Recipe: Moussaka

Thought it was about time I added a few of my own recipes to this food blog, in addition to the restaurant reviews and to document some of my favourite creations.

This recipe was originally taken from Rick Stein's book "Food Heroes", but I have fiddled with it and adapted it enough to now consider it my own.  So initial credit should go to him, although (if I say so myself) I think my version is better.

Please note that in the list below, more often than not I don't provide amounts or weights.  I'm very much a "by feel" cook - apart from when it comes to baking, of course, when amounts have to be precise - so if following this recipe, a little intuition is needed.

Moussaka

I have been making this dish for many years, but only in the last few have perfected it.  Although it's a Greek dish, and indeed I have had the real thing a couple of times in Greece to great success, many of the ingredients below are not Greek.  I don't think it matters.  The following recipe makes easily enough for 4 people, probably 6.

For the ragu:
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 aubergine - sliced lengthwise into 5-6 slices.  Alternatively, 2 courgettes - likewise sliced
500 g mince (preferably lamb, but beef will do as well)
1 onion - finely chopped
Garlic (lots, at least 3-4 cloves) - finely chopped
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Oregano (preferably fresh, but dried will do)
Cinnamon stick
Red wine (roughly half a glass)
Salt and black pepper, to taste

For the sauce:
Butter
Plain flour
Milk
Double cream
Cheese - a soft creamy cheese (e.g. Brie or Camembert), a soft blue cheese (e.g. Gorgonzola or Bleu d'Auvergne), and a grated cheese (preferably Parmesan, but Cheddar will do)
Black pepper
Mustard powder

1) Lightly salt the aubergine (or courgettes) and leave to sit for roughly 10 minutes, then rinse

2) Heat a generous amount of the oil in a large frying pan, and fry the sliced aubergine (or courgettes) until lightly brown.  Transfer to an oven dish

3) In the same frying pan (with more oil added if needs be), fry the onion and garlic until softened.  If using dried oregano, add a generous amount (at least 2 teaspoons) at this stage.

4) Add the mince (broken up) and cinnamon stick, and fry until the mince is brown

5) Add the tin of chopped tomatoes, the wine, and the fresh oregano if using.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bring to a gentle boil, then simmer for at least 30-40 minutes.  If it starts to dry out, add more wine or water.  The consistency at the end should be much thicker and reduced compared to the beginning, but not dry

6) Meanwhile, make the sauce.  Make a roux with the butter and flour (roughly 2 tablespoons of flour).  Cook for a minute, then slowly add the milk, whisking all the time.  Continue adding milk until the sauce is thick, then switch to cream (roughly a tablespoon).  Once the sauce has thinned slightly (though not runny), add the soft cheese and the blue cheese, as well a large pinch of mustard powder and generous black pepper.  Stir until fully melted

7) Once the ragu is ready, remove the cinnamon stick and pour over the sliced aubergine (or courgettes).  Smooth it down.  Pour over the sauce so that everything is covered, and shake the oven dish gently to smooth.  Cover with a generous layer of grated Parmesan, then bake in a preheated oven (at 180°C) for roughly 30-40 minutes

8) Serve with a selection of green vegetables and potatoes, done to your liking.

Weekends in France and Italy

Hello again foodies.

Having recently had two gastronomic weekends in Paris and Bologna, I thought it would be interesting to document some of the excellent food experienced in both.  For more details on the actual trips, see my personal blog - http://cjrwilliams.blogspot.co.uk/.

A quick word of apology.  I fully realise that a food blog is made much more interesting if filled with photos of the nice food in question.  I am, however, a bit of a beginner, and we are notoriously bad at remembering to photograph our dishes.  You will therefore just have to imagine what follows…

Paris weekend, October 2013
As I said in my other blog, this weekend was in aid of my friend's 25th birthday.  As I said to her at the time, big birthdays get less frequent from now on so each one ought to be celebrated well.

