Oistins

I went to the new, gleaming Waitrose in Bloomsbury last week to get something for supper. I was, as I always am at Waitrose, impressed by the variety of the offerings: jerusalem artichokes, sharon fruit and cave-aged gruyere among them. But I stopped when I got to the packaged fresh fish. I am a regular buyer of fresh fish at Waitrose, but this visit I found the selection less than inspiring. I think I've been spoiled for life.

You see, I spent a couple of weeks in Barbados last month. Apart from being rich in oil and fertile land, Barbados is surrounded by the sea, and therefore lots of fresh fish. Barracuda, Yellow Fin Tuna, Dolphin (aka Mahi Mahi) and Flying Fish are amongst the regular catches that come into the fish markets in Bridgetown and Oistins.

A fishing boat off the pier at Oistins

Barracuda (top) and Dolphin (bottom)

It is Oistins that has ruined my enjoyment of Waitrose. Are there seaturtles swimming off the pier at Waitrose? Mmm, no piers at Waitrose. Are there local farmers who set up shop in the parking lot selling their tomatoes, cucumbers and ground provisions (vegetables from the ground such as yams and potatoes) at Waitrose? Negative. Is there fresh fish, caught that day, being filleted before your eyes? Most definitely not.

A turtle looking for some lunch being thrown overboard

Stacked, filleted flying fish

My absolute favourite way to prepare the local favourite, flying fish, is fried with Bajan seasoning in a salt bread cutter. However, this south-Indian inspired curry is a popular dinner in our house and has been evolving over many trips to Barbados, each year getting better than the last (except the year that I bought sweetened coconut milk aka pina colada mix by accident and didn't realise until I thought hmm, this is terribly sweet...). Up to the addition of the fish, the curry can be made in advance - you just have to reheat the sauce and add the fish about ten minutes before serving.


Flying Fish Coconut Curry

serves 6

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 yellow onions, chopped
small knob ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed
a slither of scotch bonnet flesh or a whole red chilli, deseeded and chopped
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon turmeric
ground provisions, cut into equal pieces
2 tins coconut milk
1 tablespoon tamarind paste or chutney
1 cup fish stock, vegetable stock or water
18 filleted flying fish, rolled up with flesh facing outwards (any white-fleshed fish will do, but cooking times will vary with the thickness of the fish
scallions, green onions or salad onions
coriander
limes

In a deep, wide frying pan that will eventually hold the whole curry, heat the oil and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Saute over a medium heat, but don't let them brown. When they are beginning to soften add the garlic, ginger and chilli and continue to stir until the onions are transparent and the garlic has softened and begin to turn golden. Add dry spices and fry until they release a strong aroma.


Add the ground provisions and stir them to coat them with the spices. After a few minutes add the coconut milk and stock to the pan, season lightly with salt and pepper and bring the temperature back up to medium. When the liquid is beginning to bubble, turn it down to low to simmer for about 20 minutes or until the ground provisions are easily pierced with a fork. Up to this point the curry can be made in advance. If you are not using it immediately let it cool to room temperature (and if you are using it the next day you should refrigerate it overnight.)

Just about ten minutes before you are ready to serve the curry you should be ready to add the fish. This means bringing the sauce to a slow, slightly bubbly simmer, which should only take a couple of minutes if you have just made the sauce, but allow time for this if it has been refrigerated. You may need to remove the ground provisions from the sauce to fit all the fish into the pot - use your judgement. Nestle the rolled fillets into the sauce, trying to keep them rolled as much as possible, and spooning sauce over them as you go. By the time you've put them all in the first one should be ready to be gently turned over.

Cooking time depends on the amount of fish you have, the tightness of the pot and many other factors. I would always vere on the side of under rather than overcooked, because the fish will continue to cook on it's way to, and at, the table. But if you take a piece out it should look opaque on the outside, flake apart when pushed and be ever-so-slightly less opaque in the centre, but not translucent.

