black pepper chicken stir-fry

just a simple chinese stir-fry with lots of fragrant black pepper to help combat the cold we’re feeling in London this week.

I’m not including quantities because I think the beauty of cooking – and Chinese-style in particular – is that you can add more of what you want and none of what you dislike, and all you have to do is ensure that the tastes balance out.

this dish is more commonly cooked with beef, but I had chicken on hand and used it without problems. be creative! be fearless!

cut florets off the broccoli tree and quarter/half them depending on their size. if you’ve never eaten the broccoli stalk before, you’re really missing out – it’s sweet and nutty and to me, the best part of the vegetables. next, dice 4 cloves of garlic coarsely – do it more finely if you like a greater garlic flavour – and slice 1 onion to approximately 1.5cm. I would use 2 onions if I were just cooking for myself, but since my partner is particularly (negatively-)sensitive to garlic and onion, I tend to keep their quantities lower than I personally prefer.

dice up your meat of choice – I buy it pre-diced but those chunks are usually too large and so I still go at it till they are more uniformly bite-sized. marinate it with sesame oil and dark soya sauce, before throwing on a measure of cornflour. leave this to sit for about 10 minutes, or as long as you can wait.

at this point I chose to boil my rice noodles in a pan of salted water before starting the stir-fry. after the noodles are cooked, drain them and set aside.

heat up a mix of sesame oil and vegetable oil in a large pot, and when the oil is warm enough to flow about and coat your pan, throw the onions and garlic in. I don’t like to put the aromatics in when the oil is hot because that usually leads to burning, wheras here you want the onions and garlic to soften. throw in a measure of coarse black pepper – people usually use fresh ground but I’m lazy and not-so-particular, so a jar of coarse ground black pepper works for me – and stir-fry till you can smell the pepper.

throw in the meat, which might stick together – but don’t worry – and stir regularly until mostly seared on the outside. throw in the broccoli, give it all a good stir; and then pour in some light soya sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil and stir to taste. now pour in a measure of hot water – this creates the sauce – and put the lid on so the broccoli and chicken can steam in that tasty environment.

when all cooked, I removed the chicken and vegetables from the pot to make more sauce and thicken it with a cornflour slurry – cornflour mixed with cold water. stir the ingredients back into the sauce, and serve over rice or noodles.

so comforting.

muriel’s kitchen, london

good british organicky food in south kensington. it was 10pm, dinner felt like it was soon going to be a dream, and southken was filling up – like it always does – with women in tiny dresses and dapper men in suits.

we headed round the station to muriel’s, which we’ve always wanted to eat at (enticed by the wholesome-sounding menu and chip-cheap prices (for the area)) and were lucky that it closed only at 1030pm. it certainly looked organicky, with pretty wholesome cakes – I should tell you I am partial to these unfinished rustic cakes over frosted perfection – and a lot of vegetables and natural ingredients laid out on wooden boards. I would say this is a very typical british posh-y cafe, not really british in cuisine so much as in inspiration and layout – the flavours are borrowed very cleverly from many other regions.

between the two of us, we had a personal-sized lancashire hotpot, and three sides of broccoli, green beans and potato wedges. I was told the hotpot wasn’t too impressive and the potato crisps on the top were a little soft, but the wedges, broccoli and beans were full of tasty flavours, and I guess any letdown from the hotpot might have been the fact that we were there just before closing.

i’ll come back here – it’s very good value for a pretty surrounding and good homefeel food. we sat at the bar-style table along the window and its planters, and the plants there were so calming. a very very good option for lunch.

côte brasserie, london

amazing french-ish in soho. we have walked past this restaurant constantly in our walks along wardour street – usually to busaba eathai, princi or bringing friends to hummingbird. it is always packed, and tonight we decided to join the crowd.

besides the crowd, the reasonably (and unbelievably low) prices drew us in. we waited 15 minutes for a table for two during a crowded dinner time, which is when I found out that it had an extended dining area as well as a downstairs. service was friendly, prompt and surprisingly attentive, and really made the evening.

at our cosy table, we ordered two starters – calamari coated with breadcrumbs, parsley and lemon as well as mussels could in a white wine cream sauce. they came so quickly – scarily so – and was so fresh. the calamari was tasty and had bite, not rubbery at all; the mussels was sweet, fresh and small and the sauce would have been very good with bread if we had any (we didn’t order any).

for mains, I had a whole roasted seabream – very fresh and a whole meaty fish for slightly over £12. I asked for, and was graciously given, wedges of lemon which complemented the taste of the fish. the beef bourguignon at the other side of the table was very good and tasty even though it wasn’t as impressive as the whole fish.

this is going to be our new favourite haunt in the area, for its price, attentive and friendly waiters, and amazing food. a must-go.

p.s. a tripod is amazing for taking those still non-blur shots in bad (but romantic) restaurant lighting.

chocolate peanut-butter cheesecake

nigella – yes I tend to think of her by her first name, as do many people – calls this an unashamed indulgence and that was the reason I made it, since this is meant to feed a horde of more than 10 men. the fact that I’ve watched nigella make this in that effortless manner she has also made this very enticing.

