H is for... how am I nearly 30 and still don’t know the alphabet?

H is for… how am I nearly 30 and still don’t know the alphabet?

Well friends, it would appear that a degree in languages and good ol’ common sense is no guarantee for being able to successfully make your way through the alphabet week after week. After the double whammy of F and G last week, I was honestly absolutely convinced that the letter ‘I’ was next up. I is a real treat of a letter in terms of countries – especially in comparison to H, which is rather thin on the ground – so I think I just got way too excited and steamrollered ahead. And so it is that this week, we have an unscheduled early appearance from the letter I. H is having a haircut, or had to take the dog for a walk, or got stuck in traffic - whatever excuse people use for being late these days.

As I said, ‘I’ really packs a punch in culinary terms, with Italy, Indonesia, Iran, Israel and Ireland all contending for the dish this week. Having spent a few weeks on Bali a couple of years ago marvelling at the simply glorious food there, Indonesia was extremely tempting. As far as I could tell back then, basically everything involves peanuts, which is a good enough reason as any to make Indonesian food. I also have a deep, deep appreciation for Iranian cuisine – it speaks to my SOUL, man! The rice alone, with the crispy tahdig that forms on the bottom of the pan, is enough to make me feel weepy with joy. However, after much deliberation, I felt that there was no other way to go than India -  a country so incredibly vast and unknown, yet somehow also an inherent part of almost any Brit’s cultural fabric. Time to dial up the spice!

The variety in Indian cuisine is as overwhelming as the country itself, ranging from the rich and buttery flavours of Punjabi cuisine in the north, right down to the coconut-based dishes of Kerala in the south. The “in-between bit” in the middle (all 3,000,000 km² of it, give or take a km² or two) is a proper party of regional cuisines, many of which are unique enough to warrant their own little paragraph on the (LONGLONGLOOOOONG) Wikipedia entry for Indian cuisine. Of course, what else would you expect from a country whose climate, soil type, language, and religious and cultural diversity seems to know no bounds?

For many people, Indian food is a by-word for an absolute spice-fest, and may even get some people sweating at the mere thought of it. While the Indians I know are indeed extremely hardcore when it comes to spice in terms of “Gaaaaaaaaaaaah my mouth is on FIRE. THIS IS THE END – GOODBYE WORLD!!!”, that’s not to say it’s where Indian food begins and ends. Spice in Indian food is one heck of a broad church – or rather mandir (a Hindu temple), or perhaps gurdwara (a Sikh temple) – taking in almost every variety you could possibly imagine: warm and citrussy turmeric, aromatic ginger, perfumed cardamom, musky cumin and hot hot hot mustard seeds (plus about a trillion other types). Interestingly, chilli – for a lot of people the defining element of a curry – was actually introduced to India from Mexico by those European overachievers of the day, the Portuguese. They are also the ones to thank for bringing the potato to India: if you’ve ever had the good fortune of eating aloo gobi (Punjabi potato and cauliflower curry), you should probably send them a little postcard to say thanks. In fact, Indian spices really have shaped the history of international relations, especially with Europe: the spice trade that really heated up (lololololol) in the late 1400s was the kick up the backside Europe needed to launch into the so-called Age of Discovery, when every man and his dog was out there exploring the nooks and crannies of far-away lands. It was basically the beginnings of globalisation – something which, as we all know, is still very much a topic today (must…resist…rant!).

Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed when it came to choosing what to cook this week. I scoured my own cookbook collection for something which I thought was a real classic Indian dish, at least in British terms, and came up with a “short list” of about 25 things. Perfect. I was seriously considering cooking up a chicken tikka masala, famously heralded as Britain’s national dish back in 2001. However, given the vagueness surrounding the origins of this curry house favourite (rumour has it that it was invented by a Pakistani chef in Glasgow as recently as 1971), I decided to go for something which doesn’t potentially come from our pals just over the border. I also thought about paying homage to the spicy side of Indian cuisine – and to the 1998 Fat Les classic of the same name – by making a vindaloo, which comes from the Goa region. Once again, it was our Mediterranean friends from Portugal who are responsible for bringing this baby into the world: it began life as a dish of pork marinated in garlic and wine (in Portuguese carne de vinha d’alhos) and, after the locals added a whole heap of chilis to satisfy their own palette, the Portuguese pronunciation got kind of squished together, leaving us with the name vindaloo. Bloody good fact, eh?