Add the ground provisions back to the pot. Serve over basmati rice garnished with chopped green onions, coriander and a wedge of lime.

Fungi, fungi, fungi

We drove out to Berkshire a couple of weeks ago for a mushroom-foraging folly. I had always wanted to eat mushrooms I had picked myself and I daydreamed of lightly browned, soft fungi dripping garlicky butter into a dark piece of toast.





I still dream about it, because despite all of the mushrooms we saw that day we didn't eat any and only picked a couple to examine them. I could not, and still cannot tell you what they are. What I did discover that day is that my fear of death (or at least severe illness) wins out over my greatest gastronomic desires.

Birchermuesli

The rather fortunate fallout from our recent Swiss adventure is my renewed obsession with birchermuesli. Served by Dr Maximillian Bircher Benner at his Zurich sanatorium around the turn of the 20th century, it has maintained its healthy reputation (although the original required condensed milk for hygiene reasons) as it has gained popularity. It's as common as gipfeli (Swiss croissants) for breakfast in the alps.
Don't be mistaken - this is no ordinary muesli. Made well, birchermuesli has none of the stale, sawdust quality that some mueslis have. Although derived from birchermuesli, store-bought Alpen can't compete - partially because the real thing is not a dry cereal at all, but rather a rich, creamy chilled mixture of soaked oats, fresh fruit and dairy products. There are many acceptable permutations of the ingredients, but so far my homemade one involves the following: apples, oats, yoghurt and raspberries. I would hazard a guess that my favourite Swiss version included some whipped cream, maybe even the original condensed milk, but I'm trying to keep to the healthy roots.


The apple is grated, which gives the dish some sweetness from the juice and texture from the shreds of apple. Traditionally the texture would be even more important since the oats would be soaked overnight, but I don't usually have the time to plan that far in advance and I quite like the extra bite.


Much like porridge, birchermuesli isn't always the most appealing looking dish when it's served, but it can easily be jazzed up with some fresh fruit. I've seen kiwi and physillis adorning a bowlful in the most remote of mountain villages in Switzerland so I can assure you this is more than acceptable - as is eating this as an early evening meal.


Birchermuesli
(makes enough for 2)

1 firm apple
1 cup nutty muesli or 3/4 cup rolled oats and 1/4 cup toasted nuts
approx. 1 cup yoghurt
handful of raspberries
fruit to garnish

Grate the apple, preferably in a food processor. Add muesli/oats, yoghurt and all but a few raspberries and combine until the yoghurt has soaked through and the raspberries have stained the whole mixture a rich pink. Serve and garnish with the remaining raspberries and/or any other fruit.

Eat immediately or chill for up to a few hours.

More possibilities:
- Soak the muesli/oats overnight in water, milk or fruit juice.
- Use a combination or yoghurt, greek yoghurt, creme fraiche and/or whipped cream
- Stir in sliced banana, blueberries, halved grapes or virtually any other fruit according to season
- Add extra toasted nuts or dried fruits just before serving

Addendum: This is my entry for Kochtopf's apple day event in honour of apple season. According to Kochtopf, apples are the most popular fruit in Switzerland, and I can believe it with so many great recipes to use them in, including the Zürcher Pfarrhaustorte that she blogged about for the event.

Deutschland und die Schweiz

Our recent trip to Germany and Switzerland was a welcome chance to re-visit the cuisine of a land often over-looked as being all sausage and fondue, no substance.

The real local market (affordable, shopable, friendly and without 29 different varieties of aged balsamic vinegar or hemp lavender pillows) lives on in Germany. We visited Kaiserslautern's "markt" on a particularly bountiful day in late August. The vendors are professionals who travel from market to market, a different town each day of the week, but who source the majority of their produce, cheese and meat from local growers and makers. The food is fantastic and lacks only pretension.

