A Dish a Day: Polpetto’s Clams with Wild Garlic

Clams with wild garlic and crème fraiche

Today the spotlight is on the clam. Particularly the ones in the newly opened Polpetto in Soho: fiddly to get to and salty to taste, slightly sweet on the chew and enveloped in a thin coating of sauce (crème fraiche with wilted wild garlic). The fingers of focaccia are torn off to mop up the juices and collect the flecks of wild garlic flowers.

In between dishes are sips from a tumbler of a sweet bellini, softly fizzy and pink with rose and rhubarb.

The second best dish consists of slivers of cauliflower with the edges browned and wizened, a sculptural shard next to plump scallops, and hidden under the folded fat that is lardo. All on a cream-coloured purée of truffled cauliflower, which is utterly moreish.

Actually, joint second is a dish of Marinda tomatoes from Sicily which are naked bar a modest lick of oil. In short, I recommend that you visit Polpetto in Berwick Street, because it seems at home in its new home and you’ll soon feel at home there too. Especially when you've a bellini or two in hand.

The rude bottom of a Marina tomato

Polpetto 11 Berwick St, London W1F 0PL 020 7439 8627

Read my first thoughts on the original Polpetto.

The big breakfast: what to eat after a snow run

Snowy run in Wandsworth Common

During his polar expedition Sir Ranulph Fiennes ate 5,200 calories a day. With this in mind, seeing how snowy it was on Sunday morning, we went on our own expedition (round Wandsworth Common) with the promise of a big breakfast fit for explorers. Running in the snow can be a hazardous business. Just think - snow in your eyes; cold ears; ponds that masquerade as paths. But these dangers, I believed, were all worth conquering for the spoils that were waiting for us at home...

The breakfast box

...namely a box of breakfast goods. Spoiltpig sausages and bacon from Denhay Farm in Dorset's Bridport, mushrooms, eggs, ketchup and smoked chipotle salsa from Tracklements and HP sauce.

A long stretch ahead in Wandsworth

The run was refreshing rather than spikily cold. The snow underfoot - crunchy on grass and squeaky on pavements - gave extra satisfaction to a standard park jog. We ran for breakfast, there was no doubt about it, but it was a joy to run through, especially as we emerged unscathed, without injury and most importantly, without falling over.

The breakfast...

There was no point trying to go fancy. It was all about the classic. Grilled sausages and bacon and fried eggs. Mushrooms fried whole and rolled in the pan with thyme, a slick of butter and a squeeze of lemon. The sausages were fulsome - they had a deep herby flavour - almost black puddingy in depth, but the texture was strangely crumbly. The unsmoked back bacon was very thinly sliced - to the point where there was not much choice but to crisp them up, but that was no detriment to the taste.

Burford Brown eggs

Fried Burford Brown eggs

The real winners were the Burford Brown eggs from Clarence Court, their sunset orange yolks added creamy rich luxury to the breakfast. Though I found their ketchup too sweet, the smoked chipotle salsa from Tracklements was also a welcome discovery. Though it may not be my breakfast staple, I can see it working with cooked meats.

The snow is set to stay awhile. I think that means more breakfast.


Other things we made with the breakfasty ingredients:

Carbonara with spoiltpig bacon

Spaghetti carbonara: Burford Brown eggs, parmesan, parsley, spoiltpig bacon, garlic

Sausage and butterbean stew with chipotle salsa

Sausage and butterbean stew: spoiltpig sausages, garlic, thyme, butterbeans, onion, cloves, tomatoes, dollop of chipotle salsa


With thanks to Phipps for the breakfast box

Click here for more recipe ideas. 

Kaosarn, St John's Hill: Guaranteed Good Times

‘Why don’t we go to Kaosarn instead?’ The text from wine-botherer Ruth Ford read a year or so ago when I suggested we visit some upstart of a restaurant in Brixton village. ‘I’ve heard not-great things about ___, but Kaosarn will be guaranteed good times.’

We didn’t end up going for some reason or another, but that epithet stuck with me. In my head, Kaosarn became the unfaddy, honest restaurant we all needed round the corner. 

