As you may have noticed from my reviews and recipes I am something of a carnivore.  So, a visit to 42°Raw for lunch was not top of my personal wish list.  It sounded a bit too alternative for me, and I have no intention of following a raw food or vegan diet for anything other than a short detox.   But, you know, I try to be open minded.  Heck, I even try eggs every so often…

From the press about 42°Raw it started to sound a little more interesting.

‘a brand new cult dining concept, which is brought to you by founder Jesper Rydahl, who opened the first 42°Raw in Copenhagen in 2009, and Kofler & Kompanie, the creators of the internationally renowned PRET A DINER pop ups that brought The Minotaur to the Old Vic Tunnels during Frieze Art Fair last year’

And slightly scarily healthy

‘we only use 100% plant-based foods and our philosophy is that food must be served in its most natural state.  Untouched by sugar, dairy product, preservatives and coloring’

So, I arranged to meet the PR for 42°Raw and the Editor of  MyChicCity there for lunch.

The Café is at the back of the Royal Academy in a lovely space with high ceilings and a feeling of light and air which suits the ambience of the place.  Feeling rebellious and rather unhealthily I ordered an Americano, with milk… and then had pangs of  guilt watching my companions sip on a stunningly coloured smoothies.

My tapas lunch was delightful.  The café does seem to have succeeded in it’s attempt to:

‘Create a healthy, fast casual dining experience that would serve as testament to the future of healthy eating around the world’.

Vegetables were beautifully flavoured and balanced with the textures of creamy nut and avocado dressings.  Nuts, seeds and rosemary crackers added depth and flavour.  By the end of our lunch we both felt full but not bloated and in my case, oh so virtuous!

The real test though, is would I go back again?  And the answer is a definite yes.  Prices are no more than the stale dishes you get in the local coffee chains with smoothies and muesli at £4.00 and lunch and dinner dishes ranging from £6.00 to £10.00 for the tapas. There’s even a rather lovely sounding ‘warm thai soup with lemongrass, lime leaves, chili, mushrooms and bok choi.  As well as some rather splendid looking desserts and cakes that we didn’t sample.  It’s refreshing in more than one way to find such good food in central London.  I’d love to try a week of detox with the food from here…but, it just wouldn’t have the hair-shirt credibility, so instead I’ll impress my friends and bring them for lunch.

Disclosure:  We dined by invitation of the Restaurant.

What do you do if you reach the grand old age of 21, have five cookery books to your name but still haven’t finished university?  Well, write another cookery book of course.  In Sam Stern’s case Virgin to Veteran- how to get cooking with confidence.

The challenge for Sam Stern is that having dominated the teen and pre-teen market with great books that reach the parts no other books can…and then gone on to produce a couple of student cookery books, he’s now at the stage where he either goes mass market and competes against Jamie, Delia and Heston or carries on writing for an audience that he is fast outgrowing, despite still being a student and (presumably) living at home with his parents during the holidays.  Now, for me that shows in this particular book and misses what I *think* is meant to be the target audience for this book (someone setting up home for the first time).

Sam Stern’s Student Cookbook: Survive in Style on a Budget has a list of ‘essentials’ for the student kitchen (from memory, about 12 items), supplemented with a ‘nice to have’ list.  By comparison  Virgin to Veteran- how to get cooking with confidence lists out the equipment you need to include a micro-plane, a potato ricer, 9 different pans, the same number of kitchen knives, a deep fat fryer and an ice-cream machine. If I really was a virgin cook, I’d be running to hills at this point.  I quizzed a few younger friends and while they are all gadget mad, their budget is limited and space even more so.  So for me it’s a shame that section is SO gadget heavy, because once you’ve robbed a bank to buy the kitchen equipment recommended,  he does include a lot of useful advice on setting up ‘The Virgin Kitchen’ and on managing your food. And, the book layout is fun and there are useful ‘extras’ scattered through the book.

Moving on to the recipes, they are beautifully photographed and I love the idea of ‘change it up’.   I guess that’s because for me, it’s what I do anyway…and I’m genuinely pleased to see what I see as ‘creativity’ in the kitchen being encouraged.  I like the  the sections on ‘friends’ and the buyers guides too for their simplicity and sensible advice.  But, in terms of recipes there’s not a great deal that is new here and very little on what makes Sam’s version of (say) fish pie or roast chicken a master-class rather than Delia’s version or Jamie’s.  I don’t have a set of Sam Stern’s books, but I’ve browsed through the Student Cookbook and I have spotted a few duplicates in this book and a few ‘developments’ of the same dish.

