Cheesy saturday afternoon in the Big Apple

Fish stock

dont throw away fish heads, prawn shells, bones – its where all the best flavour is at. Collect it all in a bag in the freezer and when you have enough boil it up with an onion, leek, carrot, garlic and celery to make stock. A hundred times better than stock cubes, I tell no lies.

Green tomato and pumpkin chutney

The real name of this chutney should be ‘cinnamon chutney’ as I got a bit overexited when putting the cinnamon in… Cinnamon is probably one of the easiest spices to go overboard on, I’ve done it to countless curries, tagines, cakes and once you’ve put too much in its really hard to mellow it out – so yeh, be carefull and maybe just add it a little at a time tasting as you go along.

2.5 kg pumpkin, chopped finely

800 gr green tomatoes, quatered

3 onions, minced or grated

3 big bramley apples, chopped finely

2-3tsp ground cinnamon, 6tsp mustard seed, 3tsp ginger powder

juice and rind of 1 lemon

1 kg demerara sugar

600 ml vinegar

2 tbsp chillie flakes or little dried chillies

handfull of dried dates roughly chopped

Put everything into a big casserole pan or jam pan, bring to the boil and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Then turn the heat down really low and simmer for 2-3 hours until the sauce is thick. Watch out it doesnt catch on the bottom, the taste of burned sugar will flood the rest of the chutney.

Runner Beans

Nailsea, England. 10 October 2009

Potstickers – Chinese Dumplings

China Town San Francisco – these amazing potstickers were being fashioned at an incredible speed in the  kitchens at ‘Xong Dim Sum House’ by a small wrinkled lady who looked like she hadnt seen the light of day for about a hundred years. I wish i could have eaten them as fast as she was making them; DIM DUM FOREVER. Considering getting this tatoed onto my forehead.

Tortillas de Arepa with coconut

Arepas con coco, sal y panela.

2 cups masa de harina

1/2 grated coconut

zest 1 lime

salt

1tbsp brown sugar/panela/jaggery

enough water to form soft dough

Mix all the ingredients together until you have a soft plyable mass. Form these with your hands by patting a ball of masa against your palms until flat and round. You can either cook these in a dry frying pan or directly over a fire on a griddle, they take about 10 minutes each side. I ate these every day for almost a month and became highly addicted – you can also make arepas with egg inside, they are even more dangerous.

Cazuelas de Mariscos – breakfast in Santa Marta

 After a sleepless night feeling like I was stuck in a hairdrier, I got up early to look for a juice near the market. Came accross a little man with a steaming copper cauldron full of this amazing soupie stew – he pretended not to understand me when i asked what was in it… so i guess it will remain a mystery forever.

 

August 15 2009, Santa Marta, Colombia

Green mango and fresh coconut salsa

the acidity of the green mango and lime juice is balanced by the sweet oil released by grating fresh coconut, I ate this with fried eggs, rolled up in tortillas or just on its own with a big spoon.

                                                                         

 

ingredients:

1/2 small red onion, sliced finely

2 tomatoes, chopped up

1 big green mango (green as in unripe, this is how they are eaten all over latin america as a snack with salt,pepper and vinegar) chopped up

handfull of coriander leaves, torn up

1/2 grated coconut

juice of 1 lime, salt and pepper

mix it up, sit it for 10 minutes to allow flavours to meld… eat.

Avocado and oil

                                                      

This is how my mum taught me to eat avocados – straight up with a spoon. As there is no balsamic vinegar or olive oil here I used lime juice and some chili oil and sesame seeds.

June 6, El Valle, Panama.

Roasted Monster Pumpkin

I cooked this for a big group of travellers in Panama - they were praising me in different languages for days. Its all about the marinade. Sorry no photo, but you know what roasted veg looks like – all roasty and smushy.

use a mix of any of the following veggies and decide for yourself how much is enough for how many are eating, bare in mind left over roasties are the tastiest things in the world.

pumpkin, washed and cut into chunkers – if its not too old dont bother peeling it – the skins tasty too

onion, peeled and chopped chunky

aubergines, chopped into quaters lengthways

courgette, chopped lengthways

potatoes, cut into quaters lengthways

bell peppers, quatered

sweet potatoes, chopped into chunks

whole garlic cloves

for the marinade: (to make enough for 5 – adjust accordingly)

5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

3 tbsp soy sauce or tamari

1 tbsp dijon mustard

3 tbsp raisins

1 tbsp chili flakes
Preheat the oven to 230 °C. Put everything in a roasting tin, mix the marinade, pour it over the veggies and shake everything around to get it well covered. It kind of depends what veggies you put in as to how long this will take, but I’d say you want to leave it alone for at least 40 minutes then take it out and give it a good shake and stir and maybe another 10 mins to really caramelise the hell out of it. Watch out for burned raisins, they dont taste so good. You could eat this with rice, or bread and butter or some pesto pasta… i dont know – whatcha want.

May 2009, Swami Camping, El Valle, Panama.