Cake Britain

If you have ever wanted to feel like Hansel and Gretel and eat your way through your surroundings, then make sure you go to the Cake Britain exhibition being held at the Future Gallery. This edible art exhibition is only around for 3 days but on Sunday (29th August), visitors will be invited to eat their way through the art. I popped in yesterday to see the (uneaten) exhibits in their pure form and was impressed by the stag head coloured with sugar crystals. Most of the ‘art’ was created by artists but there was also a competition for the best decorated cake. Sponsored by Tate and Lyle, this made for a sweet exhibition.

Cake Britain, Future Gallery, London 27-29th August 2010

http://www.madartiststeaparty.com/

Tequila - it makes me happy: Mestizo Review

Lately, I’ve noticed an increase in popularity of “authentic” Mexican restaurants in London. Now, I’ve had many an enjoyable TexMex meal over the years, but having spent a bit of time travelling in Mexico myself, I am keen to see how our capital is representing the country’s fine cuisine. I’ve visited Wahaca a few times which does a pretty good take on Mexican street food, but for a while I’ve been keen to check out Mestizo’s more substantial dishes.

Located on Hampstead Road, close to Euston Station, Mestizo is a smart, contemporary place with a very impressive bar, said to contain a choice of around 120 tequilas. They are currently holding a Margarita Festival (August 2010) and so we were promptly handed a three page margarita menu with variations on the famous cocktail (verging from the inspired to the ridiculous – a Tiramisu Margarita, anyone?!). We ordered a classic and a cherry version to have with our complementary nachos, and fortunately, we chose correctly. I’d even go as far as to say that the Classic was probably the best margarita I’ve had in London.

Although tempted by the tamales, it was the main courses we were there for, and so we went straight for their house specialty, the Molcajete ‘Mestizo’. We chose the chicken version in a chipotle sauce and it arrived shortly after in an impressive, big, sizzling stone pot, which kept the temperature so well I could still feel the steam coming off it ten minutes after it had arrived at our table. This Mexican stew contains (along with the chicken and chipotle sauce) cheese, chorizo, whole spring onions, coriander and avocado; and it’s served with tortillas so you do a bit of DIY to make your own tacos. It was rich and tasty, with the chipotle sauce giving it a that lovely smoky flavour, although chilli fans should not expect to feel a burn It’s more of a comforting, warmth and worked well with the icy zingy margaritas.

With eight tortillas between us, we were pretty stuffed afterwards, so given that we were not particularly inspired by the deserts (Mexican crème caramel, an assortment of ice-creams, cheesecake etc) we skipped straight to coffee. An Americano for me was nothing special (disappointingly, no mention of it being made with Mexican coffee beans) but my boyfriend was duly impressed by the cafe cortado, as he has failed to find a London establishment which can serve a proper cafe cortado or follow his instructions on how to make one. This is definitely more upmarket than your typical Mexican restaurant (think Chilango, Benito’s Hat, the new Chipotle) and the prices reflect this. Most of the mains were around £14, with starters and tacos tending to be around the £7 mark. They were amenable to groups (we saw them twice moving tables together to fit a large group) but it still managed to avoid that cheesy, forced party atmosphere that so many TexMex restaurants try to promote to bring in the Saturday crowds. Will I be back? I don’t see any reason why not to, but on the other hand, I’m just as likely to skip the food and instead head straight to the downstairs bar for some more delicious margaritas, the Classic of course!

Food: 7/10

Ambiance: 7/10

Service: 6/10

Value for money: 5/10

Overall: 6/10

I Heart Bento Boxes

I've always liked the idea of Bento boxes - a bit of that, some of this, etc, etc. I recently thought I'd look them up online and I've found tonnes of youtube videos on how to make them.

Here are my two favourites but I can't believe they both make octopus sausages. Is this traditional?




And now one showing true devotion! Cool egg mould! (Just ignore the music)

Unpleasant coloured food and drink

There are certain colours that food should not be: blue and grey.

Blue is just wrong and I don’t expect anyone to dispute that (although I did have a friend who said that as a child they used to be given ‘Alien Scrambled Eggs’ on a Saturday morning by her father who was a dab hand with the food colouring!)

Grey is actually found in a few dishes but has Dickensian connotations of thick lumpy porridge or thin, watery gruel.

With this in mind, I was surprised recently by the new milkshake introduced by a certain fast food chain as part of their Summer menu: the Mars Milkshake - a more un-summery, unappetising drink I can’t imagine. Even in the name of research, I wasn’t keen on tring it but then today I noticed a new poster with the drink contents all touched up to be a deep brown. Presumably business has been slow!

