Pork Roll in Banana Leaves

A new Asian supermarket has opened up down the road from my flat, on New Cross Road. When I first noticed it, I bounded inside to be greeted by empty shelves. I gave it a few weeks and returned; while it's still quite sparse, there's fresh tofu in the chiller, big bags of frozen seafood, a whole wall of shelf space dedicated to instant noodles and another wall with all the dried rice noodles you could want for.

There's a strong focus on Vietnamese products and I found this lump of pork in the fridge. Pork roll in banana leaves wasn't cheap coming in at £6, but I bought it anyway. I suspect the slightly clueless man serving me was unsure of pricing. Unwrapping it from its banana leaves revealed what I suspected; a rubbery luncheon meat. It may be off-putting for some, but I'm a huge fan of Spam so it didn't faze me at all.

Perfect for whacking on top of a noodle salad. I believe this is usually eaten cold, or dropped into noodle soups. I decided to fry them in a hot pan so that they crisped up on each side to give it a nice crust. Having tried a slice cold the banana leaves imparted more flavour than I thought it would; slightly vegetal, almost reminiscent of green tea. This salad worked really well; crispy hot salty pork freshened up with the herbs and nuoc cham sauce, with a hefty whack of lime and face-burning chilli. The noodles were properly chewty, flinging bits of dressing all over the place.

Vietnamese Pork & Noodle Salad

Serves 4

400gr dried vermicelli rice noodles
1 carrot
1/2 a cucumber
1 head of Little Gem lettuce
2 stalks of spring onion
1 carrot
1/2 a cucumber
1 Vietnamese pork roll, cut into 8 slices
A handful of coriander
Half a handful of mint
1 tbsp vegetable oil
5 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil

For the nuoc cham dressing:
2 birds eye chillis
1 tsp sugar
1.5 limes
4 tbsp fish sauce
1 small clove of garlic

Cut the carrot into matchsticks. In a bowl combine the rice vinegar and sesame oil. Halve the cucumber down the middle and scrape out the seeds and pulp, slicing into matchsticks. Add the carrot and cucumber to the bowl and toss to coat.

Cook the rice noodles until soft and then drain, rinsing them under cold water for at least a minute.

In a small bowl, juice the limes and add the fish sauce and sugar. Slice the chillis and mince the garlic, adding them to the lime.

Shred the lettuce and the spring onion, setting to one side. Chop the coriander and the mint roughly. Heat the oil in a non-stick pan and fry the slices of pork on both sides until crispy.

To assemble, add the noodles to a bowl and top with some carrots and cucumber, the lettuce, spring onion and herbs, finally arranging the slices of pork on top. Dress the dish with the nuoc cham.

A Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

It is an absolute bugger-load of fun playing around with a swelteringly hot oven, designed specifically to make pizzas so that they are bubbling and slightly blistered around the edges. When Scott of Capital Pubs said their new pub, The Actress in East Dulwich would have one, there was extreme palpable excitement, especially since I'm already a huge fan of some of their other pubs in the area (namely The Florence and The Victoria Inn). Even more so when he suggested we go down there and have a play with it before the pub opened.

I've long since coveted a pizza oven since Cassius was first born, but alas, my balcony in New Cross would not accomodate it. This was the perfect opportunity to try it out, cooking pizzas at 375 degrees centigrade and to have a little taste of their new menu. Cider-braised pork ribs, falling off the bone and charred around the edges, had us fighting over them while the dough was being rolled out. There was a twist to the tale though; in keeping with the new pub's British ingredients ethic, we were to bring a mystery one of our own.

Potato slices par-cooked with garlic went on the first base and were topped with grated Cashel Blue and Stilton. The dough was just thin enough to convey the starchy slices, a double-carb heaven. I imagine this pizza is best for sharing, as it was rich and gutsy.

Thinly sliced pieces of beetroot, our first mystery guest ingredient worked surprisingly well, mingling nicely with melting pieces of goats cheese.

When it was my turn, I produced samphire; its crunchy, salty quality would match well with a soft, delicate ricotta along with globs of brown crab, rounds of chilli and, when cooked, topped with white meat.

Drizzled with garlic oil, it worked well had it been a home effort. The crab worked deliciously with the samphire, redolent of the sea but the crucial juiciness was missing and it's not one likely to make the menu.

Better was the professionally made chorizo pizza, made with Brindisa chorizo. Far more balanced in flavour, and far better suited to please the masses.

The best of the mystery ingredients was thinly sliced pieces of pear, paired with some sort of ham. We all agreed that the sweet, succulent slices balanced with the salty meat and gooey cheese worked brilliantly.

There were other successes, mainly pork based, and one proper wrong one - a haggis and potato slice topped pizza. Still, you've got to try, right? A revelation of the night involved a sweet dessert pizza; a Starburst bar wrapped into a calzone. Molten chocolate dribbled into my hands with a hint of peanut. A perfect sweet end.

The Actress doesn't open until Monday, but with what is so far a simple, pared down menu featuring good British ingredients, they already look like they're onto a winner. Don't worry, I don't think they'll be forcing a haggis pizza on you any time soon.

