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Monthly Archives: April 2013

True Guacamole

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

Food, Guacamole, Ingredients, Mexico, Recipes, Stories, Travel, Vegetarian

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Last week we went to Mexico for a few days. I have tussled over how to write about it, since we went there as tourists and were treated as such; by which I mean we were treated with respect and mostly a benign indifference. At times it was quite funny, how we would go back into a shop having spoken to the owner perhaps half an hour before, who now had no recollection of us. This happened quite a bit. Perhaps we do all look the same.

We were staying on the sea near the small town of Todos Santos, on the Baja peninsula. The road leading up to the town was entirely flat and straight and shimmered with that wet heat so beloved of mirages. Either side of us was an ocean of cacti, frozen with dust – imagine stalactites in reverse – with the odd blossom or patch of green as if the landscape was suddenly surprised by something. Loosely tethered horses stood looking at the ground. Nothing else moved, but us. The arrival into Todos Santos is heralded by a banner reading Welcome to Todos Santos, “the magical place”.

These are interesting words, conjuring up the crossing of a threshold, of stepping from one world into another – you walk through the back of a wardrobe and feel the snow underfoot. And entering Todos Santos does have a sensation of time travel. There were pick-up trucks everywhere baked in mud, with kids in the back bouncing up and down on their way to and from school. A child of about four sat helmetless on the front of a motorbike at the one solitary traffic light, her legs wrapped like elastic bands around those of the driver. His movements were dreamlike as he took off, like liquid running slowly through dust.

We found a grocer that sold, amongst other things, eggs, avocados, tomatoes, green tomatillos and garlic. There were mountains of avocados, black, wizened and almost fungally soft. I bought the least mushy. We also bought eggs. I was expecting the avocados to be uneatable. But they were not; behind the skin lay a soft and nutty clay. They were truly gorgeous, a deep, khaki green and I ate them as you would an ice cream in a cup – half-peeled with the ‘peak’ showing, the base sitting in the palm of my hand. I ate avocados all day long from then on, not minding their ‘decaying breast’ appearance.

We ate like this whenever we could; out of hand, from roadside stalls or local shops. We couldn’t pretend to be locals ourselves, but we tried to avoid any obvious tourist spots or hostelries run by sour-looking ex-pats. Apart from avocados, I ate a lot of guacamole. There were different versions of this, ranging from sloppy, almost a slurry of bright and sharp tastes, to thick and smooth like a paste. The one I liked most was all green with no tomato. There was texture from the onion, there was a hint of acid from the lime, there was a kick of freshness from the cilantro and a bloom of warmth; chile perhaps. And of course the divine clay – soft and sweet. I ate it with parrot fish.

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I feel reticent to say it was actually our poshest – by which I mean our most expensive – meal. Everything came directly from the sea in front or from the organic garden in a field leading up to the place. You couldn’t miss it; aubergines, tomatoes, nasturtium, sunflowers, papaya trees, everything trailed and sprouted and stretched up to the sky, happily engorged on sun and regular irrigation. We got out of the car and wandered amongst it all before surfacing to ask about the menu. When we returned properly dressed an hour later, no one recognized us. “We just came here. We asked you about the menu, what the catch of the day was.” “Ah, yes, yes!” etc.IMG_2267

There are some moments that seem purely fantastical to me now: sitting in the square in Todos Santos eating an ice cream and hearing the clack-clack-clack of a typewriter from an open office window. Standing in line at the supermarket and opening the lid on a pot of tamales that was sitting on the conveyor belt. They were apparently for sale (pot not included). A cat with half a lizard in its mouth. Our hitch-hikers – two teenage missionaries from Peru, with starched white shirts and ties, so polite it hurt. The wild white fangs of the sea and the surfers bobbing like seals. I hope I can go back. I hope it really exists.

Classic Mexican guacamole

Adapted from Food 52

& Roberto Santibañez, Truly Mexican

Santibañez believes texture is the key to a good guacamole – “you want to feel everything” – and crushes some of the avocado but leaves the rest in chunks. The pummeled chile, onion, salt and cilantro acts as a sort of thick dressing here.

Half a white onion, finely chopped
1 tbs of serrano or jalapeño chile, including seeds, minced
1/2 teaspoon flaky salt
A large handful of chopped cilantro (coriander), divided
1 large or 2 small ripe Mexican Hass avocados, halved and pitted
A few good squeezes of lime

Makes a medium bowlful

Mash the onion, chile, salt and half of the cilantro to a paste in a molcajete or other mortar. You can also mince and mash the ingredients together on a cutting board with a large knife or a fork, and then transfer the paste to a bowl.

Score the flesh in the avocado halves in a crosshatch pattern (not through the skin) with a knife and then invert into the mortar or bowl. Keep some of the avocado back to add at the end. Toss the guacamole well, then add the rest of the cilantro and avocado and mash briefly and coarsely with a pestle or a fork. Season to taste with lime juice and additional chile and salt (if you like).

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Our posh meal was at Rancho Pescadero. If you’re ever in the area, go there.

