The Olive Grove, Cambridge, UK

So here's a quick review of The Olive Grove, where a recent dinner put paid to any pretence of continuing to be vegan.

The Olive Grove is a relatively new (I think it opened last year) addition to the Catholic Church end of Regent Street in the centre of Cambridge, which serves Greek and Mediterranean-style food. I had visited for a weekend lunch earlier in the year, but it was more of a social occasion so I wasn't paying that much attention to the food then (though I recall it was perfectly pleasant).

The inside is functional but comfortable, and going back in the evening, there was definitely more of a bustling atmosphere than during the day- I think I spotted a large table of genuine Greek people too. This time round we ordered a selection of their smaller plates for a meze style dinner, and I have to say it was all pretty uniformly delicious. As an aubergine fan, the melitzanosalata roasted aubergine salad type thing scooped onto warm fluffy pitta bread, was a highlight for me. I guess the Greek salad could have been a bit more flavourful, but it did come with a generous amount of creamy feta. And the fried calamari and prawn sagnaki, were well cooked with a good level of crunchiness on the squid. Unfortunately, my rather crappy photo doesn't do any of the food justice.

Additional major plus points were the pitcher of tap water brought to the table when we arrived, and the incredibly friendly and smiley server who took and correctly delivered our order without apparently ever writing it down. We ordered six dishes between us, which left us nicely stuffed. And the bill for all this and a couple of alcoholic drinks was around £45, which seemed very reasonable for a sizeable dinner for two. I am rather looking forward to going back again.

The Olive Grove
100 Regent Street
Cambridge CB2 1DP

Bengali-style cabbage with prawns or badakopi torkari

Right back to a bit more Bengali food now. This cabbage dish is a staple of Bengali cooking, and one I remember being forced to eat when I was small. I would assiduously pick out all the prawns (and eat them), have a tiny bit of cabbage and then declare that I'd 'finished'. I didn't get away with this that often. Happily I am now a big fan of cabbage in all its forms, from Savoy to the white stuff.

Traditionally Bengali vegetable dishes aren't often cooked with garlic or onions, and so this cabbage recipe uses a simple combination of ginger and whole cumin seeds. Adding prawns is optional, and if you want to keep things vegetarian, peas are a good substitute. And in fact, having both in there is fine too.

Recipe (enough for 4 as part of a larger meal):

1 white cabbage, washed and shredded
Large thumb-sized piece of ginger, squashed to a paste
1 dried bay leaf
1 piece of cinnamon/cassia bark
1 green chilli
2 cardamon pods, split
1-2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1-2 tblsp sunflower (or other plain) oil
Around 150g cooked prawns and/or a couple of handfuls of peas
1 tsp salt, or enough to season


Heat up the oil in a large-ish flat bottomed pan (ideally) and when it's hot, but not smoking, throw in the bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamon. After a minute or two, add in the ginger and cumin seeds, and continue to stir over a medium heat for another couple of minutes. When the ginger is just starting to cook through and the seeds are slightly brown, put the cabbage in and stir everything really well. The residual water from washing the cabbage should provide enough liquid and steam to cook it. Once the cabbage has shrunk down a little, add the turmeric, salt, and green chilli (prick a couple of holes in it with a knife, so you get the flavour but not the heat), and stir well. Cook the cabbage for at least 15 minutes over a low heat with a lid on the pan- it should be completely tender and mildly yellow. Finally put in the prawns or the peas (defrosted if frozen), mix everything together and cook for a further 5 minutes until it's all heated through. Serve with rice or anything else Indian.

Bengali-style tuna fishcakes or macher chop

Several years ago I said in a blog post that I'd write about Bengali fishcakes or macher chop, but never quite got round to it. But as it's now Bengali new year, this seems an opportune moment to make good on that ancient promise.