Anyway, after umm-ing, ahh-ing and drooling over my choices, I chose the absolute smash of a dish, tandoori chicken with garlic naan: chicken marinated in a happy mix of spices and yogurt, then grilled until it’s tender enough to fall off the bone and into your greasy mitts. The name comes from the name of the oven it’s traditionally cooked in, the tandoor, which is a hefty cylindrical clay oven. This oven means business, and it sure isn’t for the faint-hearted: I’ve watched enough contestants on Masterchef break down – and Indian restauranteurs tear their hair out in frustration at said contestants- after trying to get to grips with one to know that much. For its part, naan comes from the Persian word for bread, nān, and comes in a vast array of manifestations across Central and South Asia; in India, it’s also cooked in the tandoor. Sadly, my kitchen did not come equipped with a giant clay cylinder, so I had to make do with my trusty oven and hob to do the job.

Like last week’s culinary exploits, this was a bit of a labour of love. The chicken has to be prepared the day before to get the maximum level of absolutemegadeliciousness, and of course the naan dough needs a bit of time to kick back and relax before it’s cooked. FYI, I used some big, meaty chicken legs (thighs and drumsticks) for this recipe – a chicken breast is just not acceptable AT ALL, as in most situations (it’s like the natural yogurt of the meat world – borrrrrring). Once you get down to the actual cooking, it’s pretty speedy. The chicken was thrown in the oven for about 40 minutes, and the naan were quickly rolled out and grilled, smoking out my flat in the process. Once it’s all cooked and the chicken really is falling off the bone, it’s given a final flourish of raw, sliced onion, coriander and a squeeze of lime juice. My guinea pig for the week and I admired the whole thing for about 3 seconds before getting stuck in with our hands and hoovering it up shamefully quickly. I mean, I knew I was going to like this dish from the start, - Indian food never fails to have me high 5-ing dining companions among cries of “INDIAAAAAAA, YEHHHHHH!” – and this was no different. Despite not being cooked in the right kind of oven, the chicken was fantastically tender and aromatic; the onion, coriander and lime cut through the rich marinade spectacularly, and the naan was The Business. Obviously, ‘cos it’s bread. Once again, my love of Indian cuisine has been affirmed and, as always, I finished the meal in a blissful state of food-induced narcosis.

See you next week for H… if it decides to turn up!

F is for France, G is for Germany – Battle of the Breads

Hello there, folks. Apologies for being a bit slack on the blog front the last couple of weeks – I was caught up in the midst of organising and attending my dear big sister’s hen party over in Brizzol (or Bristol, if you don’t have the good fortune of hailing from there). No doubt this blog will also mention the upcoming wedding over the coming weeks as the big day draws ever closer, so please bear with me if I come across a little frazzled towards mid-May.

As I missed a week (F) due to the above-named circumstances, I decided to combine F & G in a single entry, and of course, there was no other option than to take on the two titans of Western Europe: France and Germany. With regards to other potential candidates, it was slim pickings for ‘F’ – a mere three countries fall into this category (points for naming them!). ‘G’ is a veritable bounty of countries, including such tempting destinations as Georgia, Greece, Gambia and Guatemala. I was particularly drawn by the prospect of Georgian khachapuri, which look basically like a bread boat filled with eggs and melted cheese (yes, I’m salivating too). However, given that good ol’ Germany has played such an enormous part in my life, it would have been injudicious to choose otherwise.

When I was a kid, we generally spent summer holidays either in France or the somewhat less forgiving – but no less spectacular or beautiful – climes of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. As far back as I can remember, France has been well and truly on my radar, and it would appear that this is also true for a significant chunk of British people: as far as I can tell, France has never dropped out of the top 5 holiday destinations for Brits, often sitting jolie at the top of the table. A remarkable achievement considering the fervour with which Brits enjoy lambasting the French.  As for Germany, well, it has become my second home; somewhere which brings me equal amounts of unbounded joy and interminable frustration (anyone who has ever experienced German bureaucracy will know that pain); the home of a language I truly love to the very end, and full of wonderful, warm, secretly off-the-wall people. Seriously, the rep that Germans have for being stiff and humourless is unfair, in the same way that a surprisingly large number of outsiders believe that most Brits have been denied good dental work throughout their entire lives. Yes, a liberal use of British sarcasm may get you into hot water sometimes (speaking from personal experience), but believe me when I tell you that the Deutschies love a good larf as much as the next guy.

