wholefood kitchen

I felt a little guilty buying only one herring….it costs 70p and the fishmonger on Stoke Newington market still offered to prepare it for me. So I also bought some squid which I’ve realised over the last few months is easy to prepare and cook – this will be another post.

I hesitated with the herring, the last time I had bought fresh herring and baked it somehow, it was not a ‘wouah’ it’s delicious moment. More like…..there are lots of bones to pick. I am glad I bought it again and selected a recipe from Hugh Fearley (what’s his name???)…I had to fillet the herring first ( and I could improve my skills here, but you can find help from others:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byI8L1dSgNw).

The recipe is one of these (Scottish?) traditional recipes I have read many times but somehow never got to try. Very simply the fillets are dipped first in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, fennel seeds (whole). Then dipped into a beaten egg and then into fine oats, then fried.  The flavour was lovely, the oat crust….crunchy and soft …I completely recommend it. So easy and quick. The recipe uses rolled oats. So I blended my jumbo oats to make them finer, probably even a little finer than rolled oats, I wanted to make sure they would cook properly.

Another special from this week vegetable bag was the first salad bag of 2011 – the salad leaves are grown in the Growing Communities Sites around Stoke Newington. Last summer I volunteered at the site in Allen Gardens and it really inspired me to grow vegetables at  home. I was chuffed to see this bag, knowing what it takes to produce it. It was fresh, with lots of different flavours (mustard leaves, coriander etc). I dressed it very simply with a pinch of salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I tried a sliced of  my home made sourdough rye bread, very smooth and almost sweet with some beautiful buffalo milk cheese from the market of course… In the bread, instead of adding molasse as the recipe suggest, I used carob syrup…the result was really good. I am still wondering about the quality of carob syup. I found it in a Turkish shop. Sometime people use carob flour as a replacement for cocoa, a bit different, it is also a bean though. Any thoughts?

Home cooked Chestnut mushrooms, fresh from the Stoke Newington Farmers Market Mushroom Man, cooked with Olive Oil, Garlic, Salt with some chopped Coriander thrown in at the end. Chicken Liver Pate (again from the market) on Francoise’ Sourdough toast on the side. (A slighty generous helping. But then sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach)

And then, a working lunch, courtesy of the wonderful folks at the Wilton Way Cafe. Mushrooms with Goats Cheese and Rocket on Toast. The Wilton Way is a delightful East London cafe, home to London Fields Radio and a general air of bonhomie. The coffee is bewdy bonza cracker, in local parlance. Local, if you hail from Perth, or Paikakariki.

I was flicking through the Yoga Cookbook and saw a recipe for a prune mousse…stewed prunes with yogourt and agar agar to thicken…hmmmm simple, interesting. For some reasons I prefer to keep yogourt savoury so I used a little tahini instead….added a pinch of cinnamon and fried bananas. Bananas keep appearing in the Growing Communities fruit bags. I don’t normally buy them because they are not really ….local nor seasonal to our climate. But Growing Communities have to respond to demand as well and people seem to want bananas…I fried them gently in coconut oil, on both sides, till golden. This changes the flavour, I can’t say exactly how but it works very well. Also, as they are a very sweet fruit, cooking them with a bit of fat make their sugar a little slower to absorb by the body. Plantain are similar to bananas and are eaten cooked. I was wondering what you think? Something interesting to research… 

The bananas work very well as a garnish for this prune mousse….I have put a picture of the agar-agar flakes in case you have forgotten what they look like. They are good for creating jelly like consistency. The basic ratio is 10 to 12 g per litre of liquid for a hard jelly. To get more of a mousse, you case use 6-8g per litre and add a spoon of arrow root diluted in cold water (about 5g per litre).

You add the flakes to a hot liquid (in this case prunes stewed in water which have been blended), stir a few minutes till the flakes are absorbed and pour in a dish. The jelly sets when it cools. If you use arrowroot to make the jelly creamier, add it diluted at the same time as the agar agar.

Also, another tip is to blend the jelly once set and then you get a very nice mousse effect. This is a good time to add the tahini or other seasonings (orange rind, vanilla etc). 

