Double Chorizo

Among the numerous and crowded stalls in the Borough Market is the outdoor grill connected to Brindisa, the local purveyor of Spanish foods. During lunch hours, especially on Thursday and Friday with City workers migrating south of the river for a tasty and hassle-free lunch and even moreso on a sunny day, the Borough Market is a madhouse. People are milling about eager for samples or debating which stall will best satisfy their hunger. The decision already seems outright near impossible with each stall offering something almost entirely unique to the rest of the market at extremely high quality. But if your mood is for a simple taste of Spain and easy to get to, then perhaps the grill at Brindisa standing slightly on the outer rim of the market with a queue significantly shorter (or moving quicker) than those more inside the building will be the best choice. It is the minimalist and meaty chorizo roll attracting a crowd.


The queue at the stall moves quickly with the assembly line of grill, pay, and serve operating at full steam. The roll is toasted drizzled with olive oil before piled on with a single or double serving of chorizo, argula / rocket, and roasted red peppers and handed to you in a napkin. The combination is beautiful with the spicy richness of hot chorizo, peppery hints in arugula, and the sweetness of the red pepper. In addition to serving as a vessel, the roll is a great sponge to soak up any of the extra oils from the chorizo and peppers. As a mobile choice, you can easily enjoy the chorizo roll while browsing the other stalls at the market.

Brindisa at Borough Market. The Floral Hall, Stoney Street, Borough Market, London SE1

Mandalay

The unassuming and informal interior should not serve as deterrence from entry to the exotic cuisine prepared within at Mandalay. The Burmese cuisine has flavors likened to Chinese, Indian, and Thai expressed mainly though stir-fry and curry dishes. Although small, tables fill up quickly with diners, especially towards the weekends so reservations are recommended.

One of the most recommended items by word of mouth is the coconut curry, which goes very well with the coconut rice. The coconut flavor is more savory than sweet with a hint of spiciness. As the curry is has less viscosity, it is best absorbed in rice as the noodles do not take in as much of the liquid.

Portions are satisfying and accommodate your budget. This is an excellent place to have a relaxed, informal meal on a budget and embark on a Burmese gastronomical adventure.

Mandalay Burmese Restaurant. 444 Edgware Road, London W2 1EG, England

Csirke Paprikás

You could argue that the national spice of Hungary is paprika because it is present in about every dish. The favorite Hungarian expression of the spice is in csirke paprikás, a chicken stew with a lot of sweet paprika, cream or sour cream called tejföl with nokedli or a sort of gnocchi-like noodle. The chicken is served cut on the bone and very tender. The paprika flavor is more sweet than spicy, but not overwhelming with the sour cream to complement the pungency of the sauce. You can mix the paprika sauce with the noodles at your leisure, but it is also good with rice.


The dish was sampled at Stex Ház, a restaurant popular with locals and internationals alike for good and traditional national food at good prices. On weekends, you might have to wait about 10 minutes to be seated at a table. The wide menu selection covers traditional Hungarian food as well as international favorites. Beers on tap include the Dreher, Pilsner Urquell, and Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier. If you feel the need, there is also a casino at the back where you can try your hand at winning.

Stex Ház. Budapest VIII., József krt. 55-57. a Baross utcánál. www.stexhaz.hu

Manzara - Borek

En route to Portobello Road, the window displays at Manzara catch the eye with its varieties of pide and borek lining the window shelves. Turkish borek at Manzara is a pastry made of phylo dough filled with spinach and feta cheese. Outside, borek may be found with a number of differnt fillings. It is a simple food made for take away for easy consumption while walking.

£2.95 will get you an order of borek for take away. They will stick it back in the oven for you to heat up nicely and put it in a paper bag with a napkin. The filling is adequate and tasty, though the dough is not necessarily cooked the way through (the least bit soggy or uncooked closer to the filling) while delicately flaky on the outside. Very tasty and light.

