Jedi Raid on Borough Market

Saturday would prove to be a day of two halves, and maybe a period of extra time thrown in for good measure. Let's kick-off with the first-half.

The day started early, Lady LDN needed to get her hair done and as has become the practise I took advantage of this early start to the weekend, by mounting a Jedi raid on Borough market, partly due to being up and energised and also the fact that I singed my forehead a little messing around on very fast RIBs the day before I wanted to avoid the midday sun.

Fast forward a few hours and I'm back at base, fully fed courtesy of Maria's cafe, with 3KG of Ethiopian coffee (for the office's Coffee Snobs Club), two stuffed Chicken breasts (my food for the week), some cakes for the girl's return, and a veritable feast of goodies for Sunday lunch, more of which later - but the centre-piece are three substantial rib-eye steaks from the Ginger Pig butchers...

...and here's the killer, I hadn't even missed Saturday kitchen.

The Jedi raid on Borough Market certainly comes highly recommended from me, when I arrived just around 8.30am - there was only a few professional shoppers like myself and most of the traders were up and ready - perhaps even earlier can be achieved, I don't truly know what time it opens - the website says 11am - but that is clearly propoganda to keep the tourists at bay for a few hours. Monmouth Coffee was still rammed!

Sunday Lunch: Halloumi & Avocado Salad

So not exactly a very Sunday-like Sunday lunch, but I caught sight of this halloumi salad on TheFastestIndian's blog and what with Saturday taken with a barbecue and it being the end of the month - this would make a tasty and refreshing Sunday lunch. Another factor was that me and the better half we're spending one of those horrible weekends apart, so the a simple salad would minimise time and mess created in the kitchen.

Have to say I was surprised how good this was, my griddle pan is getting nicely seasoned too, as the halloumi had a nice smoky touch where they'd been chargrilled.

Breakfast: Bacon, Liver and Onion Roll

In recent weeks Borough Market has become my regular Saturday morning haunt and breakfast has taken the form of a very excellent Bacon, liver, onion roll with watercress and dijon mustard mayo from Maria's greasy spoon cafe right in the centre of the main market - usually washed down with a cup of Monmouth coffee.

This weekend I was in Portsmouth, so attempted to recreate this tasty weekend breakfast treat myself. The results weren't entirely successful, but still a good breakfast. Points to improve for next time (possibly tomorrow morning).

Bacon too thin
Liver sliced too thick
I think Maria's may use more expensive Calf's liver, I used lamb's.
Liver was a touch overcooked.

Isle of Wight: Fish & Chip Supper

Our Isle of Wight excursion was not really marked by forward planning but my good lady and I were both hoping that part of the trip might involve some sea food, sadly the imagined sea food bistro failed to materialise. Not to be put off and with our bellies full of cream tea we went for an exploratory walk through Shanklin village looking for contenders for our supper venue.

We had barely walked a hundred metres from the Pencil cottage when my attention was immediately caught by the smell wafting from the door of a small cafe - that distinctive smell of beef dripping, so rare to find in fish and chip restaurants, certainly in the south of England, but so important if you want to make simply the best fish and chips - a quick peek inside and I already knew I wanted to eat dinner here. Further inspection of the shop front revealed a clipping from the Independent Newspaper which had placed June's as the second best fish and chip shop in the UK - now I definitely wanted to eat dinner here.

There was no airs and graces about this place, the tables were covered with check table cloths with rows of those sorts of wooden chairs, we ordered our suppers from the serving hatch and sat waiting with great expectations and tired from our walk back down to the seashore to help burn off a small fraction of calories that we must have consumed with the cream teas. Our order was called and we headed up to the serving hatch to collect our orders.

They were well worth the wait, the chips were golden and crisp with light fluffy centres - very much like tiny little roast potatoes. The fish was cooked perfectly in a golden crisp batter and was just what we needed. Easily the best fish and chips I've had in years and I'm sure my waistline is grateful that June's is a ferry and train ride away - but we'll be sure to come here for one or two suppers when we return for a longer visit.

