Goatiness in Kenya

Whilst Kenya isn't exactly renowned for its cuisine, I hadn't quite expected the level of revolt from my team when it came to the food. This was all made worse by the fact that nearly everyone on the trip was sick at one point (yes, imagine being sick when all you have access to is a pit latrine), and even a week after we're all back home, some of us are still recovering from sore tummies and knowing a bit too much information about everyone's bowel movements.

Given that we were in the middle of the countryside, it was no surprise that the food was repetitive and pretty simple. A typical breakfast looked like some space-age creation with my malaria tablet being the main event, accompanied by a boiled egg, a mandazi (sort of Kenyan doughnut) and a cuppa (no milk please):

Lunch and dinner were pretty much the same everyday, a combination of rice, chapattis, goat meat, spinach/cabbage/peas, avocado and banana and oranges for afters. The chapattis in particular were very yummy, slightly sweet, but not quite so yummy after having them for 2 meals 7 days in a row. I actually quite liked the goat, particularly with a bit of gravy, but unfortunately it was what made most of my team's stomachs turn.

I have often heard horror stories of families asking the team leader to kill a chicken, which is a big honour. Thankfully it has never happened. Until I remembered that Julius owned a poultry farm, and until Rosita came to dedication with a chicken in her arms. Yes, I started panicking now, and backing away!!!! Thankfully, the team were all attuned to the fact that I am sooooo scared of chickens by now, and Martin chivalrously stepped in to accept the gift. And thankfully we didn't need to kill it there and then:

We named it Kiev, and ate her for dinner that night! Unfortunately Kiev was a tough old bird, wasn't really very tasty. Here she is!:

As is usual with all my Habitat trips, I usually take a few extra days after everyone's gone home for my own little R&R. Both Clare and Caris, who have spent more time in East Africa, advised me that Lamu Island was the place to go, so off I went!

Lamu is little known compared to its very developed cousins Mombasa and Zanzibar, but I think it was better for it. We stayed in Shela, with 12km of unlimited beach, and there were relatively few white faces to be seen. This may have explained the amount we got hassled for business everywhere we went, but the place remained charming nevertheless. Just look at the view from our guest house:

We stayed at a place called Banana House owned by a man who claimed he was called Banana. His wife is Dutch, and it was clear the couple understood what Western service is, unlike much of the Kenyan tourist market. The rooms were simple but stylishly done, hammocks swung everywhere. One of the other good things they offered was the use of their chef; give the chef some money to go to the market, tell him what you wanted to eat, and he'll cook it for you. So we gave the chef a tenner each and this is what he came up with:

Ellie who came with me had the simple criteria for our food in Lamu: only fish and vegetables. Ok, we probably broke it a little by having lobster and vegetables that night, but oh bliss it was. Can someone marry soon please just so I can go back to this place for my honeymoon? Anyone will do! Haha...

Expensive shades of beige

As blasphemous as it sounds, I don't know an awful lot about Pierre Koffmann. I was still an impoverished student when La Tante Claire closed down in 2003, when he almost disappeared from the London restaurant scene. But he is now back (to quite a lot of fanfare which I don't quite understand), in where the Boxwood Cafe used to be at the Berkeley Hotel.

I must say, the sign outside announcing Koffmann's is a bit retro for me. I know he's going for the hearty and simple fare, but it looks a bit rustic for the smart Knightsbridge location. Inside, the space is still a bit awkward, with the dining room divided by a tiny bar in the middle; I had wanted a little drink before I sat at the table, but alas, no room for little me.

The impeccable service started before I had even walked in the door. When I called up to book, I wanted to hire their reservations girl immediately. She did all she needed to do, but so much more: asked about allergies, any special requests, do I need information about the hotel, all done efficiently and politely. Exactly what you want.

And inside, the only fault I can give to the service is that it is at times a little overattentive. Our waitress (who used to be at the Connaught and then at Petrus it turns out) was faultless. She not only knew the dishes inside out, but seemed to be very enthused with the food, something that is so rare in this country unfortunately. I will as a result excuse her rather twee mentions of Chef Koffmann "this is a special Chef Koffmann thought of during his break today". Hmm...

