Urban fox

  • January 24, 2010 9:52 am

Fox curled up in the corner of the back garden

Many people see them as just a pest, but it was hard to feel that when I woke up this morning to see this lovely creature curled up asleep in the corner of the back garden. He looked very peaceful and in good condition and helpfully looked up at just the right point when I opened the window to take a picture of him. Trying to get a close up was more tricky; although I stalked him quite successfully  - getting to within about 5m – as soon as he heard the camera he looked up and saw me then scarpered pretty quick.

Prosciutto, goats cheese and membrillo mouthfuls

  • January 23, 2010 7:32 pm

These delicious little mouthfuls are very easy to prepare and extremely moorish. They have a lovely combination of flavours, a fruity sweetness from the membrillo (quince paste) that combines brilliantly with the salty umami taste of the prosciutto and goats cheese.

I first came across them in one of my favourite local restaurants, del Parc near Archway north London, which serves modern tapas with a North African twist. Having enjoyed it so much there, when I came across membrillo in the Special Selection fixture in Sainsbury’s I saw the opportunity to recreate it at home. I’ve since found a similar recipe in Nigella’s book Feast, which substitutes membrillo for fig paste, and although I haven’t tried it imagine is equally scrummy.

All you have to do is cut the prosciutto into pieces about an inch wide (or fold in half to get this size if that’s easier), put a dollop of goats cheese (mild and creamy is best so as not to over power the other flavours) and a teaspoonful of membrillo in the middle.  Then roll the prosciutto up so that the goats cheese and membrillo create the filling.

You could put a few on a plate with some salad leaves as a starter or just put them all on plate together in the centre of the table, as I did for lunch today, and let people help themselves. And probably fight over the last one!

Prosciutto, goats cheese and membrillo

Tufnell Park Incident – Helicopter landing

  • January 23, 2010 4:56 pm

Helicopter at Tufnell Park

At 4.20pm this afternoon there was a flurry of excitement at Tufnell Park when several fire engines, police vans and ambulances pulled up outside the tube station. A few moments later a Virgin air ambulance began circling overhead at very low altitude. Then, much to the surprise of the crowd that had formed around the edge of the police tape, the helicopter landed right in the middle of the junction outside Tufnell Park tube. According Transport for London website the incident was caused by a person under a train.

Tufnell park tube incident

Sushi!

  • January 17, 2010 12:11 pm

Eating Sushi

If you enjoy eating sushi then making your own is really fun and not too difficult; the picture above is some that we made and ate with friends last night. The hardest thing you’ll probably find it is getting hold of the ingredients that you need. The main things that you will need are sushi rice, rice vinegar, wasabi, nori sheets and very fresh fish. You should be able to get hold of almost everything, except the fresh fish, in a large supermarket. Or, if you go to a Japanese shop, you can stock up on these items as they last for quite a while in the cupboard.  The fresh fish is a bit harder as, to ensure that it’s delicious, it will need to be sashimi grade and no more than 2 days old.

If you live in London then my favourite Japanese shop is Atari-ya (‘atari’ means local in Japanese, and ‘ya’ means shop) and they have 4 branches across the city. They are run by Japanese people and usually you’ll find you’re the only non-Japanese person in the shop. You can buy a large variety of sashimi grade fish in any quantity you like, along with all the store cupboard ingredients you need. Alternatively, Borough Market has a great fish mongers and, particularly on a Friday, they’ll have fish that is fresh enough to eat raw. Otherwise you’ll need to find a good fish monger local to you and ask their advice in there about what they have that is fresh enough to be used in sushi.

Once you’ve got hold of all the ingredients then the first thing that you need to do is make the vinegared rice or su-meshi (‘meshi’ is the Japanese word for rice but also means meal, because rice is such a staple in Japan).

Su-meshi

200g Japanese short grain rice
40ml/8 tsp rice vinegar
20ml/4 tsp caster sugar
5ml/1 tsp salt

First put the rice in a pan and rinse it several times in water to remove most of the starch. Then cover with fresh water that comes about half a centimeter above the rice.  Place the pan on a low heat with a lid on and cook for around 15 minutes until the rice has absorbed all the water. After about 10 minutes you’ll need to check it every couple of minutes to test a couple of grains and see if they are cooked. Also keep and eye out to make sure that it doesn’t start  burning on the bottom on the pan if all the water has been absorbed. If it gets to this stage but the rice is still a bit hard in the middle then just add a bit more boiling water from the kettle.

While the rice is cooking mix the sugar and salt into the vinegar and stir until it’s all dissolved and the solution is clear. Then put some clingfilm down on a work surface and spread the rice out on top of it. Sprinkle the vinegar mixture over the rice and use a spatula to move the rice around a bit to get it evenly covered with the vinegar, then leave to cool.

Sushi rolling matt

Once the rice is cool you can use it to make whatever sort of sushi you feel like. The ones I made last night were really simple: salmon nigiri and salmon and avocado maki rolls. To make the nigiri hand form the sushi into small oblong cubes, add a smear of wasabi and lay a piece of salmon on top. To make the maki rolls you’ll need a sushi rolling matt (see picture above). Lay a sheet of nori on the smooth side of the matt, spread a layer of rice about half a centimeter thick on top add strips of salmon and avocado along the middle of the rice and a long smear of wasabi then roll using the matt.