Oh the excitement, the unfettered joy we felt when we heard that Kaosarn was opening on St John’s Hill in Wandsworth. The lead came from a tweet from Luke Mackay that the much-loved Thai canteen was making its way westward, expanding from its Brixton home closer to my home. 

St John’s Hill has had a strange relationship with restaurants - so often has some unsuspecting and naive budding-restaurateur arrived and fled within the year. St John’s hill is no Northcote Road - sans gloss and prams, but it’s lately had an influx of good things happen to it. Joining the rather brilliant Fish Club, French deli and Chinese Good Earth Express were Ben’s Canteen, which recently hosted a dinner from Roganic’s ex head-chef Ben Spalding, and two new popular drinking establishments - the Plough and Powder Keg Diplomacy. 

Thrown into the mix is Kaosarn, the Thai canteen with the cult following. And the ‘Hill’ has been screaming - aching, in fact - for a place like this. 

Opening today, it was manned by a full staff of efficient ladies and led by the industrious Gisele. Much more of a restaurant than the cafe in Brixton, the space is roomy and light (there’s a back room that can be hired for private functions as well), with tables lit intimately with candles. The menu is so extensive (the first page already divided into starters, salads, noodles and soups) we had to reign ourselves in. Armed with four bottles of Chang beer from the offie across the road, we were ready. 

On Gisele’s recommendation we started with moo ping - skewers of tender pork, sticky with sauce and dark and shiny with the caramelisation of palm sugar. It was a confident and competent start to the meal. 

The tom kha gai - chicken pieces in a hot coconut soup - was a compact explosion of flavours - laced with chilli and lemongrass and flavoured with slices of galangal and plump mushrooms. 

Hot tiger prawns and bamboo with red curry paste had the lick of Thai basil and was sprinkled with Thai aubergines and green peppercorns. The menace of red chilli slices thrilled through this stunning dish - our favourite and the one that will draw us back. (Pad prig gang on the menu)

Yum woonsen - warm glass noodle salad with prawns, minced pork, peanuts, chilli, coriander, red onion and spring onion was light yet satisfying. The balance of sweet sugar with the tang of fish sauce was right on. I could eat bowls and bowls of this. 

Though it was the first night, there were no nerves, no cock-ups and by seven o’clock was almost full. Kaosarn will live up to its Brixton reputation and draw the food-loving crowd to St John’s Hill, light up nights out and provide what they’re known for: guaranteed good times. 

Kaosarn

110 St John’s Hill

SW11 1ST

020 7223 7888

BYO, cash only (cash machine across the road), takeaway

Nut butter and Butternut Squash soup with Salami Crisps

 Butternut Squash Soup with a secret ingredient...

It's the month before Christmas. A month filled with half-asleep sleeps from the run of festive parties. I begin to expect the regular full-moon interruptions from the boy T, the knocking into doors because he bends over funny as he unties a shoelace, a cheeky stumble  before just making it to the kitchen and downing pints of water in attempt to claw back sobriety. Probably punctuated with a carol. 

One of these nights I’d left a butternut squash soup open on the stove to cool. T comes back in normal fashion (after dad-dancing through Shadow Lounge jaegerbombs with his work team). Irregular drunken steps. He falls into the kitchen. Silence. Then all I hear is the eruptive ‘Oh my God, wow!’ 

It's the soup. He's just tasted the soup. He goes back for more. 


It's a premiere reaction. Had I ever had that response to my soup-making before from anyone, I'd be sweating at the stove making stock more often. 


The soup is cooked up again this springtime (albeit drizzly) week because the suggestive marrow repeatedly pops up in my veg box. And it's even better than I remembered - creamy without having an ounce of cream, sweet without added sugar. Any eater expecting your standard squashy soup is invariably surprised at first taste with the deliciously deep flavour of peanut butter Americana. It's a soup that's savoury and sweet, spiked with chilli-hot goodness, fresh with coriander and lime, lifted with the mere whisper of ginger. And with a topping of crisp salami, a steaming bowl of this moreish blend is pure perfection after a hard day's (or hard night's) work.  

