Braised Beef Noodle Soup

One of my most favourite noodle soups is this one - beef braised so that it falls apart at the chopsticks. In Cantonese, Ngau Lam Ho Fun is comforting, deeply spiced and hearty. I used to order it all the time at our local cafe in Hong Kong. There, it would be served with beef tendon and tripe in the soup with it. Tendon is a wonderful texture; slightly sticky and gelatinous. I thought the recipe would be quite complex, but having had a quick scour of the internet, it seems not.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get my hands on any tendon. I had decided on a whim to cook it on a Sunday, and I wasn't about to mission it to Chinatown to get some. In my neighbouring Peckham, there is a Chinese grocery that sold fresh ho fun (flat wide rice noodles) so with a packet of this, I set about recreating an old favourite. To up the vegetable content, slices of mooli were added. Mooli is also known as Chinese radish, or daikon. It has a slightly bland, turnip-like flavour but when you add it to meaty stews and soups, it takes on the flavour of the meat. The Japanese shred it and serve it raw in a little pile with sashimi, but I prefer it cooked.

Braised Beef Noodle Soup (Ngau Lam Ho Fun)

For 4

800gr braising beef
1 small mooli (also called daikon)
2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
3 shallots
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 star anise
5 slices of ginger
1 3" stick of Chinese cinnamon (cassia bark)
3 cloves
2 pieces of dried tangerine peel
Light soy sauce to taste
1 tbsp dark soy
4 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
1 tbsp black vinegar
4 stalks of spring onion, sliced
400gr fresh ho fun noodles
A handful of Chinese greens, or spinach

Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Cut the beef into large chunks and when the water is boiling, blanch the beef. Remove the beef, throw the water away. Place the beef in a saucepan and add enough water to cover the meat. Bring to the boil, and then turn down to a simmer and add the Shaoxing rice wine.

Cut the shallots in half and add to a muslin bag. You don't have to use this, but I prefer not to have to fish spices out of my bowl. Bash the black peppercorns lightly and add these, along with all the other spices. Tie the bag and submerge with the beef. You may have to add a little more water. Simmer gently for 2 hours. Peel the mooli and cut into rounds. Add this to the beef mixture along with the vinegar and soy sauces. Braise until cooked, which usually takes 30 - 40 minutes.

To serve, add fresh ho fun noodles to a pot of simmering water and gently loosen with chopsticks. Drain and add to the serving bowl. Simmer some Chinese greens (I used choy sum) and add to the bowl, and then ladle the soup stock in along with the beef and some mooli. Scatter the spring onion on top.

Serve with a fiery chilli oil.

Savoy Truffle Supper Club

The phenomenon of supper clubs is continuing to thrive in London. Ms Marmite Lover's place has been doing extremely well, as I found out when I went to volunteer. 42 people in one night was the most she'd ever had and it was an eye-opening experience helping backstage, and it really made me appreciate how much work goes into accomodating and feeding this many guests.

Other supper clubs, like The Saltoun Supper Club in Brixton are all booked up and reservations can be made only a month in advance of the date. It seems Londoners are keen on this kind of set-up and, having now been to two of them, I can see why. The thrill of dining in someone's living room and meeting new people is something a conventional restaurant can't deliver.

I was quite excited when I heard about the Savoy Truffle Club. I spend a lot of my weekends usually negotiating London's (crap) transport system to head north of the river where most of my friends live and go out and it was great to hear it is held in South East London. Where I live. Three miles away, in fact. Hurrah! So, on a balmy summer's evening we headed to Blackheath armed with a bottle of wine each.

On arriving, we were greeted warmly by our host for the evening, Ali. We took our bellinis on the terrace to drink, and meanwhile met the rest of the diners, a combination of foodies and friends of the hosts. The terrace overlooked an immaculately manicured lawn; I was impressed and a bit envious with the huge pots of parsley, sage and other herbs they had growing there. Parsley has always refused to co-operate with me.