Overall I like the book but am unconvinced about the ‘master-class’ positioning.  In trying to take the prodigy out of University before he’s graduated, for me it misses something and makes a talented and passionate guy look like a lesser Jamie Oliver.   I hope it’s simply that I’m not the target market myself because the concept of a book that encourages kitchen virgins to cook, to experiment and to be creative is one I really believe in…just as much as Sam’s earlier works to encourage kids and students off the sofa and into the kitchen.

I’m planning to lend the book to some younger friends and see whether the Sam Stern magic works on a younger ‘closer to virginal’ audience as opposed to this old kitchen veteran – and reporting back ASAP.

I was sent a complimentary copy of  ’Virgin to Veteran’ by Quadrille Publishing for review purposes.

From Wardour Street, Carom is a striking and attractive venue, with bright fabric hangings across the ceiling, soft sofas and a large chandelier.

Inside, on a wet spring day, it looks a little worn around the edges, but this is really a night time venue and it does feel a bit as if you’ve walked into a nightclub at the wrong time . I suspect any scuff marks and scratches disappear once the lighting is changed in the evening.   We arrived for lunch and cocktails and were greeted warmly.  Right now, the lunch menu at Carom is quite restricted – three wraps, three variations on the curry of the day and meat, chicken or vegetarian carom lunch boxes.  But, it was quiet and the manager told us the menu was simply a reflection of the fact that it hasn’t offered lunch at all until recently.  With the exception of the lunchboxes, the menu is available as a takeaway too, and at around £5 a dish would make a great alternative to a sandwich!

Apart from the lunch menu, Carom offers evening diners an early evening three course menu for just £11.95, with two courses for the rest of the evening at £10 or three for £15.  The a la carte menu is not long but has a reasonable choice of tandoor and curry dishes.  The manager told us that on Wednesday evenings the atmosphere was relaxed, with a sitar player providing live music, while there is a more upbeat sound system later in the week.

I rather like the idea of quality over quantity.  Not that our portion size was in any way small, by that I mean focussing on a few dishes rather than offering infinite variety and ensuring that everything that you serve is good quality.  If you wanted to be picky about Carom, you might note that putting poppadam in with hot rice results in soggy poppadam and hot naan over salad has the effect of part cooking the salad. While the lunch boxes were very pretty, I am not sure that they were the most functional way of serving some of the items included.   But, for me at least, the chicken curry was excellent – hot and spicy without being overpowering.  And, I am inclined to believe the menu claim that the rice is ‘the finest 3 year old AA Basmati’ because it was rich, nutty and flavoured.

Our cocktails were a joy.  We were, with the encouragement of the manager, just a little indulgent.  We’d already ordered an almond and peach bellini – and he insisted we tried the house passion fruit cocktail, which was very pretty and suited my sweet tooth!

At the recommendation of the manager we are planning to revisit in the evening.  Meanwhile, if you happen to fancy a lunchtime curry, well, Carom isn’t a bad option!

Disclosure – we dined as guests of the restaurant

Carom
100 Wardour Street
Soho
London
W1

In this case, I went specifically to see the Guide Dogs for the Blind stand.  My friend was there, running the sensory tunnel, a strange experience where you are completely blindfold and plunged into total darkness to walk through a tunnel of sounds and textures that is meant to replicate the experience of being blind.

It’s very disorienting.  People emerging from the other end look shell-shocked, although the younger ones all seemed to want to go through for a second or third time.  And, it’s quite shocking how unnerving it is being totally without sight, even in the relative safety of a short padded tunnel.

We met trainee puppies and some of the owners with their guide dogs.  And in the excitement of the show, just paused for a minute to think about how special these animals are and how much difference they make to their owners.  Even 8 month old poppy was perfectly behaved…

The London Pet Show had a range of exhibitors, from the blue peter cats who seemed to be spending most of the show sleeping in their litter trays, to miniature ponies, to the tiniest hedgehogs I’ve ever seen to a rather impressive set of falconry.

I came away with leaflets for the ultimate in cat-scratching posts and a free packet of catnip seed but managed to avoid buying toys,  cushions and cat carriers…or anything else. Despite the appeal of most of the animals on show!

It was fun and the animals all seemed to be incredibly well trained.  Or VERY tired.

The younger visitors to the exhibition probably had the best time.  And I would imagine pester power will continue after the show for some time because a lot of the animals were incredibly cute.

Now…

Where COULD I keep a hedgehog?

Some of you may remember that I was appointed Social Media Ambassador for New World Appliances last year.  I’ve been adding content to their blog and finding out more about the organisation, which is part of Glen Dimplex Home Appliances (alongside Stoves, Belling and LEC).  New World have been manufacturing in the UK for over 120 years and are one of the few remaining manufactures of cookers, fridges and freezers who produce in the UK!