Manzara. 24 Pembridge Road, Notting Hill, W11 3HL

Spicy (Hot) Chocolate Cookies

In celebration of all that is good (or bad) about Valentine's Day, you need a good cookie to match. Commercial Valentine's Day has put so much emphasis on chocolate that it would be an obvious flavor option. The cookie needed something hot to mirror the the burning desire of love or the fire of fury from love turned to hate. Not just a spicy flavor, but heat. You should taste the sweet richness of chocolate ending with heat drifting up the back of your throat. Thus, the hunt for a spicy hot cookie began.

Most recipe searches resulted in a spiced cookie rather than one with real heat, best done by chili, peppers, or infused oil. Keep in mind that the aim is heat and not the flavor of something hot. As a fan of the chewy cookie variety, the recipe was altered to replace some of the white sugar with dark brown sugar (in this case muscovado). The extra heat added at the end is to remind you of the fires burning within your own heart. This cookie with its lovely chocolate goodness is slightly chewy with a consistency inside reminiscent of a fudgy brownie followed by subtle heat creeping up your throat and...Success!!!

Spicy Hot Chocolate Cookies
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 big pinch crushed red chili flakes
2 dashes ground cinnamon
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 bar chocolate, chopped - or - 1/2 cup chopped chocolate
Sprinkles (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat butter with electric mixer or whisk until creamy. Add sugars and beat until light in color, 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add egg and beat 1 minute. Add salt, cocoa powder, chili powder, chili flakes, and cinnamon and mix in gently, a few stirs. Mix in flour until dough is made before adding chopped chocolate.

Put some sprinkles on a plate. Make balls of about 1 1/2 inch diameter and press ball onto sprinkles to flatten dough and adhere sprinkles. Place onto ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 11 minutes. Cool on racks.

Ginger Cookies with Lemon Icing

After testing out a chewy chocolate ginger cookie recipe, the chocolate chunks made the cookie a little too rich. Perhaps something lighter to go with the gingery cookie instead. What else does go well with ginger? Maybe something light like lemon? With the afternoon cuppa, sometimes a nice biscuit is enjoyed with the tea. Twinings has a popular tea selection that would also go well with the cookie: lemon and ginger or "LG" as it is affectionately called. Let's get on it.

Molasses is not a common commodity in the UK so a substitute had to be made. Substitute 1 cup of molasses with 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar and 1/4 cup water. Better than using dark brown sugar (though containing molasses) is muscovado sugar, which has a stronger molasses flavor due to the addition of sugar cane juice. Varities sold in stores include "light muscovado" and "dark muscovado" and tends to be darker than its respective sugar relatives.


Reviews of the original recipe used declared that the ginger flavor was too strong and overpowering, which was most likely due to the fresh ginger. Fresh ginger was omitted and replaced with slightly more ground ginger. The subtlety of a ginger cookie should not overwhelm the palate as you sip your tea. You are trying to enjoy both at the same time. Thus, the chocolate chunk aspect was also removed and replaced with a lemon royal icing.

The cookie is very light and refreshing, but sweet enough to satisfy the sugar tooth. The lemon icing also gave the cookie a nice zing.

Chewy Ginger Cookies with Lemon Icing (adapted)
7 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3 somewhat heaping teaspoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses (or substitute)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa. In a separate bowl, beat butter and grated ginger until whitened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add molasses; beat until combined.

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 teaspoons boiling water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking-soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats. Roll dough into 2-inch balls and roll dough balls in granulated sugar. Put on baking sheets about 2 inches apart and bake until surfaces crack slightly, about 18 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Drizzle lemon icing over cookie.


Lemon Icing
Confectioner's Sugar
Lemon Juice
Slight splash of milk

Combine confectioner's sugar, splash of milk, and a small squeeze of lemon juice and mix to desired consistency. The less liquid you use, the thicker the icing will show up and the quicker it will dry.

Light and Fluffy Buckwheat Breakfast Pancakes

Using buckwheat instead of regular flour results in a taste that is more earthy. It is also valued because it can be used as a gluten-free alternative. The model pancake for comparison are the homemade ones fresh from the griddle from an American diner. Several buckwheat pancake recipes have been tested in vain resulting to dense discs of buckwheat dough. The tried and tested trick to making anything lighter is to separate the eggs and whip the egg whites to soft peaks and folding into the mixture.