Nut butter and Butternut Squash soup 

Pre-soup. The ingredients

1 butternut squash - peeled, seeded and diced into small cubes

Butter

1 large onion or 2 small onions finely chopped

1 red chilli chopped

Knob of ginger - thumbsize, grated

1 large garlic clove - finely chopped

1 litre veg stock/chicken stock

3 heaped tablespoons peanut butter

Juice 1 lime

Big handful coriander

6 Milanese salami slices (optional)

Salt and pepper

Salami crisps

In your soup pot (my trusty cast iron number) slowly fry salami slices on both sides until crisp - it will fry in its own fat so you don’t need to add any oil. Set aside.

In the same pan, add some butter and the onion, and fry on a low heat for five minutes until translucent. Add the ginger, chilli and garlic, and fry for a minute or two. It should be gorgeously fragrant. 

Add the squash and fry for at least a good 10-15 minutes on a low heat until they become slightly soft and frayed round the edges. Season with salt and pepper. 

Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes partially covered with the lid. Before taking it off the heat, add the peanut butter and mix until dissolved. 

Pour into a blender (you might have to blend in batches), and throw in the bunch of coriander too and the lime juice. 

Blend until smooth. Pour back into the pan to gently heat back up again.

Serve with the salami crisps and a cheery sprinkle of chopped coriander.

Second helpings. Grilled fennel dressed with lemon in the background

Ode to the Skirt Steak: Recipes and Where to Eat it

I love steak. So much so that I’ve belonged to a steak club for over five years, once ate steak five times in one week and still brazenly cook it in order to make friends. I remember being unable to afford a full three-courses at Hawksmoor when it first opened, but going to steak club and spanking £45 just on a juicy rib eye and absolutely nothing else. That’s how much I love steak. 



I’m a fan of the textured cut - one with a bit of chew and packs a meaty flavour punch. And so I introduce one of my favourite cuts - the skirt steak or bavette. It’s a cheaper cut (at one butchers the fillet is £45/kg, whereas skirt will be about £14.50/kg) but no less inferior. It’s a flat steak with beautiful marbling and takes flavour and marinating well (Anthony Bourdain recommends it grilled over an open fire of dried grape vines or good wood) and benefits from the smokiness of a Josper grill (like Les Deux Salons near Covent Garden). 

Bavette with Green Sauce at Duck Soup, Soho

You’ll find it on many a menu in London - I've seen it gracing Galvin's and Vinoteca's. Most recently, I ate one at Dean Street’s Duck Soup - sliced into ribbons and lifted with green sauce and served with sumac-sprinkled new potatoes and wilting wild garlic. 

But this is the easiest thing to cook at home. I find there’s nothing quite like a potter round the butchers and bringing home that precious, vermillion and marbled slab of meat, and unwrapping the paper like a present. The Ginger Pig’s skirt is second to none but we’ve had great ones from our local butcher down on the Northcote Road. 

Because it’s a coarse steak, it’s fit for the extremes of flash-frying or slow-cooking. I’ve not tried the slow-cooking before largely due to impatience (why wait 3 hours for something that takes five minutes?) So instead here are a few quick recipes on what to do with this magnificent cut. 

A few things to do with a skirt steak

How to cook the steak

Leave the steaks out so that they are room temperature. Lightly oil and season both sides liberally just before you’re going to cook it. Heat a flat-bottomed pan until smoking hot, and sear the steak on both sides for literally two minutes one side, a minute and a half on the other (I put my timer on). Do not be tempted to move the steak around in the pan. Leave to rest for 5 minutes.

With shallots

In the same pan, with the steak juices, heat up some more oil and cook finely chopped shallots with a sprinkling of sugar to caramelise and salt on a lower heat for 5 minutes. When a glorious brown, sprinkle on top of the steak. 

With garlic and parsley butter

Make a garlic and parsley butter about an hour or two before by mixing butter with finely chopped parsley and half a clove of crushed garlic. Roll into a sausage, wrap with clingfilm and put in the fridge to firm up. When ready to serve your steak, slice disks of butter, take the clingfilm off, place atop the unsliced steak and let it melt in the residual heat.

Steak sandwich

Steaks on the Japanese barbecue soon to turn into...steak sandwiches

Make a steak sandwich with a healthy smear of Tracklements horseradish and onions. 

