Showing posts with label Egg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egg. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Sweet Corn Fritter, Smashed Avo and Poached Egg

I made these just because.  Fantastic brunch, lunch or easy supper.  I'm told that, once cooked, they freeze well and can be easily re-heated in a frying pan on a medium gentle heat.  I don’t doubt it.  They are also super easy to make.  This recipe will feed 4 to 6, depending on hunger levels. 

Ingredients:

400g sweetcorn (about 3 cobs)
75g plain flour
50ml milk
4 eggs
1tsp baking powder
1tsp paprika
1tbsp caster sugar
2-3 spring onions
2 avocadoes
4-6 ripe tomatoes
Chilli sauce (see this post for advice)
A handful of grated cheddar cheese (optional)
Chipotle ketchup (optional)


1. Start by stripping the corn off the cobs.  You can do this by holding the cobs upright in a big bowl and cutting the kernels downwards vertically, like shown.  This will make quite a lot of mess and the kernels will fly off everywhere, so the bigger the bowl the better.  Watch your fingers as well, and pick out any rogue bits of husk that turn up.



2. You now need to make a savoury batter to bind the fritters together. In a big mixing bowl sift your flour, baking powder, paprika and sugar together.  Season lightly.  Beat 2 of the eggs and all of the milk together in a cup then pour this into the mixed dry ingredients.  Use an electric whisk to beat the mix into a batter.



3. Pour the corn kernels into the batter.  Slice the spring onions as finely as possible and chuck them in there too.  Mix the whole lot together.  Your fritters are now ready to be frittered.  Told you it was easy.


4. Right, time to make the smashed avos.  Your avocadoes need to be properly ripe, not ripe like those lying bastards in the supermarkets that write "ripe and ready to eat" on the packet.  Squidgy – but not too much so or they go all weird and stringy.  Avocadoes are so hard.

Anyway, peel and chop and stick them into a mixing bowl.  Dice the tomatoes relatively finely – about 1cm cubes.  Add them to the mixing bowl as well.


Grab a potato masher and mash them just enough so that there are no big avo lumps but roughly enough that some texture remains.  Splash in a lug of chilli sauce and mix together, tasting the mix to see if it's right.  I'd always say start conservatively with the sauce, as you want it to be hot but not sting.  You can always add more – it's taking it away that's tricky (although a squeeze on lime will take the edge off, you’re straying into guacamole territory – not necessarily a bad thing, but there it is).


5. Boil a pan of water to poach your eggs in.  Grab a large, heavy bottomed frying pan for the fritters and get that on a medium heat.  Throw in a lug of oil.  I had some food rings kicking around so decided to cook my fritters in those – don’t go thinking you need to do the same, you can totally freestyle these.  When the oil is hot, dollop a tablespoon of the batter into the pan.  Repeat for as many fritters you have space for.


They need two minutes and a half on the first side.  If you're using food rings (a) don’t be so pretentious; and (b) after two minutes trim around the inside before lifting them off.  Either way, wiggle a spatula underneath and flip 'em over.  They need another two minutes on this side so as soon as you've flipped them, start poaching the eggs.  A kitchen timer (or two) would be helpful right about now. 


6. Assemble: Fritter on place, avocado mulch on fritter, egg on top.  If you're feeling flush, finish with chipotle ketchup (as I did) and/or cheddar cheese.  Serve asap – it's much better hot.



 - GrubsterBoy -

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Ben's Canteen

So the other day we went to have brunch with some friends we hadn’t seen for a long while.  I was asked to pick a venue, so (having been so rudely disappointed by The Breakfast Club) I plumped for Ben's Canteen, on St John's Hill.

Ben's occupies a spot that was, until a couple of years ago, a café called Out of the Blue.  It was a nice, bright café bar with a slightly less well lit rear dining area, decked out with ramshackle furniture, selling smoothies and benedicts to the brunching masses of Wandsworth.  Ben's is a nice, bright café bar with a slightly less well lit rear dining area, decked out with ramshackle furniture, selling smoothies and benedicts to the brunching masses of Wandsworth. 

So basically the same.  Except two differences:

1. Ben's does a wicked Bloody Mary, which I don’t recall OOTB doing.  Top marks for tastiness and spiciness.  Also, you get a free one if you Instagram a picture of your food with the hashtag #benscanteenmenu.  Which is just a ridiculously good offer.  Friend 2 even downloaded Instagram there and then so he could participate. 


