Back to the Start: Cape Monsieur

So folks, the first ever cookbook was written by Archestratus (a Sicilian Greek) in 350 BC. It was called Hedypatheia (Pleasant Living or Life of Luxury) and I guess it was the bomb. People must have freaked out like they did this Xmas with that Jamie Oliver book (which was his least good book to date - but sold the most!) The first cookbook to be published in America was The Complete Housewife by E. Smith in 1727. The first cookbook I ever had was when I was 7 or 8 and was the one with the freaky cat and dog telling you how to cook (My Learn To Cook Book), and had recipes for shit like apple snow (foul stuff) and croque monsieur (not bad and probably the first savory dish I ever cooked).


Which links me to this:

Cape Monsieur


30 year or so later, my cousin Mark hooked me up with this recipe, one wet winters day in Wynberg, a suburb of Cape Town.


Makes as many as you want to!


Some vintage/mature cheddar
A few slices of bread
An egg (or two, depending on how much you're making)
HP or Daddies Sauce
Salt + Pepper


Grate a decent amount of nice vintage cheddar into a bowl. 


Add the egg, a squirt of the brown sauce, and the salt & pepper. 


Mix into a paste.


Grill one side of some lekker bread (from Kolos Ukranian Rye to Warburtons white toastie - it's all good!)


Spread the mixture on the other side and grill until the topping bubbles and begins to turn brown.


Eat!

In J-ru we skate Part 2

It's been out a bit now and so here's the full Jerusalem feature. Click pages below to read.

Digging in the crates...

Just to put you in the mood for a new series of lekker food writing I'm doing at the moment, here's a look at a part of my reggae record (vinyl!!!!) collection.

Gregory Isaac 10" of Night Nurse at the front with a Disco Mix and backed with Material Man.

This might seem like trainspotting to you but for me it's all part of the street culture that food is such an important part of...

So nice me gonna play it twice!

Radical

Nicked the below images today from the Radical Cross Stitch (Aussie craft movement featured in Street Knowledge) web tumbler whatnot...

I love this kind of sub-culture feminist imagery...

Keep keeping on!

I LOVE NEW YORK

8 shots of the city that never sleeps:

EAT ME!

This is a preview of a series on street food I'm doing for a well known magazine with editions of magazines in all the major cities of the world. Manchester was the pilot - which unfortunately will never see the light of day as there is no edition for that city.

I love street food and I love Manchester so I'm sending it out there to light up the darkness...
Manchester roll of honour: Central Station, Shaun Ryder, Tony Wilson, Someotherguy, A Guy Called Gerald, Rusholme, Back Piccadilly, The Northern Quarter, Afflecks, Salford, Mike Leigh, The Smiths, Joe Bloggs, Custard Shop, John Cooper Clarke...

Its a big fucker so click to enlarge.

Yard Night - Rice+Peas+Jerk Chicken

Rice + Peas
I used to live in Balham, South London, and my flatmate’s mum would send round rice and peas and hot pepper gravy on a Sunday (a Jamaican Sunday lunch). This was the best thing we’d eat all week.

Feeds 4-6

300g/10 1/2oz/1 3/4 cups long-grain rice
1 bunch spring onions (or just a regular onion), chopped
1 tin kidney beans
4 teaspoons allspice
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 cloves garlic, chopped (or 4 teaspoons garlic paste from a jar)
1 chicken stock cube
1 x 200g block creamed coconut

Wash the rice and cover with water to about 3cm above the top of the rice. Mix the onion into the rice and water. Open the tin of kidney beans and pour into the rice, brine and all. Add the allspice, soy sauce, garlic and stock cube. Chop the coconut block into pieces and add to the mixture.
Mix thoroughly and then cover the pan and bring to the boil. Cook for 20 minutes on a very low heat without taking off the lid.

Turn off the heat and allow to the pan stand for 10 minutes before serving with jerk chicken and hot pepper gravy (see the following recipe). 

Jerk chicken with hot pepper gravy
This is a recipe from Ladbroke Grove, West London. A guy I knew back inna day had a shop there selling hip-hop clothes and trainers that he and his partner imported from New York by the bag load (as many as they could get on the plane). This was in 1989 and good gear was hard to get. I used to hang with him sometimes and we’d eat jerk chicken for lunch. Those were the dayz.

Feeds 4

8 chicken portions (thighs and drumsticks)
jerk seasoning (Encona or similar)
1 large pot yoghurt
juice of 1 lime

Hot pepper gravy  2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon jerk seasoning
1 chicken stock cube dissolved in 450ml/16fl oz/2 cups water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped fresh root ginger

Wash the chicken pieces and score each piece deeply with a sharp knife three or four times.

In a large bowl mix 1–4 teaspoons  jerk seasoning (depending on how hot you want it!) with the yoghurt and lime juice, and then add all the chicken pieces, one by one, coating each piece with the mixture. Marinate for as long as possible (overnight is best).
Bake in the oven at 200°C/400ºF/Gas 6 for 60 minutes, or cook on a BBQ for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the hot pepper gravy. Mix all the ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil.
Simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve the jerk chicken with rice and peas and hot pepper gravy. 

J-Ru Skate

My feature on Jerusalem Skaters is out now in Issue 23 of Huck Magazine.

Lekker Lamb and Butternut Hot Pot

This was born on the streets of Madchester and mutated into something via the Cape Flats. Rural old school English food twisted out of boredom and then blasted into the 21^st centaury with a couple of new ingredients. It’s not very summery but I’m fucking bored of the usual…

Oil

Garlic (chopped)

Onion (chopped)

4 large Lamb steaks

300g potatoes (sliced into thick crisps)

150g carrots (sliced)

½ Butternut squash (cubed)

salt & pepper

2 tsps Chilli

Fresh Thyme

Rosemary

1lt Lamb Stock

Red wine

1 tbspn Corn flour (mixed with 4 tbspns water to make thick paste)

In a big casserole fry the onions and garlic in the oil for a coupla mins and then add the lamb.

Brown the meat and then add the wine, stock, salt, pepper, chilli and Thyme & Rosemary.

Cook for atleast 2 hours and then add the carrots and butternut with the lid on at all times.

Thicken gravy with corn flour and then lay the sliced potatoes on the top. It doesn’t matter if they sink…

Cook for 20 mins with lid on and then 20 mins with lid off of to brown the potato.

Serve with something green.

Some shots from the show

A Quick preview of some of the art from the Street Knowledge exhibition for all you web surfers stuck in the grid... Cue Daft Punk...

WEEKENDER!

2011 - HERE WE GO!