Food-wise, you couldn’t really get two countries more opposite than France and Germany, at least in terms of reputation. French food is supposedly the classic cuisine: spectacular, rich sauces that coat perfectly cooked cuts of beef; golden, flaky pastry sandwiched together with whopping great globs of custard; cheese and butter as far as the eye can see. German cuisine, on the other hand, is known to be a bit more on the bodenständig (literally like ‘ground-standing’, meaning down-to-earth) side, to put it delicately: sauerkraut, potatoes and Wurst form the basis of many people’s image of German food. It’s certainly not the lightest of cuisines, I’ll give you that. I truly begrudge the claim (heard from former German students of mine) that British food is terrible because it is so very heavy – a plate of grub in a typical German Wirtshaus (sort of the Deutsch version of a pub) ain’t going to help you shift a few pounds any time soon. However, it does have a little more to offer than just numerous varieties or pork and pickled veg. My ultimate recommendation for anyone visiting ‘Schland (Germany to you and me) is, in fact, a döner kebab – the closer you are to Berlin, the better they get. Legend has it that the inventor of said delight was a Turkish chap living in West Berlin, which is why the city is reputed to have the best kebabs in the country. Though you may scoff at this recommendation, I can assure you that you will make fewer better decisions in your life than to buy a döner in Berlin. And you can even get one at lunchtime without people assuming you’re drunk in the middle of the day!

For this week, I wanted to take two elements of French and German cuisine and pit them against each other in the ultimate gastronomical showdown. Thinking about the two countries and their food, there is one element that brings me greater satisfaction than any other: bread. In the blue corner, it’s la France, bringing its arsenal of baguettes, croissants and fougasse. In the red corner, we have Deutschland, tearing up the town with an army of brezels, rye bread and pumpernickel. If this were an actual fight, no doubt Germany would win: if I were a soft and buttery croissant, I wouldn’t fancy my chances against the rock-hard shell of a rye bread roll. Non merci! Luckily, that’s not the case, it’s just me faffing around in my kitchen, trying to find an excuse to eat more bread.

France is famed, quite rightly, for its exemplary boulangeries. I defy ANYONE with even a hint of a taste bud to walk past a bakery in France without stopping to ogle at the goods on offer (and then running in to borrow a mop to mop up all the drool you’ve left all over the pavement). Germany is truly the land of bread. What it may lack in finesse, it makes up for in sheer numbers: apparently, there are over 300 varieties of loaves, and a mind-boggling 1,200 types of roll and so-called Kleingebäck (small baked goods). But what to bake? For me, when I think of bread, I think breakfast, and so I plumped for baking two absolute classics of French and German breakfast fare: the humble Frühstücksbrötchen (crusty white bread roll) and the lah-de-dah croissant. God help me and my fear of all things yeast-based.

I started with the rolls, using a recipe from a ruddy excellent book called ‘Classic German Baking’ by Luisa Weiss (I cannot recommend it enough). Find me a bakery in Germany that doesn’t produce batch upon batch of crusty white rolls of a morning and I’ll eat my proverbial hat. These babies make an appearance on millions of breakfast tables throughout the country every weekend – albeit under the guise of various regional names – guaranteeing a good scattering of crumbs all over the floor at the end of the meal. They may be the simplest in the ROLL-call (HAHAHAHA) of German Brötchen, but the crispy exterior and fluffy white inside was more than enough to have me doubting my ability to reproduce them. Unlike a lot of amateur bakers in the UK, Germans are partial to using fresh yeast in their bread doughs. Although the utterly bizarre texture of it was a little concerning to me, I ploughed ahead on the promise of a more bready-tasting bread at the end. The dough came together incredibly quickly and by the time it was ready to rest overnight in the fridge (yes friends, no proving drawer here!), I was feeling pretty confident that I had a success on my hands. But of course, bread is a fickle thing – at least it has been for me in the past – and so the ultimate test was in the baking. The next morning, after chucking a handful of ice cubes into a searing hot baking tin (and waking my neighbours in the process, I’m sure) I maniacally shoved the tray of rolls in – indeed, with the panicked air of someone who has zero idea what the heck they’re doing throwing ice cubes into an oven at 8.30 on a Saturday morning. And then I waited. And watched. And sure enough, the little darlings went golden and crispy, rising in truly glorious fashion. Good grief, guys, when I finally took them out after a torturous 15 minutes, it was all I could do not to cry and eat them all in one sitting. Absolutely bloody wonderful, they were. BUT there was no time to rest on my laurels: it was croissant time.