Salmon nigiri and shiso leave with wasabi

Jerusalem artichokes with beef and red cabbage

  • January 13, 2010 10:27 pm

Knowing that we are in Jerusalem artichoke season (November – February) I’ve been keeping an eye out for them in my local Sainsbury’s for the past couple of months. So I was pleased to spot some last week and popped a bag in my trolley.  They made a nice accompaniment to this beef and red cabbage and an interesting alternative to potatoes.

Jerusalem artichokes with beef and red cabbage

I cooked them just as you would potato wedges: quick scrub, halved then into a tray with olive oil, salt and pepper at about 200°. Having over-cooked them slightly I think that they probably cook quicker than potatoes and really only need about 25 minutes in the oven like this.

Roast Jerusalem Artichoke

Jerusalem artichokes are part of the sunflower family and having read up a bit on them sound pretty easy to grow, so I might have a go this year.

Laksa-style prawn noodle soup

  • January 10, 2010 10:13 pm

This was supper tonight, adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe to suit the ingredients we had available. It’s pretty quick to make and the recipe can easily be flexed to use up whatever you’ve got in the fridge, provided you’ve got a few key ingredients in the cupboard. Laksa has some lovely fresh and fragrant flavours in (similar to Thai cuisine) but also a hot, sweet and sour combination, which is perfect to warm you up when it’s cold and snowy outside.

Prawn laksa noodles

Serves 2

From the store cupboard: 2 limes, 2 tablespoons fish sauce, 2 cloves of garlic, chunk of ginger, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, olive oil, tamarind paste, 400ml can of coconut milk, 80ml chicken stock, a few frozen kaffir lime leaves (available in Thai shops)

Whatever you’ve got to hand along the lines of: 200g prawns (or other fish or chicken), a couple of chillies (ideally red, but green is fine or some chilli powder), rice or noodles (any sort you like but I think that thin rice noodles are good), some herbs to garnish (coriander ideally, but flat leaved parsley or cress work well), any vegetables you like (I used a few mushrooms)

Take chillies, garlic, ginger, lime leaves and coriander stalks if you have them, chop finely and then grind to a paste in a pestle and mortar. Then add sesame oil, fish sauce, lime zest and juice.

Laksa paste

Fry off this paste in a wok or large non-stick pan for a minute or so, then add tamarind paste, coconut milk and chicken stock. After simmering for a few minutes add pre-cooked noodles and prawns. Serve and add chopped herbs as a garnish.

If you’re using chicken or other meat you’ll either need to fry it in a separate pan first to ensure it’s cooked properly, or add right at the beginning with the paste and cook the whole thing for a bit longer.

Sledging on snowy Hampstead Heath

  • January 10, 2010 11:20 am

Sledging on Parliament Hill

Well, it’s still not quite gardening weather but the scenes on Hampstead Heath were very picturesque.  And at least a bit of sledging helps you build up a good appetite…

Squirrel proofing bird feeders

  • January 3, 2010 5:41 pm
Squirrel eating a mushroom in Regent's Park

Squirrel eating a mushroom in Regent's Park

Having bought some bird seed the other day I decided to hang it from the apple tree at the end of the garden. So I took some string and tied it around a branch of the tree at one end and the around the hook of the bag at the other. It lasted less than an hour before the squirrels identified it and had gnawed through the plastic netting scattering all the nuts and seeds on the ground.

In my second attempt I decided to use thin green garden wire to hang the bag from and this time hang it quite a bit lower. I watched the squirrels from the kitchen window as they identified that their food store had been replenished. This time it wasn’t so easy for them to access, although I enjoyed several amusing minutes watching them try. First trying to hang upside down holding on to the branch above with their back claws, then looking up from the ground and finally attempting to reach it from the branch of the tree. Satisfied that I had out-smarted them I left them to it.

So I was surprised when I looked out of the window the next day to see that the whole bag was missing. Closer inspection revealed that a squirrel had managed to hoist the entire bag up and over the branch that it was hanging from  allowing them once again to consume all the nuts inside. Pretty impressive given that the nuts must weight close to the body weight of a squirrel.

In my third attempt I’m pleased so say that I have been more successful and I think finally beaten the squirrels. This time I used much thicker, less pliable wire (probably 6 mm across) and hung the bag on an even longer length of wire so further down from the branch. I would recommend this as a quick, easy and cheap solution if you want to prevent squirrels from eating all the nuts that you’ve intended to feed birds with. I think it’s also much more attractive than the big cage solutions that you can buy and also has the advantage that if you want to try to photograph birds on the feeder you don’t have this ugly metal contraption in the way.

P1000472

Pink dusk across the City

  • January 2, 2010 6:53 pm

Since it’s still too cold to really start any work in the garden yet we went for a walk on Hampstead Heath instead.  At about 3.30pm the sun was already sinking into the horizon casting a soft pink light across London.

Boiled quail eggs

  • January 1, 2010 10:41 pm
Placed in boiling water and cooked for 2 minutes and 20 seconds

Placed in boiling water and cooked for 2 minutes and 20 seconds

I was given a tray of quail eggs and planned to boil them to use in a salad. Having looked in cook books and on the web I found it difficult to find any good advice on how long a quail egg takes to cook to achieve a well cooked white but nice soft yolk, so had to use trial and error. Luckily I had a tray of 12 so could afford to make a couple of mistakes along the way.

The first one I cooked for 2 minutes but came out rather runny. The second I increased to 2 minutes and 20 seconds, which is what you see in the picture above, but this was still slightly on the underdone side.  The remaining I cooked for between 2 minutes and 30 seconds and 2 minutes and 45 seconds and I would say that was about perfect.