Eggs Florentine

If there's anything that'll get my perpetually lazy arse out of bed, it's Eggs Florentine. Toasted muffin, spinach, topped with a poached egg and covered in eggy buttery Hollandaise sauce? Yes please. You can't go wrong with such a fat-fuelled breakfast.

There are many versions of the dish; Benedict uses a slice of ham, Blackstone uses streaky bacon and a slice of tomato. Wikipedia tells me there is a Country Benedict, or Eggs Beauregard; the muffin is replaced with biscuits, the meat with a sausage patty with country gravy, a béchamel-type sauce with the roux made from meat drippings with black pepper and mild sausage added. Ooof.

The only Hollandaise I've ever made is Delia's foaming version. The base of it is made from the egg yolks, while the whites are whisked to stiff peaks and then folded in, to create a lighter, fluffier sauce. It may be slightly time consuming, but it's well worth it. Often when I have Eggs Benedict or Florentine in restaurants or caffs I leave feeling mildly sick, the richness of it all sitting uncomfortably in my belly.

Eggs Florentine

Serves 2

4 fresh free range eggs
200gr frozen whole-leaf spinach
110gr butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar
2 English muffins
Salt & pepper

Separate 2 of the eggs. Place the yolks in a warmed bowl. Place the lemon juice and the vinegar in a saucepan and heat until it bubbles. Whisking the egg yolks, pour this into them in a steady stream.

Set a pan of water on to boil and add the spinach. Simmer for a couple of minutes until it has all defrosted and then drain, squeezing all the water out. Melt the butter in the same saucepan and again, drizzling it in a steady stream into the egg yolks, whisk like hell. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Whisk the egg whites to form stiff peaks. Slice the muffins in half, toast each side. Poach two eggs. To serve, place a mound of spinach on each half of the muffins and place one poached egg on a half. Fold the egg white into the Hollandaise sauce, and drizzle it on top of the egg and spinach. You can have two poached eggs, one to go on each half of the muffin, but I find this too much.

Any leftover Hollandaise sauce can, according to Delia, be frozen.

The London Particular, New Cross

Is New Cross, my 'hood, finally becoming trendy? Along a stretch of shabby looking houses, rough-looking pubs and of course our favourite nightclub, The Venue, outside of which there is a booze-fuelled chavtastic fight every weekend, a little coffee shop popped up. I gawped at it on its day of opening when I hurried past, my sights set on a bubble tea but I vowed to return to check it out. Billed as a 'bowl food cafe', it's so named after the blend of coffee they use.

On a Saturday afternoon at 1pm, it was busy; all the seats outside were taken, and the solo large communal table indoors had a spare couple of places for me and my friends. Delicious-looking cakes line the windows, and the weekend brunch menu proudly declares all its food as home made, aside from the bread. Coffee, though it took half an hour to arrive, was smooth, rich and well made.

After huge deliberation, I decided upon a bacon, halloumi and fresh tomato sandwich, with roasted garlic mayonnaise, and a side salad. This beast turned up, without the salad which appeared a few minutes later when I enquired after it. I was worried the bacon and halloumi combination would be too salty, but the tang of the tomato balanced it nicely. The mayonnaise gave a wimpish hint of garlic. Salad was of the chickpea, squash, rocket and cauliflower variety, nicely dressed with lemon.

All in all, a very good lunch. I was confused by their pricing though; the sandwich came in at a very reasonable £5, but because the sausage sandwich came with a side salad (priced altogether at £6), I assumed the bacon and halloumi would too. I was wrong, and I was charged an extra £3 for it. I ended up spending a tenner on my lunch, which caused me to raise (alright, arch) my eyebrow.

The service may be slow, but I'll forgive them that as they have only just opened. With more careful ordering, I will definitely be back; it's high time New Cross had a decent cafe.

The London Particular

339 New Cross Road
London SE14 6LA

Spicy Prawns with Octopus & Lentils

It comes to the end of the week and I find my vegetable drawer full of odds and sods. A forlorn pepper, a lonely carrot, a shrivelled onion and handful of this and that. Cooking for yourself, trying to buy cheaply and not wanting anything to go to waste, often I find myself munching through a stir fried medley of vegetables, wishing I'd been more creative with it.

Sometimes though, I'll actually bother to rummage through my cupboard and have a root around my freezer, fingertips going slowly numb. I gave a hoot of surprise when I pulled out a bag of baby octopus and a few frozen prawns.