The menu is exceedingly boring, loads of French classics you would expect, with only one or two really interesting sounding dishes. Unfortunately, I had had a big lunch, and the famed pig's trotters just sounded too heavy. I started with one of the specials, a salmon tartare with cucumbers and chive cream:

Fraser went for the mackerel terrine - which turned out to be a very clever dish actually, layers of vinegared mackerel wrapped in wafer-thin slices of cucumber:

Fraser went for the braised beef cheeks as his main:

With skate with morels pour moi:

Chips and vegetables were served with all main courses for free (extra points for not trying to charge for sides); the chips charming presented in yesterday's French newspaper:

Overall, the savoury dishes were all impeccably done. The flavours were very clean, ingredients very fresh, I thoroughly enjoyed my rather boring dishes. The only small fault was that my skate was a little raw in the middle, but it was one of the best skate dishes I've eaten in a restaurant.

Fraser somehow talked me into dessert, and the only thing I really fancied was the pistachio souffle, the price of which made me a choke a little at £12 a portion! It was enormous, swimming pool sized, way way too much. I didn't think the souffle itself was that amazing, a bit too sweet and repetitive for me, but the pistachio ice cream it came with was gorgeously smooth, not too sweet, very nutty:

Fraser went for his usual chocolate mousse and tried to be artistic when he was taking the picture. He loved it:

There was a good selection of wines by the carafe (good given it was a school night), and the bill came to £120 for two. Toilets were confusing as there were too many mirrors, beige carpets. Pierre Koffmann could be seen through the glass panel looking into the kitchen!

It is one of those restaurants when if you ask me whether I would go again, I would hesitate to say yes, even though the food was thoroughly excellent, served by one of the best waitresses I've had in a long time. Maybe it is just the location: I'm rarely in Knightsbridge and it always seems like a long trek even though it's only really round the corner from one of my workplaces. Fraser made a fair comment that it is just a bit weird going to restaurants in hotels. The menu and/or the decor always seems a bit compromised, and you are always surrounded by some odd mix of people. But you should definitely go once, if only to steal their rather cute pig cloakroom tickets.

Let's start again

It has been an age since I blogged, there is a huge backlog of photos I've collected over the last few months, but I have been a thoroughly busy bee.

So busy that I can't remember the last time I really cooked at home. So when on Monday I found myself heading home at 9:30pm, even though it's late, I decided to attempt something not particularly complicated but still a little new. I was visiting Cerys and her lovely new baby Eira in Cardiff and was reading Jamie's Italy whilst playing with baby, and found a nice recipe which you can do in the time it takes to boil the pasta. Always my kind of recipe.

Spaghetti with kind of pesto (or spaghetti alla Trapanese according to JO) (serves 1)

125g of spaghetti or linguine

Handful of whole almonds

2 handfuls of fresh basil, leaves picked

1/2 clove garlic

Extra virgin olive oil

Coarse sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Handful of cherry tomatoes

Handful of freshly grated parmesan

1. Put the pasta on the boil

2. Dry roast the almonds until it is just coloured. Meanwhile, in a pestle and mortar, smash up the garlic with a little salt, and slowly grind in the basil. Once the almonds are roasted, put in the basil mix and smash up until pretty fine.

3. Lug enough olive oil in the mortar to make it wet enough to coat all of the pasta. Add in the parmesan and mix well.

4. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and squish a little with your hands.

5. Drain the pasta. Using the same pan, add in the tomatoes, pesto, and spaghetti, mix well.

6. Scoff in front of the telly.

Starting to be a bit obsessed now

Someone really needs to remove that 1-click purchase facility on Amazon, as I am already impulsive enough about buying cookbooks as it is. I am still feeling quite inspired by vegetables recently, and treated myself to two Ottolenghi cookbooks. His most recent book Plenty is particularly inspiring: it is entirely vegetarian, but his recipes are consistently interesting. I love the fact that he is introducing me to new ways with new ingredients: definitely stock up on limes, coriander and cumin before you try his recipes, and get used to going to Middle Eastern supermarkets to look for frozen okras.

I snipped this recipe from the Guardian back in March 2008, but have only just managed to make it now that it is also in the cookbook. It is really moreish, and I would add even more chilli next time.

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter (serves 3-4 as brunch)

For the lime butter:

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Zest of 1 lime plus 2 tbsp lime huice

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

1 tbsp coriander leaves

1/2 garlic clove, finely chopped

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

For the pancakes:

110g self-raising flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 egg

50g unsalted butter, melted

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cumin

150ml milk

10 spring onions, finely sliced

2 green chillies, finely sliced

250g baby spinach

1 egg white

Olive oil, for frying

1. First, make the lime butter. Put the butter in a medium-sized bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until it turns soft and creamy. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Tip everything out onto a sheet of clingfilm and roll into a sausage shape. Twist the ends to seal, then chill until firm.