2. OOTB did the most phenomenal garlic fries. We used to go for them alone. Garlic fries with breakfast? I can see you judging me, but I DON'T CARE they were just too GOOD. Ben, get on it, OK?

Right.  Onto the food they do serve.


GrubsterGirl and I both went for the Eggs Pig Out – like your regular egg benedict, except where they substitute ham for pulled pork.  I really don’t know why I ordered this – it does not sound, as I type, like a good idea.  Fortunately, it's a fantastic idea.  Really is – hits that salt & sweet thing that I love so much so well.  Well done, Ben.

I also supplemented mine with a side of smashed avocado (actually, let's call this what it is – guac without the spice and lime) which was yummy and went really well with the BBQ pig and egg and hollandaise sauce mess I'd created.




Friend 1 had spicy baked eggs with toast which I am reliably informed was good.  So all yums.


Friend 2 had Eggs Costa Brava – which is much the same as a eggy benny, but with chorizo instead of the ham.  You see a pattern emerging?  Also good, though.


Friends 1 & 2 have recently had a baby (hence the gap since we last met).  BabyFriend had pulped sweet potato that Friend 1 had brought with her.  It looked exactly like what I expect it looked like on the way out.  So I'm going to say BabyFriend didn’t win the ordering stakes.

Generally, Ben's done good.  Very nice food, good atmosphere (very tolerant of small people, which is good given that we had one with us).  There was a short wait for a table, and frankly I can see why.  If we lived nearby I'm certain we'd be there regularly.

- GrubsterBoy -

Monday, 23 June 2014

The Breakfast Club

Anyone who's hung about in the vicinity The Breakfast Club's various locations across this fine city will know it's popular.  You know it's popular because there's always a queue.  And the queue is always, always looooooong.

I remember when GrubsterGirl was living up in the barren northlands of Angel, during our early courtship days, we always used to go to a pub called the Elk in the Woods for brunch on a Saturday.  We always went because we always wanted to go The Breakfast Club and couldn’t get in and couldn’t face a 45 minute queue.  I remember thinking at the time "golly, that place must be good, why else would someone wait in the cold and the rain for the best part of an hour for a breakfast burrito?" (remember that this is before the time that burritos were big news, much less ones stuffed with breakfast) (and, yes, I am the kind of person that uses the word 'golly' in my internal monologue). 

I'm sure that someone, somewhere, has done a study on this – I can see some version of Don Draper and Peggy Olsen hanging around in smoke-filled rooms chatting about the results of some survey or market research that proves it – we all know that the more popular a place is, or at least looks, the better it must be.  So goes The Breakfast Club.  It's good, and we know it's good, because there's always a complete fucker of a queue.

Which brings me to this: I finally went to The Breakfast Club. 

There's a new(ish) one in Battersea, at the top of the Clapham Common side of Battersea Rise.  It's been there a few months and is not too far a stretch from our home, although I have always been put off by the queues.  You see, the weekend it opened – on its very first day – I remember walking by and seeing an epic queue.  So I've always avoided it slightly.

But, you see, both GG and I were off on a working day, so we figured we would be safe, there would be no queue.

WE WERE WRONG.

OK, so the queue wasn't long.  In fact, it was non-existent when we arrived: there was another couple waiting to be seated when we walked in, but that was it. 

However, clearly smelling blood, we were taken outside and actively arranged in a queue.  This was odd, thought I, because there seemed to be some free tables inside – they must all be booked thought I, because otherwise they'd seat us.  As another couple walked by on the pavement I could see them clock that, even at 11am on a weekday morning The Breakfast Club had a queue, and I could see in their faces the dawning realisation that The Breakfast Club must be jolly good because it had a queue even at this decidedly off-peak time of day.  Just as I imagine it was dawning on my face that I was being played.

This realisation became a certainty when we were eventually seated and shown into a dining room that was, at best, half empty.  Quick note for the management: Being used as impromptu free marketing for a restaurant I'm about to give money to does not whet my appetite in any way; on the contrary it starts the meal with a slightly bitter taste.

We ordered drinks to enjoy whilst we read the menus: a pitcher of fresh 'beetlejuice', a medley of beetroot, carrot, apple and ginger.  We also ordered a couple of cappuccinos.  More about them later.

