Chingri malai curry or Bengali-style prawns with coconut

I don't cook masses of Bengali food, but with the traditional festival of Durga Puja looming, I thought I'd dig out this classic. Chingri malai curry (or indeed malaikari), is a very simple dish combining prawns, whole spices and the rather un-typical Bengali ingredient of coconut milk. Some reading tells me that the word 'malai' probably derives from Malay, and this explains the use of coconut milk too. Like many Indian recipes, there are lots of versions of this around, so this is my one.

Recipe (enough for two as a main dish):
Around 250g raw prawns (shell off, and de-veined)
1 small red onion
1 fat clove of garlic
A thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 tsp turmeric
4-5 green cardamon pods, split
1 large, dried bay leaf
1-2 pieces of cinnamon or cassia bark
1-2 green, Indian finger chillis, pierced a few times
1 tsp ground coriander
2-3 tblsp sunflower oil
Around 100g coconut cream
Around 100ml hot water
1-2 tsp salt for seasoning


Mix the prawns with the turmeric and a teaspoon of salt, and put in the fridge for an hour or so. If you're not going to cook the prawns until much later, leave out the salt. While the prawns are busy turning yellow, make a paste from the onions, garlic and ginger. It's definitely easiest to do this in a food processor, but a pestle and mortar would do the job too. Take the prawns out of the fridge 10 minutes or so before you want to start cooking, and add the salt (if you haven't earlier).
Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a pan, and when it's hot (but not smoking) add the prawns. Cook for a couple of minutes, until they are lightly coloured but not fully cooked through. Take the prawns out of the pan, add another tablespoon of oil (if needed) and add all the whole spices. Turn the heat down, so that they are just gently sizzling. After a couple of minutes put the ground coriander, chillies and onion paste in. As they soften, add the water to the coconut cream to create coconut milk which is the thickness of single cream. You may need to adjust the amount of water or coconut cream to achieve this. When the spices and paste have cooked for a good 10 minutes or so, put the coconut in and simmer for around 5 minutes to create a sauce. Put the prawns back in, add a little salt, and simmer again for 5 minutes until the prawns are fully cooked.

You should have a rich, thick coconut gravy which is subtly spiced and still tender prawns. Serve with plain, boiled rice, and let out a small sigh of satisfaction once you've finished eating.

Broccoli pesto mash

I really like broccoli, it's probably one of the green vegetables that I eat most regularly. The tenderstem stuff is ideal as a simple side dish with butter and salt and pepper, and the big green fists of florets are perfect for everything from stir fries to pakoras. So when I was looking for something green to make a pesto with I thought I'd try some cooked broccoli. And it was really good! You can add this 'pesto' to pasta, or if you keep it thick just have it as a mash. I've had it with some pan-fried salmon instead of mashed potatoes, but it would probably go with most things (apart from pudding). I've included a basic recipe below, but do alter the amounts of things based on taste.

Recipe (enough for two):
Around 250g of broccoli florets
1 medium clove garlic
1 big handful pine nuts (lightly toasted if preferred)
Around 50g hard Italian cheese such as parmesan, grana padano, percorino or a properly veggie substitute
Around 1-2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the broccoli in boiling water for around 8-10 minutes. You want it to be fully cooked through, and probably a bit softer than if you were just eating it on its own (but not boiled to a deathly grey). Drain, and put it and all the other ingredients apart from the oil into a food processor, and whizz together. I have a small Kenwood mini-chopper and make this pesto in two batches, mixing it all together afterwards. Once the pesto ingredients are all combined, but not totally pulverised, add some oil. If you want a loose pesto to go on pasta be generous with the olive oil, but for the mash just use a tablespoon or so to bring it all together. Add some salt and pepper and you're good to go. This process is a bit more complicated without mechanical assistance, but you could probably still crush the garlic, nuts and cheese in a pestle and mortar, mash the broccoli separately and then combine the two together.

I've made this, and allowed it to cool, before it mixing it with hot pasta for dinner. And had it hot straight after being blitzed too. Broccoli is indeed the king of versatility.

Chocolate Guinness cake

I really feel I should like Guinness, after all it does look delicious with its combination of deep chocolate and an ice cream foam top. Unfortunately, no matter how many attempts I have at trying it, hoping that this time I will have a revelatory experience, I still don't like Guinness. However, I know someone who does. So when they had a birthday coming up, a Guinness and chocolate cake seemed like a good choice. I was also encouraged by the recipe descriptions which generally said that you couldn't taste the Guinness and it mainly accentuated the chocolate flavour.

After a bit of research (a.k.a. Googling), I found Gizzi Erskine's chocolate Guinness recipe, which she has slightly adapted from a Nigella Lawson one. This was a great recipe which made a lot of cake, and the only change I made was to use 85% cocoa content chocolate rather than 70%. Actually I also subbed self-raising flour for plain flour and baking powder, but they are both very minor swaps.

May have lost perspective of portion control with this slice. I may also need to invest in a cake stand.