(Fantastic and quick for entertaining as we did here on the Japanese barbecue)

Please do let me know if you have any more bavette recipes (more excuses to cook steak). 

Green Mango Salad

I love the youth of a green mango salad. It’s a salad fresh and shouty, foolish and sweet as a wet-eared adolescent who’s just emerged from the flush of spotty teenagehood. It’s the taste of freedom the first time you’re away from home, unbridled, yet still innocent in its unripe firmness.

Am I getting carried away here? Perhaps it’s because I’m faced with the twinge of a dicky hip, yearning for my salad days.

But this is a seriously good salad. That taste of crunchy mango evokes joy. Laced with the sour of limes, salt of fish sauce and sweetened with palm sugar, the flavours meld in delicious concord. Throw in the spike of a birds-eye chilli, and you’re asking for an exquisite kind of trouble as Leo diCaprio did in search of The Beach.

Strictly speaking, this is a Thai side salad. But this is my version (that is - not the beacon of authenticity). I know I should julienne rather than grate the mango, introduce the salt tang of shrimp paste/dried shrimp etc. etc. But this is a fifteen minute throw-together that is so moreish, ladlefuls will be eaten before you’ve even left the kitchen.

Top tip? Make more so that you can eat more.


Green Mango Salad Recipe

(serves 4 a a side salad, 2 as a main meal if you’re adding prawns/chicken)

2 x unripe mangoes (with yellow hard-ish flesh rather than orange) - peeled then grated
2 large handfuls of coriander - finely chopped
3 or 4 spring onions - finely chopped
1/2 - 1 red birds-eye chilli - seeds and all (to taste)

Dressing - mix together first
3 tablespoons fish sauce
Juice of 1-1.5 limes
1 tablespoon palm sugar (use brown sugar if you don’t have palm sugar)

Very simply - mix everything except the dressing ingredients together and watch the vibrant colours clash.

Add the dressing and mix well.

Add grilled prawns or chicken if you fancy - it really is the best garnish.

New Leeks and Old Leeks: Two Recipes

Leeks with lemon and butter - half with a coating of cream cheese.
Recipe below
I’m running out of things to do with the leek. This is usually a problem confined to the carrot (a guaranteed muddy staple from Riverford), but this year the allium just keeps popping up, like an annoying but affectionate child, in my veg box.

So to use up the old leeks (almost two week old bendy things), the order of the day is a big vat of Nigel Slater’s leek and parmesan soup - once made, stored in the freezer and to be brought out on grey days like these. Sometimes I warm it up gently and drop in small cubes of double gloucester cheese that will melt in the residual heat so glorious yellowy-orange goo will grace each spoonful.

And yesterday, a new batch of leeks arrived - alert, erect and standing to attention. Little needs to be done with them - a quick fry will keep their sweetness and a slight crunch. A gorgeous lunch for one.

New leeks: with Butter and Lemon

So, after a cursory wash, and a rough chop of two leeks into thick rings, melt a slice of butter until foaming in a hot frying pan, and throw the leeks in. Coat the rings in butter, and leave to fry on high heat - only stirring occasionally - you want the leeks to catch and brown at the edges. When they’re just cooked (but still crunchy), squeeze lemon, season with salt and eat immediately. For a treat, spoon in cream cheese - it’s totally unnecessary but so delicious.


Old leeks: Nigel Slater’s velvety soup with Parmesan

Melt a slice of butter, and gently soften 3 leeks chopped into rings in a covered cast iron pan for 20 minutes. Add a peeled potato chopped into chunks, and cook for another five minutes. Add leftover Parmesan cheese rinds, and pour in 1.5 litres of veg stock. Season, then leave to bubble gently for under an hour, leave partially covered.

Take out the cheese rinds, (get as much Parmesan as you can from them), and blend until smooth. Add whatever grated cheese you would like in it, reheat and serve with crusty bread.

Adapted from Nigel Slater's the Kitchen Diaries

Previous leek risotto recipe here.

Redhead Risotto: Porcini, Leek and Jerusalem Artichoke

Seventh floor, Tate Modern.

