Loquat chutney

Loquats are a new discovery for me. I had heard of them before I started working at Natoora, but I only tried one for the first time last week. So when I was asked to do a cooking demonstration in the shop this Friday I thought I should experiment a bit with this lovely fruit. 

Loquats have a texture and flavour akin to apricots, but with a sweet and sour element that lends itself well to Asian cooking. In its initial stages, without the Indian spices, this chutney tasted like a fruity Chinese sauce for duck or pork. Had that been my desired outcome, I would have stopped there, but it tasted a little odd as a chutney.

I added cumin, coriander seeds and cardamom and it was transformed. The result: a sweet and sour and sour Indian chutney with warming spices and a little kick.

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Paper plate dego

“Any dinner that ends with dancing on the tables is a success in my books!” said my sis when we woke up, heads throbbing, after the first London edition of the Paper Plate Dego. Agreed, but there are so many other reasons why this dinner was a success that to solely single out the dancing is to do a massive disservice to the chef.

‘Dego’, for those of you who don’t speak Aussie, is short for degustation. (If you find yourself stuck in the outback, a good rule of thumb for words over 2 syllables is to chop off all but the first and stick an ‘o’ on the end: avo, servo, dego and so forth.)

But why the paper plates? It started out with a lack of crockery and now the name has stuck, so why not? It means less dishes to wash and, in a neat play on words, Chef Sam’s twitter handle can also be read as ‘paper plated ego’.

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Torta Pasqualina (Italian Easter pie)

Happy Easter everyone! For once I am doing absolutely nothing at Easter and I am loving it. Oh the joy of a lack of commitments and plans. But it means I have absolutely no excuse this year not to cook and post something in the spirit of the holiday.

I searched the internet for Easter dishes from around the world. I liked the look of this one most of all, since it contains one of my favourite combos: cheese and chard encased in pastry.

Torta Pasqualina means 'Easter pie' in Italian. This one comes from Liguria. Like most of the Easter recipes I looked at it contains a lot of eggs. Eggs are commonly associated with the Christian Easter tradition, a symbol of life and the resurrection.

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Fennel gratin with leeks and anchovies

Friday fun-day! Today I did my first live cooking demo at the Natoora shop in Turnham Green. And they call this work! Well, sign me up and call me ‘Chef’.

A month ago I started working for Natoora, the UK’s biggest importer and distributor of fine quality produce. Their main clients are restaurants - Ottolenghi, Heston, Gordon Ramsay, Alain Ducasse – you name them, Natoora supply to them. There’s also an online and retail shop where you can buy all manner of delicious things and then some.

In the last 4 weeks I have tried so many new varieties of fruit and vegetables that I am starting to lose count. Oranges? Yes. Tarocco oranges with a blush of pink – new favourite.  Tomatoes? Obviously. Danterini, Marinda and Iberico tomatoes – everyday please. Radicchio? Been there. Radicchio Triestino – just about the most beautiful vegetable I’ve ever seen:

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Yak and Yeti

When I was invited last week to review the new branch of Yak and Yeti in Finsbury Park I have to admit that I was sceptical. I needn’t have been; my experience proved the old adage that you should never judge a book by its cover. 

From the outside Yak and Yeti looks like a chain and in a busy strip of mostly independent restaurants, I am more likely to choose somewhere that looks original. The décor doesn’t improve much when you step inside, but the service and food more than make up for it. All the staff are extremely knowledgeable about the food and very passionate about the dishes from their native Nepal.

Two of the waiters recommended the momo lamb, so we thought we had better try that. Good choice! It was the most interesting dish we had. Momo is a typical Nepalese street food that epitomises the mix of influences on Nepalese cuisine from its neighbours, Tibet and India.

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