I would normally have cooked this with rice, but alas I was down to the last of the bag. Instead, some green lentils worked out well for this; nutty little grains that didn't sit too heavy on the stomach. Some fiesty spices, a bit of Meditteranean flavours and I had myself a dinner that you'd never known was scavenged from a near empty fridge. You can use whatever you've got leftover, but here's what I did.


Spicy Prawns with Octopus & Lentils (snazzy title, right?)

Feeds two (though I ate it all myself. Burp.)

50gr rice
50gr green lentils
3 baby octopus, defrosted
8 raw prawns, defrosted
1 onion
3 large cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 heaped tsp tomato puree
2 birds eye chillis (or to taste)
1 green pepper
1 carrot
A handful of frozen sweetcorn
A handful of cherry tomatoes
100ml chicken stock
A handful each of coriander and parsley
Large knob of butter and a drizzle of oil
1/2 a lemon

Heat up a small pan of water and when its boiling, add the lentils. Dice the onion finely. Heat up a pan and add the butter and oil. Fry the onion slowly until softened. Dice the carrot, mince the garlic and finely chop the chillis and lob them in. Cook until the onions are golden brown.

Slice the green pepper finely. Rinse the rice and add to the pan along with the octopus, chopped roughly. Drain the lentils, put them in the pan with the paprika and the tomato puree. Stir to coat. Add the stock and bring up to the simmer. Add the green pepper and simmer on a medium heat for about 12 - 15 minutes. By this time the liquid should have absorbed or evaporated away. Chop the herbs finely, add half to the pan and stir in the sweetcorn. Halve the cherry tomatoes and scatter them around the lentils. Place the prawns on top and on a low heat, put the lid on the saucepan and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the prawns are completely pink. Throw the rest of the herbs on top, season with salt and pepper, add the halved lemon in wedges, and serve.

Zucca

The problem with a really great, affordable restaurant opening is that it's difficult to get a table on a Friday night on a whim. Even though I called up to book Zucca on the Tuesday previous, 9pm was the only table for two available. I don't know about you, but that's pretty late to be having dinner, especially when there are post work beers involved. We turned up tipsy to a crowded and nicely noisy restaurant.

It's easy to order at Zucca as there aren't many menu options - perfect for the indecisive of us. We went all out with starters, pasta, mains and dessert. Flagging a waiter down, he apologetically told us we couldn't order for the moment as the kitchen was inundated. We got right stuck into a bottle of delicious Barolo, decanted into a huge vase-like contraption. Gorgeous salty foccacia kept the hunger pangs at bay. 20 minutes later, chilli-flecked, oil drizzled sea bass carpaccio arrived and it was was generous with thin slivers fanned over the plate.

I can never resist clams when they are on the menu, and these didn't disappoint. At around £4 for the dish, these were stupidly good value. We slurped up the buttery, winey sauce using empty shells.

There were only two pasta options; pappardelle with peas, lemon and Parmesan had rather too much pea and not enough pasta. What there was of the noodle was toothsome and well made.

Taglierini with courgettes and brown shrimp was subtly flavoured and utterly gorgeous. Again, I wished for more of the pasta which might be testament for how good what we had of it was. I'm an absolute pasta fiend though, and my companion thought it adequate.

I was disappointed to find that they had run out of the lamb main course, but as it was such a balmy night it was probably a good idea I had the grilled prawns with a rocket salad. It was messy business extracting the meat from the shells and I got good and properly in there with my hands. The veal chop, huge and with a strip of glistening fat, was tender and well cooked to pink.

Almond and cherry tart was moist and not overly sweet. Cannoli stuffed with cream and served with raspberries was crumbly and light, the tart fruit cutting through the richness of the cream. We finished late in the evening, by now a bit more than tipsy. We left with smiles on our faces, but not without illiciting some gasps of horror; we tried to open the front door which was a bit stuck and I bent over to see if there was a latch to turn just as my friend yanked it open smashing it into my head. Peals of laughter could be heard all the way down Bermondsey Street as we waddled off to the train station. I woke up the next day with both an internal and external headache.

Zucca

184 Bermondsey Street,
London SE1 3TQ

Tel: 020 7378 6809



My photos are all really odd. It was dark, I was drunk. For some better ones, have a look here, here and here.

Man Vs Legs - The Result

In case you were wondering what the outcome of The Bet was, here it is, in video glory.