2. Put the spinach in a pan with a splash of water, cook until wiltered, drain and let it cool. Once cooled, squeeze hard to expel all the excess water. Roughly chop.

3. Make the pancake batter by putting the flour, baking powder, whole egg, butter, salt, cumin and milk in a mixing bowl, and whisk until smooth. Fold in the onion, chilli, and spinach into the batter mix.

4. Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and then carefully fold this into the batter.

5. Pour a little oil into a heavy frying pan and place on medium-high heat. For each pancake, ladle two tablespoons of batter into the pan and press down gently. You should get smallish pancakes (definitely not American style), about 7cm in diameter and 1cm thick. Cook for a minute each side, until a nice golden-green colour. Transfer to paper towels and keep warm.

6. Serve three pancakes per person and place a disc of the flavoured butter on top to melt. Serve with salad, or like me, some lovely smoked mackerel:

In love with quinoa

Yotam Ottolenghi is a genius, and I may have mentioned it before on this blog already. His 'new vegetarian' column in the Guardian has opened my eyes to the world of vegetables, and even though most of his recipes do have a long list of (sometimes unfamiliar Iranian) ingredients, it has been worthwhile to restock my store cupboard.

This is the recipe I have made twice in a week since I got back to London. The addition of cumin and chilli is a work of genius.

Avocado, quinoa and broad bean salad (serves 6, easily half-able)

200g quinoa

500g podded broad beans

2 medium lemons

2 small ripe avocados

2 garlic gloves, crushed

200g fresh breakfast radishes, sliced lengthways

50g purple radish cress or small, fresh purple basil leaves

1 tbsp ground cumin

75ml olive oil

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

1. Place the quinoa in a pan of water, bring to the boil and simmer for 9 minutes. Drain in fine sieve, rinse under cold water, and set aside to dry.

2. Throw the broad beans into a pan of boiling water, return to the boil and drain immediately. Refresh with cold water and set aside to dry. Gently press each bean with your fingers to remove the skins, then discard.

3. Top and tail the lemons. Stand each one on a chopping board and cut down the sides, following the natural curve, to remove the skin and white pith. Over a large bowl, cut in between the membranes to release the segments into the bowl. Squeeze in the juice from the membranes.

4. Peel, stone, and thinly slice the avocados. Add to the bowl and toss to cover in the lemon juice. Add the dry quinoa, broad beans, garlic, radishes, half the radish cress, cumin, oil, chilli flakes and some salt and pepper. Toss gently, without breaking the avocado, and season again if needed. Serve garnished with the remaining cress.

This was the version I made, substituting the broad beans with asparagus (why can't I find broad beans anywhere at the moment?!), lemon with lime, and I couldn't find any purple cress:

This is so so so good, try it. I am in fact having it for my lunch!

White rice will not kill you

Whilst I was extremely exasperated with some of the food neurosis of Californians (I've just been reading about how Zooey Deschanel is vegan, and is apparently allergic to soy, gluten, diary, and eggs), I have returned to the UK with more of a focus on the healthy stuff. Here's a little round-up of some of the little healthy establishments I liked lots and some I liked less.

Calling your food shop Beautifull would make some people baulk, but I was surprised to see the number of men inside this cafe in Laurel Heights. I really liked the concept; they sell a huge variety of salads, most of them very interesting, as well as hot food like meatballs, as well as soup noodley type stuff. It is the kind of lunch place I always dreamt of having when I was working on the Strand, even if the prices were a little keen. This was my lunch of salmon fishcake with a red quinoa salad, with roasted pumpkin:

I have been very taken with quinoa since I returned (excellent recipe coming up), but it would not surprise me if they decide that it is carcinogenic after a few years. Actually, I just read up the recipe of the quinoa salad above, and it has Hijiki seaweed in, which apparently is also carcinogenic!

