Augustine Kitchen, Battersea Bridge Road

I have once before visited 63 Battersea Bridge Road. Post rejection by the bouncers at 9.30pm on the door of so called ‘pizzeria’ Bunga Bunga (if course every pizza joint needs bouncers?) my family and I stumbled in to Battersea Tandoori at that very address to satisfy our stomachs after a drinks party with little food. Not somewhere I’d rush back to,

Thankfully 63 Battersea Bridge Road has now been anti-tandoorified and now stands proud as Augustine Kitchen.

What a joy to find a super little French gem, brightening the somewhat bleak landscape a few metres south of Battersea Bridge and the glamour and pretension of the Kings Road!

Simple, delicious and reasonable, you can have a 2 course lunch Monday-Saturday for £9.95. Our dinner too was very well priced. Yummy and clearly carefully chosen house champagne, superb garlicky bone marrow, buttery home made ravioli and perfectly cooked fish and that’s not to mention the tart Tatin.

I will certainly be bringing my family back to 63 Battersea Bridge Road and it won’t take a booze fuelled party to do so.

I find it hard to fault this understated new local….. It just needs to get busier. augustine kitchen

The East Pier Smokehouse, St. Monan’s, Fife

A fabulous lunch has helped me emerge from by blogging hibernation. I’m currently in Scotland taking things as they come following an Aperol and prosecco drenched celebratory weekend in Elie, Fife.

We’d thoroughly overstayed our welcome chez Mills and were then taken for lunch by the long suffering family at The East Pier Smokehouse at St. Monan’s. http://www.eastpier.co.uk/

Mr and Mrs Mills frequent this super little place on a regular basis with good reason. These are a few things that made me love it so:

It’s situated right next door to the sea overlooking the harbour. A pretty whitewashed building nestling amongst pastel coloured fishermen’s cottages and holiday houses

It’s simple. You walk in, pick up a bottle of wine from the fridge, order your food and go upstairs to pick up your own cutlery, napkins and glasses

The tables are rectangular and clean, the chairs are plastic

The doors are open to a lovely terrace equipped with similar tables and chairs overlooking the harbour

There is little choice, everything is delivered in a cardboard take away box with scrummy salad underneath

You can choose from lobster, buttery, herby razor clams, dressed crab, home-smoked beetroot cured salmon and a few other fishy delights

On the side potato salad (with not too much mayo), chips (at least double cooked) or bread an butter are offered

Water from the tap is plonked on the table in a carafe

Once finished very good coffee is offered, I’m sure there’s pudding if you want it as well

It’s seriously reasonable, £7.50 for my razor clams, under £20.00 for a whole lobster

The seafood is not overcooked!

Clear your own table, chuck away your cardboard box, cutlery and glasses go in the dishwasher and away you go, happy, satisfied, jolly and full

The Malthouse, Vanston Place SW6. Go!

I’ve found a gem.  It’s rare that I go somewhere and in my pedantic way find nothing to fault. I really have tried to think of something I didn’t like about The Malt House, Vanston Place, SW6 www.malthousefulham.co.uk , I can’t.  These are the reasons I liked it so:

• My sister and I turned up absolutely drenched in our hi-vis, complete with cycle helmets and mascara down our faces.  The waiters weren’t the slightest bit snooty
• The waiter actually volunteered a recommendation at every stage.  There was no “It depends what you like really”
• The atmosphere is fresh, light and airy; clean feeling
• Fyfie’s Jade Garden cocktail was a winner
• My Hendricks and tonic had lots of ice and a not too tonic heavy ratio
• The Bloody Mary is made with celery infused vodka
• Tap water comes iced and in a jug without a hitch, no “would you prefer the mineral water?”
• The food is scrummy and unpretentious but still interesting

The following dishes were exceptional:

• Roasted Baby beetroot with feta sorbet. What isn’t to like? Golden and pink beetroot with cool, smooth feta sorbet
• Salt and vinegar pork scratchings.  Inspired
• Crab, mango and lime salad.  Served with a bit of sourdough toast.  Simple and delicious
• Beef and wasabi salad.  Thin, rare roast beef with wasabi dressing and a few leaves
• Bavette steak with salad and confit jersey royals.  Pink and tender, light bearnaise, crispy baby gem leaves with a tasty French dressing.  No fussy rocket or watercress.  Confit jersey royals cooked in beef dripping if I remember rightly?  Whatever, they were awesome.
• Fish and chips.  Great tartare sauce, mushy peas, crispy.  Did what it said on the tin.
• Burger.  Cooked well, delicious meat, pickles, plenty of chips.
• Sea bream.  Really well cooked, tasty little roasted tomato thing with it.
• Malt ice cream with salted caramel.  Like a little piece of heaven.  Ovaltine or Horlicks comfortingness with little crunchy sprinkles
• Lovely English cheese selection
• Alfonso mango Eton mess.  Very crunchy meringues and sweet mango.