We had a table of four decorated with some lovely flowers and happily a big bucket of ice to chill the wine we'd bought. A friend stuck an amusing home-made label on her bottle; the wine was of course, massively expensive. "Melons on the nose, blah blah blah".

The room was large, with maybe eight or nine tables. Upsettingly, a table of four didn't show up but nevertheless, the atmosphere in the room was alight with animated conversation. A piano in the corner winked sugestively at us; one of our party is rather a dab hand at piano playing.

To start, we had some delicious bread rolls with butter from Rhodes Bakery, in Greenwich. All the food served at the supper club is locally sourced. The vegetables are grown either at an allotment or bought from a far seven miles away. Next, we were served cute little coffee cups of roasted red pepper soup with harissa creme fraiche, prettily decorated with micro basil leaves. This took me by surprise. There was an incredible depth of flavour to the soup, and the crème fraîche looked innocent enough but packed a spicy punch. We scooped all the dregs of our cups hungrily.

Next up, we had smashed broad beans with mozarella on sourdough toast. This was a generous portion - I don't envy much the poor soul who had to pod them and then shell them of the grey-green skin that surrounds each bean. This was delicious and really fresh-tasting. The mozarella was creamy and stood up to the broad bean smash well. I woke up the next day wanting it for breakfast.

Next up, we had pork belly with rumble de thumps. I had no idea what rumble de thumps would be; it sounded South African to me, but apparently it's a Scottish preparation of mashed potato with cabbage. The accompanying sticky and sweet Madeira and star anise jus was perfect with the pork. It was lightly spiced and something I'd definitely going to try and recreate. It looks like a small portion, but it was really rich and hit the spot perfectly.

A palate cleanser of elderflower sorbet was perhaps a touch over-sweet for my liking, but it did it's job. The floral overtones cleansed the palate nicely to anticipate the dessert.

I've always thought Eton Mess was a bit of a cop-out dessert. Given its name, it gives the cook free reign to just dump a load of fruit and bits of meringue on the dish. Not so at the Savoy Truffle Supper Club. Beautiful plates of intricately towered cream, meringue and Kentish summer fruits with a coulis appeared before us. I was daunted by its size. The fruits were perfectly ripe, sweet and fragrant. It defeated me, but all was not lost as a companion finished it off.

Our evening ended with some slightly tipsy piano playing, rather too much singing along to be decent, and a cafetière of Monmouth coffee. The chef came out from the kitchen and had a chat with everyone; he looked surprisingly unruffled, less sweaty than was possible given the number of diners, and answered all our questions enthusiastically. After my volunteering experience, I have learned that I would not be in a similar condition. We headed off into the night having felt well looked after, well nourished, and well drunk.

Milan Cookies

The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of Food Network.

To be perfectly honest, this month's daring bakers challenge wasn't really a success for me. I didn't love the batter recipe for the cookies - they turned out kind of elastic-y, and something about the whole texture was just off. It's always a sad moment when you take the time to get your ingredients, pipe batter, sandwich cookies and the end result doesn't seem to add up to the effort. The only remedy is to get in the kitchen again as soon as possible and bake again to start fresh!

And Finally... Cherry Samosas

Photo courtesy of Qype UK

So this is the last in the Nom Nom Nom '09 trilogy of posts. That means it the last chance for us to grovel and say... go on! Vote for the Go Go Gin Girls. Please? After all, we got drunk and we set things on fire. Voting is open until the end of this week, and if we win we might even just do a victory dance.

To complete our 3 course menu, we decided on cherry samosas. These are derived from a Gordon Ramsey recipe which I have made before to great success, but we simplified it somewhat in the execution of it for Nom Nom Nom (i.e. we left the lemon out).

Photo courtesy of Qype UK

Cherries are really in season at the moment, and the ones we bought from the farmers' market were ripe and juicy. We made quite a mess in stoning the cherries; my hands were stained red.