So, it seemed very appropriate to start a blogging challenge based on ‘The Best of British’.  I’ve been working on this with Karen Burns Booth from Lavender and Lovage because she’s something of an expert in Blogger Challenges, and I am really not!  The idea is to host the challenge with a different blogger each month, working our way around the UK to showcase local recipes and produce.  You don’t need to come from the region, or even have visited.  But, you do need to make something that is inspired by or influenced by the region.

I’ve asked one or two people to volunteer and the lovely Choclette is kicking the whole thing off with a Cornish Best of British challenge.  It’s dear to my heart because I visit Cornwall every year for the food festival at Boscastle and I’ve been going there for over 30 years now (when I was much younger I used to sing in a big music festival there!).  We still need a few more British Regions, so if you would like to host for a month, please let me know!

I’m busy plotting my own entry for this month’s challenge.  And I do hope you will join in too.  New World have offered a prize of a  £50 Amazon gift voucher for the first 6 months, and we are planning a ‘grand finale’ with a celebrity chef(!) judging the entries at the end of the 6 month period.  But, apart from the prize, this is your chance to show the world that British food is about more than Fish and Chips and Chicken Tikka Masala (nice as they both are!).  You can find more on the New World Blog and if you have any questions, please message me here or on twitter!

Rules:

• Post your recipe on your blog with a link back to  The Face of New World Appliances and to the relevant month’s host (this month Chocolate Log Blog).
• Add the ‘Best of British’ badge to your blog post (you can find it here on London Unattached in the side bar)
• Add ‘Best of British’ in your blog post as a label or tag
• The recipe can be one of your own or one you’ve seen elsewhere.  You are welcome to republish old recipes/posts but please add the information about this challenge.
• Please make sure you don’t infringe any copyright laws – if in doubt please ping me on twitter (@fionamaclean) or leave a note below  to ask for advice!
• Please be as creative as you like with the theme for the month.
• This month’s challenge starts today (15th May) and closes at midnight on 15th June 2012
• Mail us to let us know you are taking part on bestofbritishchallenge@gmail.com

If you post on twitter, please mention @fionamaclean or @newworldapps and use #BestofBritish and we will try to retweet!

So best of luck to everyone who takes part in the first month’s Best of British!

I don’t know whether the inspiration for this recipe is simply the fact that everyone has started talking about the Queen’s Jubilee. I wanted to develop a turkey recipe that was easy, that could be made with pretty much any turkey meat (other than mince) and that would work in summer and winter equally well.  And, as you have probably guessed this recipe has it’s origin in Coronation Chicken, originally made for the Queen’s Coronation, 60 years ago.

I can imagine this dish on our family table after Christmas, as a perfect way to use up the left over turkey meat.  But, it’s also something that makes a great salad dish for a summer buffet.  What’s more, if like me, you are usually cooking for one or two, then you can half the quantities in my recipe and use cooked turkey breast from the deli counter of your supermarket to make enough for two or three!  It works very well as a sandwich filling too if you have any left!

Jubilation Turkey with Piquant Pepperdew

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Serves	4-6
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	5 minutes
Total time	20 minutes
Allergy	Egg, Milk
Meal type	Lunch, Main Dish, Salad, Side Dish
Misc	Child Friendly

This is an updated version of coronation chicken with a spicier but lighter dressing and with turkey. By using mango and piquante pepperdew peppers this dish bursts with flavours

Ingredients

• 400g Cooked turkey meat (diced or pulled into bite size piece)
• 150ml Mayonnaise
• 300ml Greek Yoghurt (I used 2% fat)
• 12 Piquante Pepperdew Peppers (chopped, 2 reserve and sliced for garnish. I used mild!)
• 1 tablespoon Mild Madras Curry Powder
• 2 tablespoons Mango Chutney
• 1 handful Fresh coriander (chopped, a few sprigs reserved for garnish)
• 300g Fresh mango (diced or cut into slices (make the shapes the same as your turkey!))
• 1 tablespoon Light olive oil (sunflower or any light oil can be substitued)
• 1 teaspoon Worcester sauce

Directions

	Warm the oil in a pan and heat the curry powder till it starts to smell spicey
	Stir in the mango chutney and the worcester sauce so you have a kind of brown gunk
	Put the curry and mango chutney mix into a large bowl. Stir in the mayonnaise then the yoghurt, pepperdew and chopped coriander and mix well.
	Mix in the mango and turkey and place the resulting mixture in the fridge for at least two hours so the flavours can blend
	Serve garnished with a few sliced pieces of pepperdew and coriander leaves.