"Ringing fields cheese" - fresh cheese with wild garlic (aka ramps)

Blackberries from Donnersberg, a local village

Appropriately knobbly celeriac from the region, with greens

Peachy dahlias

"Own produce"

Just when I thought I was getting to know German cuisine I was caught by surprise by the most gorgeous, pillowy mound of yeasted dough with a crisp, buttery underbelly; The dampfnudel. They are panfried and steamed at the same time, much like potstickers. They were being served with vanilla custard, which I should have tried...

Recently I've started to warm to aspic, and that's something I never thought I would say. I love the refined sensibility of these open-faced sandwiches from Confiserie Sprungli in Zurich. The Swiss Fortnum and Mason's trademark is the Luxemburgerli, a puffy, lighter version of the French Macaron. Though I am still dedicated to Laduree's gorgeous sandwiched meringues, Luxemburgli are just as gorgeous and are delicious too.




We were very unlucky to come upon the food emporium H. Schwarzenbach (Munstergasse 19) on a Sunday afternoon when they were most definitely closed. Considering we had just come from Sprungli, that was probably a good thing since we didn't need to eat anything more, but it's definitely on my to do list for my next visit to Zurich. I wouldn't mind having a peek in the flats above either, with such fabulous doorbells they must be beautiful.

Two weeks of mourning

Foods can carry strong associations with people, time, seasons, weather, moods and places. Over years of coming up to Ontario’s cottage country for a lakeside break over the summer, my family has begun to associate the cottage with grilling, and meat in particular. We’re not always a meat-centric bunch, but something about this place (might have something to do with the oven being broken) leads us to cook outside on the barbecue daily. And this means trying to source some good meat in the Haliburton Highlands, a land of mid-sized grocery stores stocking the basics and little more.

The Butcher Block & Deli in Haliburton, Ontario, used to be our saving grace. It stocked excellent quality meats including homemade sausages and a wide range of fish. The products were not organic, or particularly local, but there was an excellent range and there were definitely people who cared behind the counter. A young man owned the store and took care to stock good cuts of high quality meat and other fine foods – it was the only place for 50 km that sold wholegrain Dijon.

The first thing on the to do list at the cottage is always a trip to the Butcher Block, so you can imagine the shock we felt when we found that our beloved shop had been replaced with a women’s clothing store. The young guy who ran it couldn’t keep it up anymore and has gone into the construction business, which is booming in the area. We might as well have worn black for the remainder of our visit, we were so upset. Our moods and insulin levels were temporarily heightened by the fantastic butter tarts at Ingoldsby Junction Buttertarts (Lower Level 177 Highland St, Haliburton, ON K0M 1S0), but the sadness returned.

In the end we ended up ferrying up meat from Toronto, from Fresh From The Farm (great sausages!) and Cumbrae's (just fantastic). We even had some Ontario lamb from the local IGA in Minden (not bad either). But it's just not the same.

Butcher Block & Deli
RIP

SF Signage

Slightly off-topic, I know, but I had to share some photos of signs and store fronts from San Francisco. I spent a lot of my time there looking up and around at the great 60s and 70s (I imagine) lightboxes, neon signs and store fronts. Check out Little Paris - a great, if slightly out of place, storefront in Chinatown. And I threw in an old rusty car for good measure.

San Francisco Treats

I could write an entry about every single thing I ate, and lots of things I only looked at, while I was in San Francisco. Unfortunately that’s too much of an undertaking right now, so here are some of the highs (and lows):

The Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market at the Embarcadero:

This is the ultimate farmer’s market, especially at this time of year. Cornucopia would be an understatement. There is a (well, at least one) reason why most of the produce in the U.S.A, and in fact a lot of the fruit sold around the world, is grown in California; the climate is perfect for it. Year round sun and very little cold make for a very long, almost interminable, growing season.

What you get at the Farmer’s market is the perfect mix of people who care about farming, the environment, and of course, taste. There were many small, local growers, some organic, and there was a wild variety of produce. Not only were there yellow peaches and (exotic in some places) white ones, but varieties like the strawberry peach – so juicy and sweet I thought it might have been steeped in syrup. And these onions were the size of my forearm.