It's also quite a labour-intensive recipe. Not only do the cherries need to be stoned an halved, they are then flambé'd, and cooked down into a jammy compote. Filo pastry is then layered on top of each other, and this is all folded into a samosa-like shape before being baked. But it's well worth the work, as you get a crispy hot parcel of juicy, cherry goodness, accompanied by apple scented mascarpone.

Cherry Samosas with Apple Mascarpone

Serves 4

1 box of filo pastry
300gr cherries
A small handful of mint
A pack of unsalted butter
1 tbsp sugar (to taste)
A good glug of brandy (I guestimate at 100mls)
A tub of mascarpone
Half an eating apple
Icing sugar

Pit and halve the cherries, reserving a few for garnish. In a non stick frying pan, melt a knob of butter until foaming, and then add the cherries. Add the tablespoon of sugar and cook on a low heat until the juices are released. Pour over the brandy and carefully bring a lit match towards it - it should catch fire and flambé the mixture. Simmer on a low heat until thickened and syrupy. Taste it and if needed, add more sugar. Take off the heat, throw in the mint, chopped finely, reserving one leaf. Leave the mixture to cool.

To fold the samosa, take out the filo and slice into three lengthways. Melt the pack of butter and pour off the clarified butter, discarding the white bits. Using a pastry brush, brush one lenghtways layer of filo with the butter, then lay another on top. Brush again with butter and lay another one on so that it's 3 sheets thick. Spoon a tablespoon's worth of the cherry mixture onto the bottom corner of the sheet, then fold the sheet carefully into a triangle, pressing down the seams. Butter the rest of the sheet and carry on folding until you've run out of pastry, sealing the seams as you go along. Repeat until you have 8 samosas (2 per person). When you come to baking them, brush both sides with butter (no one said it was a healthy recipe...) and bake in a hot oven, around 200 degrees C, for 10 - 15 minutes or until browned. Meanwhile, grate the apple into a clean tea towel and squeeze a little of the juice out. Mix with the mascarpone.

To serve, dust the samosas with icing sugar and place two on the plate with a quenelle of the mascarpone. Garnish with a mint leaf and a couple of cherries.

If you're in a generous mood, Action Against Hunger have teamed up with Nom Nom Nom and are holding a charity raffle; prizes include a meal at Le Gavroche... Click here to donate.

Sketch - Visit 1 & 2

Recently, Sketch have been offering a £50 off voucher which myself and my mate, being the skintoid food-lovers that we are, snapped right up. A table was booked at the Gallery.

Sketch is seriously cool. The decor in all of their many rooms is stunning, even down to the strange towering sculpture of childrens' toys spray painted grey, terrifyingly topped with a Chucky-esque doll. On our initial visit (yes, there were two), we were shown to a table which was disconcertingly close to our neighbours. This is not conducive to a good gossip that my friend and I are prone to indulge in. We were so close that we could see that they got an amuse bouche, and we didn't. Not the best start to a meal.

To start, I ordered the "Red tuna: Cubes of red tuna and vegetables / artichoke, red tuna and soya sauce on toast / curried fruit and vegetable smoothie with olive oil". This was pretty weird - fridge cold slices of raw tuna topped slightly soggy pieces of toast and the tuna cubes floating around in a cold curry sauce was rather unpleasant. Reading back on the menu description I'm not sure what I was expecting really - I was blind-sided by my love of raw tuna.

My main was rather more delicious: "Veal « Palais Royal »: Head and tongue of veal / braised veal cheek /Lentil and herb salad". The meat was tender and succulent, yielding gently underneath my fork. Unfortunately, the lentils were aggressively salted. In contrast, my companion's dish was woefully underseasoned. Perhaps she should have smothered her beef tartare with the lentils. When we complained to the waitress, she looked at us witheringly and said "we don't usually get negative comments about our food. Maybe it's not your style". She's quite lucky she didn't end up with my fork embedded in her face.