The piquante pepperdew in this recipe adds just a little extra kick and texture while using mango rather than the tinned or dried apricots that went into the original dish makes an altogether lighter flavour.  I’ve used a ratio of 2:1 yoghurt to mayo, but you could play around with that to make this dish healthier or creamier.  Remember though that turkey is a very healthy, low fat meat!

I don’t do eggs.  Well, actually I do, in omelettes and soufflés, in all sorts of egg based sauces and in mayo for starters.  But I don’t generally like chicken eggs that look like eggs.  It’s irrational and I don’t think it has anything to do with the flavour, more to do with a childhood angst that the yellow bit was a fluffy chicken sort of liquidised and packaged in a shell.  And perhaps because it was one of the few foods I was forced to eat/try by my parents fairly regularly.  Perversely, I do like quail eggs.  I think there’s a higher ratio of yolk to white and the white never seems quite so rubbery to me, because the tiny eggs can be cooked much faster

Despite my egg-phobia, I love kedgeree – even the the real McCoy version made with proper smoked haddock and chicken eggs.  When I was little I’d pick out the boiled egg bits and usually get made to sit at the table till I ate them all, but now I don’t mind them so much.  However In this case I happened to have a smoked salmon fillet from delishfish and I wanted to do something a bit special with it.  This isn’t sliced smoked salmon, it’s a whole piece of salmon that has been hot smoked and would make a substantial meal for one person.  But, treated this way it will stretch to a posh lunch for two or three with no problem.  If you can’t find hot smoked salmon fillet, then you would be better using a fresh salmon fillet here than slices of the cold smoked variety.  It needs nice flakey chunks of fish.

Smoked Salmon and Quail Egg Kedgeree

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Serves	2-4
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	20 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
Allergy	Egg, Fish
Meal type	Breakfast, Lunch
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Hot

Smoked Salmon and Quail Egg Kedgeree works well for a posh breakfast dish, or a light lunch. This take on a classic colonial British/Indian dish is beautifully flavoured and very easy to prepare.

Ingredients

• 150g Basamati rice
• 2 teaspoons Madras curry powder (I used barts medium, you may prefer more heat!)
• 6 Quails eggs (hard boiled and peeled then halved)
• 1 Hot smoked salmon fillet (100-150g)
• 1 tablespoon Chives (chopped finely)
• 1 tablespoon Coriander (chopped finely, a few leaves reserved for garnish)
• 1 Shallot (chopped finely)
• 1 Lime or Lemon (cut in half, with one half then cut into segments)
• 30g Butter
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

	Boil the rice in 350ml of water till just soft, drain any remaining water
	Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the curry powder. Sizzle for a minute or so over a low-medium heat then stir in the shallot and cook for a further 5-10 minutes over a low heat till soft
	Add the rice and mix thoroughly
	Stir in the flaked salmon, the herbs, the juice of half the lemon or lime and the quails eggs cut into halves. Then warm through gently over a very low heat
	Add salt and pepper to taste, serve garnished with the remaining coriander leaves and with segments of lemon or lime.

Note

You can prepare everything in advance, leaving out the fresh herbs and lime or lemon juice, then reheat in the oven in a covered dish for about 15 minutes before stirring through the herbs and lime or lemon juice.

I am very pleased with this dish – it’s made a fabulous lunch and I think it would also work well served as a dinner party starter in smaller portions.  The need for coriander annoys me because it’s one of those herbs I have little success trying to grow and I hate paying for those tiny packets of herbs you get in the supermarket.  I don’t believe it would work as well with anything else though you could try using fennel and flat leaved parsley, perhaps adding some crushed coriander seeds to the curry powder at the start.

I think it has quite enough herbs in it to qualify for Herbs on Saturday over at LavenderandLovage so I am sending this to Karen, especially as I won my fish from her blog giveaway!

One of my favourite occupations on my recent trip to Tuscany was nibbling on home made cantuccini with a glass of vin santo after a meal.  The little biscuits which we sometimes mistakenly call biscotti over here, were packed with almonds and pleasantly crunchy.

In Florence, we saw this wonderful shop window full of neat cantuccini stacked in pyramids…and I got home and started to bake!  Mine don’t look so tidy, but then I am only eating them, not charging money for them!!!

My first attempt was really not bad.  The cantuccini went in a tin and I munched my way through them in a few days.  And I noticed that this month’s ‘We Should Cocoa’ challenge was almonds. Now, note the little chocolate cantuccini in the shop window in Florence.  I started to yearn!