Blind bids revealed, I was rather awestruck to find that my nemesis had gone for 1.6kg, and I a mere 1.2kg. I wildly underestimated myself; I polished off the 1.2kg with ease. Hawksmoor stepped up to the plate gracefully, and I know I managed that steak because it was just so damn tasty. Cooked beautifully and flavoursome all the way to the middle, it was hardly a struggle and a mere two months later I am ready to go back. Though this time I think I can settle for a 600gr.

We raised an impressive £1500 between us to go to Everyman and NSPCC, so a huge thank you to everyone who donated to our gluttony. The two weeks of sheer terror, stuffing our faces and second guessing each other (not to mention trying to freak each other out) were well worth it.

Adam's JustGiving Page (Everyman)
My JustGiving Page (NSPCC)

Ultimate Congee

To date, this may well be the ultimate congee (or 'juk' in Cantonese) that I've ever made.

Congee is a rice porridge; jasmine rice is cooked in either water or stock to make a soup. Different South East Asian countries have different methods of cooking it; some leave the rice grains whole to make a thin soup, others, like in the Cantonese style, a thick sludge. My dad calls it wallpaper paste. Eaten mostly at breakfast, various toppings are added - fish, salted or preserved egg, sliced pork, liver, that kind of thing.

After a slap-up suckling pig feast at Chinese New Year, I was rather lucky to have walked off with all the scraps and the bones. This all went into a huge stock pot and simmered merrily away for a few hours, before it was strained and then heavily reduced to go into the freezer. I kept slurping away as it was being made, and it was utterly fantastic. I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

A few months later, a toothache rendered me useless and pitiful, and as I paced around my flat starving and in pain, I remembered the pork stock in the freezer. The congee would be the perfect vehicle to show off that lovely porky goodness. It's comfort food too - my grandmother used to make me congee whenever I was unwell, throwing in a few dried scallops for flavour. It's easy to eat, making it ideal for delicate bellies. Happily I'd brought some dried scallops back from Hong Kong; hugely expensive in the UK, they also got thrown in. This became my ultimate congee. Silky smooth, with a few rice grains intact, the porky stock was perfectly seasoned, nuggets of scallop a rich reward every few mouthfuls.

I guess I'll have to have a few more suckling pigs to replicate this...

I don't expect it would be easy to make this recipe, but some roasted pork bones, a star anise and charred onions might make a good substitute.

Pork & Dried Scallop Congee

Serves 2

500ml really, really good pork stock
4 dried scallops
50gr jasmine rice
1 spring onion
Soy sauce

Soak the scallops in some hot water. Put the stock on to simmer and add the rice into it. Simmer slowly for at least an hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so. Add the scallops to the rice and then simmer for anout half an hour. Add more stock if it's looking too thick or dry. To serve, top with slivered greens of the spring onion and add soy sauce to taste.

Thai-Style Steak & Pomegranate Salad

I've a bit of a thing for pomegranates, me. A few of the seeds in a glass of prosecco creates a pretty little drink. It's a necessity in one of my favourite side dishes, and I've now learnt it goes very well in a Thai-style beef salad. The sweet juicy jewels are perfect opposites of the salty crunch of the peanuts, all lifted by a minty, coriander-heavy sauce to dress the beef. Rump steak, usually the cheapest of the cuts is tenderised with the juice and flavoured with garlic and hints of chilli.

Thai Style Steak & Pomegranate Salad

Serves 2

2 rump steaks, with a good bit of fat on them
2 birds eye chillis
1 clove of garlic
2 tsp sugar
Half a pomegranate

Chop the garlic and the chillis roughly and add to the dish along with the sugar. Squeeze the pomegranate juice into the dish and place the steaks in it to marinate, turning over a couple of times. Leave overnight or at least for a few hours.

6 leaves of Little Gem
Half a red onion
1 small red pepper
A handful of coriander
Half a handful of mint
1/2 a lime
2 tbsp fish sauce
Pomegranate seeds
1 tbsp roasted peanuts, roughly chopped

Bring to the steaks up to room temperature. Brush off the garlic and chilli bits (they'll burn otherwise) and pat dry with kitchen towel. Oil the steaks and put them on a smoking hot griddle pan or barbeque. Cook until required doneness (rare, of course) and then place to one side to rest.

Chop the coriander and the mint finely and mix with the fish sauce and the juice of the lime. To assemble the salad, thinly slice the red onion and red pepper. Place the leaves on the plate, then the pepper and onion on top, and the steak on top of that. Scatter the peanuts and pomegranate seeds over it and finally, drizzle the herby dressing on top. Serve with rice, or on its own; you can also bulk it out with rice noodles.