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!

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.

Delightful Breakfast from Lawrence Keogh

This week's Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 featured Lawrence Keogh of the restaurant Roast in Borough market making a delicious breakfast dish - Tattie scone with bacon, field mushrooms and slow-roasted tomatoes in Worcestershire sauce . Voted the number one breakfast in London and a restaurant that boasts one hundred and seventy plus covers for breakfast, lunch and dinner - I certainly had to give it a go.


I had to substitute soda farls for the tattie scone and didn't have the fancy eggs that Lawrence used the results were still very delicious - I was really surprised at how nice the tomatoes in Worcestershire Sauce were - I thought they would be too strong a flavour, but the reduction made it less acidic and intensified the flavours and give it a nice little spicy kick to boot.

My First Roti Run

The ‘Roti Run’ is something of a tradition among my girlfriend’s family. Some months back I had my first roti – a delicious flatbread roll filled with stewed curried – they can contain, meat, fish and vegetables – although Indian in origin they’re massively popular in the West Indies, particular the Island of Trinidad, where my girlfriend’s mum is from.

The usual destination for the roti run is a place called the Roti Hut all the way down in Shepherd’s Bush – it’s quite a trek from the home base of Canning Town and the last time my girlfriend’s mum tried it they were shut. We had arrived home ready to make food, but there was a note saying ‘Gone on the roti run’. I’d only ever had one before (well two actually – but both in one sitting) and our mouths were salivating at the thought of tasty these delcious curried morsels – so you can imagine our disappointment when a very tired mum returned with news that the prized establishment was shut.

Any way fast forward a few months and it seems that the Roti Hut has been deposed, a recent tip from a fellow Trinidadian has directed my mum and my girlfriend to a new establishment – The Roti Joupa in Clapham North. Being on the Northern Line, I have decided to do the Roti Run myself on my way in from Portsmouth. I’ll get off at Waterloo, head up to Clapham and then return with the juicy morsels. I’m actually smiling right now, just thinking about it. It’s going to be hard to resist eating one of them on the way home, but knowing that I’ll be arriving at my girlfriends lovely warm home, laden down with roti from my first roti run brings a big foodie grin to my face.

The big question is, what filling do I get – goat, chicken, fish or shrimp?

Hmm choices, choices.

All Food is Pie!

I think before I go any further, that I should explain a simple truth of the universe.

All food is pie.

OK, perhaps not one of the hithertoo unknown laws of quantum gravity, but yes I like to refer to all food as pie. Casseroles, roasts, curries, pasta, risottos, soups, pies even - it's all pie at the end of the day. All except puddings, some food is puddings. But then some pies are puddings - like Apple Pie, but also some puddings are pie, like Steak and Kidney Pudding.