Here’s the result.  They are REALLY lovely, though since we didn’t eat any chocolate cantuccini in Tuscany at all, just looked, I can’t tell you how authentic or not they are. I did browse the web for a suitable recipe and couldn’t find one I was confident would work because for the most part they used a mixture of cocoa powder and chocolate chips.  And, I thought that would make the cantuccini too moist.  So, I just replaced 60g of the flour in my original recipe with bournville cocoa powder and ended up with some pretty good chocolate cantuccini.

I think they need a different glaze.  The egg wash just looks too shiny, maybe I should try mixing it with a little caster sugar or dredging some over the biscuits before they go in the oven.  But taste-wise and texture-wise, at least for me, these are spot on.  Densely chocolate flavoured and really crunchy without being tooth breaking.  I haven’t reprinted the recipe because I didn’t make any other changes.  But, next time I will try adding a little vanilla essence or some orange rind, just because I can!

So, here’s my entry for We Should Cocoa, run by  Choclette and this month being hosted by Laura from how to cook good food.

Well, OK, so, this was another of my ‘two lunches in one day’ events.  We arrived at around 2.30pm to relative tranquillity and no queues.  And, we sat at the bar, with the little trough that holds water glasses and condiments and ordered the predictable but must be tried slider, skinny fries and truffled egg  toast.  I’m still alive and I kind of liked it.  I went into Spuntino’s expecting street cool detachment and had visions of being thrown out for lack of appropriate hip clothing.  The reality was a cosy bar with friendly staff and enough other punters not to make it feel dead.

The food was really pretty good too.  I could smell the truffle on the truffled egg toast, and if I happened to LIKE egg, then this rather gooey mess of egg, cheese and sliced bread seasoned with truffle would have been perfect for a wet spring day.

Instead, I found space for a tiny but perfectly formed beef  and bone marrow slider and a large bowl of curly potato fries.

The bill for our afternoon snack, with two small glasses of wine was around £25.  Really not bad for playing at being cool for an hour or so and escaping the persistent rain into a warm and friendly atmosphere.

I’d probably avoid the place any time there was a queue (the bar staff said they served popcorn to patient punters from around 5.30pm onward).  But that’s just me.  If you want to be cool these days, you queue and enjoy.  I’m getting to quite like Russell Norman’s restaurants, it’s like being part of a Woody Allen script without the angst and stage-fright.

Spuntino
61 Rupert Street
Soho
London W1D 7PW

No reservations

I’ve been to Assaggetti before, for a media event where the large lower ground floor dining room was the venue for drinks and canapés.  On that particular occasion I was going on to another event and didn’t really get much of a chance to look around.

So, lunch seemed like a good idea;)

We started with an aperitif – prosecco for me and a rather nice orangy drink called Aperol  for the Hedonist.  And ordered a selection of small dishes to start.  The Assaggetti menu is perfect for grazing, with lots and lots of dishes priced between £3 and £6 so that you could, if you chose, just order a selection of those.  There are pizzettine which we didn’t sample but which looked rather good and a whole selection of other small dishes to choose from including cold meats, seafood and a range of antipastini.

We had some focaccia to go with our splendid olives, ‘messy polenta’, calamari and creamy burratta.  The calamari was crisply battered and served with a slice of lime.

Burratta came with slices of not quite ripe enough tomato and a single basil leaf.  I loved the cheese itself and will blame the tomato on the appalling weather across the UK and the fact that I am just back from Tuscany where there was just a little more sun!

The polenta WAS splendidly messy, oozing with cheese and served in a small baking dish.

Really quite a good way to start a meal.

Of our mains, the black risotto with cuttlefish was a little disappointing and watery but my Tuscan sausages were exactly what I wanted on a chilly day in May, beautifully meaty and served on a bed of kale.  I really enjoyed  the aubergine stew too, which was rich and warm and which I would happily have eaten with just a chunk of focaccia.

Service was friendly and informative and on a wet Wednesday lunchtime, the place was busy without being over crowded.

Assaggetti is just off Picadilly Circus almost opposite the Haymarket theatre and well positioned for pre-theatre or post-theatre dining.  The menu is perfect if you are looking for light, informal food.  Though this is by no means a gourmet experience, pricing reflects that.  By Central London standards most dishes on the menu are very reasonable, with our mains around £10 and with the sides and small plates all less that £6.  And,  thankfully, the drinks menu is also exceptionally reasonable which, in my experience can be a rare combination.  On balance I think the small dishes were better presented and better value than our mains – and more fun to order and eat too – and I wish I’d tried the pizzettine;)

Disclosure:  We dined at Assaggetti as guests of the restaurant.

Assaggetti is on 71 Haymarket, St James’s