If you are put off by how the Malthouse used to be then you will love how it is now.  It’s owned by the same people that own Hibiscus in Mayfair and is headed up in the kitchen by the guy who used to be head chef there.  Hibiscus is the kind of place I would go once in a lifetime for a super swanky 2 Michelin star treat.  I would go to the Malthouse every day if I could.

 

A Persian Feast and Bread & Butter Pudding

“I very much look forward to seeing you tomorrow and would only ask one thing… COME HUNGRY!!!” was the way that Sabrina Ghayour signed off her email the day before I attended her Persian feast.  10 of us were welcomed into her house for an evening of superb home cooked Persian delicacies.  As you will see from the menu above, Sabrina had been a busy girl cooking her little socks off before we arrived; 10  fragrant and delicately flavored dishes graced the table, each one interesting and carefully thought out.  A wonderful selection of Persian ‘tapas’ (for want of a better word) to start with; soft apricotty, herby lamb meatballs and crunchy bitter sweet radicchio, blood orange, dill, sumak and pomegranate salad were favorites of mine.  Main courses again were to share, trout with a spicy pine nut filling and perfumed slow cooked lamb were surrounded by squash with pistachio nut pesto and special Persian rice with sour barberries.  A veritable feast.  Lucky I came hungry.

Sabrina’s food is clearly a wonderful way of welcoming and expression.  She is self taught and admits that she has spent many an hour with her nose in cookery books.  The Persian food she makes is natural to her and is her heritage, it is a labour of love.

Food that is natural to me and my heritage is somewhat less exotic.  Nevertheless, good, old -fashioned English food is always wonderfully comforting to cook and eat.  I felt a calling on Bank Holiday Monday, post Sunday night rose drinking to make bread and butter pudding.  I used the left over brioche from the loaf I made on Friday but any old bread would do.

CHOCOLATE CHIP BREAD & BUTTER PUDDING
For 4
This works equally well if you use left over croissants instead of bread or brioche.  If you prefer raisins or dried fruit the chocolate can be substituted

Ready for the oven

Ready to eat

YOU WILL NEED
A 12cm x 12 cm (or similar) oven proof dish
About 600g brioche or bread, crusts removed and cut into triangles
A couple of handfuls of chocolate buttons or chocolate chips
2 eggs, beaten
300ml cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp caster sugar
Butter

WHAT TO DO

1. Butter the oven proof dish
2. If you are using normal bread instead of brioche, spread it with butter
3. Mix the cream, eggs, vanilla and sugar together, set aside.
4. Arrange the bread in layers into the dish.  Sprinkle each layer with a few chocolate drops or chocolate buttons before starting on the next layer.
5. Once you reach the top layer, it’s quite nice to try and make it look pretty by arranging the triangles in lines pointing in the same direction
6. Pour the cream mixture over the bread and allow to soak for about 4 hours or overnight
7. When you are ready to cook preheat the oven to 180C, sprinkle the top of the pudding with a little caster sugar and bake in a bain marie for about 45mins until puffed up and crispy on top.
8. Check that the pudding ready by inserting a knife into the middle.  If the knife is hot, the pudding is ready
9. Allow to cool slightly and serve warm

Sunday night is pizza night: to egg or not to egg?

I have always loved pizza.  Pizza Express was a bit of a newbie on the block when I was growing up and I remember feasting on doughballs and Capriciosa pizzas from quite an early age.  In those days they used to ‘throw’ the pizzas, I don’t think they do that any more.

It was always a real treat to go for a pizza and I still feel the same about it now.  We are very lucky in that we have San Gennaro just up the road in Battersea.  Their pizzas are reminiscent of the ones I had in Naples back in 2001 on a school trip.  Baked in a wood fired oven and made to what I’m sure is a family recipe, the pizzas are thin and crisp, hot and delicious.  There are always masses of Italians queuing for their pizzas to take away whenever I’ve been there and often a large Italian family will turn up at 10pm for their fix.

