True to my procrastinating nature, it seems when life hands me exams, all I want to do is bake. Unfortunately Time will not permit me that indulgence, so here's a recipe I made a few weeks back:
I made these cookies for a special someone when he was feeling ill. I packed it up, shipped it across the world, and four days later he reported it tasted like it was baked just yesterday (we compared taste notes). It so happens it is his birthday today, so Happy Birthday Big Man!
Recipe adapted from Crepes of Wrath
Makes approximately 40 4cm-diameter cookies
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 mins plus 5 mins cooling time
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white caster sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup roughly chopped dark chocolate
1 cup roughly chopped milk chocolate
1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Combine the flour, *cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl then set aside.
3. In another bowl, beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, egg, egg yolk and vanilla until creamy.
4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture until just mixed.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Roll into dessert-spoon-sized balls and place onto a greased or lined baking sheet/ wax paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the edges look golden brown.
7. Cool on the baking sheet for at least 4-5 minutes (so cookies can set) before moving to a rack.
8. Consume in between sips of a cool glass of milk.
*For a "white" and "healthier" version, remove cocoa powder and add 1/2 cup oat bran.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Chococo Cookies
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Stretched Dusks
You can tell it's finally here - the summer of the northern hemisphere. It is not the sticky, heavy air that jostles you into realisation, it is the way dusk is stretched into cotton-candy-striped skies.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Stage Cooks
We hadn't expected to be up on stage in front of an audience, let alone one of 50. The thought of cooking in front of strangers and cameras had some of us working ourselves into nerves. They say the camera puts on ten pounds you know.
Naomi and Jan seemed to be the only calm ones among us. I took my glasses off and perched it on my head so I would look cool and collected. I was, in actuality, making use of my astigmatism - if I can't see the audience's expressions, I won't be able to notice their disapproval at my poor filleting skills.
It wasn't like I needed that extra filter though, the limited range of Ikea knives had all of us struggling with our pieces of sole - nothing less than complete attention is allowed when you have to fillet fish with a serrated knife. It didn't help that Sophie Michell was trying to cram two dishes into the short half hour she was alloted. Her speedy instructions had all of us scrambling to keep up.
With the help of a few assistants I managed to complete my dish in time - there was a gentle lady who was very deft at removing chilli stems; a dark, rugged-looking sous chef in a pin-striped apron who sliced a mean green mango; and a precious £700 Miele steam oven that had my seafood going from limpid to opaque in approximately three minutes. The Miele Cookery Experience was thus not too much of a scare.
Stage dishes which we later consumed: crab meat wrapped in fillet of sole, Thai green mango salad and scallops steamed in soy sauceA bunch of us food bloggers had been invited by Forever Better, Miele's PR company, to the Summer BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham to get acquainted with their equipment. The steam oven is a mod-looking appliance with a clean and simple concept. I may not have personally used the oven (the gentle chilli lady was also my oven operator), but from the looks it, this steamer is an extremely precise element; once you've gotten used to the push and touch button controls and Navitronic Plus display, minimal effort would be required to operate it. Steaming buns do not have to be in a pot over boiling water anymore, although I think I will miss the fun in that ancestral method.
On an slightly unrelated note, I want one of Miele's washing machines - that is only if what the Miele guy said was true: the washing machines automatically weigh the load of the laundry and expend energy and water specific to each individual load. (I couldn't find this information on the website but I am certain that was what I heard.) If this was true I would no longer have to feel guilty every time I do my laundry, full load or not.
