style.  For two people, add enough linguine to a large saucepan of salted (and I mean salted) boiling water.  Meanwhile, put a couple of handfuls of scrubbed clams and muscles into a saucepan, add a glass of white wine, cover, and cook on a high heat for 3-4 minutes until they have opened, then set aside. In a frying pan, throw in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (not extra virgin) and heat, then a chopped clove of garlic and a chopped red chilli to the pan.  Add two tablespoons of tomato puree and stir for a couple of minutes, then add the cooking liquor from the mussels and clams.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for a few minutes until reduced.  Add a handful of large uncooked prawns and some cherry tomatoes chopped in half and cook for a couple of minutes, until cooked through.  Then add the mussels and clams, and bunch of chopped parsley, and stir through.  Season with salt and pepper - I always like a lot of cracked black pepper in this dish.  Toss the seafood with the drained pasta - sometimes I add some of the pasta water if the sauce is looking a little dry.  Sprinkle on some shavings of parmesan cheese, serve with a salad, garlic bread and a glass of wine and yum yum yum.   

Food faves - The Ultimate Burger

Every so often on a Saturday afternoon, my Dad would make us burgers.  They weren't exactly a gourmet revelation; most often frozen burgers, american plastic cheese and burger baps from tesco (I had to have the ones without the sesame seeds on top because I didn't like them), but whenever my Dad suggested burgers for lunch I would go through the roof with excitement.  

My sister and I would draw up a questionnaire of vital and not-at-all pointless questions to quiz the family on how they wanted their burger.  It looked a little like the below - don't judge the crapness as it took me bloody ages.  It's actually a very accurate representation of what my handwriting looked like circa 1998: 

If you can actually read this, you'll see it's a very comprehensive set of questions.  I typically wanted everything and as much as I could get of it (although I didn't want my bun toasted and I hate cooked pineapple).  When it arrived at the table, I spread a ton more mayo on my bun, added more lettuce and carefully stacked everything neatly on top of each other - lettuce at the bottom, followed by one slice of cheese, bacon, burger, cheese on top, pineapple and tomato.  It was truly the ultimate burger.  It looked ginormous and far surpassed the size of anybody else's.  I grabbed my weapon of greatness, opened my mouth as widely as I could, and took a big bite, trying to get everything in at the same time.  Burger juice ran down my hands, the bun was crumbling apart in my fingers, and my family threw disgusted remarks at me.  It was bliss.

Years later and the ultimate burger still exists, although in a slightly more foodie-friendly form.  Burgers are of course made by hand, using a combination of steak mince, onion, egg, parsley, ketchup, pepper and oyster sauce (it doesn't draw out the moisture like salt does), and I make them as big as I can get them without getting disdainful looks from my fellow diners.  All the trimmings still exist, although the plastic cheese is usually substituted for cheddar or monterey jack, and the pineapple, bacon and lettuce (probably something peppery rather than good old iceberg) still remain.  If I have time I make my own mayo, and have been known to make my own burger buns, but if time is of the essence and I want one NOW, I have to make do with what's on hand.

Here's one of my recent efforts, complete with potato wedges.  That's a mighty fine burger. 

Back to basics 2 - Roast lamb dinner

I've never cooked a roast dinner before in the traditional sense. I've cooked roast chicken with all the trimmings (thanks to Simon Hopkinson, delicious) and pie with veg and gravy a thousand times, although in my family a Sunday Roast constituted lamb or beef, occasionally pork and never chicken, so it doesn't count in my book.  I've even cooked a Christmas dinner before, but that was in China, the meat was cooked on the BBQ and I was hammered, so I can't even remember cooking much of it.  It was apparently very nice.

Why have I never cooked a roast dinner before? Probably out of fear of not doing it as well as my nana.  Nana used to cook us a roast every Sunday, and still does whenever I go to visit. Everyone thinks their family's Sunday dinner is the best, but my nana's is definitely the best. She's cooked it so many times I think she's becoming a roast dinner.  She drinks the cabbage water after the cabbage is cooked (apparently it's very good for you), and sticks her bare hands into the oven takes her roasties while it's still 200 degrees. My nana's Sunday lunch tastes unlike any other roast I've ever eaten.  Others may shudder; the slightest hint of pink sees the meat banished back into the oven for another two hours until it's murdered, and her vegetables are cooked until all the goodness is boiled out of them, sweetened with sugar and salted with, well...salt.  Sounds gross? Well, it's not.  It's bloody lush.  

So when I came up to visit my sister last week and she asked me to make here a Sunday lunch I bloody well went for it.  I wanted to jazz it up a bit but my creative flair, or whatever there is of it, had to take a back seat, as Helen wanted it all done as Nana makes it. I couldn't even honey glaze the carrots, although I was allowed to cook the lamb as it should be - rosy pink in the middle. 