Mushrooms were equally well represented. In the ferry building there are many gourmet stores selling everything from chocolates to cutlery, and many stalls were selling ready made food. We sampled tamales (cornmeal steamed in a husk) for the first time, and although I have no others to compare it to, it was fabulous.



Bar Tartine, The Mission District:

Bar Tartine was a chowhound discovery. I already knew about it’s sister joint, Tartine Bakery, from ogling over their cookbook – it’s been on my Amazon wishlist for months. But when I found out they had a restaurant (and people on Chowhound gave outstanding reviews overall, so I knew it would be good) I had to go.

Jan hasn’t stopped talking about it since, and he’s a bread connoisseur, so you know the bread was outstanding. It was an open texture, wheaty sourdough, served with perfectly chilled butter. The gorgonzola stuffed medjools I ordered to nibble on came drizzled with rich balsamic. Although they looked a little underinflated, the ratio of date to cheese was appropriately high once I tasted them – the cheese just cut through the sweetness of the fruit at the end.

The rest of the food was a nice mix of traditional with innovation – quite typically California cuisine (more about that later). Jan’s ceviche was simple but well executed, my zucchini flowers were stuffed with brandade rather than cheese, a nice twist, and my gnocchi were so airy that might as well have floated to my mouth. My only disappointment was dessert – while Jan’s cheese came in perfect, manageable portions, my chocolate trifle was with caramel and salt ice cream was overwhelming. A quarter of the size, with more carefully calculated ratios of cake, cream, caramel and ice cream, would have been blissful.



The décor matched the food perfectly. Simple but beautiful pieces well combined. There was one of Jason Miller's antler-inspired chandeliers, white walls, a long banquette along one side, and wooden tables and chairs. The bar was a gorgeous, solid-looking piece of marble, and the partially visible kitchen was a gleaming stainless steel. The atmosphere was relaxed, as were the clientele.

Foreign Cinema, The Mission District:

It’s dinner and a movie. Literally. At Foreign Cinema, you can watch while you eat, from either the heated and covered (with a clear awning) outdoor area, or a little less clearly from inside. A great idea.

In the summer, the movie starts late since it’s too light to show it early in the night. We just caught the beginning of Pan’s Labyrinth as we were finishing our food, and it was the coolest part of the evening.

Jan has written off Foreign Cinema since the bread was disappointing. I agree that the bread wasn’t great, and that the food was not spectacular – it was good, but not great. This is not somewhere that I would recommend to foodie friends visiting San Francisco since the food is not the highlight, but I can see the attraction of something a little different for locals. And perfect for a date.

Tartine Bakery, The Mission District:

The greatest disappointment of the trip, maybe the whole year. We rolled up to Tartine Bakery at 1.25 on Monday afternoon, hungry for lunch, and with dreams of sugarplum pastries in our heads (well, at least in mine). I spotted the display counter from across the street – glowing and glistening with lemon custard and icing sugar. As we walked closer, I eyed the plates of everyone sitting outside – sandwiches and paninis on the delicious bread we had eaten at Bar Tartine a couple of days prior. I also saw something chocolately and gooey that was calling out to me. I opened the door and was greeted by the waitress with a lovely - “We’re closed.”

Now, this took me some time to process, as it was so incongruous with the picture of a full patio and many seated at tables inside, still being served crisp green salads. I asked if I could come in and buy a pastry – no. Sure enough, the sign on the door said they were closing at 1:30 for repairs. What perfect timing. Others came and left, surprised, as I stood on the sidewalk outside as if I had been hit by a bus. How could they be eating while I stood outside hungry? And this was my only chance – our last day in town.


Taqueria El Toro, The Mission District:

The bright side of my disappointment was that this gave us time to squeeze in a “Mission burrito” which the area is quite famous for, and which have been around longer than any fancy bakeries in the area. Stuffed full of meat, beans and rice at the very least, and potentially also salsa, cheese, guacamole, they’re hefty to say the least. And I only had the “baby” size.