As for the Good Food Show itself, I found it a little disappointing. Naomi of 'Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried' gives a fitting account of my thoughts on it. To get a more well-rounded account of the event, click on to Anne, Jan, Jules, Nic, Sunita and Sylvie's blogs. For starters, they've got way more pictures than I do.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Rosie's
A Monmouth coffee would have been a more than fitting way to conclude our meal at Franco, but the pizza was beginning to settle into the ample shapes of our stomachs, and we still had some of Rosie's desserts to sample. It was so difficult to prevent the pizza from nesting that by the time we rounded the corner from Franco our girths were officially stretched to their limits. Which was just as well because I would have fought Rosie for her fresh-out-of-the-oven banana blueberry cupcakes that she deemed not ready until they had been fully rested and frosted. Another day perhaps.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Franco Manca
★★★★★☆☆
We weren't sure if the floppy-haired Italian server said "that's life" or "that's alive" when we told him of the floater in our bottle of tap. Even the born-and-bred Italian in our group was unable to decipher. But the accented server took it away and quickly replaced it with a bottle that was clear. He may not have been smiling when he made the comment, but there was no over-the-top-Italian-hand gestures either. It must have been harmless.
His haste could probably have been attributed to the full capacity this pizzeria was operating on on this late Monday afternoon. At any other restaurant, the official lunch hour would have been safely cleared, but at Franco Manca you still had to wait for a table. You wonder: has Franco's reputation preceded itself or are those black and gold rounds of dough really that alluring it's got Brixton and beyond on their toes?
From the time were standing and what we were seeing, the latter must have been the case. The wait wasn't long - fifteen minutes tops - but judgment can be greatly coloured by hunger, strong wafts of burning wood and rising yeast, and vivid colours of tomato paste red, arugula green, and prosciutto pink. Majority was at stake when two of the five senses had been so easily bought over.
The taste test was less straightforward: all other factors held constant (everything was organic, including the sourdough bases, and each pizza combination comprised of all the food groups), the difficulty in the menu was not the number of choices, but the choices themselves. There were only six pizzas and a day's special to pick from so there wasn't that dilemma of which category to pick from - it was the dilemma of which combination you felt like committing your tastebuds to. One can, after all, only stomach so much pizza in a sitting.
So among us we decided to go full spectrum with a classic Margherita (£4.80, pictured above), a middle-of-the-range Napoletano (£5.70), and a full-blown daily special of bianca with artichokes, arugula, pecorino and speck ham (approximately £5.50, pictured below). We also asked for extra shavings of ham all around (at £0.90 per portion, although we had understood the extra meat to be a complimentary option. The accent..). To celebrate our commitment we also asked for bottle of house white (750 ml, £7.50).
Service was still eye-contactless, but this time the factors were almost purely internal - we were so preoccupied with the fresh-from-the-oven puffs of dough, and our seats were so low to make eye contact would have been to look up and disrupt eye and nose concentration. So no one looked up. And no one spoke as we tore into our pizzas.
It wasn't until we were halfway into our pizzas that the Italian among us broke the silence. "This is good," she said, adding a half-concentrated "very good" to the end. Us two others nodded in agreement, but a slight frown soon appeared on my face. "It's good but, do you taste that?" "Taste what?" asked the only one who had not yet broken her muteness.
Our pizzas looked beautiful - slouchy but not flimsy dinner-plate-sized palette-shaped works of art. All three looked almost like little island-fortresses plates. They had uneven speckled rims that, in the wood-fired ovens, had huffed and puffed to resemble breasts of songbirds. In the middle of mine was a marble of flaming orange sauce and white mozzarella doused with prosciutto, capers, olive, and anchovies. It looked brilliant. Underneath that brilliance however, it was charred.
The char wasn't overpowering, but present enough, and it was a presence that became more evident with every bite. It was only in my dough however; the dough of the Daily Special was a slightly charred but it was unimposing enough to be able to ignore, and a fitting amount of bitterness. The Margherita's dough was the most untouched of the three - soft and sweet, like freshly steamed naan bread. Once I sampled the two other pizzas, the taste of char was .
The wine helped, but not as much as the chilli oil. It was unfortunate as the slightly vinegary organic white Cortese wine would have helped bring out the tangy flavours of the sourdough base. In my case however, I needed the chilli oil to numb away some of that singed pungence. It might have been fortuitous that we were in the heart of the Brixton African community, for Italian establishments with concepts as pure as Franco Manca would normally have chilli oils that barely touch the Scoville scale, let alone habanero peppers!