The buckwheat pancakes are incredibly light and fluffy. After eating two, the stomach does not feel weighed down by a rich pancake and you are left feeling very satisfied. A light drizzle of the best maple syrup is the perfect way to top off the pancakes.

Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes
1¼ cups milk
4 large
eggs, separated
1 cup
buckwheat flour
dash of salt
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
Butter or canola oil as needed for greasing pan
Small carton of blueberries

Separate eggs. Beat together milk and egg yolks. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites with a whisk or electric mixer until stiff but not dry.

Combine dry ingredients and milk-yolk mixture, stirring to blend. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites; they should remain somewhat distinct in the batter.

Add about 1 tsp. butter or oil to a preheated griddle or skillet. Add batter by heaping Tablespoon, making sure to include some of the egg whites in each spoonful. Sprinkle with blueberries. Cook until lightly browned on the bottom, 3 to 5 minutes, then turn and cook until second side is brown. Serve, or hold in a 200° oven for up to 15 minutes.

Xiao Long Bao

The hunt for good xiao long bao in London is a laborious effort, requiring a significant amount of time trolling the internet for restaurants and blog entries from fellow foodies along with carefully analyzing each one. Xiao long bao is a shanghainese dumpling commonly made with pork or crab with soup on the inside made from a meat gelatin that turns to broth when heated. Outside of Shanghai, it seems that Joe's Shanghai in New York City is the next best match with its lovely parcels of goodness resting on a bed of cabbage in a bamboo steamer.

The proper way to eat xiao long bao is to first gently lift the dumpling from the bamboo basket without ripping the sides. If it rips, all the precious broth will spill out. This has proved to be a difficult feat if the dumplings are stuck together in the steamer, the wrapper gets stuck to the steamer or the paper in the steamer it is sitting on. At Joe's Shanghai, this is easily avoided as the dumplings are on a bed of steamed cabbage to prevent sticking. After successfully retrieving the in-tact dumpling, dip in the vinegar sauce with ginger before placing on the Chinese soup spoon. Over a bowl of rice (a personal recommendation and best to catch and absorb any of the nice bits that may fall off of the spoon) and using the spoon as foundation and chopsticks as support, carefully bite a small piece of the dumpling near or around the top to create an small opening from which you can suck out the hot broth. Now you can also start taking bites of the dumpling inside.

After sampling xiao long bao at the most recommended Chinese restaurants in London, the siu luong bao from Leong’s Legends is the current winner. Although the skin is the slightest bit thin, the xiao long bao is full of broth compared to its counterparts at Chinese Experience and Pearl Liang, edging out its competition. The broth bursts into hot joy in your mouth. The majority of the xiao long bao from Chinese Experience does not have as much broth and breaks or is already broken, though still really good. The dipping sauce at Chinese Experience might be better as well.

Xiao long bao is a deal at Leong’s Legends for a bamboo steamer of 8 for only £5.00, while a steamer of 3 at Chinese Experience is £3.20. Watch out for the “SC” on the receipt, which is the discreetly added service charge. Sampling the xiao long bao at Leong’s Legends is definitely a must while in Chinatown.

Leong’s Legends. 4 Macclesfield Street, London, W1D 6AX

Paticlan Dolmasi (Stuffed Eggplant)

The light and delicious stuffed eggplant from Çiya Sofrasi in the Asia Side neighborhood Kadıköy in Istanbul induced an intense craving for more. No longer reaping the benefits of the foodie destination, a home-made version of this dish was attempted.

When roasting the eggplant, the skin was left on for its nutritional value. After roasting, the eggplant shells were a little tough and pliable, not soft for easy cutting. Perhaps this was user error as the oven used tends be hotter than the dial indicated and the eggplant did not need to be roasted as long. The original recipe for the filling was generous requiring more eggplants. The extra filling would perform well in a wrap with fresh greens as it is flavorful and wholesome.