My cake also took well over an hour to cook, but this is probably because I used a smaller tin to cook it in, so it ended up being deeper than Gizzi's original recipe. But the final result was still excellent. This cake was moist, with a deep chocolate flavour and a slightly earthy hint from the Guinness. And despite containing a shedload of sugar it really wasn't overly sweet at all.
So this is an ultra-fantastic cake recipe, that I would very happily make (and eat) repeatedly.

Riverside Restaurant, University Centre, Cambridge, UK

The University Centre in Cambridge is a slightly odd combo of canteen, social club, and sports facility for University staff, alumni and graduate students. It may also embody the epitome of 'town and gown' as if you're not part of the University you would probably never even know that this 1960's monolith is at the bottom of Mill Lane. But due to my family's tenuous connections, the University Centre dinning hall was the first place I experienced the wonders of proper chips (we were an oven chip household) and profiteroles with chocolate sauce. Halcyon days indeed. Anyway, all this means that I have a real soft spot for the Centre, and have been meaning to try their more formal restaurant (which is open to the general public) for absolutely ages. So as the Male Companion Person had a birthday recently I decided to book a table.

Things started quite well, as we were shown to a table by the window with nice views over the river. But to be fair there wasn't much competition for this prime spot, as there was only one other table occupied of the twenty or so available. I initially remained confident that some other diners would appear, but sadly they didn't, so by halfway though our meal we were the only two people there. Ummm, *awkward*. Once we'd got used to the situation and stopped whispering, it wasn't actually too bad and we got on with eating rather than looking around hopefully for other customers.

The Riverside Restaurant does a fixed price menu for either two or three courses, with a brief choice of fish, meat and vegetarian options in a vaguely modern British/European style. Once we'd ordered, they brought out a pre-starter of a smoked haddock risotto arancini-style ball. This was a very promising start to dinner, as the rice was soft and well seasoned and the fish not too strong.

My starter of grey mullet with crab, watercress, samphire with ratta potatoes (which I initially thought were Jerusalem artichokes) was also great- lots of fresh flavours with the fish perfectly cooked with a crispy skin.

The MCP went for a pork and scallop combo, which was also declared to be excellent in terms of both flavour and texture.

Main courses were more fish for me (sea bass with fennel, grapefruit and brown shrimp) and turbot with peas and ham hock for the MCP. The fish was again excellently cooked, and I liked the contrast with the bits of citrus. I wasn't too sure about the very dark hue of the shrimps, but even with this slightly chewy garnish, it was a very pleasant plate of food.  And the MCP seemed perfectly satisfied, if not overcome with excitement, with his turbot too. The one odd note with the main course was the arrival of a small dish of boiled vegetables with some little roasted potatoes, which looked liked it could have come from the canteen upstairs. The carrots and broccoli were not dressed or seasoned, and it was a bit surprising to see them appear with plates of food that were otherwise presented in quite a modern style. I guess some people might want some extra vegetables, and I liked the the fact that there was no supplement for them. But it would seem sensible to serve nicely prepared veg or none at all, rather than a somewhat insipid compromise.

Anyway, onto desserts. This is where things became seriously disappointing for me. After a brief flashback to the early 90's caused by the rosette of cream and half strawberry garnish, I tried something that may have been impersonating a piece of chocolate cheesecake. It was hard to tell, as everything above the sugary base tasted of nothing and had the texture of blancmange. The little cup contained a cardamom (and possibly white chocolate) mousse type thing. I love cardamom, but this was ridiculously strongly flavoured and also far too sweet for me. The lemon syllabub style pudding, topped with a small meringue, was probably the nicest thing on the plate but was still ridiculously sweet. The MCP had a honey panacotta, which he thought was perfectly acceptable. I was irritated by the garnishes and randomly executed chocolate graffiti though.

This was a bit of a sad end to things (at least for me), as up until the puddings the food had been pretty good. But by this point we were getting aware of being the only table again, and so left pretty promptly. I think overall the Riverside Restaurant does have many things going in its favour- I like it's hidden location and the views over the river make it a good spot for people watching (before sunset); it wins on the value for money front with a set price of just under £30 for three courses; and they were good on some details like seating us so that we both had a view out of the window. I'm sure they would have liked some more customers too, so I'm not going to criticise them on that front. But perhaps turning up the background tinkly music a little would have lifted the deadened atmosphere a bit (and drowned out the sound of the catering manager putting in the turnip order). I did like most of the savoury food too, with dishes both well cooked and flavoured. So I probably would be happy to go back to the Riverside at some point (once they've changed their menu), but perhaps not on a weekday. And I would skip dessert.

The Riverside Restaurant

University Centre

Granta Place

Mill Lane

Cambridge CB2 1RU

Crab cakes

I was reading this Guardian Word of Mouth piece on crab cakes last week, and realised that I'd never eaten one. I'm sure I've had fish cakes with a lot of potato and a hint of crab, but not these American-style crab cakes which have very little filler. So I thought I'd rectify that this weekend.
I used Felicity Cloake's basic recipe, but made a few adjustments based on ingredient availability and the flavours I like.