If you are considering making croissants yourself, heed this warning: it takes FOREVER. There is an unfathomable amount of waiting involved, so it’s not the bread to go for if you’re in a rush. That said, I’m telling you now that it is soooo worth it. And incredibly, not that difficult. I was totally prepared for a full-scale meltdown in my kitchen, but instead found myself clapping with glee when I finally got round to baking them after waiting about 100 years. I’d say the biggest obstacle, waiting aside, is getting your head around the amount of butter in the damn things. It is more than you could ever imagine. Criminal, perhaps. But not enough to ever put me off eating them. HA! After making the dough, then filling it with what feels like an equal amount of butter (i.e. a lot), you have to perform a series of so-called turns, rolling and folding it this way and that to achieve the all-important layers, each time letting the dough have a little rest in the fridge, lest it get too tired of life and produce a buttery mess at the end. Then of course, there’s the rolling. Then the proving. Then the baking. It’s a labour of love, taking a good 6 or 7 hours from start to finish. Maybe that’s why the French are so proud of them, because it takes the patience of a saint to see it through to the end. But are the French in fact entitled to lay claim to the croissant? History would have us believe otherwise, suggesting that they originally came into being in either Vienna or Budapest when a baker apparently alerted the city big wigs to some mysterious rumblings underground. They turned out to be the sounds of some sneaky Turks attempting to invade the city by tunneling under the city wall. The tunnel was subsequently destroyed – crisis averted! The hero of the tale, the baker, asked for no other reward for his smarts than the exclusive right to bake crescent-shaped delicacies to commemorate the event (the crescent being the symbol of Islam) and – voila – the croissant was born! But shhhh, don’t tell the French that story.

After an epic day of baking (well, mostly waiting around for the diva croissants), it was time to crown the victor in the ultimate battle of the European breakfast bread. It has to be said, both were utterly delicious, delivering everything you could want from a brekkie. This week’s guinea pig and I deliberated the merits of both: the roll was the perfect vehicle for all the goodness the world of spreads and toppings had to offer, while the croissant was almost perfection on its own. But was it too buttery (not my words, I hasten to add)? Was the roll just too simple on its own, delivering only when masked by about a 5-inch layer of jam? The answer is no, to both of those predicaments. The two breads serve wholly different purposes and, as such, are delightful in their own way. Buuuuut in terms of ‘Holy smokes, look what I did!!’, the croissant takes the biscuit. Or in this case, the overloaded-with-butter breakfast treat.

E is for Egypt

E is for Egypt

Well, I may as well stop this project now because I don’t think it can get any better. Who gives a hoot about what delights Morocco could have offered? Hey, Turkmenistan – whatever you sellin’, I ain’t buyin’. Jog on, Peru, you’re wasting your time. Lithuani-WHO? No pals, Egypt has it. The perfect food. And it should come as no great surprise that the greatest and best of all the foods features the greatest and best of all the food groups: carbs. Carbs, carbs, carbs with a few more carbs chucked in for good measure.

However, before I lapse into a carbohydrate-based reverie, let’s zip back quickly to the E’s. It’s a fairly eclectic bunch (not dissimilar to my own family, actually), stretching from way up there in the chilly Baltics (Estonia) to the somewhat more agreeable climates of Ecuador and Equatorial Guinea. Upon first glance, I was very tempted with Ethiopian cuisine. I’ve eaten it a few times over the years and every time marvelled at the delicious genius that is injera, a kind of cross between a buckwheat pancake and a crumpet that’s used simultaneously as a plate, spoon and spectacular element of a meal in its own right. I have very fond memories of being the only guest in a small Ethiopian restaurant in London once, trying desperately not to clap my hands and do a little ‘yehhhh so tasty’ dance with every bite, as I was acutely aware that I was being scrutinised by the owner and the chef the whole time.