The Redhead and I are perched on seats that are too tall for us. We’re drinking to keep warm - a carafe of something that would have cost us five college dinners ten years ago. It’s lovely. It’s warming, this Trescone. Tourists shuffle behind us, huffing from the traipse up fourteen flights of stairs, only for their wondrous view of St Paul’s Cathedral to be marred by the heads of two women resolutely ignoring their protruding (or should I say intruding) fancy camera lenses.

Conversations with the Redhead are rarely linear. When we meet there’s not too much of the how are yous, what you been up tos. She could be reminiscing about nights lost queueing up to see the Manics, recent weddings (including her own) or explaining why she’s an evolved vegetarian - in fact, an evolved vegan - who now eats oysters (although she panicked when she scoffed them the night before her wedding. A ‘Bridesmaids’ scenario is to be avoided at all costs, I think). I will tell her with affection that I bought her a wedding wine - a super-Tuscan Cepparello (at Ruth Ford's suggestion) that matches her penchant for grilled aubergines.

Clearly there will be patchy holes of things we should know about each other that we don’t. Amidst twelve years of friendship, there’s bound to be something we’ve missed out on. But it’s a fright to learn that she’s been a fellow Riverford box subscriber for three years. THREE YEARS. She has hidden this crucial fact as slyly as she hid just how disgustingly clever she was at university.

And of course, this sets us off on a zillion directions - what the hell to do with a Jerusalem artichoke, how the Riverford man likes to hide her box in a bush - some sort of herbaceous joke neither of us quite get, how my Riverford scrubbing brush (free with the tenth box) changed my life, how she cheats by peeling muddy carrots.

Post-revelation, I promise that I’ll post some good Jerusalem artichoke recipes for her. Even as I type I’m preparing some for a happy marriage with a melting beef shin stew, so in love with the root am I.

So, this recipe, adapted from a Riverford one, is for the Redhead. A soothing risotto with a topping of slightly crunchy and tart Jerusalem artichokes - bowlfuls of comfort on a cold snowy day.


Redhead risotto

Handful dried porcini
Boiling water just enough to cover
2 tablespoons butter
1 leek finely sliced
1 small onion finely chopped
150g risotto rice
Big splash of dry vermouth or white wine
500ml hot stock - veg or chicken
Lots of grated parmesan

Olive oil
2 or 3 well scrubbed jerusalem artichokes. Thickly sliced.
2 lemon quarters
Salt

Soak the dried porcini in a small bowl with just enough boiling water to cover. Not too much.

Melt the butter over a medium-high heat in a large pan, add leeks and onions, and soften for a good 5 minutes or until they’re smelling lovely. Stir occasionally so they don’t catch.

Add the rice, give a stir or two for a minute to let the flavours get to know each other. Add the wine or vermouth, and let bubble until it’s all gone.

Add a slosh of the stock, let bubble away and stir every now and then. Keep adding a slosh of stock every time it has bubbled away until all the stock’s used up. This should take about half an hour. The rice should be al dente.

Meanwhile, parboil the jerusalem artichokes for about 8 minutes. Drain, and chop into 2cm cubes. Heat a frying pan with olive oil on a medium-high heat, and add the cubes. Stir to coat in the oil, then fry the cubes so that they brown - and only stir occasionally so that the sides have time to brown. This should take about 10 minutes for the artichokes to get a really meaty nutty flavour. Add a sprinkling of salt, and a squeeze of lemon before you take them off the heat.

When the rice is cooked, add the porcini in its liquid, stir and cook for a few minutes. Add the parmesan, stir and serve, with the crunchy cubes of jerusalem artichoke on top.

Phoenix Palace does good Dim Sum

BBQ pork puff pastry
As a child who tried resisting all things Chinese - violin lessons, the Last Emperor, belching at dinner - there was one thing that attached me like an umbilical cord to my culture.

Thank God for dim sum, without which I might have been lost to cheeseburgers.

Xiao long bao - Shanghai dumplings with pork
Yum cha, that Cantonese tea-house tradition during which dim sum is served, is for the greedy. One is never full, and there is always more. Order as many of those small dishes as you possibly can, and talk loudly. With your mouth full.

The traditional time for yum cha is midday, Sunday, when all the aunties get together and “wah!” at how tall you are, how pale you are, how fat you are now - it’s a sign of family.