I have to say I plied on the (un)shame for this cake, by adding a chocolate topping and more salted peanuts over the chocolate-sour-cream layer over the peanut-butter-sour-cream filling over a chocolate-peanut-digestive-butter crust.

I changed the quantities around a bit to make two 8-inch cakes, and I’ve included my quantities below for reference. it’s important that it’s all at room temperature.

crust	300g digestives
	75g salted peanuts
	150g dark chocolate
	75g unsalted butter
filling	600g full-fat soft cheese (2 packets)
	4 eggs
	3 egg yolks
	230g castor sugar
	150ml sour cream
	300g smooth peanut butter
sour cream topping	300ml sour cream
	100g milk chocolate
	20g dark chocolate
	35g soft brown sugar
chocolate topping	55g dark chocolate
	1 tbsp water
	Handful of salted peanuts
	2 8-inch loose-bottomed tins

Directions:

1. preheat the fan oven to 160C.
2. crust: put all the crust ingredients (I had to do this in 2 batches) into a food processor and pulse very finely. turn out the mixture into the pans, and press into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. I think it’s meant to have a deeper bottom crust since nigella’s photo doesn’t show as much up the sides but I like the look of a surrounded cake. place in the fridge while you mix the filling.
3. filling: throw all the ingredients in a large bowl and whizz at it with an electric mixer. it comes together amazingly quickly into a smooth mixture. pour the filling into both of the crusts and place it into the oven. they are done when the top feels dry and set – mine only took 25-30 minutes. at that point you want to remove the cakes from the oven but leave the oven on and start with the sour cream topping.
4. sour cream topping: place all the ingredients into a microwave-safe bowl and heat it up in the microwave, checking every 20 seconds to give it a stir. I found that this came together very quickly, and note that the chocolate melts very rapidly under the sour cream so you’ll want to check it often and stir. pour this over the cheesecake and press down gently with a spoon to spread it to the edges; I found this the best way to do it without affecting the top of the cake.
5. bake for another 10 minutes and remove from the oven to cool in the tins completely, and cover before refrigerating it overnight. the chocolate topping will be made the next day. make sure the cover doesn’t touch the cake (I learnt this hard way when my clingfilm touched and spoilt the top slightly – I suggest using aluminium foil tucked in tightly around the sides so it doesn’t sag).
6. chocolate topping (only makes enough for the top of 1 cake, double it if you want to coat both cakes): put a kettle of water onto the boil. place the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and heat up until melted, remembering to check every 15-20 seconds and stirring till smooth because it burns very easily. once melted, quickly stir in 1 tbsp of the hot water from the kettle, and whisk like your life depended on it (if you don’t do this it will split and you would have wasted perfectly good chocolate!).
7. let the chocolate topping cool a little and spread it over the top of the cake. I used a spoon to push the filling to the edges – do this quickly as it cools and hardens rapidly – because I like the rustic look of it, but you can of course do it with a palette knife for neater results. chop up the salted peanuts and sprinkle it over the centre.

and voila! an amazing cake. you notice in the photos that the cake I cut up did not have the chocolate topping – I’m bringing that one to a party but you see the clear and distinct layers don’t you? this cake slices amazingly well (as you can see) when cold so I recommend you do that.

p.s. I think the chocolate layer brings the cake over the top in a brilliant way.

pearl liang, london

good chinese food in paddington. happy lunar new year everyone! it’s a few days of proper feasting, and tonight we headed to pearl liang for the all-important symbolic dinner. this place is my go-to for decent chinese food at reasonable prices – and it certainly doesn’t hurt that the place is decorated in a very pleasant and presentable modern chinese manner.

