Courgette carbonara

I spotted several recipes for making 'spaghetti' with courgettes ages ago, but put them out of my mind due to the loss of my 'julienne-ing' device (basically a potato peeler but with a segmented blade). But when it miraculously reappeared in the drawer from which it had previously vanished, I took it as a sign. Of course courgette spaghetti is nothing like proper pasta, but it can be cut into long strips and doesn't fall apart once cooked. It's therefore ideal for gluten-free-ers, or anyone wanting a lighter alternative to a proper carbonara.
I don't eat meat, so actually I've never had a 'proper' carbonara, but this is my completely inauthentic pescatarian version.

Recipe (enough for two with leftovers):

3 medium courgettes
2-3 tblsp olive oil
1 egg yolk
Around 200g chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
1 50g tin anchovies in olive oil
3 large cloves of garlic, crushed
300ml creme fraiche
Around 100g finely grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Firstly use the most appropriate instrument you have to hand eg food processor, sharp knife, julienne peeler, to make your courgette spaghetti. Dress the courgettes with a couple of spoons of olive oil to stop any discolouration, and put to one side. Mix the egg yolk thoroughly with the creme fraiche, and most of the cheese, and add plenty of black pepper and a little salt. Make sure you have your garlic and mushrooms, prepped and ready to go. Firstly cook the courgettes a little- put a tablespoon or so of oil in a large pan (non-stick works well for this) over a medium heat. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add in the courgettes and cook for around 5 minutes. The courgettes should have softened but not be fully cooked through. Tip them out into a bowl and put the pan back on the heat. Next add the anchovies and all their oil into the pan, cook over a medium heat until the anchovies start breaking up, and then put in the garlic and mushrooms. Cook over a high-ish heat so that the mushrooms fry and take on some colour. Once they've done this, add the courgettes back in and continue to heat over a medium-high flame until they are cooked to your liking (they should hold together and not turn to pulp). When cooked, turn off the heat and stir in the creme fraiche mix. The residual heat from the pan should loosen this thick mixture, and coat the courgette strands. And that's it! Have a taste and add more salt and pepper if  needed, and then serve with a little extra Parmesan on the top.

You can make this dish properly vegetarian by omitting the anchovies, and using something like chopped fresh basil or thyme, or some dried herbs instead; and by using a veggie-friendly Italian-style hard cheese.

This would make a great non-stodgy summer dish, when there is often a glut of courgettes about. But I ate it last week in November, whilst wearing a jumper, and that seemed to work fine too.

Afternoon Tease, Cambridge, UK

Just a quick post for now, alerting folk to the opening of a new cafe in Cambridge. It still doesn't seem like that long ago that I was enjoying Jo Kruczynska's food as one half of the Plate Lickers supperclub team. And now she has her own cafe!

Located on King's Street in the centre of Cambridge, I popped into the eponymous Afternoon Tease when it had only been open for a week or so. However, everything was already working like a well-honed machine, and I was soon ensconced by a table with a cup of tea and a chocolate brownie. The cafe isn't huge inside, but makes the most of the available space, and most importantly (on the basis of my first visit) serves excellent hot drinks and cakes. I am full of admiration for Ms Afternoon Tease herself, for getting this project off the ground so quickly, and hope to be back for another visit soon.

Afternoon Tease
13 King Street
Cambridge CB1 1LH

Caravan, King's Cross, London, UK

So I took a bit of a break from work last week, and had a day in London to meet up with an old pal. We decided to try out the new branch of Caravan that has recently opened behind King's Cross station, in an area that is undergoing loads of re-development. Caravan is based in a row of old grain warehouses and maintains an air of industrial comfort. It was pretty busy when we arrived (without a booking), but a after a bit of intense computer activity from the friendly front of house person a table for two appeared.


I guess the food at Caravan is a sort of sophisticated cafe-style. It's all very informal, with a few ingredients, but put together well. We shared a couple of small plates and a pizza between us, which was perfect for lunch for two pretty hungry people. A salad of quinoa, feta cheese, butternut squash and broccoli, was something I could easily have put together at home but was fresh and tasty nevertheless.