We then decided, to get a really rounded experience, we'd have a dessert to share. Having heard that the "Malabar: Bubble gum ice cream / lemon Wurtz / orange blossom marshmallow / pannacotta /crispy green tea" was popular, we thought it best to try this. We were instructed to mix the plate up, which made it look rather like a plate of sick. Upon the second mouthful, my friend made an "errrummpphhh!" kind of noise. I looked at her with horror. She pulled two shards of plastic out of her mouth. At this point, it really was so farcical that all I could do was howl with laughter much to the disgruntlement of our neighbours. It really was the last straw. The manager was apologetic and looked disappointed. Our bill was heavily discounted.

So, when we were offered a complimentary meal, we pondered whether or not to come. But then, I think if a restaurant has ballsed something up so royally, we should give them another chance.

We were treated rather differently. A lovely glass of Champagne in the bar adjacent to the dining room allowed us to catch up over various amusing anecdotes of the weekend passed. We were then seated at a table for just the two of us. Cocktails were proffered, wine was placed on the table, and our meal commenced.

To start, I ordered "Oyster and scallops: Irish rock oysters / sliced scallops and smoked parsley galette /diced cucumber and green apple with Espelette pepper". When the dish was placed down, a pleasing waft of the seaside accompanied it, as did a shot of intense apple foam which I was instructed to eat between bites. Why a plastic shot cup? I thought those days of plastic tableware were over when I turned 5. Anyway, the dish is certainly not for one who may have a problem with textures. The oysters were creamy, the raw thinly sliced scallop beneath it was slippery and delicious. The apple foam was a perfect palate cleanser.

My main, "Roast rump of lamb with Indian spices /spinach and watercress velouté with Roquefort /braised turnip in beetroot stock" looked great when it was placed before me. However, from this dish I have learned that Indian spices, lamb, and Roquefort aren't a combination I would like the try again. The lamb was cooked beautifully but it was too many dominant flavours fighting with each other. In contrast, the beetroot-braised turnip was exactly that and was rather refreshing and sweet over the rest of the dish. Sides of gratin Dauphinois (surprisingly topped with cheese - "Cheddar. Well, Emmenthal, which is like Cheddar") and round lettuce with anchovies were perfunctory.

To finish, we decided on "Dessert for two: Coconut lollipop / prunes / pear and Yuzu / fruit tart / blackcurrant biscuit". Probably a case of eyes bigger than our bellies, but in the name of the full experience, we soldiered on.

I'm glad we did, because although we were unable to finish all the dish, the desserts were very good indeed. The super-sweet prunes stuffed with marzipan was an incredible contrast to the tart, slightly bitter yuzu and pear (far left of the picture).

A final surprise - we finished with espressos, which when stirred seemed thick and viscous but in actual fact were served in silicone cups. Why? I'm not sure, but it's not every day you can squidge your espresso cup.

It's been hard to write about this meal. Our first visit was almost ridiculous, but the way Sketch made up for it was exemplary. The service was impeccable throughout; napkins were picked up and folded on the chair for absent occupiers without making us feel like we were being watched. There was no sign of our nemesis waitress. I'm not sure I would visit again because even though I enjoyed many elements of the food such as the oysters and scallops, there were others which I found misjudged and borderline repulsive - after the first or second taste, I left that Roquefort off my lamb.

However, both times the dining room was packed with beautiful people and people genuinely seemed to be enjoying their meals. Perhaps the waitress was right, and Gagnaire's food is just not my style.

Sketch

9 Conduit Street
London
W1S 2XG

Tel: 0207 659 4500

For Helen's report of the experience, see here.

Red Berry and Basil Granita

This summer, it's all about berries! I managed to salvage enough of the strawberries I picked to make fresh red berry granita. Granita is an easy way to make a frozen treat in the summertime: all you need is fresh berries, simple syrup and a good freezer! It really has a great intense berry flavor, and you can easily play around with additional flavors to complement the fruit. I love the subtle tones of the basil leaves in this particular recipe I've developed, but it's also delicious with a little sweet balsamic vinegar, or some fresh mint.

