Tag: homecooking

Green Street

There’s a place I go to called Green Street.  In the heart of Forest Gate (that’s E7), just down the road from the old West Ham ground at Upton Park, and I’ve been going there ever since I was a little girl. Growing up in Harlow in the 70s and 80s, we didn’t have the luxury of big supermarkets stocking everything we needed from chillies and coriander to black lentils or cumin seeds. So there was a fortnightly trip to Green Street to stock up on all our Asian grocery essentials. And if you need dozens of types of lentil or any spice under the sun, it’s still the place to go.

           

 

 

 

 

 

These days I can get all my Indian cooking essentials at the Asian and Oriental supermarket in Harlow (it’s called M18, off Edinburgh Way, tell Shahid I sent you!) but I still love a trip down to Green Street when I need something special. These photos are from Bharat Stores, which is my first stop for any trip to Green Street.

If you’ve never been down there and you have any love of Asian food, culture or fashion, you won’t be disappointed. Another added bonus of visiting from May through July are the stacks of boxed mangoes which can be bought in the greengrocers or just being sold by some guy on the pavement. There’s something about the mango-selling guys, they really are the Del Boys of the street. Lots of banter, lots of chat about how their mangoes are better than the other guy across the road and lots of offers which always tempt me to buy 2 boxes when I really only wanted 1! 

But it’s so worth it. The flavour and melting texture of the Kesar, Chausa, Honey and – the king of all mangoes – the Alphonso, are positively ambrosial.  If you’ve only ever tasted a supermarket, South-American mango, you’ll be amazed at how different the two fruits are. They are smaller and sweeter and not at all stringy or fibrous inside. But watch out for the juice! It’s been said that the best place to eat a mango is in the sea or in the bath, but careful use of a napkin can be just as effective.

       

So a few hours browsing the jewellery, beautiful sarees and shalwar kameez (just looking!) and more importantly cookware and vegetables is always a pleasure and never a chore. Do you have any top tips for Asian groceries? Where to buy them? How to use specialist ingredients in your dishes? Can you find fresh turmeric for sale somewhere near you? If you do, I’d love to hear from you. Contact me on Facebook (Saira Hamilton Chef), Twitter (Saira Hamilton) or by leaving a comment below.

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BBQ weather! The recipe everyone needs…

It’s time for a recipe. I’ve been working on an exciting project with a charity called Find Your Feet which runs a brilliant campaign called ‘Curry for Change’ every year. This encourages anyone who can cook, from top restaurant chefs like Vivek Singh to supper club hosts and food bloggers, to hold events to raise money for people suffering from food poverty in Asia and Africa. Click on the link to find out how you can join in!It’s a great campaign that I have supported in the past and this year I am helping them with a new angle to the campaign which encourages home cooks to host a dinner party at home. This is called ‘Host at Home’ and what with my ambition to get everyone cooking authentic Indian food and curries from scratch, at home, it was a no-brainer for me to offer my services to help them.

So watch this space for my Host-at-Home recipe pack, which will come with full recipes for a 3 course meal and step-by-step instructions on how to deliver a fabulous evening with a minimum of stress and fuss. As I was working on my recipes, I realised that there is one recipe I use probably once a week during the summer that I haven’t shared for quite a while.

Sheek kebabs are traditionally made with minced meat, often mutton but they can be made with beef, lamb, pork, turkey or anything else you like to eat to be honest. If I can’t get mutton, my preference is to use a mixture of lamb and beef mince, as I think you get the depth of flavour from the beef and the nice juiciness that comes from the higher fat content in the lamb.

The recipe is in fact terribly simple. Shove all the ingredients in a bowl together and mix them really, really well. I don’t mean just move them around in a clockwise direction, I mean really get in there and squish it all together so that every mouthful of the finished kebab is soft and yielding, and has a good mix of all the flavours and spices. And then you grill them. Simples!

The mixture can be made well ahead of time (24 hrs in advance if necessary) and stored in the fridge. At the last minute add the lemon, form the kebabs on skewers and the grill on a pre-heated barbecue for 6-8 minutes. Job done! Served with yoghurt raitha and some salad, these kebabs will enliven any BBQ spread. Much more interesting than just the usual burgers and sausages. So give this super-simple and delicious recipe a try and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Recipe: Sheek kebabs

  • 600g minced beef or lamb (or a mixture)
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • 1½ tsp ground cumin
  • 1½ tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp chilli powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 red onion finely diced
  • 1½ tbsp garlic paste (crushed or grated fresh garlic is perfect)
  • 1½ tbsp ginger paste (crushed or grated fresh ginger is perfect)
  • 2 green chillies, finely chopped
  • big handful of chopped coriander (or mint and parsley)
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 40-50g breadcrumbs*
  • zest and juice of half a lemon