Recipe (enough for 4-5 crab cakes):

100g fresh crab (half white meat, half brown meat like this one)
100g tinned crab (ideally lump crab)
2 small, mild spring onions, finely sliced
Around 2 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs
Around 1 tbsp finely grated grana padano cheese (or similar hard cheese)
A grating of nutmeg
Generous sprinkle of paprika
A bit of salt and pepper to season
A couple of tbsp of plain flour for coating
Sunflower oil for frying

Combine all of the above, except the oil, to form a mixture that is firm enough to form into cake shapes. Lightly dust with plain flour, and refrigerate for an hour or so. I used some brown crab meat in my mix and this seemed to create enough moisture to bind everything so I didn't need to add any egg. Once they've firmed up in the fridge, heat a shallow layer of oil in a large frying pan and when it's hot (but not smoking) gently place the crab cakes in. They are quite delicate, but were relatively easy to turn after a few minutes on each side. Everything in them is cooked, so you're really just heating the crab through and browning the outside a bit.

I really liked these crab cakes served with a bit of salad. They were crispy on the outside, but soft inside, with the brown meat contributing a strong crab flavour. I added a bit of cheese as I quite like to defy convention and have some with seafood, but actually you couldn't really taste it. I think it helped a bit with binding though. I will definitely be making these crab cakes again, but I think I might add some stronger flavours such as chilli, and maybe garlic, as I've found that these combine well with brown crab meat. But anyway, I can now successfully cross crab cakes off the 'to eat' list.

Wahaca, Soho, London, UK

I remember watching Thomasina Miers winning Masterchef many years ago, before the programme developed its comedy edge. She was super-keen on promoting Mexican food, and has done a sterling job since then by opening the Wahaca group of restaurants across London. My knowledge of Mexican food remains limited, but Wahaca has been on my list of central London places to visit for absolutely ages. I am obviously on a roll, as after my recent Dishoom success I followed up by making it to Wahaca a couple of weeks ago.
The Soho branch was absolutely packed when we visited on a weekday evening, but we only had a short wait before we were shown to a table. The Male Companion Person and I shared a main course and range of side dishes, so managed to taste a good range of the fish and vegetarian bits of the menu.

Fish tacos were essentially slightly exotic fishfinger sandwiches, which is no bad thing. If our substantial food order hadn't obscured the bottles, I probably would have added some hot sauce to spice these up a little though. The seasonal squid special, which though flavourful and non-chewy, could have done with something lighter than the thick breadcrumb coating they came in.

We also ordered a big green salad, fried sweet potatoes, and some frijoles. So basically quite a lot of food for two people. I particularly loved the warm frijoles topped with cheese, which was rich and exceptionally moreish (not something you can often say about mashed beans).

I got a bit over-excited at the thought of churros, so we had some of those too. This was the other thing I really loved- fried donuts with a dark chocolate sauce. If they had provided a spoon I would have scooped that sauce more directly into my face too.

So I really liked Wahaca. For me the stand-out dishes were the frijoles and the churros, but everything else tasted fresh and was more than pleasant. The restaurant had a nice buzzy atmosphere, and a special mention has to go to our server-person Maciej (I think); he was obviously looking after several large groups as well as us but was still friendly, efficient and helpful, and did not laugh at me when I completely messed up using the card terminal. Wahaca also seems very reasonably priced for central London, as all the above food, a couple of beers, and a non-alcoholic drink was about £35 (without service). I would happily visit Wahaca again, and well done to Tommi Miers for getting her mini-food empire off the ground too.

Wahaca Soho
80 Wardour Street
Soho
London W1F OTF

Elizabeth Shaw chocolate

I have always found it hard to say no to chocolate in any form, so when a nice person from Elizabeth Shaw asked if I'd like to try some of their chocolate I responded in the affirmative. I also thought it would be a good chance to try out something completely new to me. In fact, it turned out that I had eaten some Elizabeth Shaw chocolate previously as they make some very acceptable amaretto flavour chocolate straws (or flutes as they seem to call them) that I enjoyed (a.k.a. scoffed a lot of) last year.

The company have now expanded their established range of mint chocolate crisps and added some new flavours which include caramel, honeycomb, butterscotch and a darker chocolate with cocoa nibs. These come in a number of selection boxes and also in bar form. I have to say that I couldn't tell much difference between the butterscotch, honeycomb, and caramel flavours as they all contained bits of honeycomb in them. But they were also very nice, and as the 'crisps' were actually bite-sized discs they did a good job of filling the need for a hit of sweetness after dinner. The cocoa nibs were not embedded in the darkest of chocolate, but it was still pretty decent. And I'm all in favour of not limiting mint chocolate to the Christmas holidays, so enjoyed those too.

So overall, I quite liked these chocolates. They haven't got the funkiest of brand names, but the actual product is pretty good with a few novel twists.

Elizabeth Shaw Chocolates
I rate them: 7.5/10
Cost: From around £2.00 for a bar.


Thanks to Elizabeth Shaw who sent me my chocolate for free and gratis.