Big squidgy balls of sweet, gooey goodness. What is there not to like about mochi? While I wouldn’t pretend to know the first thing about how to make the wobbly buggers, they’re something I always try to pick up from Asian stores when I see them.
And nowhere stocks a range (in my very limited experience) like the Japan Centre. Black sesame, green tea, pink strawberry and plain white. Brightly coloured, neatly wrapped bubbles of fun waiting to catch your eye as you cruise on by. (more…)
If Koya had ears, they would’ve been incandescent in the months since its low key opening back in April this year. Quiet the opening might have been, but within days cyberspace was awash with excited chatter as foodies across the capital and beyond sampled the deceptively simple noddle-centric menu.
Of course, the worry is, when you hear so many good things, can the place itself actually live up to the hype. And so it was with some excitement, tempered with more than a dash of trepidation, I found myself in a queue with a group that included Mr Noodles, Tom and Jen, Uyen and others, patiently waiting for table. (more…)
Hello pan. Hello cooker. And most of all, hello Global knives! God I’ve missed cooking. What with the onerous burden of eating out, socialising, going to Cornwall for the bank holiday, I feel like I haven’t cooked, really cooked, for a good couple of weeks.
Cooking for me, is an end into itself. Sure I love eating – and eating well, that is after all what led me into the kitchen in the first place – but it’s also solitary time for me to unwind. To really lose myself in the hypnotic rhythm of slicing, stirring, chopping that is the mainstay of making any meal. (more…)
I hit the kitchen properly last night for the frst time in about ten days and banged pans about with wild abandon for a couple of hours. After all of which I ended up with an almost radioactively bright moong dhal and a gentle, ok – bland, leek and potato soup. Disaster.
As a result I felt a certain degree of performance anxiety tonight. The fridge contained just three long slender aubergines and a scraping of miso. Add that to some staples (onion, chilli, garlic) and my stock of sauces and an idea germinated. A sweet spicy aubergine hotpot/stirfry/curry type thing. (more…)
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. (more…)
Man, am I in the mood for Japanese. After an artery-clogging, liver-straining, too-short trip to the seaside (no reception, no wifi, lots of bliss) my body needs a few days of no-fat, simple, cleansing and otherwise healthy but flavourful food. It needs this because, quite frankley, I ate an obscene amount of meat. Not quite up to the baccenalian levels of Blokes eat Beef, but still far too much, especially when you added in pints of Sharp’s seasonal Winter beer.
In a bid to salvage what I can from the satiated wreck of my body, I’ve decided to cast aside meat and booze for the next few days. And if there’s a cuisine more suited to detoxification than Japanese, I’ve yet to see it. (more…)
Having read Fernandez & Leluu’s mouth watering recipe for roast chicken, I was determined to recreate it for last night’s dinner. Accordingly I assembled all the ingredients and fished out of the freezer some drumsticks and wings left over from various fowl dismemberings, and two quail that were lurking at the back.
The only thing missing was Teppanyaki marinade. So I improvised. Adding a dash of this and glug of that, tasting and adjusting is one of the most fun things about cooking. It feels like alchemy – turning seemingly unrelated ingredients into a coherent and tasty whole. (more…)
Still going strong on Asian food, although last night’s dinner was something of a mish-mash of regional influences. It was ostensibly Japanese miso soaked salmon, but ended up with a fair bit of Chinese in there too. Not that that had any negative effect on the flavour. Quite the opposite in fact.
The influence and foundation of the dish is definitely Japanese with its balance of sweet, savoury and salty flavours. I wasn’t sure how it would all work out, but the first bite was something of a revelation. The fattiness of the salmon was well balanced by the clean, salty-sweet sauce, and all the flavours were clear but still combined well. And because it was served with salad and tender-stem broccoli (apparently a choi-sum/broccoli hybrid), it was pretty damn healthy too. A perfect January antidote to December’s heavy eating. Of course, I spoiled the effect by indulging in baklava for dessert – all oily, syrupy, nutty finger-licking goodness. (more…)