Octopus patties with vinaigrette
Lunch is elevated from a meat-and-two-veg affair to being the excited heart of the Chinese community. The meal is a sequence of rituals. There are rules you should learn. Serve tea to others before yourself. Tap fingers on the table to thank those pouring tea into your cup - a gesture not, as my friend thought, a sign of impatience or atrocious manners. Cock the teapot lid to show that the teapot needs refilling.

Stir fried choi sum and turnip patties with XO sauce
If you can successfully navigate the ritual of yum cha, you warrant inclusion. Golden Palace in Harrow, the hub of the Chinese community in the suburbs of northwest London, had been the scene of many dramas before it closed down. It was where boyfriends were first taken to meet the family, where celebrations and commiserations were held. My parents judged on whether guests would gutsily try that chicken’s foot. Or at least laugh if they didn’t.

Chickens' feet with black bean sauce - a childhood favourite
There is no more Golden Palace, sadly. But, keeping things palatial, our alternative is Baker Street’s Phoenix Palace, which is consistently delicious and does all the traditional dishes, like char siu bao and siu mai, but (refreshingly) innovates too. The sort of restaurant you might see in Hong Kong, the huge familial place has a soundtrack of chopsticks clacking in hungry fervour under the chat and you may very well find yourself near Chinese grannies seated by their begrudging but respectful iPod-wielding grandsons for their big Sunday lunch.

Look out for me if you’re ever there, and say hello. I shall be proffering cartilaginous chicken’s feet with my chopsticks to see if you're worthy of company.

Vietnamese spring rolls

Suckling pig with jelly fish

Grilled chicken gyoza

Mixed seafood crispy noodles



Phoenix Palace
5 Glentworth Street, London NW1 5PG
Tel: 020 7486 3515

A Polpetto lunch

Polpo was the darling of London restaurant-lovers when she opened in 2009. Cutting through the ubiquity of the pizzas and pastas that have come to define Italian food, the breakthrough concept of the Venetian bacaro had arrived in Soho - a kind of working man’s wine bar, serving good but rough round the edges food.

A hard act to follow, no? Well, hot on its heels trots Polpetto, Polpo’s wittier, more confident little sister. Perched happily above boozer The French House, a Soho institution, battered stairs lead to the diminutive room that has the effortless intimacy of a supper club. It’s busy. And you have the sense it’s always busy. Polpetto only has 28 seats and a legion of Polpo fans after all. Tiny tables crammed with elbows and dishes, flickering candles in the bright daylight backdrop the hum of conspiratorial chat rising above the beats of Mark Ronson. This is not a deal-making place but one where plans are hatched. 

A window seat means a firm view of brazen torsos and tight Y-fronts in an Old Compton Street shop window. Staff are equally rock ‘n’ roll, and we’re served by the cheery spit of a Camden frontman, all skinny limbs and skinny jeans. He’s the right side of chatty rather than intrusive and is quick to serve our inexpensive rosé from the well-chosen list - a fresh and accessible bardolino chosen by Ruth, sloshed from a humble carafe.

Chopped chicken liver crostini
Moscardini
Cicheti is the thing here, tapas-type small plates, which start at a friendly £2.50. Thick-cut crostini slathered with punchy chicken liver are impaled with the tartness of sunblush tomato. Moscardini, baby octopus flecked with shards of garlic and fennel is excellently flavoured but upsettingly chewy.

Braised ox cheek, polenta bianca
and breaded sardines, caper mayonnaise
Larger sharing plates are wholesomely good; braised ox cheek has a gloriously unfashionable amount of fat that ensures its melty softness. The cavolo nero, a kind of kale, is an inspired dish enlivened with the crunch of rosemary breadcrumbs as are crisp breaded sardines.

Cavolo nero, borlotti beans & rosemary crumbs
Polpetto has nothing to prove, and there lies its scruffy charm. While the food may be slightly patchy, the coolly effortless concept isn’t. It has slipped seamlessly into The French House’s scuffed walls as though it’d been there all along and I bet you anything will be far more popular than her big sister.

Pizzetta bianca

Polpetto
Upstairs at The French House, 49 Dean Street, London
020 7734 1969
Reservations taken for lunch only.

Click here for my take on Polpo last year.