These fishcakes would traditionally be served with dahl and rice, as a sort of 'first course', but a few are substantial enough to form the centre of a main meal. They are also pretty frugal, as they are made with tinned tuna and some other bits and bobs. You could of course use any firm fish, but for some reason it's always been tinned tuna in my household. Making the mix up in advance, and cooking it the next day, also adds to the convenience factor. This is also one of those recipes that can be adjusted to taste, so do change the amount of spices or chilli to suit.

Recipe (enough for around 12 depending on size):

1 medium potato, chopped up and boiled
2 tins (185g) of  tuna chunks, drained
3 tblsp cooked frozen peas
1 medium onion
A large thumb-sized piece of ginger
4 medium cloves of garlic
2 whole green chillis
1 tblsp sultanas (optional)
2 tblsp salted peanuts, roughly chopped or 1 tblsp crunchy peanut butter
Around 3 tblsp chopped corriander leaves
2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten (plus another if needed)
Fresh or dried breadcrumbs
Plain oil for shallow frying

Start by making a paste with the onion, garlic, ginger, and chilli. My trusty Kenwood mini chopper does this in a few seconds, but you could pound it all by hand if needed. Mash the cooked potatoes until they are relatively smooth, then add the onion paste, tuna, coriander leaves, peanuts, sultanas, spices, and egg. Finally put in the peas, and give everything a good mix so it's well combined. You should by now have a mixture that can be easily formed into small-ish fishcake shapes (either flat or tubular work). If the mixture is relatively wet, this surface moisture should be enough to get the breadcrumbs to stick to the fishcakes. But if that isn't happening, then lightly dip them in a bit of beaten egg before rolling in breadcrumbs. You can then put the fishcakes in the fridge (on a clingfilm-ed plate) until needed. This also helps them firm up, and not fall apart while frying, so I'd recommend you do this if possible.

Heat enough oil to generously cover the bottom of a flat plan, and when it's hot (but definitely not smoking) carefully slide in the fishcakes. Cook them in batches until they are golden brown, which should take a few minutes on each side. They are a bit delicate, so do exercise caution when turning them. Drain them on some kitchen roll, and prepare to tuck in. These fishcakes also re-heat really well, either in a non-stick pan, under the grill, or in the oven, so can easily be made in advance. And I'll be seeing the new year in with some shortly.

Mushrooms stuffed with scallops

I came up with this dish the other day after randomly seeing a man cooking some of those little queen scallops on Countryfile (my Sunday television viewing is of the non-challenging variety). And having made Ottolenghi's stuffed mushrooms quite recently, I thought that I'd try and add some elements from that recipe too. Cheese and seafood is a bit of a contentious combination, but I thought that the mild, milkiness of Taleggio cheese went really well with both the mushroom base and the scallop filling. I served these mushrooms with some steamed broccoli and braised fennel. And though I was bit concerned that this wasn't going to be enough for dinner it actually was, with quite a small tub of queen scallops stretching to a dinner for two.

Recipe (enough for two):

4 large field mushrooms

3 medium spring onions, sliced

1 clove of garlic, chopped

Around 160g of queen scallops 

Light sprinkling of dried basil or 1tsp of freshly chopped basil leaves

1 tblsp double cream

Salt and pepper to season

Around 200g Taleggio cheese

A few tblsp olive oil

Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, chop them up quite finely, and put to one side. Heat a frying pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil and gently fry the four whole mushrooms until they are cooked through. This should take around 10minutes, but will depend on how large the mushrooms are. Once cooked, take the mushrooms out, and add a bit more oil. Gently fry the spring onions, mushroom stalks, and herbs. Once they've softened, increase the heat a bit, and add in the scallops and garlic. Cook for a few more minutes, season with salt and pepper and then take off the heat. Stir in the cream to bring everything together in a sort of sauce. Next, slice up the Taleggio, spoon the scallop mix into the mushrooms, and top with the cheese. You might not need all the cheese, but it's nice to be generous with it, so try and make sure all of the top of the mushrooms are covered. 

