Manderley...Escabeche

Last night (I dreamt) I went to Escabeche again, this time with the boy in tow, to sample the new, summer menu that they have created.  The restaurant is really doing rather well and is packed every weekend.  The turn out on a Tuesday evening after bank holiday was impressive.  Thankfully the building site next door has gone and a terraced area has been set up with chairs and tables in front of the restaurant for al fresco dining, and possibly even some barbecues later in the year.  They have also completed work on their upstairs area where they have held some live music events and a wine tasting, I hope to sample both of these kinds of events in the near future! 
We drank a crisp and fruity white rioja from the impressive wine list and our venerable host, Jon Perkins, ordered a rather decadent number of dishes for us to sample.  A selection of breads came first, cheese focaccia with garlic butter and fresh, warm pitta with home made hummus, sunblush tomato pesto and a rustic tapenade.  All the dips positively zinged with flavour and freshness.  at under £3 each the breads are a cheap and filling starter.  Next came a courgette, basil and Parmesan gratin which had been fiercely recommended by front of house protege Kat, athough she claims that she dislikes courgettes!  This pleasingly understated dish tasted of pure summer, and was one of my favourites.  We had a board of cured meats with cornichons and what was described on the menu as seasonal slaw but was actually a delectable celeriac remoulade, a bonus indeed.  We also sampled marinated halloumi fritters with a harissa dip, a tuna and Tuscan bean salad, fish and chorizo croquettes with ravigote dressing (tomatoes, capers etc) which were the right side of crunchy on the outside and melting potato inside, with smoky chorizo perfectly complementing the fish.  We moved on to a dense and flavoursome Spanish omelette, light as air tempura squid and the piece de resistance for the boy; crispy skinned pork belly with cauliflower and manchego puree, mustard leeks and a rich jus, a kind of mini roast dinner, bursting with concentrated flavours (and morsels of fabulous crackling).  All the dishes range in price from £2.85 to a maximum of £7.95 for tapas of beef or scallop and smoked salmon.  The average is £5 and the portions are generous for tapas.  Two to three dishes per person are recommended plus bread or potatoes.  Yes, purists, this isn't Spanish tapas, but as I said in my first blog about Escabeche they have taken the concept of tapas and turned it on it's head and the result is some of the most inventive, creative and delicious cooking I've sampled in ages.  We finished our meal with tiny shots of amaretto with warm cream and churros with chocolate sauce that any self respecting churerro would be proud of.  Burp.  There is also an extensive breakfast menu including interesting dishes like Kedgeree and Piperade, fine coffee, lunch offers and an afternoon tapas menu.  Why anyone is still going to cafe nero across the road I don't know.  If you haven't been yet, why?  I'm aware my opening line echoes Daphne du Maurier, and actually no, I didn't dream it, it really was that good!
 http://www.perkins-family.co.uk/?i=214141

Animals...to eat or not to eat?

Last weekend was taken up by the 10k, I made another veggie lasagna to carb it up the night before.  I also tried my hand at making some bread.  I used a sundried tomato and herb bread mixed that the folks left me when they returned to France.  It was really tasty but as usual my bread turned out doughy and stone heavy.  What am I doing wrong?  Too much kneading?  Not enough time proving?  Not enough time baking?  I'll keep experimenting....
I started reading a book which I fear is going to change my life, or at least my eating habits.  Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals has had me in tears more than once.  The author takes you on a journey to find out what meat is and where it comes from, exposing some extremely unpalatable truths along the way.  I'm only a third of the way through this book, but I feel like my thoughts on eating meat have been totally churned up.  Or, more accurately, that I have actually forced to think about what I put in my mouth for the first time in a lot of years.  (I was a vegetarian for 10 years, but after I started to eat meat again I conveniently forgot about my reasons for stopping in the first place.)
As a result of what I have been reading I felt like if I was going to eat meat this weekend I wanted it to be as locally sourced, free range and ethically produced as possible.  I did a bit of research and found a wonderful Derby based box scheme: Zest Express.
http://zestexpress.co.uk/
They deliver meat, poultry, fruit veg and lots more, sourced from suppliers who are as local as possible.  Delivery is free and next day, in a two hour slot like your usual supermarket type of delivery.  The food came in brown paper grocery bags and it looked amazing.  We got a huge bunch of beetroot and lots of other veg, a big lump of lush stilton cheese from a local dairy and lamb shanks from Barry Fitch Butchers in Little Eaton.
http://www.barryfitchbutchers.co.uk/
I will let you know how they taste.  I'm not sure how many more lamb shanks I'll be eating at this rate.....
With the Stilton and beetroot we made a salad with peppery leaves, walnuts and a mustardy dressing.  Delicious, fresh beetroot is worth the kitchen looking like you've been doing some at home butchery!

