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"Cooking, in effect, took part of the work of chewing and digestion and performed it for us outside of the body, using outside sources of energy. Also, since cooking detoxifies many potential sources of food, the new technology cracked open a treasure trove of calories unavailable to other animals. Freed from the necessity of spending our days gathering large quantities of raw food and then chewing (and chewing) it, humans could now devote their time, and their metabolic resources, to other purposes, like creating a culture."

Michael Pollan

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Entries in tamarind (2)

Thursday
Feb242011

Sex and satay (yes, really)

DateThursday, February 24, 2011 at 7:18AM

I have often heard people say that bad sex is worse than no sex at all. I think the same applies to satay.

Hear me out.

It may not apply to blokes but, generally speaking, a girl’s libido diminishes the longer it has been, over time we tend to stop thinking about it so much. But as soon as we are reminded of how good it is, or how good it could be, we find ourselves craving it again.

Well, call me what you will, but I have the same problem with food.

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AuthorVix | Comment10 Comments |
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Monday
Nov152010

Smoky eggplant (aubergine) and chilli relish

DateMonday, November 15, 2010 at 11:20PM

Inspired by David Thompson's Nahm and Longrain's Martin Boetz


I’m all about the relishes at the moment.

This one was inspired by a recent meal at Nahm, David Thompson’s Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in Mayfair. One of the dishes we had was grilled Chiang Mai chilli relish served with trout and lemongrass, pork crackling and herbs. The relish was the highlight, not only of the dish, but of the whole meal. Sadly, its accompaniments were rendered rather bland and tasteless beside it. The pork crackling should have worked, but there was little of it and what there was had been cut up so fine you would be forgiven for missing it entirely. I would have happily foregone the trout in favour of some chunky, salty, crispy strips of crackling for dipping.

Inspired to right these wrongs, I decided to make the relish at home suitably accompanied by lashings of crispy pork belly (more on that in a subsequent post). I did a search online, but was unable to find Thompson’s recipe at the time. Instead I ended up with Martin Boetz’s Roasted eggplant (aubergine) and chili relish from his book Modern Thai Food. I had an eggplant in the fridge that needed using so I decided to try out his recipe.

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AuthorVix | Comment2 Comments |
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