Category Archives: Other

A Japanese evening: salmon sashimi and mushroom & leek udon noodles

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Mushroom & leek udon noodles

Sometimes saturdays can be great. A day out perusing the enormous 6-floor Waterstone’s on Picadilly, followed by a happy stroll through the Japan centre. This yielded some salmon sashimi, udon noodles and a pack of interesting mushrooms (alongside all sorts of other exciting food).

Then, sitting at home watching the way the late afternoon light hits the slate roofs and brick below, and they just glow. Softly at first, but then with increasing strength until gently the light ebbs signalling the onset of dusk.

And right now, dusk means dinner time. Pulling together my goodies I set to work. Continue reading →

A South Asian influenced feast

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South Asian style salmon

Sometimes you start off with the kernal of an idea that just grows until it’s way beyond your control, taking on a life of it’s own, just like Jack’s magic beans. This started off when I glanced at What’s for Lunch Honey’s Channa Palak recipe a few days ago . I mentally filed it away as something I wanted to try out. That mind running along a South Asian spice track, and then, heading back to the same blog I found a Spicy bream recipe and thought I could adapt that to some wild salmon. I figured the strong almost gamey flavour of the fish would stand up to spices well.

And everything just sprouted uncontrollably from there. I needed rice to go with it, but rather than soothe and mollify, I wanted it to complement and almost compete with the salmon. So I matched the paprika-laced oily fish flavours with sweet and scented saffron and raisins. They made a glorious juxtaposition and both were backed up by the simpler, more rustic chickpea and spinach. Continue reading →

Time to (re)launch

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New year, new blog. This feels like the apposite time to relaunch the grubworm as what it was supposed to be in the first place: somewhere for me to talk about non-work related interests. Mainly: food. Maybe a few other bits and pieces as they occur to me. It may or may not be updated regularly, let’s see how it goes.