The menu is an eclectic mix – fun if you like a range of options at breakfast, drifting from their infamous breakfast burrito through the standard full English and eggs benedict, to more filling non-breakfasty foods. 

We ordered, to be shared between us, Boston Beans, a bowl of homemade baked beans with barbequed pork, a fried egg and French toast, and Huevos Al Benny, a bit like eggs benedict if you swapped the ham for chorizo, roasted peppers and guacamole and sprinkled the whole thing with fresh chillies and paprika.  The latter came with a side of home fried potatoes.  Don’t know why.

The beans were, at best, disappointing.  They were homemade, that part was accurate.  The egg was fried – although solid as a rock.  The pork was virtually non-existent.  By which I mean we go two scraps – one each, yay!


We liked the eggs.  It's not an obvious combo, but it's one that works.  The eggs were fresh and beautifully poached and the hollandaise had just the right balance of richness to vinegar.  The chorizo was good – although could have done with being peeled (no, really, it had an inedible, un-cuttable sausage skin that I'm pretty sure should have come off before cooking).  The avocado was good touch as well.  The home fries I could take or leave.




Oh, hang on what's this?  Yup, that would be a HAIR IN MY FOOD.  Not cool, Breakfast Club, not cool.  It's joked about a lot, but have you ever actually found a hair in your food?  I'm not sure that I have.  Or, at least, I hadn't until that day.  Sure, it was dealt with fairly well (swept away and replaced, albeit still charged for) but you know what's better than the chef leaving one of his black curly hairs in your food and then having it dealt with well?  Yup, that's right: the chef NOT leaving a hair in your food. 

You remember the juice and coffees I mentioned?  You know, the ones where I said "more about them later"?  OK, so these arrived now. 

This is an absolute pet hate of mine.  It's not that hard to get drinks out before food arrives.  Or, if it is, that's why I pay you to run a restaurant – and why I don’t, why I couldn’t.  So we had nothing to drink with the first half of our meal and a shed load to drink for the second. 

On the juice front, if I'm honest, I have absolutely no complaints.  It was yummy – really, really yummy.  And, what's more, when you order a pitcher at the price of three glasses, rather than two glasses separately, I'm always afraid that will mean you get 2.01 glasses worth of drink.  Not here: there was a noticeable uplift from the quantity I could see other people got given in their single servings and the amount we got (and I am assuming this isn’t because we got forgotten).  So well done, Breakfast Club, you score points here. 




This is not a good review, I'm aware of that.  And I am sorry.  I never actually intended to write one of these.  You see, the thing is that blog-keeping is time consuming, and takes energy, and I wanted to do it to get away from negative things and to have a happy place.  So I decided from the outset that I wasn't going to deliberately write negative reviews – if I thought somewhere was pants, I just wouldn’t blog it. 

But this just wound me up.  Because it wasn't spectacular - or even especially good - even when they got it right.  Notwithstanding the unnecessary wait for a table, notwithstanding the fact that I involuntarily became part of their advertising, notwithstanding that our drinks were ridiculously late, notwithstanding the beans being boring and missing half of their ingredients, notwithstanding boring home fries, notwithstanding the HAIR IN MY FOOD, it was... OK, I guess.  And that is not enough to outweigh all of its issues.  It certainly doesn’t come close to enough to justify standing in line for your dinner.

 - GrubsterBoy -

PS: If you're reading this from Angel, and thinking about going to the Breakfast Club, can I heartily recommend The Elk in the Woods instead.  Or, alternatively, The Winchester is similarly jolly good and used to be extraordinarily good value.

Sunday, 6 April 2014

Kaya Toast, Singapore

Anyone spending any amount of time in Singapore is likely to become quickly versed in the culinary oddity that is a breakfast of kaya toast and kopi.

I'm not altogether sure if anyone can properly articulate where this unique start to the day comes from.  It's faintly bizarre – at least to the Western palate. 
Basically, there are three elements to this most local of breakfasts.
First, we have the toast itself.  Very finely sliced, it is filled with an ultra-sweet coconut jam and slabs of butter.  Literally, slabs – it's not spread on but cut off the block.  It's a funny old thing – not at all unpleasant, but extremely rich and sweet.