Coronation Chicken in a Warm Baguette

The base of this recipe came from Economy Gastronomy but with a few frugal tweaks, plus the inability to follow any recipe rigidly. This is amazing served in a crunchy, warm baguette with a bit of lettuce and lots of napkins on hand for spillage, because you can’t help but overfill with this mix!
-

You only need a bit of coconut milk so next time, I’d probably try to do it in a week when we were having a curry with a coconut base. Otherwise, you have to become creative. In the end, I just added it to a tropical smoothie I was making (pineapple, banana, mango, milk and the rest of the coconut milk tin).

Ingredients:

Left over chicken, shredded

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 dessertspoon of curry powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric

100ml stock

100ml coconut milk

200g mayonnaise (try Helman’s Extra Light – it’s really good!)

2 tsp chopped herbs (coriander is ideal but don’t buy it especially)

2 tbsp desiccated coconut toasted

-

Method:

-

Fry the onion and garlic in a little bit of oil until soft. Add all of your spices and fry lightly for about 30 seconds (You’ll get an amazing smell!)

-

Add the stock and coconut milk. Boil until its mostly dry. It will not look particularly attractive at this stage but have faith(!)

-

Allow it to cool completely. Add the mayonnaise, herbs and toasted coconut. Mix together well. Add the cooked chicken, shredded or diced into small bits.

-

Serve in a warm baguette. Lush!

Chicken Fajitas

We are big fans of Mexican food in our household. The food is so fresh and vibrant, and inherently fun to eat. None more so than fajitas. This is a great recipe for fajitas and a great way of using up leftover meat.

-

The secret ingredient here is chipotle paste, which are smoked, dried jalapeno peppers. We found this in Waitrose, made by the Discovery brand. We usually avoid using the pre-made sauces and kits, but this is a great little ingredient, especially given that we cannot easily make this ourselves. A teaspoon of this stuff goes a long way, and we keep finding more and more uses for it.

-

Ingredients:

-

Left over chicken, shredded

1 onion

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Sprinkling of allspice

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 tin of plum tomatoes

3 teaspoons of chipotle paste

¼ iceberg lettuce

Cheese

Sour cream

4 Tortillas

-

Method:

-

Cut the onion into slices. Heat up some oil in a large frying pan, and add the onion, sugar, cinnamon, allspice and some salt and pepper. Cook for a medium-high heat for 15 minutes. Then add the chopped garlic and cook for another 5 minutes.

-

Add the tin of plum of tomatoes, breaking up the tomatoes into smaller pieces with the back of your spoon. Now add the chipotle paste. Stir in a teaspoon at a time and have a taste to get the spiciness right for your tastes. We like it spicy so we put in 3 teaspoons. Cook on a gentle simmer for 15 minutes.

-

During this time, prepare your accompaniments. Finely spread the lettuce and grate the cheese. Place these in separate bowls and put on the table, along with the sour cream. Heat the tortillas in a frying pan with a splash of water to stop it from sticking.

-

Once the sauce has been simmering for 15 minutes check the consistency. It should be fairly thick by now. If not, cook for a big longer. Stir the shredded chicken into the sauce and give it a good stir.

Vietnamese Cold Noodle Salad

This is yummy on a scorching hot day but you do need to enjoy chopping or have some kind of device that juliennes the vegetables for you easily. Otherwise, you might go stir crazy cutting matchstick size slices!

This comes from our faithful book Blue Ginger by Les Huyh although we added the chicken to his vegetarian salad which we love. The dressing is amazing, so we always make extra and fire up the heat with an extra chilli or two.

-

We were pleasantly pleased to see Bill Granger doing an incredibly similar recipe on Saturday Morning Kitchen. Pure coincidence but we decided to try the wine recommendation as we spotted in Sainsbury’s later that week. It was very drinkable and reminded us of Sauvignon Blanc.We thought it would have gone better with prawns or oysters rather than chicken but what do we know?!

-

Ingredients:

Nuoc Cham -
2 long red chillies
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons sugar (we use palm sugar)
Juice of 1 lime
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar

Salad -

2 Portions of rice noodles

2 carrots

1 cucumber

¼ iceburg lettuce (optional)

1 handful of mint leaves

Left over chicken, shredded

-

Method:

First make the Nuoc Cham. Pound the chillies and garlic into a paste with a pestle and mortar (or use a small food processor. Add the sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and vinegar with 2 tablespoons of water. Stir well until the sugar dissolves.

-

Now cook the noodles. Boil the kettle, place the noodles in a large bowl, and then cover the noodles with boiling water for about 10 minutes or until they are soft. Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables. Julienne the carrots and cucumber and finely shred the lettuce.

-

Mix together the vegetables, mint, chicken, noodles and Nuoc Cham. Serve.

-

Wine: Sainsburys TDD Albarino Rias Baixas 2009