I love these recipes that you can make in advance, that can be made with very little ingredients but really showcase the freshness of the produce you use. What has been your favorite dessert recipes this summer?

Red Berry and Basil Granita
Recipe (serves 4)
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of water
2 cups of strawberries
2 cups of raspberries
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
10 basil leaves

In a small saucepan on medium heat, add the sugar and water. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, remove from the heat and let the simple syrup cool.

In a blender, add the fruit, basil, lemon juice and simple syrup. Blend until just smooth. Pour the mixture in a shallow pan, cover with plastic wrap (the plastic wrap should touch the top of the berry mixture to avoid water condensation). After about an hour, scrape the mixture using a fork to form crystals. Make sure to scrape the entire mixture. Scrape again before serving, and garnish with basil leaves. Enjoy!

The Main - Duck with Gooseberry Sauce

Photo courtesy of Qype

So our saga at the Nom Nom Nom '09 continues. As we ran around Marylebone Farmers' Market, we were acutely aware of the time ticking by. I'd spotted some duck breasts earlier, at £10 for two but as we were on a budget (we were paying for the ingredients ourselves, after all) we thought it a good idea to have a shop around. We sprinted round Waitrose, freshly opened on a Sunday morning. They had every type of meat, including diced wild rabbit - no duck breasts. So, these here you see are the most expensive, slowly grown duck breasts I'll ever have bought.

Duck is the obvious pairing for fruit. It's rich, gamey meat can withstand sweet or tart fruits well, so to carry on the fruity theme we picked gooseberries, as they'd be in season. Cooking it down into a puree doesn't make the prettiest sauce, so I imagine we lost out in presentation. However, the tartness of the fruit combined with the salty, caramel-colour duck skin ane medium rare, juicy flesh was heavenly. With this, of course you need some kind of potato, and we made the most of the duck fat that we'd rendered out by frying the fondant potatoes in it. Waste not want not. Nestled on a bed of colourful Swiss chard, our dish was complete.

Duck with Gooseberry Sauce

Serves 1

1 duck breast
100gr gooseberries
4 shallots
A knob of butter
2 medium sized floury potatoes
A glug of white wine
A pinch of ground cloves
Sugar, to taste
Half a bulb of garlic
1 sprig of rosemary
Chicken stock
Some greenery (in our case, Swiss chard but spinach or savoy cabbage also works)

Score the duck breast and salt heavily. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and cut in half lengthways. Top and tail the gooseberries. Pat the duck breasts dry, and fry them on a low heat, skin side down to slowly render the fat out. This needs about 15 minutes, to really get the fat out and crisp up the skin. When this is done, turn the duck breast and fry on a medium heat for a minute or two to give it some colour. Remove and leave on a baking tray. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Next, fry the potatoes in the rendered duck fat until they are browned. Remove them and place in a frying pan with a lid, with the browned sides facing up. Smash the garlic cloves with the side of a knife, scatter them around the potatoes with the sprig of rosemary, chopped finely. Add the chicken stock until it comes partway up the side of the potatoes, but doesn't cover the previously fried part. Put the lid on and simmer gently for about 15 - 20 mins, or until the potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, heat the knob of butter in a pan and add the shallots, sliced. Fry until softened and then add the glug of wine. Simmer until reduced, then add the gooseberries and the cloves. Fry on a low heat until the gooseberries have collapsed, and mash them down with a fork. Add sugar to taste and leave to simmer gently.

Depending on how thick your duck breasts are, we put ours in the oven for 8 - 10 minutes. Remove and leave them to rest for 10 minutes, to coincide with the potatoes being finished. To serve, plate the potatoes on a warmed plate. Strain the stock into a saucepan and add the greens to be cooked in the garlicky rosemary stock until al dente, and then drain and use them as a bed to serve the duck breast, sliced on top. Spoon some of the stock onto the meat, and serve the gooseberry sauce on the side.

Don't forget to vote for the Go Go Gin Girls HERE!