 Mmmmm, roasted roots.

Mango Tango.

After my last post I suffered a week of snuffly cold, followed by a busy and decidedly non-gourmet weekend that involved drum and bass dancing and an all you can eat Chinese buffet.  (Not both on the same evening).  The squash lasagna was very good but it didn't ward off the plague.  For the boys birthday on 29 March I was still feeling a bit rank, but there was no way I was going to miss eating out at Mango Tang.
http://www.mangotang.co.uk/ 
Mango Tang opened around June last year and does "contemporary Caribbean cuisine"; a new concept in Derby.  I was worried I might have somewhat over hyped it in my own head, but fortunately the food really was as good as I had hoped.  The decor is maybe a tiny bit strange, a lot of brown, a lot of Egyptian themed bits and bobs going on, reggae music piped in.  The restaurant is set in one huge room, and on a Tuesday night with only four or five parties dotted around the room the lone waiter could have done with some Rollerblades to get around.  However he did a sterling job, nothing was forgotten nor did we have to wait long for our food, and what food it is!  I really couldn't fault anything either of us had. 

 We commenced with an appetiser of jerk seasoned flat bread, mango chutney and plantain and sweet potato crisps, washed down with a large glass of Shiraz (for me) and a very large bottle of Red Stripe (for him).
My starter was Salt fish fritters with sauce chien (dog sauce?) a dish apparently known as "stamp and go"!  The fritters were light and crispy and the sauce was a moreish blend of chilies, shallots,coriander and allspice in a red pepper vinaigrette.  The boy went for crab and yam cakes with a garlic, orange and lime salsa.  Nice as mine was, I had total starter envy.  Those were some delicious crab cakes.

For my main I went for prawns with jerk butter, served with rice and peas, fried plantain and a jerk gravy.
The boy had a jerk snapper fillet.  I sipped my Shiraz whilst he moved on to a bottle of Jamaican Dragon Stout, apparently a great complement to jerk.
We skipped the pudding (having technically had two starters) safe in the knowledge that we had a big wedge of Jamaican cheesecake waiting for us at home from Mamuska, the Cheesecake Shop in Nottingham.


It is a real novelty eating Caribbean food like this in restaurant surroundings; my previous experience being from a stall at a festival or carnival, or at home, cooked ourselves with varying degrees of authenticity. 
I would really recommend the food but perhaps prices were a little on the high side. We got fifty percent off the food bill thanks to our Tastecard.  However for a special occasion it is worth it, I'll look forward to going again.

Suka it and see...

I've had a couple of quiet weeks following my London outing, mainly in preparation for running the Derby 10k again.  Also because my mother has given up wine for lent (foolish) so I am attempting to abstein in solidarity.  I have now come down with a cold thanks to the healthy lifestyle, which is pretty frustrating as I only have two weeks of training to go!  The plan is to eat lots of vitamin c rich stuff in a bid to get rid of the plague.  To that end I am in the process of making a butternut squash, spinach and feta lasagna, I'll let you know how it turns out.
Since I last blogged the boy and I have enjoyed plenty of tasty meals but generally I've been revisiting old favourites rather than breaking any new ground, so none of it has really been blogworthy in its own right.
We had pancakes on pancake Tuesday, with a very tasty filling of spinach, mushrooms, spring onions and blue cheese.  Every year we say how much we like pancakes and how we should eat them more often....then along comes the next pancake Tuesday.  You'll be the first to know if we eat any more pancakes this year.
We've had tuna steaks with salsa verde, a variation on the salmoriglio theme with the addition of chopped gherkins (and capers but the boy has an aversion to these so we left them out).  See my swordfish recipe last August if you like the sound (and look) of this; it was good, ever so garlicky but that is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