Put the mushrooms under a hot grill for around 5minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling on top. Serve with some vegetables for a pretty speedy supper, while wondering if this might be the first Countryfile-Ottolenghi recipe mash-up.

Mini salmon scotch eggs

So the first person I saw making scotch eggs with salmon instead of meat was the latest Masterchef- The Professionals winner, Ash Mair. I really like the idea of scotch eggs- crunchy fried stuff and boiled eggs- what's not to like? And as I don't eat meat, a pescatarian alternative seemed ideal.

I actually first tried making these scotch eggs over the Christmas holidays, using smoked salmon. They were alright but somehow a bit bland and unremarkable, and the cooking process left the salmon with a bit of an odd (and not entirely pleasant) texture. I guess the application of heat to smoked salmon is not a particularly good idea in general.
Anyway last weekend, I thought I'd give things another go but this time with some cooked regular salmon. I sort of made up my own recipe, based on the flavours I thought would go together, and second time round there was definitely an improvement. I still wouldn't say these were fantastic though. I think they need a stronger herb flavour, and probably a thicker salmon coating to stop the fish overcooking. Anyway, here's the recipe I came up with, which is currently based on a bit of trial and error.

Recipe (for 12 mini scotch eggs)

12 quails eggs
3 cooked skinless and boneless salmon fillets (around 250g)
Generous knob of butter
4 spring onions, finely sliced
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
1 tblsp mayonnaise
Around 1 tblsp plain flour
Around 3-4 heaped tablespoons of breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper for seasoning
Sunflower oil for frying

Put the eggs into boiling water for around two minutes, and then put them straight into some cold water. Carefully peel the eggs and set to one side. Melt the butter in a frying pan and gently sweat the spring onions until they've soften, add the thyme and cook for a couple more minutes. Leave the onions to cool a bit and then flake the fish, add the mayo, and mix everything together to form a thick-ish paste. Have a little taste at this stage, and add salt and pepper to taste.
The next step is to assemble the scotch eggs. First roll the peeled eggs in the flour so that they have a light coating. This helps the fish mixture to stick to the eggs. Put about 2 tsps of the salmon in the palm of you hand and push it out so it's flattened. Place an egg in the centre and gently shape the salmon mixture around it. Do this until you've covered all the eggs, and then roll in breadcrumbs. I found that there was enough oil and moisture in the fish coating to allow the breadcrumbs to stick, but you could beat a whole egg and dip the scotch eggs in before rolling in the crumbs if you wanted a thicker coating.
I then shallow fried the scotch eggs in a couple of centimetres of fairly hot oil until they were browned. You could also deep fry these, but as they are quite small this seemed unnecessary.


So the end product was nice and crispy, with a soft-ish egg in the centre. However, I think these eggs could be better. As I've mentioned before, I probably didn't use enough salmon for these, as the eggs would have benefited from a thicker layer of fish around them. I definitely need to cut the spring onion finer, or only use the white part (the dark green bits in the pictures above are the green parts poking through the breadcrumb). Maybe next time I'll try using raw instead of cooked salmon too. And perhaps a stronger herb like dill. If you've tried any of these ideas for successfully making salmon scotch eggs, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Tandoori-style salmon

I'm not really sure why I've never made this before. I like salmon, I like salmon with lots of Indian spices, but somehow it has never occurred to me to try and make a tandoori-style version. Until last week! I've learnt my lesson after my previous ready made paste disappointment, and made my own marinade, which was actually perfectly straightforward. I marinated the fish for a couple of hours, and then cooked it under a hot grill. It wasn't exactly the heat levels of a tandoor, but I did end up with a few nice charred bits with the rest of the fish staying succulent.