Method

  1. Place the minced meat in a large mixing bowl, and add in all the other ingredients. Mix together really well, with hands is always best! If you can leave the mixture to develop the flavours for an hour or two, the resulting kebabs will be better. If the mix feels too wet, add more breadcrumbs. If it is too dry you may need to add more egg. If you are preparing the mixture in advance, leave out the lemon zest and juice and only add this just before cooking.
  2. Divide the mixture into 16 equal portions, by dividing the mixture in half and then half again until you end up with 16 balls of kebab mix. Take each portion and roll into a long thin sausage shape; the easiest way is to crimp it around a metal or bamboo skewer. Wet your hands between each ball for a smooth finish. Press the mixture together well whilst shaping the kebabs to ensure you have a good texture to the finished product.
  3. Once formed, cover with cling film and allow the kebabs to rest in the fridge until you are ready to cook them (at least 30 minutes). When you are ready to cook, pre-heat your BBQ to a medium-high heat. Carefully place the kebabs onto the BBQ and grill. The kebabs will need to be turned several times, but wait until they have a good caramelised colour on one side before turning to avoid them breaking apart during cooking. They should only take 6-7 minutes, but always check the meat is cooked to your liking before serving. Serve with raitha and lots of salad dressed with lemon juice, oil and a pinch of salt.

 

* if you need to make these gluten-free you can use GF breadcrumbs or gram flour instead

Sweet treats in the Shire

This time a year ago we were in North Devon. We stayed in a pretty little village called Chittlehampton near Barnstaple, although Jim insisted on calling it the Shire. I think this was mainly influenced by the fact that the cottage (which he called Bag End) had very small doors and low ceilings which meant that the only place Jim could stand up straight was on the stairs, he had to shower on his knees and bend nearly double to get through the doors. I, on the other hand, found the cottage perfectly proportioned and very cosy with the added bonus that I could reach all the cupboards and fittings very easily.

We had a good time, helped enormously by the fact that the village had a great pub called the Bell Inn, which served good food and had an extensive gin list, including a new one on me, Wicked Wolf of Exmoor, a small batch-made spirit made in the wilds of Exmoor. The village also boasted a post office and shop which sold locally-made cheddar and clotted cream which you had to request from behind the counter and was spooned into a unmarked plastic tub for you to take home with you.

I got baking as soon as we got home. Which of course meant we had to have the following 3 arguments:

  • is it scone rhyming with cone, or scone rhyming with gone?
  • should scones have sultanas in?
  • jam then cream, or cream then jam?

I’m not even going to try and answer the first question as I know it raises considerable agitation with certain people. I heard that the Queen says scone rhyming with ‘gone’, so that is some guidance I guess. I like sultanas but Tommy doesn’t, so we tossed a coin and he won. The Cornish tea has jam and then cream on top (which I prefer, with apologies to my Devonian mother-in-law) and the Devon cream tea should have the cream on first. What a minefield to pick your way across for a tea-time treat. The clotted cream was delicious, which was the main thing.

After a short break, I usually feel energised to get back into the creative side of cooking, so I decided to tackle something I have been meaning to try for ages. Marshmallows. I had bought a sugar thermometer a while ago but it was still in its packet and buried at the back of a drawer. But I found it and got to work.

The ingredients are really quite simple: white sugar, liquid glucose (which you can find in most supermarkets with the baking ingredients), water, gelatine leaves, egg whites and vanilla. The only tricky bit is getting the temperature of the sugar correct, but the thermometer takes all of the guess work out of that. The sugar has to be heated to the hardball stage. When I told Jim I was going to play hardball with the sugar he hurried out of the kitchen in case it turned violent.

I used a James Martin recipe for my first attempt and it worked really well. The main thing to bear in mind is that it takes quite a while for the sugar syrup to get to the right temperature. I used my digital thermometer as well because I didn’t trust the analogue one, but it worked okay. It is important to be very careful with hot sugar, don’t ever touch it with your fingers and use a good sturdy Pyrex jug to pour it onto the egg whites slowly. This is not a recipe to do with small children I would say. The other thing is that you will have to wash everything in very hot water afterwards as it is the only way to deal with the hardened sugar.

But it really wasn’t difficult and the results were absolutely delicious. Soft, pillowy, melt-in-the-mouth, more a texture than a flavour, and I felt inordinately proud of myself when they were done. If you want to have a go, here is the recipe I used:

Ingredients

450g granulated sugar

1 tbsp liquid glucose

200ml water

2 large free-range egg whites

9 sheets gelatine, soaked in 140ml water

1 tsp vanilla extract

vegetable oil, for greasing

5-6 tbsp icing sugar, for dusting

5-6 tbsp cornflour, for dusting

Method

  1. Soak the gelatine leaves in 140ml cold water in a small bowl.
  2. Place the granulated sugar, glucose and 200ml of water into a heavy-duty saucepan and bring to the boil.
  3. Cook over a medium-high heat until it reaches 127ºC or the hard ball stage on a sugar thermometer. This could take up to 15 minutes.
  4. Place the egg whites into a very clean grease-free bowl and whisk to firm peaks. An electric whisk or stand mixer is best as there is a lot of whisking!
  5. Add the soaked gelatine sheets and water to the hot sugar syrup carefully. Stir through until dissolved, then pour into a heatproof jug.
  6. Continue to whisk the egg whites, then pour the sugar syrup onto the egg whites, whisking all the time until the whites are shiny. Try not to pour the syrup directly onto the whisk attachments but rather down the side of the bowl.
  7. Add the vanilla extract and continue to whisk at a medium-high speed for at least 5 minutes, but it may take up tot 10 minutes. The mixture needs to be thick enough to hold its shape on the whisk.
  8. Lightly oil a shallow 30x20cm baking tray and dust the tray with some icing sugar and cornflour. Spoon the marshmallow mixture into the tray, smoothing the top with a palette knife.
  9. Place in the fridge for at least an hour to set.
  10. Dust some more icing sugar and cornflour over a board or clean work surface, use a palette knife to loosen the edge of the marshmallow, then turn it out onto the dusted work surface.
  11. Cut into squares and roll in the icing sugar and cornflour to coat well and then store in an airtight tin or jar. Serve with chocolate sauce or fruit coulis for a yummy dessert .
N.B. this blog first appeared as a column in Herts & Essex Observer on 25 February 2016

Exam stress-busting recipe

Well the time has finally arrived. My daughter’s GCSE exams have started, so as you can imagine the stress levels in our house are through the roof. It seems hard to comprehend that she has come to this point already. Through my happy tears at her Leavers’ Assembly, I found it hard to process the fact that she has become this rather wonderful young adult when it seems like yesterday that she stood proudly in the playground on her first day at school, with her unruly hair in braids and fiercely clutching her brand new book bag.

I have asked several friends how to cope with the stress and what I should be doing as a parent to alleviate the symptoms, though clearly I can do nothing about the cause. I read somewhere that whatever you say as a parent will be wrong. If you seem very caring and interested in what they are doing and get involved in revision, you are stifling them and poking your nose in and you couldn’t possibly understand. If you try and stay out of it you are accused of not caring. So parents should just accept that whatever you say will be wrong and get used to the sound of slamming doors.

My friend Sue from the Lemon Tree explained that her strategy with her son Harry was just to feed him. That was the best thing she could do to support him with his workload. This sounded like a good idea to me so I am planning to cook all the things that Lily likes and that I think will help her work and function as effectively as possible. We’re always told that fish is great brain food, and it’s not always the easiest thing to get our children to eat, so I thought I would share my family fish pie recipe with you. It’s got all that lovely fish, but couched in a wonderful cheesey mash and a silky parsley sauce which makes it one of my all-time favourite comfort foods too. I’ve used white fish, salmon and prawns in my recipe, as the children are not mad-keen on smoked fish, but some lovely smoked haddock in the fish mix also works a treat.

Here’s the recipe for you. If you are one of those households supporting stressed-out, exam-crazed teenagers, give it a go and hopefully it will allow them to relax for a minute, get some good fuel inside them before they launch back into the study and revision. Good luck to them all!

Fish Pie

Ingredients (serves 4)

500ml milk

300g salmon fillet

300g white fish (cod or haddock)

125g raw large prawns, peeled and de-veined

1 small onion, quartered

1 bay leaf

4 black peppercorns

75g butter

50g plain flour

handful of finely chopped fresh parsley

salt and pepper

200g washed baby spinach (optional)

1 kg potatoes (Maris Piper or King Edward are best)

50g butter

50ml milk

50g grated mature cheddar cheese

Method

  1. Heat the milk in a large shallow pan. Heat the milk to just short of boiling – you should just see a few small bubbles around the edges of the pan. Add the fish in large chunks (approx. 4cm) along with the onion and bay leaf and 4 black peppercorns. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8 mins, turning the fish once during that time. Lift the fish onto a plate and strain the milk into a jug to cool. You will need approx. 450ml milk, if there is slightly less top it up with fresh milk. Flake the fish into large pieces in a large ovenproof dish. Then add the raw prawns and mix thoroughly.
  2. Make the parsley sauce. Melt the butter in a pan very slowly then add the flour and stir well until you have a paste. Add the reserved milk from poaching the fish very gradually, stirring briskly all the time. Keep the heat on and keep stirring until the sauce thickens, this should take about 5 minutes. When the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon you can take the pan off the heat, season with salt and pepper and add the finely chopped parsley.
  3. Scatter the spinach leaves on top of the poached fish, then pour the sauce over the fish mix in the baking dish, making sure the fish and spinach are completely covered in the sauce. Now preheat the oven to 180ºC (fan).
  4. Peel and chop the potatoes into big chunks the cook in salted, boiling water until soft and cooked through. This should take 25-30 minutes. Drain off the water and allow the potatoes to dry off in the open pan. Then mash with the butter and 50ml of milk and season well with salt and pepper.
  5. Finally add the mashed potato to the top of the fish, scatter over the grated cheese and bake in the oven for 40 minutes until golden and bubbling on top. Serve with peas or any steamed green vegetables.