We've had a couple of Laabs, and enjoyed a lovely carvery out in Buxton with the folks.  I've also recreated some of the delectable dishes I sampled at Polpo, namely proscuitto wrapped artichokes, yum!
However on Saturday night we sampled one very different cuisine; Filipino.  This occured because the boy brought home a bottle of Suka Pinakurat, which caught his eye because the bottle is so cool.  It  looks like crazy, cartoon medicine.  He got it from the ever fascinating Chung Wah supermarket, a godsend in Derby which is packed with weird and wonderful foodstuffs.
Suka Pinakurat is a "spiced natural coconut vinegar" which is used a lot in the Philippines as a marinade and condiment, and goes well on just about anything by the sounds of it.  I found a recipe that combined it with soy sauce and honey and used it as a marinade for chicken thighs, served simply with a fresh salad of cucumber, tomato, onion and coriander, and plain boiled rice.  The end result was delicious, if not totally mind blowing, the Pinakurat has quite a chili kick.  I'd love to find some traditional Filipino recipes as it is a cuisine of which I have no knowledge, I have been to the Philippines but I was under the age of 10 and I can't remember much about what I ate there.  (Although I do remember feeding sponge finger biscuits to a mouse in the Manila Holiday Inn!)
Right, off to eat my lasagna, which is smelling divine, will let you know the verdict...and share the recipe.

London Lunches

At the weekend I undertook a long overdue trip down to the big smoke, and tried to cram as much food and booze as possible into a twenty hour long visit.  Rock and roll!  Friday night I arrived about 10pm and was met at King's Cross by the youngest sibling, Sebling, and his girlfriend and housemate.  Seb had informed me that the area was rife with curry houses so I'd thought it might be a good opportunity to use my tastecard.  For those of you who don't know about tastecard, it is a scheme involving a growing number of restaurants,offering two for one on meals or sometimes fifty percent off for groups.
http://www.tastecard.co.uk/
If you keep your eye on their website they often offer freebie cards for three months or so, and reasonable offers to buy them for a year.  I've had a couple now and although it used to just cover London it now covers the whole country, even Derby.  A lot of the Derby restaurants are the usual chains, Pizza Express, Zizzi, La Tasca etc.  However there is the odd independent.  The scheme is much more established in London with hundreds of restaurants partaking.  I found a promising Indian restaurant called, (rather uninspiringly) Bombay Lounge.  The food sounded good and they offered fifty percent off all food for a group of up to four people, a rarity at the weekend. 
http://www.bombayloungeislington.co.uk/
I booked online and we found the restaurant easily, mere yards from King's Cross.  The staff were really friendly despite the fact that we didn't arrive till 10pm and then were too busy talking for about half an hour to order anything.  We commenced with large beers and poppadoms which were lovely and fresh with zingy accompaniments.  I went for crab cakes as a starter and they were huge and flavoured with lots of chilis and curry leaves, not quite what I was expecting but delicious.  As a main I had a slightly disappointing duck dish, the duck being a bit bland and tasteless, however the Peshwari naan I had to go with it was gorgeous, sweet light and freshly made.  The food was a tenner each, a steal considering we all had starters, mains and side dishes.  Good times, we went home and continued the party with lots of wine, and I seem to remember listening to Haddaway , oh dear.  I stayed up far too late considering I had to leave Seb's by 12 the next day, but on Saturday I made it out of Brixton on time, albeit a trifle confused.  (I found myself buying things in Oxford Circus Topshop before I really knew what was happening, oops!)  Next on the agenda was lunch with two good old buddies that I lived with at university in Sheffield, erm, a few years ago now.  Onwards with the culinary whirlwind, breakfast was  a can of diet coke so by lunchtime I was ready for some sustenance.  We met at a place called Polpo on Beak Street. 
 http://www.polpo.co.uk/
It was so exciting meeting up with such dear old friends, it has been quite a while since we have all been together but within minutes the old banter (and red wine) was flowing.  The atmosphere in Polpo really added to the fun, it certainly is a convivial place to lunch.  Polpo is a Bacaro, which is a sort of Italian wine and tapas bar.  The staff were young and trendy and smiley, again we had the problem of talking too much to get a food order in edgeways.  When we eventually did get some food it was lush, little nibbly things such as artichokes wrapped in ham, and arancini, or risotto balls to start with, then a selection of crisp and golden fritto misto, polpette meatballs, more delectable charcuterie (sorry about the French) and a salad of roasted beetroot dressed with a rocket and walnut pesto.  The bill is a bit hazy as two bottles of red were consumed but I think it was about 30 a head.  A fab way to eat, I'd definitely come back here, loved it.
I love knowing native Londoners who know where the fuck they're going and where all the hidden gems are.  After Polpo we headed to a place called Gelupo for expresso and ice cream.  Not just any ice cream, this place is special.
http://www.gelupo.com/
Run by the team behind the restaurant Bocca Di Lupo (another story) this is the best ice cream / sorbet / granita gaff I've encountered outside of Italy.  Blood orange and grapefruit sorbets and deeply flavoured ice creams vy for your attention, and the best thing is you can ask to taste away to your hearts content, before making a choice.
Suitably restored I meandered off to catch the train (okay, don't want to disappoint you, we did fit in another bottle of red on the way), feeling totally uplifted by such culinary variety and sparkling company.  Bon viveur indeed.
I was feeling a little jaded and Mondayish today but got home from work to a nice suprise, my published articles in a brand spanking shiny copy of the Derbyshire Food & Drink guide, first edition.  That's going in the portfolio!