I was told when making the reservation that they were going to arrange for us to have a table between the bar and dining area which made me a little worried but when we got there we had a nice corner table – even if service there was a little sparse.

tonight we had one and a half whole roasted duck – moist and crispy; fish fried with salted eggs – this was amazing though a bit greasy; prawns with dried chillies on a vermicelli basket – this is a very standard dish during our visits here because it is very tasty, though a rather stingy with portions; stir-fried vegetables – far too much cornflour so they got a bit gloppy; a tofu dish with mushrooms that looked really different from the menu photo – don’t order this; the braised fatty pork was also very tasty.

we paid a reasonable amount for all this food, and it was a good way to ring in the new year. still one of my favourite places in london to have chinese food.

princess garden at mayfair, london

average dimsum near bond street, but prompt and professional service warrants a return, especially for occasion-eating.

this is the first of my lunar new year meals, and dimsum is always a good start to things. I came here instead of pearl liang which to me is standard decent london dimsum for a change, and no regrets here.

we had an assortment of standard dimsum, all rather typical and not quite outstanding. it was good enough to facilitate a good meal between friends, but on its own wouldn’t warrant a special return though I certainly wouldn’t say no to repeat visits.

this is in large part to the service. we were also celebrating a birthday, and the waiters very graciously brought our cake (brought from home) on a silver cake platter to the table with a lighted candle, as well as provided us with plates, clean forks, cake servers and a knife without hurrying us about it. we also requested, and were given, plastic boxes to bring the remaining cake back. I wouldn’t classify the service as particularly attentive, but they are prompt when you let them know what you need, and what else could you ask for?

good for entertaining, food that facilitates talking and prompt service, all in a posh-ish environ (rather expected given its classy locale).

taro, london

mediocre japanese in soho. I had chosen to come here largely because I remembered when walking past that taro was relatively quiet for soho restaurants and I had also visited the old and now-closed branch at knightsbridge which served decent food – even if service was quite bad there.

service today was alright, though that means merely adequate and unoffensive. the gyozas were decent though they were very stingy with the sauce – which everyone knows is the best part. not too bad a start.

the beef benot came and I was told it wasn’t very good – my companion didn’t finish the food, which is never a good sign. the chirashi I ordered was fine though the fish was relatively fresh though not very strong tasting, and they were relatively generous with the fish.

I wasn’t impressed with the meal, though I walked away full. not as cheap as I would have expected, or would have liked, but it’s alright enough if you need a quick meal.

apricot crisp

also the one that fell on the floor got away.

we had apricots that were far too tart, and so I thought to bake them up into a crisp, a neat and fuss-free change from yesterday’s strawberry cake. oats and almonds in a sugared butter mixture over quartered apricots tossed in flour and sugar.

how do you go wrong?

by having it bake to a fragrant golden crisp, before you swing it round to your table precariously balanced on a rack and hit a chair.

it tastes really good – what’s left of it – and I think I might make this again, hopefully with something to show for it. something more substantial than jammy smashed apricots with what’s left of the topping left in a desolate-looking pan.

strawberry summer cake

another one from smitten. I’m in a bit of a baking snit, not having baked anything since november (I think), and at the moment I’m slightly pacified by this almost summery cake. it makes you forget the cold outside, although the illusion didn’t hold quite as strong as the draft coming through the kitchen window.

I reduced the sugar in this cake by 3 tablespoons, and baked it in a wider-than-long cake pan and I still had problems squeezing all my strawberries in. I suggest using a biggish pan so that you have more real-estate to lay those strawberries out – and it gives you a better fruit-to-cake ratio.

the strawberries become jammy and really caramelized, and the sprinkling of sugar snow  on the strawberries before baking really help them with this. this feels homey, and I know I’ve said before that that’s an illusion since I never had this at home – unless i baked it myself – but I’ve concluded that these memories are just as well self-created as if I had inherited them.

sautéed vegetables

give a chinese a vegetable, and he will cook it.

I don’t even know how I come up with those things – not that they are brilliant at all of course – but really this post is just to demonstrate the fact that absolutely any vegetable can be cooked chinese-style. high heat, oyster and soya sauce as well as sesame oil can be applied to countless permutations of vegetables.

these were what I had in my fridge. cut them up into uniform sizes – dice them if you’re dicing, matchstick them if that’s what you’re into, heat some oil up in a pan till hot (I do mostly vegetable oil with a dash of sesame oil) and then throw in your seasoning – garlic, ginger, onions or anything like that – I chose to use dried shrimps and immediately reduce the heat to about medium so that it gets frothy in the oil and doesn’t burn.

throw in your slower-cooking vegetables like carrots and celery and toss around until they are done about midway, and then throw in the softer vegetables. I tend to like quite a bit of pepper in my stir-fry as well as some add to taste oyster sauce.

and don’t those vegetables just make such pretty pictures with their colours?