As much as I want to try and make injera myself one day, ‘E’ simply had to be Egypt. One of the greatest ancient civilisations known to man must have some good grub knocking around. I mean, how else did they get the energy to build them there pyramids? Wasn’t bloody Red Bull, I’ll tell you that for free! Not only did I have deep faith that the nation that invented hieroglyphics would deliver in a BIG way on the food front (not that those two things are related in any way), I also received a couple of mild words of encouragement (read: threats) from some Egyptian friends: basically, if I didn’t make something Egyptian, it was friendship over. And so here we are.

In all honesty, I wasn’t really sure what to expect of Egyptian cuisine. I figured it would be a bit of a mish-mash of other North African and Middle Eastern cuisines, with some Mediterranean bits and bobs making an appearance. Anyone who has ever been to my house for dinner knows very well that Middle Eastern food is my go-to style. I manage to sneak tahini into almost everything that passes my lips, even if it doesn’t belong there (tip: put it in porridge – yassssss), and I’ve come to the conclusion that all foods fall into two categories: foods that taste better with more butter, and foods that taste better with tahini. Happily, I’d been reliably informed that tahini definitely makes more than a fleeting cameo in Egyptian cuisine, so I was sure I’d made the right choice – bring on all dat hummus!

After a bit of research and probing people in the know, it turns out Egyptians – in general – really like bread. In fact, so deep is the love and appreciation for the stuff that the local bread (apparently known as eish masri or eish baladi, or just baladee if you’re in a rush) takes its name from a Semitic root word meaning “to live/to be alive”. So bread really is life for these guys. Not only that, but authority would have it that the Egyptian government subsidises bread! Believe or not, this seemingly harmless scheme was even accused of being a political tactic by the former National Democratic Party to buy off the working classes in a bid to gain wider acceptance of the authoritarian system. It’s baguettes at dawn, people!

But wait, what if I don’t like bread? Will I starve? Will my weak and feeble body wither away at the foot of the Sphinx, simply unable to carry on any longer in this bread-loving nation? In a word, no. In a few more words, sort your damn life out – everyone likes bread, you nut! No, even if you are foolish enough not to like it, there is plenty more to please the palate along the banks of the Nile. Think juicy kebabs, silky baba ghanoush, Egyptian-style moussaka, ful medames (a dip of mashed fava beans) and glorious, beautiful shakshouka (a tomato and egg dish they – apparently - nabbed from Morocco). All of these are no doubt shining examples of the wonders of Egyptian cuisine, but there is one dish that comes heads and shoulders above the rest; one dish that seems to send Egyptians to their happy place, all misty eyed and drooling at the very thought of it. That, my friends, is kushari.

Considered by many to be the national dish of Egypt, kushari is not for the faint-hearted. If you’re on a diet, steer clear of this bad boy, as it will have you weeping at the sight of what goes into it. Which is what, I hear you say! Well, picture in your mind those food pyramids you used to see at school: with all the sugar and fats at the top, then all the gorgeous fruit and veg at the bottom. Somewhere in there is the carbohydrate layer – zoom in on that for me, would you? Now, just take out bread and potatoes from that heady mix and you more or less have the list of ingredients for kushari. Macaroni? Check. Spaghetti? Check. Vermicelli? Check. Rice? Check. Lentils? Checkity check check check. At some point, someone seems to have thought this lot alone might be a hard sell, so they wisely decided to give a faint nod to vitamins in the form of a rich, cumin-spiked tomato sauce and some (albeit fried) onions. At this point, you might be thinking that this just sounds like a drunk person’s attempt at spag bol (spaghetti bolognese for non-Brits) but kushari has a secret weapon that elevates it to a whole other level, takhdi’ah. This is an unbelievably tangy addition of lime juice, garlic and some of the tomato sauce, made separately and added at will to the final dish. No word of a lie, when my guinea pigs (people, not actual guinea pigs) and I sat down and took the first mouthful, the word ‘hallelujah’ was bandied about, specifically in reference to the takhdi’ah. Getting a spoonful of kushari is everything you could ever want from a food – soft, sweet, crunchy and zingy, all at once. It’s the perfect comfort food, making me believe for a moment that I’d spent my childhood eating steaming bowls of it from our old crockery at home. It also has the magical property of potentially being both the perfect drunk and hangover food. Not many foods can claim that!

So guys, if you don’t see another entry on this blog, you’ll know why. There’s just no way to top this week. Ok, I’m moving to Egypt now. BYE!