Love is Shellfish.

Valentine's day has been and gone, (not that we really give a toss) and as you may have guessed, the boy and I showed our devotion at the weekend with some gourmet offerings.  On Friday I made moules mariniere.  I challenge you to find a better way of showing you care.  Flowers?  Chocolates?  Sickly little teddy bear holding a lacy heart?  Try standing at the kitchen sink for an hour, scrubbing mussels and scraping barnacles in icy water; now that is true love.  It was worth it though, the mussels were plump, firm and orange, no stringy, watery creatures here.  The simple, classic sauce, consisting of shallots, garlic, white wine, butter and parsely set them off beautifully.  We accompanied the steaming bowl of shellfish with some frites and french bread and another glass or two of sauvignon blanc.  So French we could have been in gay Paree.

The boy returned the favour on Sunday with a slow cooked beef in Guinness stew, flavoured with thyme and served with new potatoes and brussel sprouts.  I felt rather jaded, due to the rubbish, rainy weather, and spent the day watching films and reading, with the comforting aroma of the stew permeating the house.  Cosy.

As an aside, I'd like to share a link with you to a couple more food and drink related blogs I have discovered lately.
http://hungryhollowaiians.tumblr.com/
The hungry Hollowaiians is a good old London friend of mine and a couple of her buddies, trying new recipes weekly in a Monday night supper club stylee.  The recipes are created, reviewed and costed in an easy to follow manner.  Rather different to the chaotic, rambling nature of this blog.  But that's why you like me, right?

http://coldcounter.co.uk/
Cold Counter is the project of friends of above London friend, executing a genius idea.  As the blog says; "We try the UK's obscure cold drinks, so you don't have to".  With tongue firmly in cheek, an ever expanding range of the strangest sodas in the country are dissected.  Best of all they take submissions.  I have a can of Red Thunder hanging around somewhere, courtesy of Aldi...not dared drink it yet though....

After such a hefty session I needed something to mop up the boozy toxins.  Perusing the kitchen cupboards for inspiration I came across a bag of pearl barley and I tracked down this recipe for a pearl barley risotto on the Channel 4 food website:
http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/healthy/pearl-barley-risotto-with-roasted-squash-red-peppers-and-rocket-recipe_p_1.html
Pearl barley risotto with roasted squash and red peppers.  It might sound  like it'd be a bit chewy and virtuous but actually it was gorgeous and perhaps healthier than a normal risotto, as pearl barley isn't quite as refined.  It certainly did the trick of making me feel wholesome again.