The final result was more aesthetically pleasing though the taste was not what was expected. Although the flavor of the meat in this recipe was subtle, the stuffed eggplants served at Çiya were made without meat and if they were, the taste was even less noticable.


Recipe ideas that resulted from this run were:

• Leaving more of eggplant pulp in the shell
  
• Substituting ground beef for roasted eggplant pulp
  
• A combination of the first two

Patlican Dolmasi (Stuffed Eggplant) Serves 6 People adapted
6 Japanese eggplants uniform in shape
Olive Oil
1/4 cup water
1 Tbs Lemon juice

For stuffing:
2 Tomatoes, sliced thin
1 lb very lean Ground Beef
1 large or 2 medium Onions, chopped
1 small can Diced Tomatoes
1/2 bunch Parsley
1/2 cup Pine Nuts
4 cloves chopped Garlic
1 tsp Allspice
1 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Clove
1/4 tsp Dried Mint
1/4 tsp Dill
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (add more if desired)
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Salt
Olive Oil
1/2 cup basmati rice

Cut eggplants in half (not lengthwise). Remove pulp. Slather the eggplants with olive oil. Place in baking dish and cook in the oven at 375°F until tender (about 1 hour).

In a large skillet, sauté onions, garlic and pine nuts in olive oil. Add ground meat and brown, making sure the ground beef is in uniform small pieces. Add spices, currants and stir well. Add can of tomatoes and rice. Stir, reduce to simmer and cover until rice is cooked (about 20 minutes - you may want to add more water for rice). Remove from heat.

Remove the eggplants from oven. Place the ground beef mixture in the center of each eggplant. Place tomato slices on top. Drizzle liberally with water and lemon juice to the baking dish and cover the dish so that it is air-tight. Bake at 450°F for 30-45 minutes. Serve.

Afghani Chicken with Spinach

A delicious meal at Afghan Kitchen off Upper Street in the London Borough of Islington inspired experimentation in the kitchen to recreate the experience. After trolling the internet for an authentic sounding recipe with ingredients found in most major United Kingdom grocery stores, the attempt to cook this unfamiliar dish could commence.

A whole evening was set aside for the endeavor as traditional stews take a significant amount of time to come to fruition. Most stews have humble origins originally being cast aside as food from the peasants, but usually that is where the best dishes come from. A slight change was made to the original recipe to adapt to a modern palate. Instead of using lamb, chicken breast was substituted. The taste of lamb is quite heavy, so chicken breast is suggested so the eater would not feel so heavy after the meal.

The only disappointment with this recipe is that the outcome did not result in a predominately spinach dish, lacking that deep green color expected. Cardamom was also neglected from the dish from haste and no suitable substitute could be found.

Time and patience paid off to excellent results. Overall, this dish was amazing and full of exotic flavor. The texture was thick and somewhat creamy, going well with basmati rice. Next time it is prepared, more crushed red pepper should be added to match the heat of the dish’s color.



Afghani Chicken with Spinach (adapted)
3 Chicken breasts
1/3 cup olive oil
3/4 lb onions; diced large
4 tsp Chopped garlic
2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp Ground cardamom
1 tsp crushed red pepper -- or to taste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
32 oz Can tomatoes; drain & chop
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 lb Fresh spinach; wash & drained
1/2 cup yogurt (natural Greek was used)
1 Tbsp Grated lemon peel
Salt; to taste
1/4 cup pine nuts (pan roasted for about 3 minutes)

Sear chicken in olive oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven. Remove chicken and cover with foil to set aside. Add onions and sauté for 2 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add turmeric, nutmeg, cardamom, crushed red pepper and cinnamon and sauté the mixture for 1 to 2 minutes more, being careful not to burn the onions or garlic. Add tomatoes and chicken stock and stir. Cut up chicken breasts and add to pan, mixing well.

Cover the dish and bake at 350 F for about 1 hour until the meat is tender. Remove the dish from oven and add spinach, stirring until the spinach is wilted and blended in. Allow stew to cool slightly. Add yogurt, lemon peel and salt to taste. Sprinkle with roasted pine nuts.

**Optional: Extra frozen spinach (thawed) to make spinach more pronounced