Recipe (enough for 2 as a main meal):

4 salmon fillets with skin left on
2 spring onions
1 inch-ish, thumb-sized piece of ginger
3 fat cloves of garlic
2 small green chillis
4 tablespoons of full fat Greek yoghurt
Juice of half a large lemon
4 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground corriander
1.5 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika (or Kashmiri red chilli powder if you can find it)
0.5 tsp salt
A couple of grinds of black pepper
A few tsps of sunflower oil

Blitz up (or pound) the spring onion, ginger, garlic, and chilli into a paste and tip into a bowl with all the other ingredients except the oil. Mix it all well and pour over the salmon so that all its surfaces are covered. Leave to marinade in the fridge for around 4-5 hours, so basically if I want to have this for dinner I'd try to get it in the marinade by lunchtime. Take the salmon out of the fridge around 30mins before you want to actually cook it, so that it comes up to room temperature. Then heat up your grill, put the salmon fillets on a tray. Spread any remaining marinade in a thin layer over the fish, and lightly brush each fillet with a little oil and sprinkle a bit of extra salt over too. Cook the salmon for around 7-8mins on each side depending on how hot you can get your grill and how thick the pieces are. The fish should have a few dark charred bits, but be just cooked through in the centre.
And that's it really. I serve this with some plain rice, green vegetables, and maybe a raita of some sort. The acidity of the lemon and yoghurt contrasts with the richness of the salmon, and this is such a robust fish it's great with loads of spices. And if you can get all the preparation done in advance this really can be a super-simple and speedy dinner.

Shahi-style prawn and langoustine curry

I wasn't really sure what to call this Indian dish. I think of shahi-style food as originating from the Mughal empire in India, usually made with ground nuts or cream (or both), and therefore very indulgent. It's not the type of food my parents would normally cook, and as Bengalis they'd probably just describe it as North Indian. Other UK residents may think of it as a korma. But etymology aside, this is great Indian dish for a autumn night. It is gently spiced, but rich and full of flavour. I made it with prawns and langoustines, but you could easily make a vegetarian version instead (or indeed a chicken one).

Recipe (enough for 4):

250g shell-on cooked langoustine tails
200g large cooked prawns
Fat thumb-sized piece of ginger, ground to a paste
3 fat cloves of garlic, ground to a paste
1 large dried bay leaf
2 little finger-sized pieces of cinnamon
3 cardamon pods, split
1 whole green chilli, pricked a few times with the tip of a knife
2 level tsp ground coriander
1 level tsp ground cumin
1 level tsp garam masala
0.5 tsp turmeric
Salt and pepper for seasoning
Around 3 tblsp sunflower oil
Around 4 tblsp ground almonds
Around 200ml double cream

Put the oil into your pan, and heat gently (make sure you have enough oil to cover the base of the pan). When it's warm but definitely not smoking hot add in the whole spices- the bay leaf, cinnamon and cardamon pods. Give them a good stir, and after a minute add the ginger, garlic and chilli. Everything should be sizzling but not sticking, so turn down the heat if you need to. After another couple of minutes put in all the ground spices, and stir well. You should be smelling some nice aromas by this point. Next, lower the heat and then add the ground almonds and cook for a few minutes until they are lightly toasted. Put in the cooked seafood at this point, mix everything well and then pour in the cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and gently simmer for a few minutes until the prawns and langoustines are heated through.

So what you should end up with is a rich nutty gravy, that is flavoured with both whole and ground spices. The whole chilli provides flavour rather than heat, but this dish is as a far from bland as you can get. Using langoustines in this dish made a nice change from prawns (props to the Tesco freezer cabinet), and I thought they were much more flavourful too. I served this with some rice and my go to Indian classic of spinach and paneer with methi. Poppadom optional.

A speedy seafood stew

I really like things with fish and fresh seafood, but due to the dearth of fishmongers in the area my choice of ingredients is often limited to what is in the supermarket. Those plastic trays of prawns and mixed seafood aren't always the most inspiring thing, but I have realised that they can work very well in dishes like this. It's a vaguely Mediterranean concoction of fennel, olives, garlic and tomatoes, that is very tasty and quick enough to prepare for a post-work dinner.