Grilled kefalotyri cheese, (with pickled mushrooms, and skordalia), was not something I've eaten before. The cheese was quite rich, but with much more flavour than halloumi, and the mushrooms were an excellent addition to balance everything out.

Our pizza with white anchovies, olives and mascarpone was also pretty excellent, with a light and non-stodgy base.

Errr?????

Things took a bit of a slide when our puddings appeared though. As my friend pointed out a big brown smear is never a good look on a plate, even though her chocolate cheesecake was acceptable. My orange semolina cake was pretty tasteless though, with a dry, mealy texture, and I found the saffron ice cream it came with overpoweringly floral. The whole thing also came with a load of bright pink fluff, that looked like a hipster's hair extension had fallen onto my plate. I did taste a bit of it and it was vaguely rose flavoured, which didn't really help with the already excessive floral-ness.

Anyway, odd deserts aside, I still really liked Caravan. It had a nice, relaxed atmosphere, service was friendly (though catching someone's eye was sometimes a little problematic), and most of the food was pretty good. It is also incredibly handy to have somewhere nice to go and eat near King's Cross, as that's the London station I use most. Lunch for the two of us was around £40 (with no alcoholic drinks), so is also very reasonable cost-wise. So I would happily go back to Caravan, but perhaps while maintaining a healthy scepticism with regard to their puddings.

Caravan
Granary Building
1 Granary Square
London N1C 4AA

Cauliflower fried rice

I am a big fan of the cauliflower, but up until recently I had generally only used it in traditional Indian dishes or in cauliflower cheese. Things like cauliflower purée, seemed unnecessarily complex and a bit odd. However, I have now fully recanted these previously held views and opinions. Cauliflowers are flipping amazing when puréed (making a handy alternative to mashed potatoes) and for all manner of other things. I have documented the cauliflower crust pizza and cottage pie here and here, and last weekend prompted by a post on the Domestic Sluttery blog, I made cauliflower fried 'rice'.

This basically involves grating the cauliflower into small grain-like pieces, which is a lot easier if you have a food processor with a grating blade. I'd say a  medium cauliflower for two people would be more than enough. Most recipes suggest you throw it straight into a wok with the rest of of your fried rice ingredients, but I decided to cook mine in boiling water first and then allowed it cool (this might be completely unnecessary but does mean you can prepare stuff in advance). So when it came to eat, it was just a matter of slicing up some red pepper, mushrooms, green beans, spring onions, and garlic, and stir frying for a few minutes until tender. And then adding the cooked cauliflower, seasoning with black pepper and soy sauce, and keeping the wok moving until everything was heated through. I also added some prawns, but this wasn't essential. The end result is a slightly lighter, vegetable-packed, fried rice that was thoroughly delicious as the cauliflower maintains its separate 'grains' and absorbs flavours in a similar way to white rice. I served this with some tofu and black beans, and extra vegetables, and was very full up shortly afterwards.

Prune and brandy ice cream

So I made this rather brilliant ice cream last month. And even though the sunny weather that was ideal for its consumption seems to have disappeared, I thought it was still worth writing about. The recipe is from the also rather brilliant Food Stories blog, and I followed it to the letter apart from the substitution of cognac for brandy. This was the first time I've made a proper custard-based ice cream, but it was surprisingly simple. I also lack an ice cream maker so had to hand churn at regular intervals. This was probably not ideal, as the texture of the ice cream was not quite as smooth as I'd hoped for (though still acceptable) and the prunes got a bit mushed. So although the end product was still delicious, I am beginning to think that it might be worth investing in a proper ice cream maker now.

Anyway, even sans ice cream maker I will definitely be making this again and am adding it to my list of why prunes are great!

The Three Horseshoes, Madingley, Cambridge

So I went out for a rather nice dinner the other week. The Three Horseshoes in Madingley is one of those restaurants that is based in a ye olde country pub but has quite a sophisticated, modern menu. I'd only heard of it quite recently, but (as per their website) it's been going for the past twenty years. And I'm rather glad I've finally caught up.

