Afro's

Just finished a job making Afro inspired lino cuts to be used for T-shirts. Perfect job.

Potato's Lyonnaise

Last week at The People's Kitchen i tried out an updated potato's Lyonnaise recipe. We had a whole load of leeks as well as potato's and onions so i layered the potato's, caramelised onion and buttered leeks in a roasting dish and topped with breadcrumbs and gruyere cheese.

Ingredients

5 large onions sliced thinly

10 medium potato's

3 leeks cleaned and chopped

fresh thyme

butter

gruyere cheese

 couple handfuls of breadcrumbs

Balsamic vinegar

Bouillon vegetable stock

Directions

*1*

Begin by caramelising the onions. Heat enough olive oil to coat the onions in a heavy based pan. Add the onions and a pinch of salt, turn down the temperature and saute slowly on the hob for around 20-25 minutes until soft and sweet. When soft add a glug of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar, allow the vinegar to cook off then take off the heat.

*2*

Now soften the leeks. Add the chopped leeks to foaming butter and cook on a medium heat until soft. Add the picked thyme and a squeeze of lemon when done.

*3*

Cut the potato's into thirds and layer with the caramelised onion and leek (one layer potato then onion then potatio, onion, potato, leek). Pour over vegetable stock (enough to come one thumb tip away from the top. Finish off with the breadcrumbs and cheese and bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees.

PK recipes

I've promised some recipe's from The People's Kitchen, so here goes....

Sautéed Cabbage and Chestnut 

If i'm brutally honest i'm not a fan of green cabbage, my heart sinks a little everytime it arrives in my kitchen. Most recipe's using cabbage smother it in cream, butter and bacon masking its woody texture and irony flavour. For the first time i've made a cabbage recipe that i can recommend.

Ingredients

1 cabbage

1 pack of cooked chestnuts

large knob of butter

1 carrot

3 chopped garlic cloves

500mls vegetable stock

slosh of sherry vinegar

a few juniper berries

Directions

*1*

Chop the cabbage up into small 1 inch strips and dice the carrot and chesnut. Heat the butter in a non stick frying pan until foaming and add the cabbage, carrot and garlic. 

*2*

Add the crushed juniper berries and continue to saute the cabbage for 5-10 mins. Now slowly add the vegetable stock. Add the chestnut and allow the cabbage to simmer in the stock until most of the liquid has been reduced. Finish off with the vinegar and some black pepper. Serve with a potato dish.

Banoffee Upside down cake

Just finished a pop up event at the Barking Bathhouse. The bathhouse is a stunning scandinavian style sauna and bathing centre with spaces for art and food workshops. We cooked a meal using surplus foods collected from local groceries and supermarkets. One of the favourites was a Banoffee upside down cake. We had too many bananas for a banana bread (it would be too moist and we didn't have enough eggs to hold it together. So I made a banana upside down cake. The banana's were beautiful with a caramel and the cake was light and not heavy under the weight of banana much.

Caramel

Caster sugar

Golden syrup

Pinch of dark Muscovado Sugar

Knob of butter

Cream (room temperature)

Heat 3mm deep of caster sugar in a heavy based saucepan until golden brown. Swirl the pan (do not stir). Add the golden syrup and muscovado sugar and turn the heat down/off. Add the butter and stir, the liquid should bubble, then stir in the cream and take off the heat. If your feeling decadent add some rum at the end. 

Banana 

5 of 6 ripe banana's

zest of half a lemon

pinch of ground ginger

Slice the banana into 3 cm cylinders, add the ginger and zest and layer in a baking dish lined with greaseproof paper and the caramel ontop of the paper. 

Cake mix

Sugar

sunflower oil 

3 eggs

self raising flour

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp cinnamon

Beat the sugar and oil together (add less sugar if the banana's are v. ripe). Add the vanilla and eggs and mix well. Sift in the flour ant pour the mixture over the banana's. Bake for around 35 minutes at 180 degrees centigrade until a knife comes out clean.

Barking Bathhouse with the People's Kitchen

Menu

Smoked pepper and tomato ratatouille 

Glazed plaintain ( mollases sugar, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, cumin)

Roasted Sweet potato's (with cumin, paprika and tumeric)

Lentil stew

Apple and cider crumble

Plum, blackberry and red wine crumble

Green Salad

Banoffee upside down cake 

Peraculture

more pics!

Foraging

Recently i helped cook at a Permaculture event hosted by Miles Irving, master forager. I haven't got much experience foraging and learnt about some interesting ingredients that grow unbeknown in urban oasis's around London. My favourite was the Blackthorn syrup, which had a subtle almond-like flavour with a touch of orange and cinnamon.

Heres some photo's and recipe's from the night:

Wild food Festival Recipes

Dandilion Pie:

Pastry

250g fine plain flour

50g Chestnut flour

200g Unsalted butter in small cubes

Pinch of salt

4-6 tablespoons of water

1 egg yolk for glazing

Filing

500g dandelion leaves

Bicarb of soda

6 tbsp of olive oil

3 garlic cloves finely chopped

1 fresh red chilly, finely chopped

3 pickled walnuts finely chopped

3 tbsp raisins roughly chopped

1 tbsp of capers roughly chopped

200g feta

Blend dandelions as finely as possible with 500mls of water and ¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Simmer for 15 mins and then strain through sieve or muslin squeezing out as much liquid as possible. Fry with other ingredients until some of the moisture is removed. 

Roll out pastry to 3mm thickness. Line pie dish. Add mixture and top with 200g of crumbled feta, put lip on and pinch together with base then glaze with 1 egg yolk.

Cook 200degrees, gas mark 6 for 25-30mins

Wild autumn salad

Wild sorrel and wild baby yarrow leaves from hamstead heath

Chickweed from organic lea

Wild girolles mushrooms

Dressing

Meadowsweet vinager

Olive oil 

Baked beetroot with Mellilot

Batches of 500g of beetroot, cut into sizes of smallest beet, on tinfoil large enough to make an airtight parcel. Add splash of vinager, salt, pepper and rounded desert spoon of melilot. Seal parcels and place in oven 150degrees for 1 hour. Peel once cool.

Boiled eggs with drizzled nettle

Blitz tender tips of raw nettles with garlic, salt pepper and olive oil – to taste.

Peel boiled eggs, cut in half and drizzle nettle dressing  

Fruit fool

Bake 500g blackberries with the juice and zest of 2 lemons and of 50ml of blackthorn syrup.

Cook 750g of damsons with 50ml of blackthorn syrup and a little sugar to taste. Combine the two and reduce until thick.

Spoon into a glass and top with whipped double cream, reduced blackthorn syrup and a wild fennel biscuit.

Fennel tartlets

55g fennel seeds

500kg plain flour

15g baking yeast

125g softened unsalted butter

100g icing sugar

125ml olive oil

50ml Sambuca liquor

100ml milk

2 egg yolks beaten

100g granulated sugar

55g chopped almonds

Mix flour, yeast, butter and icing sugar. Add olive oil, milk and stir into a smooth dough. Add the Sambuca and fennel seeds and knead well together. Allow to rest for 30mins.

On floured surface, roll out the dough into 3mm thickness, and then cut out 10cm circles. Brush with egg yolk, sprinkle with sugar and almonds and bake in preheated oven for 8-9mins till golden.