Recipe (enough for 2 greedy people, with leftovers for the next day)

1 large bulb of fennel, finely sliced
1 small white onion, finely sliced
3 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
1 large sprig of thyme
1 tin chopped tomatoes (400g)
4 medium fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped or 1 heaped tsp tomato puree
Some water
About 15 small-ish green olives
1 tray mixed seafood, including squid and mussels (around 290g)
1 tray cooked king prawns (around 200g)
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
3 or 4 tblsp olive oil, or enough to generous coat the bottom of your cooking pan
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Heat the olive oil in reasonably large pan, and when it's warm put in the onion and fennel. Cook for around 5minutes over a medium-low heat until they've started to soften but not coloured. Then add the garlic, thyme and chilli flakes and cook for a few more minutes. Next, add the fresh tomato (or puree), the tin of tomatoes, and about half a tin's worth of water so that you have a loose tomato sauce. Simmer this on a low heat for about 10mins. At the end of this, the fennel should be tender. Next add the olives, and after another 5mins of simmering put in the cooked seafood. Add enough salt and pepper to season, and let the seafood heat through for a few minutes. Serve while piping hot with some bread.

Jerk trout

I have very little experience of Caribbean food. I own a book by Levi Roots and have heard about the classics like jerk chicken and rice and peas, but have never tried them. I don't eat meat so jerk chicken is unlikely to make an appearance on my table any time soon, but I liked the principle of something spicy and grilled. And when a couple of local supermarkets introduced small Afro-Caribbean sections in their ethnic food aisles, I enthusiastically bought some jerk seasoning mix by Dunn's River. Unfortunately this then sat in the cupboard for about six months before I got round to doing something with it.

But eventually I remembered it was there, and decided that jerk trout was the way forward. It's a pretty robust fish that can take strong flavours and is also relatively cheap (always a bonus). So for my jerk marinade I made a paste with one medium onion, a couple of fat cloves of garlic, about a tablespoon of thyme leaves and around two and half generous tablespoons of the jerk seasoning powder. I used a bit of oil to bind everything together too. This was then rubbed onto two whole cleaned trout, that I made some slashes in, and left to marinate for about 45minutes. If I'd planned better I would have left it for longer and maybe overnight. The trout were then drizzled with a little more oil and cooked under a hot grill, until the skin was crisp and beginning to char a little. So around seven or eight minutes on each side (or until cooked through).

And I have to say that I was really impressed with the outcome. I generally don't favour ready made spice mixes, but having no idea what should go in it, this jerk seasoning was a really convenient option and very tasty. Looking at the ingredients it contained coriander, chilli, pepper, pimento, cinnamon, marjoram, bay, and nutmeg, as well as salt and sugar. And I don't think it need any extra spices adding to it at all (unlike with many pre-mixed spice mixes). On a side note- it was quite salty though, so there's no need to add extra salt to this dish. The saltiness on the surface evened out when combined with eating the actual fish though, but if you're sensitive about that sort of thing then maybe use less of the mix than I did.

I served my jerk trout with some steamed broccoli and greens, and as we had one whole fish per person, that was more than enough. The fish was spicy with chilli heat but also had other flavours that I would have been pushed to identify. It was a very different type of spiciness to the Indian food I'm used to, but equally as good. So a definite thumbs up for jerk from me!

Have a look at the Food Stories blog for more information on all things jerk from a true enthusiast.

Dunn's River Jerk Seasoning
I rate it 8/10
Cost: Around £1.40 for a 100g tub

Hairy Bikers keralan king prawn crisps

Image taken from the Hairy Bikers website.

I've realised I've not done a product post for a while so here's one on one of my favourite type of food- snacks! And of all the snacks of the world the fried potato crisp is certainly one (if not the) best. These days I tend to go for a plain salted crisp, but am open to innovations in crisp flavours. And some innovation has been delivered in the form of these crisps from the Hairy Bikers.