The very first place we went to for dinner after I landed in SF was a gorgeous place called Flour & Water in the Mission. It is a crazily popular place serving Italian/ Mediterranean style food, doing the fresh ingredients cooked well formula that SFians do so well. Again, I was bowled over by the waitress, who disturbingly seemed to want to be our friend. My lovely main course was a ravioli 'doppio': a double filled ravioli with a seafood mix on one side and a pea puree on the other:

One place I liked not so much was Gather in Berkeley. The name summarises the idea of the place, which is to serve food suitable to everyone, from the strictest vegan to the most ferocious carnivore, so that it is a place you can gather your friends. It was packed on the weeknight we went, so obvious there is a demand for these things, and overall the cooking was fine. My pork cheeks were very soft, even if the rhubarb sauce was just a little too sour to go with it:

What did irk me though was some of their descriptions of the food, in particular their 'vegan charcuterie':

It was actually a gorgeous platter of food, including interesting ways with wild mushrooms, broad beans, some of the best vegan food I've had in ages, but why oh why oh why did they have to call it a charcuterie?!?! Just call it a vegan plate!!! Stop trying to be clever with words!!!

So this is the end of my SF postings, hope you enjoyed. I end with one of the best meals I had in SF, with all my favourite Californian things. If someone can tell me what Farmers' Cheese is, and where I may be able to buy it in London, I would be very grateful.

Best of (not quite) SF

I have to be honest, I didn't really know much about Thomas Keller before my little trip. I knew there was someone who owned rather a lot of restaurants in the United States, but I have never really had the inkling to research them, kind of like when I'm disappointed when Jay Rayner or Matthew Norman write about non-London restaurants (yes, I'm one of them annoyingly London-centric Guardian readers).

The fact that we actually ended up at one of Thomas Keller's restaurants was kind of by accident. We'd planned to do a little trip to Napa and Sonoma, but we'd made no bookings, done no planning, but managed to blag a table at Ad Hoc by asking our hotel concierge to book it for us. And we nearly didn't make it, as we finally looked up where it was, and it was going to be a good 50 minute drive from our hotel in Santa Rosa. I am so glad we managed to drag ourselves out.

Apparently, Ad Hoc itself is a bit of an accident, with Thomas Keller intending it to be a burger joint, and whilst they were waiting for the license for it, he set up a chilled place where they would basically cook their staff meals. Today, it is still a family-style place, with only one menu per day, no choice, and I'm pretty sure they've up the ante from their usual staff meals.

It is such a horrible cliche nowadays to say that ingredients is the secret to good cooking, but Ad Hoc is a pure celebration of the gorgeous produce of California. And they manage to just put some genius combinations together. Here was our very simple, but glorious menu:

OK, I must admit, I was disappointed to see a salad as my starter, but it turns out that they always serve a family style salad as starters at Ad Hoc, and it was probably the single best dish I ate in my whole time in SF. A little gem lettuce salad, with potentially the most amazing dressing ever:

They call the dressing 'green goddess dressing', and when I asked the waiter what was in it, he spent about 5 minutes going into the ins and outs of the recipe. Literally 5 minutes. I had to write it down to try to remember it. The ingredients involve parsley water, chives, anchovies, buttermilk, creme fraiche, aioli, lemon juice, probably some other stuff, combined in the most convoluted way. But I don't care, it was divine. I was smothering my lettuce with it. I was dunking my bread in it. I may have dunked my finger in it.

And furthermore, I was impressed by the fact that the waiter knew exactly what was in that dressing. The waiting staff, on the whole, had amazing food knowledge, and you suspect they are all budding chefs biding their time by waitressing for Thomas Keller. I wish waiters in this country cared about the food as much as they did!

Onwards, the peppered beef flatiron was a little flat for me. Sorry, I will continue the battle of British vs. US steaks here:

But the veggie side with it was wonderful. I really ought to start cooking radishes:

Their cheese course was also very very amazing. Apparently the Browning Gold comes from somewhere in New York, with perfectly ripe apple, and a perfect almond brittle. My dream kind of dessert:

And unfortunately, the cheese course was so good, I wasn't really paying attention for the pudding (cocoa rib cake with raspberry sauce and hazelnut ice cream), or the very cute petit fours:

I heard that they have a band of regulars who come every week to Ad Hoc, I am so jealous. I was so enamoured by this restaurant that I have already got a copy of the cook book Ad Hoc At Home next to me on the sofa right now. It makes for a very interesting read too. Having grown up cooking in the casual style of Nigel Slater, having a cookbook written by an obsessive 'proper' chef is a real change. The first recipe is for fried chicken, simple enough, but once you read it, you realise that the whole recipe takes about 15 hours from start to finish. And there is a whole page telling you off for using tongs in the kitchen. It's one of those serious whole Sunday kind of cookbooks, which I am sort of looking forward to discovering.

Oh, and did I mention? Thomas Keller was dining on the next door table. I didn't recognise him.