The food on the Eurostar, despite travelling First Class, was not particularly memorable - understandably, it is all cold, but was nevertheless fairly interesting.  We were given a small dish of grilled chicken on cous-cous, accompanied by a small quiche.  Not bad, and the wine was surprisingly good as well.

The main treat, however, was that evening, when we had dinner at Le Moulin de la Galette - one of the oldest places in Montmatre, which used to be one of the original windmills.  I had heard about it after reading numerous reviews of numerous places in the area, and that seemed to be the most positive.  We started with the Fois Gras for me and the home-made French Onion Soup for my companion, both of which were excellent.  For a main course, I had the lightly poached salmon - which I thought was amazing, but might not be for everyone as it was rare to the extreme.  I like my salmon rare, but this was almost flapping around on the plate.  My companion went for her favourite of Steak Frites, which again was superb - and was again properly rare despite asking for A Point, as only the French can do.  I would imagine that if she had asked for Bleu, it would have still been mooing.  We were too full for deserts on this occasion, but it was an excellent meal - I think we accompanied it with a bottle of Chablis, but can't quite remember!

As I said in my other blog, probably the lowest point of the weekend was breakfast at the hotel.  It was a very comfortable room, but fairly basic and we never expected much for breakfast.  We did, however, expect more than a couple of pieces of stale baguette and only a couple of stale croissants - there wasn't even any jam.  Worst of all, and surprising for France (let alone Paris), the coffee was cold and really not very nice.  Never mind…

I won't say much about the rest of the food that weekend, as although it was nice it wasn't particularly memorable.  Lunch on the Sunday was in a little cafe overlooking Le Louvre, and I had a fairly standard galette - nothing to write home about.  The meal on the Eurostar on the way home was again good, but nothing special.

So, overall, the evening meal on the Saturday was the gastronomic highlight!

Bologna weekend, November 2013
As explained in my other blog, this long weekend was a belated birthday present to me from my parents, for a weekend with them and my friend to Bologna, Italy.  We have some family friends living there, and although I have been before, I was 3 at the time so don't remember the experience and certainly wasn't as much of a foodie as now.

The first gastronomic experience of the weekend, which was not a particularly good one, was on the plane.  We didn't expect much for a two-hour flight, but the BLT wrap was a little disappointing.  Particularly as we learnt that those in Business Class were given something hot for lunch!  The wine, however, wasn't bad - and to be honest, given my nerves by this point (because of the flying), anything alcoholic would have been welcomed.

The proper gastronomy, however, began nicely once we had landed in Bologna.  For the first evening, our Italian friends cooked for us at their home and, unsurprisingly, it was a wonderful traditional Italian meal.  We began with a paté or mousse made from mortadella, which is a Bolognese sausage or cured ham, served on biscuits.  We then moved onto the pasta course, which was my first experience of proper Bolognese tortellini.  As I (now) understand it, there is a clear distinction between tortellini and tortelloni, although both are from the Emilia region and in particular Bologna - tortellini are small ring-shaped pasta (resembling to my mind a napkin ring) often stuffed with meat such as mortadella or prosciutto and served in a broth, whereas tortelloni are similar in shape but larger and more usually stuffed with ricotta and/or spinach.  We had the former, and it was superb.  We then moved onto the meat course, which was some sort of poultry - although our Italian friends speak superb English, the exact word for what we were given was lost.  We think, after much discussion, it was a capon - certainly smaller than a chicken, but not Guinea fowl or grouse.  Whatever it was, it was amazing, served simply with spinach.  Finally, the meal was rounded off with some truly excellent Italian ice cream from their local deli - something which I had heard about a lot, and it was indeed very good.  So an excellent meal, and we returned to our hotel thoroughly stuffed.