I have a bit of a soft spot for the Hairy Bikers a.k.a. Si and Dave- I've really enjoyed their travel and cooking programmes which covered parts of South America, India, and South East Asia. They were intelligent, informative, non-patronising and genuinely entertaining. I'm not quite so sure about their UK show where they seem to do a lot of acting 'craaaazy' in a mildly irritating way, but still they seem like nice chaps. They have now launched a range of cookware that is so subtly branded I didn't actually realise it had anything to do with them when I saw it in John Lewis, and also (a little randomly) a range of crisps. The crisps are currently only available from Waitrose and come in a range of flavours which reflect some of their travels. I picked up a packet of the keralan king prawn with coconut a few months ago and then had a follow up bag more recently, and I think I quite like them! It's initially a little strange tasting coconut when eating a crisp, but it in the context of some mild spices and a hint of prawn it sort of works. Despite the description on the packaging I didn't find these crisps particulalrly hot, but for a crisp they did manage to capture the taste of an Indian prawn curry pretty well. And overall I would say that they are a welcome addition to the crisp world!

NB Unlike many meat or fish flavoured crisps these are not suitable for vegetarians.

Hairy Bikers Keralan King Prawn Crisps
I rate them 7.5/10
Cost: £1.79 per 150g bag (currently only available in Waitrose)

Piedmont stuffed peppers

I'm pretty neutral about Delia Smith, but it has to be said that she has come up trumps with various recipes that have featured on this blog such as the rhubarb crumble ice cream and profiteroles. There was a sort of retrospective of her 'work' on television a while ago, and it reminded me of a recipe from her Summer Collection book that I always meant to try but never got round to making. As Delia herself says this is not an original recipe but one that was popularised by Elizabeth David. Delia's recipe uses regular bell peppers but I'd really recommend using those sweet, pointy peppers instead. Having tried it with both, the regular peppers were a bit watery and lacking in flavour compared to their pointy brethren.
So to make these Piedmont peppers, just cut them in half length-ways and scoop out any seeds or white pith. Place on a baking tray and put a couple of chopped anchovy fillets, a few slices of garlic, and some halved cherry tomatoes inside each pepper. Season with a little pepper, and drizzle a couple of teaspoons of olive oil (I use the oil the anchovies came in) over each piece of pepper.
Bake in a moderate oven (gas mark 5) for around 45mins or until the peppers are soft and collapsing. These peppers are so quick to prepare they make a great side dish, and could probably be made entirely vegetarian with the substitution of the anchovy with a suitable salty cheese. I served these with some roasted sweet potato and grilled tuna, and it made a great summer dinner. Ideally eaten while pretending to be a Piedmontese peasant.

Spaghetti with broccoli, anchovy and walnuts

Broccoli dressed with anchovy is a pretty classic combination, as is pasta with garlic and anchovies- so I thought I'd combine the two into a very quick and simple dinner. The addition of the walnuts adds a slightly sweet and well, nutty, contrast to the saltiness of the fish and just seems to work very well. This is also quite a light pasta dish and so ideal for long, hot summer days (of which we've currently had two).

Recipe (enough for one)

3 large broccoli florets
4 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
6-8 walnuts, roughly chopped
Enough spaghetti for one, around 100g
Salt and pepper to season
Olive oil

Thinly slice the broccoli florets and gently cook in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil for around five minutes. When it's almost tender, increase the heat and add the anchovies and garlic. As the anchovies break up, drop in the walnuts and continue to cook for a couple more minutes until the garlic and broccoli are fully cooked. Cook the pasta, and mix in with the broccoli with a spoonful or two of the pasta water to loosen it all up. Season with salt (although you may not need any so taste first) and pepper, and it's done.
Ideally eat al fresco, or else staring out of the window at the rain.