Then we have the accompanying eggs.  They're described as soft boiled.  Now, I've had plenty of soft boiled eggs in my time.  In fact, as a kid they were a regular Sunday night supper if we were good – dippy eggs and Marmite soldiers.  These are not soft boiled eggs, in my experience.  They’re hardly cooked eggs.

Slathering them in soy sauce is the local way to go about your business.  And despite all of my initial hesitation at eating what are basically uncooked eggs (salmonella fears rushing to mind) the combination of the toast and the eggs was fantastic.  The saltiness of the yolks and the salty-sharp taste of the soy acting as the perfect foil to the sweet, rich toast filling.


Then there's the coffee.  Or kopi, as it is known.

There's something faintly disquieting about Kopi.  Because I drink a fair amount of coffee, generally.  I know coffee when I see it.  I am friends with coffee.  Singapore, this is not coffee. 

Instead, robusta beans (which are stronger and have a higher caffeine content) are roasted in margarine to the make the base.  Then condensed and evaporated milk is added.  What's produced is a drink that reminds you strongly of coffee without actually being an awful lot like coffee.  That's not to say it's bad – not at all, I quite enjoyed it – it's just different.  And rich.  And sweet.  Very sweet.  So very rich and very sweet that I had difficulty getting through a whole cup.

Altogether, I really enjoyed the experience.  Would I go back?  I don’t know.  Ya Kun is supposedly one of the finest purveyors of kaya toast (even if it is a bit chain-ey), and I can’t fault them.  And it was nice.  But it was also very, very rich and equally sweet.  Which isn’t necessarily what an Englishman wants for breakfast.

 - GrubsterBoy -

Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Shakshuka

Shakshuka is not something I've ever heard of.  In fact, I don’t think I would have heard of it now had it not been for my friend's boss moaning about hers.  Apparently, she had made one, stuck a picture on Instagram, and them been disheartened that it looked unappealing. 
 
For the record, I checked out the picture, by the way, and thought it looked aces.  But, then again, it's basically eggs poached in a rich, spicy sauce – so what is there not to like?
 
It's very similar to Jamie's heuvos rancehros recipe – which I shall attempt again soon and enlighten you all with – but with a more Mediterranean / North African / Middle Eastern vibe.  It's a seriously scrummy brunch idea – there can be few greater treats than eggs and sauce on a lazy Sunday morning – but also works wonderfully as a supper treat.  Accompaniment-wise, it needs little more than a hunk of crusty bread, or some unleavened thing (as we did) to keep it happy – otherwise, it's a dish in itself.
 
This recipe is largely purloined from Yotam Ottolenghi, who seems to have forgone his usual style of listing 2,000 hard-to-source ingredients for otherwise simple dishes. 
 
Ingredients:
 
x4 free-range eggs (Go for top quality – I know it's expensive, but it's also worth it – the eggs have got to be the star of the show in this dish.)

½tsp cumin seeds
x2 small yellow onions (Or one large one, whatevs.)
x3 sweet peppers – yellow and red (I used my favourite things: the long, pointy peppers that I think taste amazeballs.  As they're a little insubstantial, I threw an extra one in for luck.)
x1 fresh red chilli
x3 sprigs of thyme
Small bunch of coriander
Small bunch of flat leaf parsley
2tsp muscovado sugar
x2 bay leaves
x6 ripe, good quality, tomatoes
Pinch of saffron
 
To serve:
Feta cheese
Chopped coriander
 
 
1. Slice the onions.  You'll need them ready for step 3.  Also, I recommend taking this opportunity to slice up the peppers into long, thin strips, finely chop the chillies, and chop up the tomatoes into big chunks.  Chop the parsley and coriander too.
 
 
2. Dry roast the cumin seeds over e medium-high heat in a large, flat skillet – you'll need one with a lid.  Give them one to two minutes, no more, and stop them if they start turning black.
 
3. Add some oil to the pan and chuck in the onions, dropping the heat a bit so that they don’t brown too much.
 
 
4. Once the onions have softened a bit, chuck in the peppers, chilli, parsley, coriander, bay leaves and sugar.  Keeping the heat high, cook until the peppers have softened and are starting to take on some colour.
 


 
5. Throw in the tomatoes and saffron.  Season well.
 
 
6. Keep it cooking for a bit, reducing the heat down so that toms collapse and leave you with a thick, unctuous sauce.  If needs be, add water from time to time – but it small quantities – to keep the sauce liquid.  Remember that you have to cook the eggs in this – so you want it like a tomato pasta sauce.
 