The next day, after a long morning seeing the sights, we were taken to another favourite deli for a so-called "free" lunch.  As I said in my other blog, everything we were given to eat was indeed free - and they were certainly not stingy - but then you felt obliged to buy stuff afterwards, which we of course did.  We were given a selection of meats, mostly pork, in little toasted bread rolls.  This was followed by a selection of cheeses, some sheep and some cow, again in little bread rolls.  We were also able to taste a selection of Parma hams which, for reasons we could never ascertain, were far superior to anything we can get at home.  Personally, I don't like Parma ham at home, as it is often very chewy.  This stuff, however, wasn't at all and was amazing.  It was all washed down by some of their local lightly sparkling wine, which again was very good.  So a very good lunch…

That night, after more wandering of the city, our Italian friends had arranged a winetasting for us at a local restaurant, followed by a meal.  The winetasting was very interesting, and we tried two of the local wines - a likely sparkling white, and a rich full-bodied red.  The restaurant owner was clearly very keen to tell us all about them, but unfortunately he spoke no English so our friends were translating all the way through - some things may have been lost in translation!  The meal afterwards, however, was not lost on us - I had a superb dish of tagliatelle with deer and my friend had the pappardelle with wild mushrooms.  I believe my mother had the same as me, and my father couldn't resist the tagliatelle Bolognese (which I thought didn't exist in Bologna, under that name at least, but clearly does).  All were excellent.

The following day was mostly spent wandering the city again, but we had an excellent lunch in a delightful little place down a side alley in the city centre.  My friend went for the tortellini again, and I tried the home-made lasagna - which, perhaps unsurprisingly, was better than anything we get at home.

So, all in all, a very two good weekends for The Peripatetic Foodie…

Recipes: Birthday Baking

Just thought I would write a few words on some recent baking ventures, all of which (I'm pleased, and relieved, to say) were successful and I think went down well with everyone.

The occasion was my mother's birthday, so the first item on the list was of course a birthday cake.  Given that chocolate is her favourite flavour of cake, not to mention mine, that was the obvious choice.  For previous birthdays, I had already done an enormous Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (more commonly known as Black Forest Gateau) and a Chocolate and Vanilla Tiger Cake (involving the piping of 2 different coloured mixtures to create a striped effect), so thought I would go a little simpler this year.  After a bit of searching, I eventually decided to go for the Celebration Chocolate Cake by Mary Berry (available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/celebration_chocolate_18175).  This is essentially a fairly basic chocolate sandwich, but using a combination of sunflower oil and milk instead of butter and therefore producing a fairly liquid mixture which rises a lot in the oven thanks to self-raising flour, baking powder AND bicarb.  It is then topped and filled with a white chocolate, cream and cream cheese icing.

However, I adapted the recipe ever so slightly.  Instead of putting the icing in between the layers, I instead used the more classic combination of raspberry jam and whipped cream.  Plus, instead of leaving the topping flat, I decorated with extra raspberries.  Without wishing to cast any doubt on Mary Berry, who is in my mind without fault when it comes to baking, I personally think my version was better.  The icing, being made entirely of chocolate, cream and cream cheese, is extremely rich, and I think everyone agreed the jam and plain whipped cream in the middle was a nice contrast.  The cake rose well, and was really very light - so a complete success.

The next item on the list was our desert for that evening, for which I had decided to do Floating Islands (more commonly known, in France at least, as Iles Flottantes).  Again it was one of Mary Berry's recipes (available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/floating_islands_with_03517) but on this occasion I combined it with another recipe from Raymond Blanc (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ilesflottantefaconma_93228) in that, rather than spinning the caramel into sugary balls, to save time I just dribbled the caramel over at the end.  I had already practised this a week earlier, and I'm pleased to say it was again a big success.  The meringues were light and fluffy, and the creme anglaise thickened perfectly with no (or at least minimal) risk of scrambled eggs.  The hot caramel obviously cooled as soon as it touched the chilled desert, becoming hard and creating a nice texture difference to the soft and creamy meringues.