In the same vein, on Sunday night HB and I had a pizza night.  I was given a Kitchen Aid which I have been itching to use so the pizza dough was it’s maiden voyage.  It was a bit like pick n’ mix; we set up the kitchen table with all the toppings, whacked the oven up to it’s hottest setting and got stuck in.  I think people’s pizza toppings choices say a lot about them.

PIZZA

Enough for 6 greedy people

FOR THE DOUGH:

1 kg white bread flour or 800g strong white bread flour plus 200g finely ground semolina flour (we didn’t have semolina flour when we did it but I think it would have added an extra texture)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 x 7 g dried yeast sachets
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
650 ml lukewarm water

WHAT TO DO:

• Put the yeast, olive oil and sugar into the water and whisk around a bit to help activate the yeast; leave for 5 minutes
• Pour the flour in a pile onto a surface or into your Kitchen Aid and make a well in the middle
• Pour the yeast and water mix into the well and with your fingers, using a circular motion, begin to swirl the flour into the water in the middle.  Otherwise, attach the dough hook to your Kitchen Aid and turn it on to the slowest setting
• Once the flour has been incorporated, begin to knead either with your hands or the Kitchen aid more vigorously, stretching the dough for about 10 minutes.  The dough should eventually look smooth and springy
• Transfer the dough to a bowl or leave in the Kitchen aid bowl, dust with a little flour and cover with a damp tea towel
• Leave to rise in your kitchen at room temperature for about an hour until it has doubled in size
• Either transfer to a floured table and knead to knock out the air or give it a quick blast in the Kitchen Aid with the dough hook again
• Now wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge until you need to use it (you can freeze it at this stage too!)
• 20 minutes before you want to make your pizzas split the dough into balls (however many pizzas you want to make) and roll out to about 50mm thick
• You can pile the bases on top of each other if you layer them with oiled aluminum foil
• Then get going with choosing your toppings!

As you can see from the picture above we had quite a selection of pizza toppings including ham, chorizo, mozzarella, spinach, eggs, chilli, pineapple, red onion artichokes, mushrooms and roasted red peppers.  Anything will work. Just pick and mix as you go.  We found it worked successfully to put the pizza bases directly on to the oven racks before we started to put the toppings on

MAKE SURE YOU START WITH TOMATO SAUCE:

1. Fry 2 cloves of chopped garlic in some not too hot olive oil
2. Add 2 400ml bottles of passata with a handful of fresh basil and a tsp of sugar; simmer for 5 minutes
3. Season with salt and pepper

WHEN YOU ARE READY TO COOK YOUR PIZZAS…

Whack the heat of the oven up as hot as it will go and leave to preheat.  Cook the pizzas one at a time for about 10 minutes each.  If you want to put an egg on as I did, crack it on to the pizza 1/2 way through cooking, drizzle the yolk with olive oil and return to the oven.  Make sure you season with salt, pepper and olive oil before cooking.

We found that it was better not to go overboard with the toppings however tempting it was!

 

Beef Bourguignon, Rachel Khoo and Smiths of Smithfield

Last week I went to a wine and meat masterclass at Smiths.  My very clever little sister, Bella had organised the evening.  We arrived to a rather deliciously seasonal pear bellini and so began the evening.

On the demonstration table (in front of the tables where we were sitting) were the burgundy forequarters of a well hung piece of a rare breed beef.  HB was a salivating, the crowd was on tenterhooks, the butcher, Steve Turton was calm and good humored; he took us through the various cuts of meat and expertly dissected the beast in front of us with descriptions of all of the different cuts.  The well prepared chef then brought out  his interpretations on how one should cook these underused and truly delicious pieces of meat.  We  started with slow cooked short ribs where the rich meat fell off the bone; the chef served them with a salty, sour, crunchy Asian salad that cut through the rich meat; the salad made the dish – dish of the day for me.  We then moved on to a meltingly tender tomato braised shin with polenta, and finally rolled shoulder fat with capers and anchovies – a good bit of salt and acidity again to balance the fat.  At the end of the ‘Masterclass’ I thought: “Beat it fillet; the shin’s the S**t”

The other side of the evening was some wine tasting.  Bella ran through a few really good Australian wines, 2 white, 3 red.  We began with 2 delicious rieslings, the first, a Mount Horrocks Watervale riesling Clare Valley, 2009 and the second, Dean Hewitson ‘Gun Metal’ riesling, Eden Valley 2010.  I loved the Horrock perhaps because it matched my favorite dish.  Acidic enough to cut through the richness but floral too in order to work with the Asian salad, it made me think of orchids, smooth and fragrant.  The ‘Gun Metal’ riesling was also delicious but after the Horrocks it wasn’t going to match up.