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Yoghurt, a love story

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Claudia Roden, Devon, Food, Goats, Ingredients, Labneh, Recipes, Stories, Yoghurt

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When I was growing up, we had goats. Their names were Caramel and Honeybun. They had two kids, but I can’t remember what we called them – I think they were also named after dessert. The goats produced milk, which my mum turned into yoghurt. The yoghurt didn’t set awfully well – there were cracks in it filled with whey. There was often more whey than anything else.

When cold, the yoghurt was fine, but served at room temperature it was as if you were eating the goat’s soul. Warm, bloodless goat, white and liquid and slopping about in the bowl. I believe there was the odd hair. I loved the goats, but they were difficult. They were friendly in an aggressively needy way, a bit like an elderly neighbour who berates you for never visiting. They’d often head-butt us with their knotty foreheads and bleat their metallic tuneless song whenever we approached. I loved their oddly smashed pupils.

In the Seventies in Devon, there were two choices: you grew your own food or you lived on Ski yoghurts, angel cake, Wagon Wheels and frozen carrots. We grew our own things, made our own yoghurt, and accepted it was on another planet to the stuff you could buy. One of the few concessions to the mainstream was an occasional chocolate yoghurt bought from the bakery opposite my school. It was tangy yet sweet and there was a thin layer of darkness where the chocolate had started to solidify. It was magic. This almost made up for the fact that my mother refused to paint her toenails.

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Somewhere around this time, we went to Crete on holiday. There is a photo of my dad with long hair standing by a racing bike and a man who looked like Thelma from Scooby Doo, who no one could ever name. A man in the local corner shop raised his hand to a shelf and brought down a Milky Bar whenever I entered, and a wizened old woman peeled cucumbers into the fire. This had something to do with sex.

There was yoghurt here too. I’m fairly certain it was sheep’s yoghurt and it was white, like snow, and came to us in deep drifts in bowls with honey on top. I ate snails, pulling them from their shells with a special prong. There is a smell, a Greek smell, that I very occasionally get a memory of. There is the sea and then the dried and peeling stucco paint from houses, the smell of heat and sand and oregano. Can you smell colour? If so, it is a pale blue and white side by side.

Then I got ill. This is much later. I was in my mid twenties and living and teaching in London. The goats had been sent to the farmyard equivalent of a nursing home. I was in Earls Court and getting progressively worse day by day, teaching in windowless rooms with a fan to recycle the air, my life an endless round of marking and preparing.

Eventually, Crohn’s disease was diagnosed, an inflammatory bowel condition. I entered a world of herbal tea and rice cakes. apple puree and endless discussions about wheat. I was re-introduced to goat’s milk, now an elixir. Baguettes were out, plus fun.

It took me a long time to get well. I accept it will always be a part of my life, that it is here to stay. I cannot be an evangelist for a certain kind of Crohn’s diet. But I’m careful when I need to be; I pare things back, I cut out sugar.

The only thing that has survived it all is the yoghurt. I love the alchemy that takes place under a bare light-bulb in the oven. The taste is unique, and nothing whatsoever like shop-bought. A clean swathe of white brightness – it makes me happy to create it.

Homemade Yoghurt

The basic process is very simple – all you need is a big pot or bowl and a warm place to produce the yoghurt. A candy thermometer here really helps – there are people who do this entirely by feel; I haven’t yet joined their ranks. In a nutshell, you sterilize the milk by heating it, in order to kill the existing bacteria and so it can be fermented by the ‘starter’ yoghurt (Total Greek Yoghurt is good here). Then you have to keep it warm for at least 8 hours so that the culture multiplies and consumes the milk, creating your own yoghurt.

Adapted from Elaine Gottschall, Breaking the Vicious Cycle

Inspired by Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Eastern Food

2 litres/quarts full fat milk & 125g/1/2 cup plain live yoghurt

1. First, bring the live yoghurt to room temperature. Put the milk into a clean pot, heat it and watch it as it starts to rise, and then simmer for 2 minutes.* The purpose in heating the milk is to kill any bacteria that might be present and interfere with the yoghurt making culture.

*Milk must be heated past 180F (82C) in order to sterilize it, but cow’s milk can tolerate temperatures of up to 212F (100C) while goat’s milk is more delicate and shouldn’t go beyond 185F (85C). This is where a thermometer is helpful.

2. Turn the heat off and allow the milk to cool to between 108F (42C) to 112F (45C) or until you are just about able to stick your finger in the milk and count to ten. Stir well before determining the final temperature. If the milk is too hot when the live yoghurt culture is added, the bacteria may be killed.

3. Beat the yoghurt so that it loosens and looks quite liquid. Pour a little of the milk into the yoghurt and mix thoroughly. Add this slowly to the rest of the milk and mix. Either cover the pot with clingfilm/plastic wrap or its own lid. Now gently place it somewhere warm for 24 hours* (or at least overnight). The airing cupboard is good, or an oven with the light on inside. A heating pad is helpful if you don’t want to give up the oven for that long. You will soon have a lovely softly-set creation; put the pot of yoghurt in the fridge where it will keep for about a week. After the yoghurt has chilled, you can strain it through muslin or cheesecloth to create more of a set, or go further and create yoghurt cheese – otherwise known as Labneh. Don’t throw away the whey; it can be used in soups or baking, and is rich in minerals.