I crammed a lamb shoulder with the deliciousness it deserves, ample amounts of garlic and rosemary, and served it with home-made mint sauce, roasties, roast parsnips, carrots, peas, a yummy gravy made with the meat juices and of course, Yorkshire puddings.  I know, I know, they're meant to go with beef, but what's a roast dinner without Yorkshires? 

Chocolate fondant and ice cream for dessert and that's a damn fine lunch.

Helen tucking in

Sunday lunch plus chocolate fondant makes for a full family

Food faves - Steak Frites

Another post series here - don't know whether this is down to my anal habit to categorise things or just because this post would look a bit silly on its own.  All the dishes in this series I've cooked countless times, because I love them.  Again, they're mainly simple dishes, down purely to my love of uncomplicated good food, cooked well.  

The first dish is my ultimate favourite and unbelievably simple steak and chips.

 I remember the first time I cooked it properly.  I was living in France and absolutely in my element.  I was still clinging to Elizabeth David's 'French Provincial Cooking' and Simon Hopkinson's 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories' (is there a post where I don't mention him?! I'm obsessed!) where I took all my recipes when I wasn't cooking Japanese food.  I went to the market for two pieces of entrecôte, bought a cast iron grill pan and hung onto their every word.  I made sure it was room temperature, seasoned with black pepper, brushed with oil and lay it on to the super hot pan.  After a couple of minutes (timed to the second at the time), I turned it over, added a big knob of butter to the pan and watched as it foamed up and turned a delicious nut brown.  Another minute or two and a sprinkling of sea salt and it was done.  So easy. And just beautiful.

Over the years I've improved it and made sauces to go with it but I've never strayed too far away from the original, because I just love it is.  My Dad made us tournedos rossini once and I loved it, but have never been able to make it myself.  Once I get the steak home I just can't bring myself to do it - it's just calling for a simple sauce, a few chips and a salad.  I will get round to the bigger stuff one day when I'm all grown up I'm sure.

One of my favourite things to serve with steak is aligot, a horrendously rich and gooey and yummy mashed potato dish with tomme de cantal cheese blended into it.  One plate of that stuff and you're floored, but I'll save that for another day...

On this occasion it was good old steak frites, made with onglet on the recommendation of the butcher as I was on a budget.  A little tough but so flavourful, I see why they call it butcher always wants to keep it to himself.  Accompanied by my take on beurre Café de Paris, a green salad and homemade bread, followed by chocolate pots, it was the perfect meal.  And then we followed it with a 5 hour marathon of Come Dine With Me.  Get in.  

Back to basics 1 - cheese soufflé and vinaigrette

Okay, so I'm going to start a series of posts dedicated to simple and classic food, done well.  Each week I cook food of varying degrees of difficulty from all over the world, but there still remain a few gaping holes in my repetoire that all budding amateur cooks need to master.  These are timeless dishes that I've always wanted to know how to make.  They're not always difficult, and often use the simplest of ingredients, which is another reason I'm cooking them- my cupboards are almost always empty, save the staples.

You know the kind of thing I mean. Classics - beef bourguignon, moussaka, steak and chips, a traditional roast dinner. Beyond this are a whole whack of other components and techniques that go into making a dish - puff pastry for a steak and ale pie, meringues for your baked alaska, custard for creme brûlée.  I suppose they're the kind of thing fellow foodies ask if you've made before and you always answer 'of course, all the time!' for fear of looking stupid.  Each time I perfect one of these dishes or master a skill, I feel like I've ticked another box and am one step closer to being a good cook.  Before me lines up another list of tasks to tick off the list, always slightly more difficult than the last - beef wellington, lobster bisque, meat glaze, millefeuille, pannacotta....

First up to the plate was cheese soufflé with a green salad and vinaigrette. Appalling, I know, but I have never made a soufflé before or for that matter a vinaigrette. What can I say? In China I was too busy cooking Chinese food, in uni I was too busy experimenting and in France I spent more time in the patisserie than anything else (plus I was going through this crazy Japanese cooking phase).

I think people shy away from dishes like soufflé because of an over-dramatised fear of it collapsing, which is the culinary equivalent of having 'failure' in giant letters stamped on your face. But it really wasn't that difficult, and I don't think it should be reserved for special occasions, fancy restaurants and trips back to the 80s.  Stick to the recipe as it largely relies on precision and timing, which is not usually my bag.  I stayed safe with Delia for this one (I'm not a big fan but she knows the staples), and it worked wonderfully.  Cheesy, light and fluffy, it went brilliantly with the salad and sharp vinaigrette (note: why have I never made vinaigrette before?! I think I have to put this down to always intending on doing it, then realising I have to chop more stuff when I'm already too hungry, so just dash oil and vinegar on my lettuce - oops).  Did it rise? Well, ish.  I'll let you judge for yourself...