We then tasted 3 different years of Clonakilla Shiraz / Viognier Canberra District, 2004, 2005, 2006.  Being a complete wine luddite, I’m not really one to give an informed view but it was very interesting to recognise the bearing of temperature on the 3 different vintages. 2004 was AMAZING, well rounded, bursting with berries and fruit (a sunny and not too hot year with a bit of rain – perfect for wine).  2005 tasted like cigarettes and coffee, smokey and dried out; burnt (the hottest year on record).  2006 was tasty and  similar to 2004 but not nearly as outstanding, less balanced (a moderate climactic year).  I’ve never tasted 3 vintages of the same wine and the temperature bearing was staggering.

The main thing I learnt from the evening was to look at pictures like this one of the cuts of beef.  I will challenge my butcher from now on.  EAT CHEAPER CUTS!!

I had a bit of a girl crush on http://www.rachelkhoo.com/   earlier this year (in fact I still do) and I made her wonderful Beef Bourguignon this weekend to feed many hungry and subsequently happy mouths.  She loves the shin!  This recipe is copied from her “The Little Paris Kitchen” cook book.  Go and buy it, it’s wonderful.

BEEF BOURGUIGNON A LA RACHEL KHOO
FOR 6 – very generously

900g beef shin (ask your butcher to keep it in large chunks, not to dice it)
A sprinkling of seasoned plain flour
150g smoked bacon (chopped into chunks) or lardons
10 peeled pickling onions or shallots
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and squashed a bit to let out the juices
1 bay leaf
A bunch of parsley stalks
1 sprig of thyme
1 sprig of rosemary
3 cloves
10 peppercorns, crushed
500ml red wine
300ml water
1tbsp tomato puree
a pinch of sugar
10 chestnut mushrooms
Chopped parsley to garnish
Vegetable oil
Salt and Pepper

WHAT TO DO

1. Preheat the oven to 150C
2. Season the flour and dust the beef pieces with it
3. Heat some vegetable oil in a non stick frying pan and brown the beef in batches, removing to  a large casserole dish with a lid as you go
4. After the beef has been browned, add the bacon and shallots to the frying pan with the herbs (apart from chopped parsley) and keep on the heat until slightly caramelised.  Then add the garlic for 30 seconds or so and make sure it doesn’t burn
5. Transfer everything to the casserole (make sure you scrape all the gluggy bits from the frying pan) add the remaining ingredients (except the mushrooms and parsley) and put into the oven, covered for around 3 hours until the meat is really tender
6. Remove from the oven 30 minutes before the end of cooking and stir in the chopped mushrooms; return to the oven
7. Check the seasoning and serve garnished with parsley, French beans and mashed potato

Rachel suggests that you make this the day before eating and I agree.  The flavours seem to intensify overnight – a brilliant dinner party stalwart

Santa Maria del Sur and ‘mmmm’ Bisto

There are two things that my Dad and I always used to make together when I was little:  French dressing and gravy.  We used to have a roast most Sundays and I would often stand on a chair next to the hob scraping away at the roasting tin adding a bit of water, wine, Lea and Perrins and redcurrant jelly; sometimes even a bit of Bisto, never flour.  The tasting was always quite a ritual, it still is on high days and holidays when I’m back at home.  Teaspoons out, a lot of umming and ahhing over the final squeeze of lemon.  I know my gravy.

I also know my Bisto.  I remember very clearly one occasion when I was helping my Aunt make gravy at my Granny’s house.  I must have been pretty small as I was sitting on the edge of the Aga.  As I shook the salt into the pan, the lid of the cellar fell off and the whole contents of it poured out into the gravy.  My Aunt was very chilled, calmly took the Bisto, Marmite, redcurrant jelly and Lea and Perrins from the cupboard and made the gravy.  The Bisto saved the day.