*After 24 hours, the sugar in the milk has been eaten by the bacteria.

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Yoghurt, garlic and mint dip

There are endless variations on this theme. It goes well with so many things; mashed into baked aubergine, poured over the top of French beans, and scooped up and dipped into, as the name suggests. You could experiment with other herbs, such as chives, coriander/cilantro or parsley, or add spices such as paprika and cumin.

200g yoghurt (strained, if you like a thicker texture) 1 garlic clove, smashed and finely chopped, 1/2 teaspoon salt, zest of half a lemon and juice to taste, a handful of chopped mint, with some leaves left whole if you like, olive oil. Mix all the ingredients together until well-combined. Dribble with olive oil. Good with flatbread, aubergine and roast lamb.

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Give peas a chance

07 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Cookbook, Cooking, Elizabeth David, Food, Ingredients, Italy, Recipes, Spring, Yoghurt, Yogurt

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There is something quite lovely about peas. You can grow them easily and their tendrils are pretty, curling things that latch on to poles and wind their way upwards and sideways as if trying to escape the garden, and their fate, in slow motion.

If you’re feeling in any way disconnected from nature, or yourself, sitting down to shell a mound of pea pods will slow your heart rate and give you room to ponder. You can watch the news and get a good rhythm going, with a pot for the empty pods and one for the peas. Use the empty pods for broth and wrap the peas in a damp towel so they don’t dry out. I was surprised by the colour and the taste. We have been seduced by the frozen pea’s excessive sweetness, its nursery softness, and now it’s hard to go back. Pretend you’re Edwardian.

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I am not decrying frozen peas – I love them and would happily live on them all year round.  But it’s a shame in the spring to pass by peas in the pod. Their tendrils are sold by the wodge at farmers’ markets here (above in their fetching blue rubber bands).

You can use the leaves as a salad ingredient or wilt them in butter. They’re lovely in a frittata along with some peas and scallions. And then there is bacon, of course. Or pancetta, if you’re a bit posh. And ham, properly thick and strongly permeating. Peas also have a natural affinity with ricotta – or perhaps it is I who have the affinity.

Ricotta (meaning “re-cooked” from the whey of semi-hard cheeses) is a soft, sheep’s milk cheese originally from Rome and is at its best in spring, eaten spankingly fresh with a little salt and black pepper. It has a wonderful blankness, aerates easily and doesn’t smother like cream can, meaning that the peas remain the star of the show. I know people make ricotta; so much is dependent on the quality of the milk. I made ‘yoghurt cheese’ instead (also known as labneh), and treated it in a similar way, along with some lemon zest and a touch of rosemary.

Both recipes below are inspired by Italian Food by Elizabeth David, a book I can’t read for long without the need to rest my head in my hands and inhale memories of my time there. It is almost impossible not to feel longing. I love food, what can I say? And Italy is where for me the heart of good food lives. Espresso and cake, olive oil, vinegar, leaves, lemons, hot cornetti steaming at midnight from a paper bag, tomatoes crackling with salt. Thinnest of thin pizza, charred and warm. I am a ruined woman.

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Piselli al Prosciutto (green peas and ham)

Adapted from Elizabeth David, Italian Food

2lbs shelled or frozen peas

A small onion

1 oz (or a small knob) of butter

3 oz of very good cooked ham cut into strips

Melt the chopped onion in the butter, and let it cook very gently, so that it softens without browning. Put in the shelled (or frozen) peas and a little water. After 5 minutes, add the ham. Add a little more water here if it needs it. In another 5-10 minutes the peas should be ready.

Yoghurt cheese with lemon zest and rosemary

Adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Easy Cheesy, The Guardian

Makes about 350g.  If you want this for pudding instead, withhold the pepper, serve with a scattering of berries, or dried fruit, some toasted nuts and a drizzle of honey.

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

1kg whole milk organic yoghurt

1 tsp of salt

1 small sprig rosemary leaves, finely chopped

Zest of a lemon

Extra virgin olive oil, for preserving

Crack the pepper in a pestle and mortar, or with the end of a rolling pin in a bowl, until it’s slightly coarser than if it came from a pepper mill. Stir it into the yoghurt with the salt, lemon zest and rosemary, then spoon the mixture into a scrupulously clean jelly bag or a double layer of damp muslin/cheesecloth (or a sterilized hankie). Place in a sieve resting over a bowl or jug in the fridge (or suspend it over the sink or hanging from a door knob somewhere cool), for two days.

Discard the whey. Lightly oil your hands and roll the yoghurt cheese into balls and place in a sterilized jar. Pour enough oil over to cover. They’ll keep in this way for a few weeks in the fridge. When you’re ready to use a ball, you could roll it in some finely chopped herbs and a further scattering of zest. Or if you want to go the Labneh route, you could roll them in spices such as cumin or paprika.

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