The last item was the main course, chosen to be a Salmon en Croute and courtesy of Gordon Ramsay (available at http://www.redonline.co.uk/food/recipes/salmon-en-croute).  This was essentially a large side of salmon, covered in a stuffing made from butter, mustard, basil and dill, and then wrapped in short-crust pastry and baked.  However, I again deviated slightly from the recipe, in that Ramsay advises to cut the salmon in half and then make a sandwich from the 2 pieces with the stuffing in between.  You therefore end up with a layer of the herbs in between the fish.  I decided against this, however, given that our salmon was already quite large in the vertical so sandwiching 2 pieces together would have made a very tall pie.  Instead, I simply covered the fish with the stuffing and then wrapped in pastry.  Unfortunately I don't have a photo of this, but it was really quite impressive and tasted fantastic.

So, all in all, a very good birthday meal - which I think was well received.  Full menu as follows:

Teatime: Celebration Chocolate Cake

Starter: Sweet and sour prawns, with chorizo and chilli
Main: Salmon en Croute, with steamed vegetables and new potatoes
Desert: Iles Flottantes

Restaurant review: L'Aquarius

Restaurant name: L'Aquarius
Cuisine: French (primarily seafood)
Location: Le Tréport, France
Date: August 2013
Occasion: Holidaying in France

Having arrived the day before, and having been to this part of France many many times before, we always knew that the problem would not be finding a restaurant but choosing between them.  The town, which is a popular tourist destination among the French (but thankfully not the English), is a fairly typical French seaside village comprised of cobbled streets and shadowed under tall cliffs behind.  The main promenade, overlooking the marina and fishing port, is stuffed full of restaurants (not to mention bars and 'tat' shops), all of which are, let's be honest, pretty good and pretty similar. 

Upon browsing the menus, as expected all of them advertised fairly good set menus, with the favourites universally being moules frites, plateaux de fruits de mer, soupe de poissons and a variety of fish - often sole meuniere or cabillaud (cod).  So how to differentiate?

Fortunately, years of experience does help a little, and some of them were clearly nicer looking than others.  That's not to say that it's all about decor and looking posh - far from it.  When I was much younger (i.e. sub 10), it used to be about whether or not a place had tablecloths - but I now know this is nowhere near accurate.  In my experience, some of the very finest places, with excellent food and the best atmosphere, are among the more downmarket and cheap looking.  So never judge a book by its cover or, in this case, a restaurant by its appearance.

On the first evening, having arrived fairly late, we chose reasonably quickly and stopped at a little place called Comptoirs de l'Ocean - a brightly coloured place both inside and out, adorned with purple, pink and pale blue curtains and with a variety of menus outside.  It was a very good meal, but I decided not to review it here - the moules frites that my companion had were, however, excellent, served in two marmites (rather than the usual one) and allowing a choice of sauces.

The second evening, therefore, we were a little less rushed and so a little more selective.  Having had a relaxing day wandering, we had been able to look at each place.  Eventually, we decided on L'Aquarius - a fairly small restaurant slightly further from the sea, and adorned with the more usual pale blues so often found in French seafood places.  Again, there were a variety of menus outside, advertising all the usual favourites.  Inside (which we chose because the evening sky was looking threatening) the decor was simple but comfortable, with wooden tables covered in simple red tablecloths and the usual nautical artwork on the walls.

Having chosen one of the medium-range set menus, my companion started with the Salade Parisienne - a simple but very appetising looking salad of cheese, ham and leaves - and I just had to go for the fruits de mer.  This, perhaps unsurprisingly, was excellent, containing the usual selection of oysters, prawns, sea snails, clams, whelks and a langoustine.  Experience has taught me that although these dishes always look enormous, there is actually a lot of shell so it's not a massive starter. 

Our main courses were equally good and were our favourites - sole meuniere for me and steak frites for my companion.  Although the latter was not quite as expected, coming in a pepper sauce (which she ordered and expected, but which was all over the meat) and with a potato rostie instead of frites.  I don't think she was too disappointed, however.  The sole was very good, being very lightly battered and then simply grilled with butter, with the flesh falling away from the bone and the spine easy to remove (as it should be). 

 

Finally, having already consumed more than we needed, we finished with a couple of light deserts - an ice cream with hot chocolate sauce for me, and a fruit salad for her.  Although I'm not usually a fan of ice cream, this one was excellent - with the chocolate sauce becoming chewy as it cooled and mixed with the melting vanilla ice cream.