Chez Panisse, Berkeley:

This is a destination restaurant. El Bulli, The French Laundry, The Fat Duck, are unequivicably in the same category, and are perhaps better examples, but there are many others.

Truthfully, our trip to San Francisco was born of Jan’s Christmas gift to me: dinner at The French Laundry. After many attempts, I gave up on trying to get a reservation. I think it would be easier to arrange tea with the Queen. But luckily I’ve always wanted to go to Chez Panisse, it is closer to San Francisco than The French Laundry, and I imagine it’s more my sort of place. I would love to have tried The French Laundry, but I am not the type to buy Thomas Keller’s cookbook and derive inspiration from it. It’s a league apart. Alice Waters, on the other hand, is like my culinary guru.

I first heard of her while reading Adam Gopnik’s book Paris to the Moon. He discussed how she was asked to consult on the menu for the new cafes when the Louvre was redesigned. He mentioned her restaurant in Berkely as the epicenter of a new culinary movement in the USA, now often called “California cuisine”, with seasonal, local ingredients as building blocks, prepared with traditional, minimalist techniques to showcase the best the market has to offer. I was mostly impressed with the fact that such a grand French institution had brought in an American woman to tell them about food. She had to be good.

Then I found out that Sally Clarke, of Clarke’s in London, had studied with Walters and emulated her ideals in her own restaurant and bakery. I still have yet to eat at the restaurant, but I had heard great things, and the bakery has always been outstanding.

I could go on and on about the many great things I have heard about this place. I am happy to say now that I agree wholeheartedly with everything I have heard. Chez Panisse is the type of restaurant I would like to have. Homely and warm yet professional, gastronomically innovative yet traditionally rooted, ethical without giving up quality, and ravely reviewed yet approachable. Even the graphic design and interiors are traditionally inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, yet do not have a “copy cat” feeling; they just fit.

Two friends who didn’t know I was going to San Francisco both asked, on my return, “Did you go to Chez Panisse? What did you have?” We had, between us:

Local hook and line-caught halibut tartare with avocado, cucumber, and cherry tomatoes, $12.00
Bellwhether Farm ricotta with roasted peppers, grilled summer vegetabes, and salsa verde, $10.00

Summer cassoulet with duck confit, grilled garlic sausage, shellbeans, and stuffed tomato, $24.00
Grilled Marin Sun Farm sirloin with shoestring potatoes and morel mushroom sauce hachee, $27.00

Nectarine and blueberry cobbler with peach leaf ice cream, $9.50

Since we ate upstairs at the café, we were spoilt for choices. Downstairs at the original restaurant there is a set menu every evening, priced differently on different days of the week. It is perhaps slightly more involved food in terms of preparation from what I can tell from the menu, but locals have told me the quality is equal.

The halibut tartare was the best dish either of us had over our four days in California. It was idyllic. The bread was excellent and the rest of the food was exemplary, too. The cobbler was as simple as it sounds, but it was perfect – the fruit was perfectly sweet-tart, the topping was buttery and light, and the peach leaf flavour of the ice cream was the perfect twist to take it away from something you may have dreamed up at home. It elevated the dish from comfort food to a step above.

Everyone in the room seemed happy.




Sonoma and the Sonoma Valley:

Jan is slightly sad about this part of the trip. Since we’ve been back from California we’ve only been drinking European wines. Having expected lush green vineyards, we were greeted by a dry, golden environment of rolling hills covered with heavily irrigated vines. The two vineyards we visited, while very friendly, lacked the soul that I was expecting. I am sure it exists, but I’ll have to put in some effort to find it next time.



The best part of our trip was Sonoma was eating the two perfectly ripe figs that Jan picked from the fig tree in the courtyard at the El Dorado hotel while we were having lunch. What was initially a rather ordinary lunch became very special.