I tend to keep the agar agar jelly for the summer, using fresh apple or pear juice and adding berries. They look beautiful and are refreshing. But reading the macrobiotic guide conversations on FB, someone suggested that even in winter these jellies were a good dessert…somehow with dried fruits I thought it would be more wintery….Let me know if you want a more detailed recipe:-)

I was tired when I got home last night after a wonderful day cooking lunch for the Bodywork Intensive workshop at Concord Institute in Finsbury Park. Although the weather is not so cold, it has been raining and I had been on my feet all day… I knew we would still need to eat something for dinner…

So I baked some sliced pumpkin and golden beetroot with some left over white wine, olive oil and a pinch of salt. I boiled some brown rice noodles and sauteed a leek. Mixed the vegetables and noodles, added a little stock or cooking water, some shredded kalamata olives, chervil and parsley and that was it. Served with a salad of lamb lettuce and a little buffalo milk fresh cheese from the Stoke Newington Farmers Market… very delicate.

There was also a baked apple left over… inspired from the comments on Macrobiotic Guide FB page: tahini, a little white miso, rice syrup and raisins, mixed (I think I added a little orange juice to dilute the tahini) and stuffed into the apple (core removed). I took a picture of the apples snuggling up in the oven…

I had not planned these dishes, simply the results of what I thought we needed and what I had in my kitchen.

A beautiful bright and cold Sunday, cycled to Hampstead, admired the sun light which was warming my face. When I got back home I was ready for lunch so, here is another very quick winter meal…cooking is so quick!

Ingredients (1-2 person):

1 Leek, olive oil, fresh spelt and buckwheat pasta, 2 tsp light tahini, drops of ume vinegar, 1 tsp white miso (both can be replaced with sea salt), fresh herbs of your choice (here chervil and claytonia), pasta cooking water or stock. Optional: ground pepper, egg etc.

Sauté a leek (thick slices) in olive oil with a pinch of salt. In the meantime, boil some water to cook the pasta, they only need 2mns boiling because they are fresh.  When the leeks are soft add a generous spoon of light tahini and a little pasta cooking water or stock, dilute, season with ume vinegar and/or white miso or just some sea salt. Add some fresh herbs, I had chervil and claytonia, also from the market, mix well and add the cooked pasta. Add some ground pepper if you wish. Serve in a bowl and if you need someting more hearty a poached egg works wonderfully well, adding more richness and colour. I used fresh buckwheat and spelt pasta bought from our favourite Stoke Newington Farmers market, it is very delicate, a real treat.

A word of thanks to the stallholders at the Stoke Newington Farmers Market, who brave the elements each and every week in bringing their produce to market, and face particular challenges over the winter months to extract produce from the frozen soil. Thanks also to Kerry Rankin and other members of the Growing Communities team who have made an incredible commitment to providing local, organic produce to the Stoke Newington community each and every week throughout the year.

Francoise Auvray and myself on stage and in action at Sunday’s Parks for Life event in Springfield Park, Clapton put together by Hackney Council in partnership with Growing Communities. Francoise composed two delicious recipes, variations using common ingredients to make a Summer Vegetable Barley Soup, and a Warm Barley Salad. Along the way there was plenty of room for discussion with MC Andi Oliver about principles of Macrobiotic Cooking – the dreaded ‘M’ word – which we ended up replacing with ‘Big Life,’ the original meaning of the word. Much more palatable. I later teamed up with David Rosberg who put together some delicious sugar-free desserts, making some important observations about the use of refined sugar, and creating a stampede of children when samples were handed out at the end of the demonstration. We were joined on the Theatre Kitchen stage by representatives from Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant, the Fifteen Foundation, and supported throughout the day by Sarah and her wonderful team from the Shoreditch Spa. An inspiring day, providing contact with a collection of people and organisations committed to bringing healthy food and knowledge of cooking into the wider community. Also, a load of wonderful cooking tips from enthusiasts and professional chefs. Watch this space for more Wholefood Kitchen forays!

Fresh Rhubarb and ‘textbook’ Cauliflowers on display at last Saturday’s Stoke Newington Market. The Spring produce is starting to make an appearance.

Inspired by a visit to the Stoke Newington Market, I picked up some Minced Organic Beef and some Organic Vegetables to put together a pasta dish, with some Carluccio’s Fettucine.

Sauteed Onions, Leeks, Carrots and minced garlic, with Olive Oil and Sea Salt.

Minced Beef added, together with Sundried Tomato Pesto, Wild Garlic and some Vegetable Stock made with Onion, Carrot, Kombu and Shittake Mushrooms.

The final dish, served with grated parmesan and a side salad of Mixed Greens with a Balsamic dressing, and a Wild Garlic flower garnish.