All in all, an excellent meal.  As always, the set menus so often found in France are an extraordinarily good deal, and sometimes I wonder how the restaurants can afford to do it.  Not that I'm complaining, of course.

Restaurant review: Pepe Sale

Restaurant name: Pepe Sale
Cuisine: Italian/Sardinian
Location: Reading, UK
Date: August 2013
Occasion: None - just dinner out

This was not actually my first visit, that being several years ago when I first moved to Reading.  I couldn't remember much about it, least of all what the food was like, but I was surprised to think that I hadn't been back since.  Having eaten there now, I'm even more surprised I hadn't been back since that first time.

The restaurant is a reasonably small place, hidden on one of the back streets in town and not far from the theatre.  It's quite a way from many other restaurants in town, which is perhaps why I haven't been back.  From the outside, it's not particularly ostentatious or prominent - but it was certainly very busy by the end of the night, so clearly well known about.  A nice little bar by the main entrance, 4 or 5 tables near the door and then 3 steps down to a lot more tables.  We sat on the top level, by the large glass windows.

The menu was impressive, with all the usual Italian items as well as several other less familiar things.  I particularly remember the impressive choice of fish, always a favourite of mine.  The wine list was also quite impressive, but I'm afraid I don't remember what we had on this occasion - I believe it was a Sardinian white.

We started with carpaccio - mine a fish carpaccio (which was seasonally varying, and turned out to be salmon on this occasion) and the beef carpaccio for my companion.  Both were excellent, with generous portions (probably too much) as well as a significant amount of leaves.  I myself had had another beef carpaccio a couple of weeks earlier in London, but this one was much better - less dry, sliced very thinly, and accompanied by rocket and thin slices of cheese (almost certainly Parmesan).

The mains, however, were the star of the show.  Both myself and my companion are very fond of sea bass but she said she wanted it so, being the gentlemen that I am, I went for the sea bream instead.  This, I should say, was excellent - but, as it transpired, the bass was better, so I had much food envy.  I will have that next time!  The bream was done very simply in garlic, white wine and parsley, and filleted excellently.  The bass, however, was rather special.  The menu had described it as salt-baked, which I have seen done to other things (e.g. vegetables) but have never experienced it myself.  Once my dish had arrived, a large trolley was brought over holding what looked like an enormous mound of rice.  It turned out to be salt, and in front of our eyes the waiter expertly removed the fish from within, filleted and deboned it, and served with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.  Absolutely superb, and probably the best sea bass we have ever tasted - the salt was not overpowering, instead simply flavouring the flesh.

My only regret, apart from not having it myself, was that we were too enthralled to take any photos for this blog.  Next time!

After all that, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no room for deserts on this occasion.  We had our usual espresso which, as might be expected from an Italian, was pretty good.  Rather than trying a more normal Italian spirit, I went for a Sardinian Grappa which was actually rather pleasant, and without the usual burn of many Grappas.

So, all in all, an excellent meal.  The waiters were superb and very knowledgeable, particularly when filleting the fish.  So definitely a place to return to, very soon.

Hello

Hello and welcome to my new food blog!

I decided to create this in an effort to record some of my more memorable (for any reason, good or bad) foodie experiences.  Whether or not anyone ever reads these shall remain to be seen, but I hope so.  Ideally, it should be read alongside my other personal blog (at http://cjrwilliams.blogspot.co.uk/), the difference being the personal blog covers a variety of issues whereas this one focuses on food only - either eating out experiences or, occasionally, some of my own recipes and creations.

In terms of the eating out part, and commenting on restaurants, I did actually do this many years ago (before blogs were around), on my website http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~charlie/restaurants.html.  This, however, is very old now and has not been updated for several years, so I hope this blog will take up the baton.

And, in case anyone is wondering, "peripatetic" means a person who travels from place to place - a traveller, or wayfarer.  I thought this was rather appropriate.

Enjoy…