day of the dead
02 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in food and drink Tags: cabbage, day of the dead, estie thirion, jamie oliver, mexican, recipe, sauce, steak, sweet potato
Today is the Mexican feast of the Day of the Dead (El Día de los Muertos or All Souls Day) and so it was the perfect opportunity to join in the celebrations by cooking one of our favourite cuisines. We always have most of the ingredients for a Mexican culinary feast, so I didn’t put much thought into what we’ll actually have for dinner. The end result was not quite Mexican, but spicy, seasonal and deliciously tasty: rump steak with red pepper, chilli and shallot sauciness, sweet potato mash with chilli and delicious braised cabbage with bacon. Masterchef judges will probably say the dish doesn’t quite come together as one, but it was delicious and Chris and I both really enjoyed it, so I figured it was worth sharing anyway.
Spicy sauce for steak
Sauté a couple of chopped shallots in butter, along with a finely chopped clove of garlic, a thinly-sliced red pepper and sliced green chilli. Deglaze with a good glug of red wine and serve over steak.
We cooked our veggies for the sauce alongside the steak – I’m pretty sure this isn’t textbook but it made a pretty picture.
Sweet potato mash I can’t call this a recipe… I boiled some sweet potato until soft, added some butter, a dash of milk and seasoning and stirred in a chopped green chilli.
Braised bacon cabbage (Courtesy of Jamie Oliver…. I realise my blog is becoming a bit of a shrine to the man himself… this recipe is from the Ministry of Food book but I adapted it slightly to serve 2 people)
Wash the leaves of half a cabbage and slice finely. Slice up three rashers of smoked streaky bacon – the best quality you can afford. Fry with a lug of olive oil until crisp and then stir in a finely chopped clove of garlic. As it begins to colour, add a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, a knob of butter and your cabbage. Stir well, give the pan a shake and crank up the heat to high. Drop a stock cube in about 300 ml of boiling water (we use vegetable stock but chicken will work too), then add about half of that to the pan. Give it a good stir. Put a lid on your pan and let it boil away for about 5 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for another 5 minutes. Season with pepper (the recipe says to add salt to taste but the stock already makes it quite salty so we find it doesn’t really need any extra). Drizzle with some olive oil before serving. This is one veggie dish you will make again and again.
This mobile phone photo is pretty rubbish, not least because the portion of sweet potato is disproportionate and the steak looks incinerated… I need some lessons from my friend Estie Thirion…. food stylist and photographer extraordinaire…
brilliant cheap london eat: wahaca restaurant
07 Oct 2009 1 Comment
in food and drink, Uncategorized Tags: covent garden, london, mexican, restaurant, wahaca
Mexican food is one of my favourite cuisines, so I was thrilled to grab the opportunity during our trip to London to eat at the fantastic Wahaca restaurant in Covent Garden this weekend.
Spicy chicken
Set up by Masterchef 2005 winner Thomasina Miers, Wahaca is named after Oaxaca in Mexico and aims to deliver delicious food that you are likely to find at market stalls in Mexico.
Tortilla chips and salsa
Sure, you can get a burrito too, but why go for something that we often make at home? Instead, Chris and I pulled out all the stops. We eased into the feast with some homemade tortilla chips and tomato salsa, before going for the for the Wahaca selection, which gives you a bumper taster sensation of some of the yummiest Mexican food, made with fantastic ingredients.
Wahaca selection feast
We had pork pibil tacos (our favourite out of all of them), veggie tacos, huitlacoche (mushroom) quesadillas, herring tostadas, chicken tacquitos and green rice with black beans. All washed down with hibiscus water, citrus fizz, Pacifico Clara and Modela Especial.
Pork and veggies
The whole experience – from the music to the Serano chilli seeds that accompany the bill – is not to be missed. Speaking of the bill, our Mexican feast for 2 cost under £40.
A word of advice is to time your visit well, but to be prepared to wait for a seat. We decided to go for a late lunch/early dinner, so waited less than 10 minutes when we arrived at about 16:30 on a Saturday. However, when we left the queue went up the stairs. Don’t let this put you off though, Wahaca is SO worth the wait.
Broadbean and cheese