As soon as we were three-quarters way through, lunch turned cyclic: a heavy drizzle of chilli oil was followed by a bite of pizza, a sip of wine and then another small drizzle of chilli oil. It wasn't because the char was becoming unbearable - the habanero oil remedied the situation - but that we were nearing our stomachs' capacity. We trucked along, too far along to warrant asking for a takeaway box, but too close to the end to give up the last few bites.
When we finally took our last bite, we sat, slumped deeper than our pizzas when they first appeared, and sighed in satisfaction. We smiled at each other in agreement. "That's life, " I mused. "No," corrected the Italian, "that's good life."
www.francomanca.co.uk
Unit 4, Market Row, London SW9 8LD, United Kingdom
(+44) 0207 738 3021
Monday to Saturday, 12pm to 5pm
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Mornings, Saturdays
I love mornings; I love waking up to the idea of a meal - strawberries, eggs, together, separate, it doesn't quite matter. Because in the morning I'm an eating machine - anything I can rustle up, anything I can find, I will eat.
I love mornings, in theory.
What I don't like is having to wake up to the sound of the alarm - weekdays or weekends, to bells or music; I don't like having to sober up to the clang of frying pans and oven trays - they hurt my eardrums; and I do not like having to wash my dishes after making the meal - just give me the Hollywood version.
So I'll have my breakfast before I go to bed thank you, even though there clearly are advantages to being a morning person. On those rare occasions I do enjoy the untainted morning breeze that carries the illusion of having more hours in the day. If it so happens I am awake early on a Saturday morning, I enjoying beating the crowds to Borough Market, which is exactly what I did this Saturday past.
Borough on a Saturday is pleasant only before the eleventh hour, literally. Between the hours of nine and eleven, you get to shop without having to nudge anyone in the ribs, sample without having pairs of ravenous eyes and hands reach across you, and have your choice of the first offerings of the day. As you can see, that can make for quite an interesting bundle:
Among my findings were a summer fruit liqueur, a yellow courgette, white asparagus, fairy champignons, duck eggs and squid. Borough may not be the cheapest market around, but you do generally get what you pay for, if you select carefully and consciously. At Borough, the produce can be as local or as international as you would like it to be (from L. Booth to Utobeer), and as raw and prepared as you desire (ostrich meat to ostrich burgers). There is also the added value of the market being made up of mostly independent producers who have direct relationships with their products.
My bounty set me back £25. I consider that a bargain because that bought me the backbone of my meals for the week. Ironically, the backbone of my meal for the night was boneless.
Serves 2
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
1. On medium heat, saute the garlic in butter.
2. Toss in the squid and add the oregano, lemon juice, lemon rind and chilli flakes if using. (if you're using freshly cut chillies add it in at the end of the cooking)
3. Let the squid simmer until it turns opaque and remove squid from heat. Season and toss in the cut chillies now if using. Retain half of the juices in pan.
4.In the leftover squid juices, saute the rice until just steaming.
5. Serve.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
I never promised you a herb garden
The joys of a herb garden, especially in a shoebox of a room. It does lift the mood. It also makes for pleasant, vivid dreams. Not surprisingly, for basil clears the head, relieves intellectual fatigue, and gives the mind strength and clarity. I dreamt last night I ate a freshly picked sea urchin. The taste still lingers in my mouth.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Interview with Jason Lowe, Food Photographer
Daylight was pulling away from the studio fast. Dusk seems to be the least logical time of the day to begin taking pictures, "but what people don't know is that this is one of the best times for photographs," said natural light food photographer Jason Lowe. "You have to work really fast though," he added with impish smile to his assistant.
Even after more than a decade in this elusive and demanding industry we know simply as 'food photography', Jason's passion is blatant: "I love food. I love to eat, I love it as a subject. I love to be involved and inspired." The fervour shows in his pictures.