Last night, HB, a couple of friends and I went to Santa Maria del Sur on Queenstown Road.  An Argentinean steak joint where everything is cooked over coals, they have a rather fabulous contraption where the chef can move the grill up and down over the burning embers to regulate the heat.  My advice would be, if you don’t eat meat, don’t go.  The whole place smells like barbecuing beef, it’s buzzy and atmospheric, lots of men eating beef and drinking Malbec.  We all had very good cocktails to begin with.  The Caipirinha was as lethal as it should be, as was the Pisco Sour; unfortunately HB’s masculine choice of a Cosmopolitan wasn’t strong enough.  We had a slightly random little selection of Argentinean tapas alongside the drinks.  Very thick salami was good and spicy chorizo delicious.  There was also a bit of what seemed like chopped up veal Milanese and 3 chips on the plate which seemed slightly strange as if they were using up the leftovers from the night before.  I’m a stickler for good bread as I will never understand why a place like that doesn’t get a delivery from a bakery each day.  The bread rolls that came with some stilton butter (not my bag but others liked it) had obviously been taken out of the freezer 15 minutes before and shoved in the oven.

I’m not one to talk as HB can cook steak much better than I can but I do think when you go to a steak joint, they should be able to cook the steak in the way that you ask.  In my book ‘medium rare’ means pink and juicy, ‘rare’ means bloody and ‘blue’ means seared and cold in the middle.  The last time I went to Santa Maria Del Sur, I asked for my steak ‘medium rare’ and it was ‘blue’.  This time I asked for it ‘medium’ and it was ‘very rare’.  The meat was of really good quality and fillet so it didn’t really matter but on a cold plate (that drives me mad!) and at £25.00 before you’ve paid for the chips or sauce, it was a bit irritating.  The garlic and herb chips were excellent as was the roasted pepper with pesto but it all would have been far superior on a warm plate. The mushroom sauce I ordered was Bisto or similar with a few button mushrooms floating around in it.  Perhaps the chef had an accident with the salt cellar.  As I said, I know my gravy.

This place has been raved about by many people including Gordon Ramsay and lots of my friends and it is a fun place to go.  The steak is excellent quality, it’s just the cooking of it that lets them down and the cold plates!  Perhaps I have just been unlucky both times I’ve been.

Pomegranate Molasses, Moro and Millie J

A little while ago, I was introduced to pomegranate molasses; a syrupy reduction of pomegranate juice, it’s used a lot in Lebanese, Turkish and Persian food.  It’s tricky to find but is beginning to pop up in supermarkets.  There’s a great shop on Falcon Road, SW11 that sells it (along with spices, bumper packs of Turkish delight, fresh tamarind and plenty of other unusual things). I knew I liked the distinctive tangy and sweet flavour when I first tried it and started experimenting.  I find it a really a handy thing to have in the cupboard as, on it’s own, it makes a really good marinade for meat at barbeque time; an interesting alternative to sweet n’ sour with pork ribs or chicken thighs.  When HB and I went to Moro in Islington, they used it in a slow cooked lamb dish with lots of spices which was amazing – something I will definitely try! http://www.moro.co.uk

For my friend Millie J’s birthday, I made recipe below and with some tabbouleh and a green salad, it seemed to go down a treat.

CHICKEN BREASTS WITH POMEGRANATE MOLASSES AND LEMON
FOR 10

10 x Chicken supremes with the skin on
Juice of 2 lemons
300ml chicken stock
5 tbsp pomegranate molasses
2 glasses of white wine
Salt and pepper

TO SERVE
Picked seeds of 1 pomegranate
Handful of chopped flat leaf parsley

WHAT TO DO

1. Heat a griddle or frying pan until smoking hot
2. In batches, fry the chicken, skin side only, in the pan until crispy then remove to an oven proof dish
3. Meanwhile, whisk the remaining ingredients together and pour over the chicken, cover with cling film and marinade in the fridge for an hour or even better, overnight
4. Preheat the oven to 180C and remove the chicken from the fridge; allow the meat to reach room temperature
5. Bake the chicken in the marinade covered in foil for 30 – 40 minutes, or until the meat is cooked
6. It looks really pretty if you serve the chicken piled up on a large warmed plate, with the sauce poured over, garnished with pomegranate seeds and chopped parsley