The building is chocolate box cute from the outside, but has a contemporary gastropub type feel inside with lots of bleached wood around the place. It was a bit smaller than expected when we arrived on a Friday evening, but was quite busy, and actually I think they had more tables available in their conservatory area. As it was the Male Companion Person's birthday, we were primed to launch into a three course meal.

I started off with a pasta dish of agnolotti stuffed with smoked aubergine, and tomato, basil and ricotta. I'm not sure I could  have picked the filling as aubergine, as it didn't have a particularly strong  flavour, but overall the pasta worked well with the rest of this delicate dish, which was light and summery. I nabbed a bit of the MCP's crab starter too, which was delicious. The combination of crab and hazelnuts is not one I've come across before (but might shortly be stealing).

We both went for fish for our main course. I had pan-fried monkfish and scallops with romesco sauce, which was fantastic. I don't think I've eaten monkfish before, but these dense little pieces of fish were excellently cooked with a bit of colour on the outside but still soft and tender within. I would pretty much have been happy to eat the fish and scallops on their own, but the romesco was a brilliant accompaniment. Again, I have a feeling that romesco sauce is something that I've heard of but not eaten before, but the soft, rich sauce worked really well with the fish and the red pepper was not at all overwhelming. The MCP chose the turbot, and this was also declared to be excellent.

Moving onto puddings, I plumped for the crack pie (presumably a tribute to the version created by the Momofuku Milk Bar in New York, which can also be added to the unexpectedly long list of things I've heard of but not tried). This was basically a variation on a treacle tart, and so was very sweet but also very moreish. I had intended to just nibble a bit of it but ended up scoffing the whole thing, with the creme fraiche helping to cut through the sweetness (a little). The blueberries were pretty superfluous though; they were perfectly nice but if there was one thing this dish didn't need it was more sweetness.

The MCP had the blackcurrant jelly with madeleines and cream, which all looked rather pretty on the plate. I didn't get to try any, but the verdict was that the jelly was very intense but the combination of all the elements together produced a well-balanced dessert.

So overall, a very nice meal indeed. Service was generally also good, apart from a couple of mildly frustrating blips (no one asked if we'd like to order drinks while we looked at the menu leading to a slightly parched state, and conspicuous card waving failed to attract attention when trying to pay the bill- I eventually got up and paid at the bar), but nothing terminal, and the actual bringing of food and drink when required was efficient and friendly. For the standard of food it offers, I'd also say that The Three Horseshoes is very reasonably priced, and our three course dinner with a couple of glasses of wine, worked out somewhere in the region of £50 per head.

The Three Horseshoes is only a short drive from Cambridge, and can easily be combined with cooing over quaint cottages in Madingley village. I really liked its smart, un-fussy but interesting food, and the casual atmosphere, and if the meal we had is anything to go by, it's certainly worth the effort to get there.


The Three Horseshoes
High Street
Madingley
Cambridge CB23 8AB

A couple of summer salads

Huzzah, summer is still here! So inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigella, I've tried to come up with a few salad recipes that can be served warm or at room temperature, and don't require loads of standing around in a hot kitchen. And the results of this have been an aubergine, feta cheese, tomato, and basil salad, and a green bean, spring onion, and almond salad. The aubergine salad just requires the aubergine to be fried in olive oil, and when cooled a bit mixed with the cheese, chopped tomatoes, and basil, and seasoned with a (little salt) and pepper. The oiliness of the aubergines means that no further dressing is required, but the salty cheese cuts through some of this richness.

For the green beans, I just steamed these in the microwave and softened the sliced spring onions in olive oil. Once the onions were almost done, I added in some flaked almonds and carried on cooking until they took on a bit of colour. The onions and nuts were then tipped over the cooked beans, with any extra oil acting as a dressing, and the whole lot seasoned well. I served both these salads with an Ottolenghi mushroom dish I've written about before, to make an excellent summer vegetarian meal that also avoided overheating in the kitchen.