Jason did not start out as a food photographer. The thought hadn't even occured to him. He wanted to be an actor, though it's not difficult to imagine him as one - he has the essential qualities: his face is remarkably expressive, his voice sonorous yet malleable and meaningful, and his presence commands a room.
Fortunately photography fell into place faster than an acting gig: after a short stint at a film processing shop, he was offered a position as a photographer's assistant. Jason took it.
"The photographer was a lighting technical genius", recalls Jason fondly. "I am able to pick up on the way the light falls because I spent five years in a basement, lighting sets." That, incidentally, is also why he settled on becoming a natural light photographer: "I don't ever want to be in a black hole again."
As he consciously sidestepped black holes he began to find himself deeper and deeper in the world of food. It was natural - his love of food was the gravitational pull, and the people he met along the way further cemented that pull. "I love working with people who are hardworking, dedicated and fun-loving". All these aspects came together nicely in the food terrior. "I am a cantakerous old cart who sticks my nose into other people's business. My job lets me do all at once."
Years down the road, Jason is still doing what he started doing: he works with industry heavyweights like Simon Hopkinson, Mark Hix and Fergus Henderson - well-established names whose passions rival his. But he is not well-known for simply collaborating with these champions, it is his signature photography style that draws many to him.
His pictures bring out the earnest, bare-bones qualities of his subjects. His subjects are not perfect - not in the stylists' sense of the word - but they're the real deal, done deliberately so: he uses all authentic ingredients, has the dishes cooked according to the recipes and immediately before the shots, and mostly styles his own pictures. The tweezer is only called upon every now and then, and until recently, this 44-year-old was a purist to film.
"There is a beauty in film that doesn't translate into digital at all. To me they are separate media. The Luddite in me, because of my age and my love of film, I hold on to that. Film is an old thing; I like things that are made, built with care and precision. Digital photography leapfrogs to the precise, which can make it an immensely difficult medium."
In spite of it being a difficult medium, Jason has adapted well - a good proportion of his work is done digitally now, and the adjustment period seems to have been minimal. He has clearly come to an understanding with digital photography: "I appreciate the new evolution of people who find it deeply fascinating and extraordinary. I'm learning new things about it every day."
While Jason may still be learning, he is not fussed about quickly becoming proficient in all of digital photography's aspects. He is aware that he is a photographer who likes to be taking photographs, not one who likes to be in the darkroom or fiddling on Photoshop. On that note you won't find him formulating HTML for his newly launched website, www.jasonlowe.eu.
Nonetheless he seems to be keeping up with technology, and at a good pace. Like the digital camera, the website became a necessary tool, especially for a full-time freelancer like him. He does find the concept of self-marketing strange however, and expects little from the website "only because the only marketing I ever did for myself was an unmitigated failure".
But ask him where he thinks the website is going to take him and he will reply with forward-looking uncertainty: "We're in an interesting time. It is a hard [economic] time, but I like hard times like these because it makes you put things in perspective, re-evaluate. I've been riding the wave, it's been exhilarating and fantastic. Now the wave starts to fold, but I'm excited. I feel re-invigorated because this is when real stuff stays and the frou-frou goes."
So how does Jason put things in perspective, sift out the real stuff from the frou-frou, re-invigorate? "Eat a lot, play a lot, go out a lot and take a lot of photographs. Take pictures of things that inspire you, that make you laugh." He does not believe in spending too much time in thinking about taking them.
Whether you're a budding photographer or an old hat like him, it is important to "get as much experience from people that inspire you, define what it is about them that inspire you, and redefine it for yourself."
Passion-driven as he may be, his advice is entirely logical - passion, practice and perspective can make a good photographer, but it takes distinct frame of mind and interpretation to stand out and survive in this career. As quick as this assistant can move, dusk, it seems, can only last for so long.
To see more of Jason's photographs, go to www.jasonlowe.eu.
