After a roast chicken for Sunday lunch, make this the next day - if you want some decent soup.
Remove as much meat as you can from the chicken, then boil up the carcass in a big pan for a couple of hours with a lid on.
Drain this stock into a smaller pan though a sieve and then add a chicken stock cube, some garlic, a couple of carrots chopped into matchstick-sized pieces (could be left overs), and some salt and pepper.
Boil for 5-mins (or 10 if you use raw carrot) and then add the noodles and the left over meat.
Cook for 3-mins and then serve with optional lemon and peri-peri...
Not your usual saturday lunch starter but what the fuck... Cooked this before some Italian food which was a little random, even for me. But it was all good in the hood.
Vietcong Salad
500g/17½oz sirloin steak 1 Romaine lettuce (chopped) 1 beefsteak tomato (chopped) 5 shallots (chopped and fried with peanuts until almost burnt) 50g/2oz peanuts, roasted and chopped
Slice the beef into 1inch strips and marinade in a bowl with:
1 red chilli, roughly chopped 4 tsps garlic & ginger paste 1lime juice only 1 tbsp brown sugar 3 tbsp dark soy sauce 2 tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy) 2 tbsp oyster sauce 1 tbsp fish sauce 2 tbsp tomato ketchup 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Marinade steak for as long as possible...
Make your salad in individual bowls...then cooking steak in a skillet or wok.
After 3 mins add the rest of the marinade, then cook for a couple more mins before serving on top of salad.
For some time now I've been thinking about how to pigeon hole all us lot: people who are into their food and other street cultures but really refuse to be know as 'Foodies'. I really don't like the word, the idea, the image it sums up; too middle-class, too much like something I'd fight against.
And so the other night I was chatting to my mate Someotherguy (part of Central Station) and he was telling me about his uncle and he described him as a real 'Food Head'... the penny dropped and I knew he had just given me what I was looking for.
So from this day on all of us will be collectively known as 'Food Heads'...
425ml/3/4 pint/scant 2 cups stock (the same as your meat of choice)
4 potatoes, peeled and quartered
200g/7oz frozen peas
Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion and fry until golden. Add the tin of tomatoes and cook on a low heat for 10 minutes. Then add all the spices and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the mince, allow to brown, and then add the stock and cook for at least 30 minutes on the lowest heat, stirring constantly.
Add the potatoes to the mixture and cook for another 15 minutes, or until the potatoes begin to crumble, adding more stock if needed – you want it to be fairly wet. Finally, add the frozen peas and cook for 5 minutes.
Serve with Indian breads such as rotis or parathas.
Don't normally write about stuff like this as that is what the million other fuckers out there do, but I'm a big fan of the Street Kitchen. Love the ideology, love the food, the freshness, and the energy. It even has the same initials as my favorite book right now. Big ups to Mark and Jun... check it's location by clicking here.
I discovered this with Pilpeled on the streets of Tel Aviv. He couldn’t believe that I’d never eaten Sabich and afterwards neither could I. A very healthy vegetarian option to all that meat out there… See the above interview in Time Out Tel Aviv where I bang on about it, and then check the recipe below...
SABICH RECIPE
Makes 4 sandwiches
4 large pitas
4 hard-boiled eggs (peeled and sliced)
2 large Aubergine (washed sliced 5cm tick)
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp paprika (smoked)
1 onion (finely chopped)
2 tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 cucumber, finely diced
Juice of 2 lemons
jar of hummus
jar of tahini
1 pack parsley (chopped)
Mango pickle
Make a salad of the parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, and lemon juice.
Dust the Aubergine slices with paprika and fry in batches until browned.
Then sprinkle with salt & pepper.
Lightly toast pitta and slit top.
Inside the pitta (with the back of a spoon) spread tahini on one side and Hummus on the other.
Fill with salad, egg, fried Aubergine and top with mango pickle.
Having a few peeps over for a curry tomorrow night round mine, so in honour of that, here's a photo of me in 1992 with my curry mentor John Roderick, both of us properly drunk on the way to catch a train from Coimbatore Junction.
Those locks are something else, but this guy taught me about Indian food - Southern Indian food to be precise... So much love for this guy and his wife Heather...
Here's the market where I used to shop in Kotagiri, Tamil Nadu:
And an old boy sat outside the towns General Store...
During my time in Paris I would buy pâté from a deli in the Bastille and eat it spread on French bread from a local bakery, sitting in the street watching the beautiful students and hipsters of Paris’s hippest district schlep past. That’s living all right! But these days it's all about spending as much time as I can with my family in-between traveling, and my kids love a bot of this when they get in from school on Warburton's toastie bread (the orange packet)
Feeds 4-6
250g frozen chicken livers (keep the pots they are packed in and wash thoroughly)
1 small onion, chopped into 4
3 cloves garlic
2 egg yolks
a lot of salt and black pepper
a splash of brandy or whisky
a dash of double cream
butter
Cover the livers, onions and garlic with water and simmer for about 20 minutes until cooked.
Slide the egg yolks into the water while the liquid is simmering.
When the livers are cooked, pour off the fluid and throw it away. Put the remainder through a mincer or blender. Add plenty of salt and pepper to taste, and more garlic if needed. Then add a splash of brandy or whisky, and a dash of double cream. Combine everything well and re-use the thoroughly washed plastic pots to put the pâté in.
Melt enough butter to cover the top of the pâté. Leave the pâté to cool, then refrigerate and use within a week (although this pâté can be frozen). Serve spread on hot toast with black pepper and fresh lemon juice.
From here to there and back again. After cooking for 200 people in Amsterdam last week end, I'm back. ...in the words of legendary rapper Rakim: It's been a long time, I shouldn'ta left you, without a strong rhyme to step to...' or should I say ' a dope recipe to cook to...'
It killed! It was rammed-jammed. Full to capacity. Everyone got pissed and eat the food and then I had to shout at them to buy a book. The Hotel-V was such a wicked place to stay and even better place to throw a party. Thanks to Jan and Roxie and Amanda from the Hotel-V and Rick from the ABC...