Isle of Wight: Afternoon Cream Tea

This Friday just gone saw myself and my good lady head over to the Isle of Wight for a day trip. Having spent three years looking at the island from my desk we finally got round to making the excursion. Not really knowing what to expect we set off on the Fastcat passenger ferry with a ticket that gave us free reign of the island's railway system. A few tips from my colleagues pointed us toward the Shanklin and the old village. It was after a glorious walk along the coast from Sandown and a bit of a climb we came to the lovely old village itself. Traditional thatched cottages line the winding roads and a host of traditional pubs and tea rooms to visit.

We came to rest at the Pencil cottage, who were runner up in last year's Cream Tea awards and immediately ordered two deluxe cream teas. It is worth noting that we've both been enjoying cream teas recently, but the efforts purchased from the supermarket pale in comparison to the mountainous scones that arrived at our table. The scones, homemade every day in the tea room bakery, were truly something to behold, each one at least the size of two scones and amazingly light and delicious - perfect with the lashing of clotted cream and homemade strawberry conserve.

The village really capped off an amazing day, the island really is a great escape from all the usual 'brands' and franchises that seem to be part and parcel of modern living - and very much I hope it stays that way.A walk was needed afterwards in order to rebuild up our appetite for our planned for dinner...

In the Bag: Risotto with asparagus and poached egg

In spite of a busy month for me, I was determined to find some time to do something with delicious British asparagus. As it happened the opportunity came last weekend, when our roast chicken didn't quite go far enough for two complete dinners, so with some leftover chipolata sauages from yesterdays potato salad to throw in the mix - a lovely risotto was born . While down at my local supermarket, Somerfields of all places, they had some very fresh and tender stems of asparagus, I had the perfect accompaniment for my bank holiday Monday lunch.

The risotto was made with onion and leaks and a bit garlic, with leftover roast chicken, sausages and some dried porcini mushrooms. For a touch of luxury I'd saved the chicken 'oysters' and popped them in right at the end and made sure that one each was served on each plate, one for me and one for my good lady, that and a generous handful or two of grated parmesan.

The asparagus was steamed quickly for just two minutes, plunged into ice cold water to stop the cooking. Next I sauted the stems in butter, before adding lemon juice. The asparagus was served on top of the risotto with a soft runny poached egg on top.

First Barbecue of 2008

The sun has been shining the last week or so and what with the weather sages telling us that yesterday would be the last good day of sunshine for about a week, the rallying call went out to the regular bunch of guys who enjoy unwinding with an after-work drink, an activity affectionately known as a 'midweek skirmish'.

This week's skirmish would be relocated to Southsea Common for the first barbecue of 2008. Armed with disposable barbecues, beers and coolbag full of food we embarked upon the field of battle - Southsea Common. Amongst other goodies purchased from Buckwell's of Southsea, I had 'jerked' some chicken - not entirely sure how authentic it was - my good lady's Mum does some nice seasoned West Indian chicken, but as she's from Trinidad it's not exactly the same as Jamaican jerk so mine may have been a curious mixture of the two. As always more inspired by a rummage through the store cupboard than any particular method, I kinda threw a lot of things into a blender and blitzed them up. Here's the ingredient list for my jerk seasoning.

4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp of jerk seasoning
2 dried birdseye chillis
1 dried kashmiri chili
1 dried chilli (from my pot of home dried chillis)
1 tsp of hot chilli powder
good pinch of thyme leaves
1/2 cinnamon stick
juice and rind of 2 lemons
1/2 onion
2 sticks of celery (including the leaves)
sunflower oil
sea salt

I stabbed the chicken drumsticks a few times with a knife, poured the whole lot over and let them marinade overnight.

The finished article was very impressive and went down very well with the 'midweek riflers'. The spice was quite hot, more of a slow builder with a lovely tingle on the lips and a nice citrus zip - good job I didn't throw in the chopped scotch bonnet that I was contemplating.

Plans are afoot to get a proper barbecue and stow it with a rifler who lives near the common - so weather permitting more adventurous barbecue action should be occurring later in the year. Looking forward to doing my chilli king prawn kebabs again at some point.

Picture to follow.