 
7. Once ready, turn the heat down so that the sauce is at barely a simmer.  Hollow out four little wells in the liquid, and (as quickly as you can, so that they cook all at the same time) crack each egg into its own well.  Put the lid on and leave for 8 minutes or so – lifting the lid at the end to check that they’re done.  What you want is for the white to be fully cooked, but the yolks still lovely and molten. 
 


 
8. Serve immediately – don’t waste any time, as these puppies will keep on cooking in that hot sauce.  Crumble feta over the top and sprinkle on some chopped coriander.  Dunk bread and enjoy.
 
 
 - GrubsterBoy -

Thursday, 10 October 2013

Breads Etcetera

Saturday we knew would be a heavy evening.  So we knew that Saturday breakfast had to be equally tough to set us up for a long day and an even longer night.
 
This left us with only one option: Breads Etcetera, on Clapham High Street. 
 
It's a fun little concept.  Basically, it's all about the bread – and, boy, do they know how to bake it.  Literally tonnes of that stuff must pass through their ovens every week, as the cool kids of Clapham and its environs descend upon the place every weekend for brunch.  The guys who set it up started life as bakers – one of the owners popped in whilst we were there and we had a little chat – and has over 12 years' experience of baking.  Their range is incredible – from plain old sourdough (about which nothing is plain, this is some of the best I've had) to walnut and rosemary breads to dark, sticky Norwegian rye.
 

Each table comes adorned with its own Dualit toaster and they specialise in what they call 'DIY Toast.  The basic idea is you head up to the basket of bread, carve off great slaps of bread, and toast at your table.  It's those little thoughts and ideas that can make somewhere really different and interesting, something that Breads Etcetera can proudly boast to be. 
 
It's unlimited, so you can stuff yourself until you pop, which I basically did. 
 
GrubsterGirl wasted no time getting stuck in.
 
 
But if the bread is the star of the show, the supporting cast are pretty Oscar-worthy too.  All their supplies of meat and eggs and veggies taste and feel proper fresh, and high quality.  These are no frozen, 15% pork, budget bangers; these are proper, hearty Cumberland sausages, full of yum.
They also do an exciting array of breakfasts – not just full English brekkies, but carefully thought out and well executed dishes that are meals in their own right.
 
GrubsterGirl launched into the wild mushrooms, which basically is a mound of wild mushrooms on toast, accompanied with (in this instance) a sausage.  It's more normal sides are bacon, mackerel terrine or chicken liver pâté, the latter of which I have tried and (hot-damn!) it is good.  I know what you're thinking: chicken liver for breakfast?  Don't knock it 'til you tried it, folks, is all I'll say.
 
 
I went for the 'Cowboy Brekkie', with the charming slice of sourdough with a fried egg inside.  There's something wonderfully childish not just about the idea but about its execution.  It also came with a couple of rashers of bacon (what breakfast / brunch would be complete without it?) and homemade baked beans.  A word on the beans: they're incredible.  Rich, gooey, bloomin' spicy, and with at least a whole sausage diced up in there for good measure. 
 
 
What's more, even the walk-on parts fare well.  Proper juices and coffee that even an Italian barista could be proud of. 
 
 
All in all, a proper, filling brunch – and one of the best in Clapham, to boot.  Now for a lie down.  I'll leave you with a picture of the best egg holder I've ever seen. 
 
 
You'd need a lot of soldiers for that.
 
 - GrubsterBoy -
 
PS: This place is really the only restaurant that I can think of that genuinely suffers from multiple personality disorder.  No, seriously, it can’t seem to make its mind up – it seemed to start out as Breads Etcetera but now the menus are covered with references to 'The Ferm'.  In my view, 'Breads Etcetera' is a great name for a place that sells bread primarily and a lot of other stuff to fill you up kind of on the side.  Whereas 'The Ferm' means… well, not a lot to me, to be honest.  I've gone with Breads Etcetera as everyone seems to know it by that name. 
 
PPS: Sadly, Breads Etcetera has almost no online presence whatsoever, which doesn’t help one track it down.  Still, you can't really miss it once you get to Clapham High Street: just look for the place with a 20 minute queue coming out of it…  Still, totally worth it.