The Actress (website to follow)

90 Crystal Palace Road,
East Dulwich,
London, SE22 9EY

The Marquess Tavern

It's come to the point that it is rather difficult to get a group of us together. Couples are getting married, and others are having children making time scarce and dates tricky. The first in our group of friends had a beautiful baby daughter and this was some cause for a celebration and a get-together.


As is customary for a Sunday, we thought it best to go for roasts and pints. Our pub of choice was The Alwyne. Alas, it was not to be. Given we booked a table of 15, we were disturbed to find they had gone to no effort whatsoever to accomodate us, placing us on two tables in an empty pub. After re-arranging the furniture, we found that most of the meals had run out by 2pm, and they told us it was over an hour wait. A grumpy barman and extremely under-staffed, upon holding a hand out for some change, my friend found his fiver dumped in a puddle of beer. Quite simply, they didn't give two shits.

We're an indignant bunch so after a quick ring around, we managed to get a table at the Marquess Tavern. It couldn't have been a starker contrast. We were seated in the bar area and it was light, airy and the waiting staff were more than happy to have us. A touch more expensive than the last pub, we placed our orders and got stuck in.

Four of us shared a whole braised shoulder of lamb. A huge hunk of meat, it was plonked down and we gazed at it in hungry awe. I am convinced that carrots, smothered in meat juices, are the only vegetable you can cook for hours and still make them taste delicious. As I carved it, the meat fell off the bone in juicy hunks. Dishes of broccoli were perfectly cooked, and roasted potatoes were so fresh from the oven that at least two of us jammed them in and had to spit them out, they were so hot. (Yes, I was one of them.)

Elsewhere at the table, rare roast sirloin beef looked perfectly cooked and juicy. Grouse was served traditionally with game toast and parsnip crisps, while whole roasted baby chicken (below) was declared a triumph. Whatever; I had eyes only for the lamb.

We stayed late into the night, replete and thankful we hadn't uprooted a new mum down the road in vain. I heard several people down the table saying it was the best roast they'd had and they'd be back. No small praise, considering we all know how hard it is to beat a home-cooked roast. Shame on you, The Alwyne.

The Marquess Tavern

32 Canonbury St
Islington, N1 2TB

Tel: (020) 7354 2975

Tomato, Butter, Onion

In a world of highly wrought, heavily styled dishes that teem with squiggles, foams and spherification, often it's quite a relief to return to simplicity. Recently some of my favourite dishes have been pared down; crisp skin, juicy pink flesh of a quail with aioli at Barrafina from just today may be one of my stand-out dishes of the year. A well-cooked steak, such a simple meal and yet so gratifying.

Pasta holds up so well to simple sauces. That tug of spaghetti on the teeth and the sauce wrapping itself seductively around the strands is irresistible, the lure of shovelling it in your gob as quickly as possible overwhelming. Simple doesn't always mean quick though; this dish, like another of my staple dishes, onion and anchovy pasta, takes a good 45 minutes to an hour.

It really couldn't be easier. For every two people take one tin of the best quality tinned tomatoes you can find and lob it in a saucepan with a healthy stick of butter and half a whole onion. Simmer merrily for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally until nice and thick, remove the onion and toss it through some just-cooked spaghetti. Season with salt. Eat it.

Thanks to Smitten Kitchen for bringing this to my attention.

Tequila Tasting at Green & Red

Most of us drank some sort of dark and evil spirit when we were teenagers that made us throw up until we could throw no more and we swore to ourselves we'd never drink it again. Actually, it was more than one spirit for me, but the one that I've never been able to get over is the dread tequila.

My friend Will of the Hawksmoor fame is also a part owner at Green & Red, a Mexican bar and restaurant in Shoreditch. He, always up for a challenge, told me he could change my mind about it. At his invitation and with some trepidation, I trudged over with a tequila-loving friend in tow.

In the able hands (uhm, figuratively) of the lovely barman, Davide, he asked me what my favourite cocktail was. The martini, of course. It didn't work so well in its tequila guise. I managed a sip and and a grimace.

We got back to basics with the tastings of the different ages of tequila. Through this, I learnt that I like the aged stuff the best, the tequila that's caramel in colour, and aged in barrels for a couple of years. The blanco, the youngest of all the three ages we tried, had the strongest flavour of agave. It was my least favourite.

What I did love though were the shots of sangrita (left) and verdita (right), which you drink after each tequila. The sangrita was like a little shot of bloody mary; spicy and intensely of tomato flavour. The verdita is a blend of mint, coriander, salt and chilli and it was incredibly moreish and refreshing.

The Real Hacienda is one of the priciest tequilas there. At £60 a shot, only a few hundred bottles of it are in existence since the maker closed down. It was alright.

A selection of tacos and totopos with salsas and guacamole arrived to line the stomachs. The corn tortillas which I usually find a bit chewy and muddy-tasting were thin, light and conveyed the food to the mouth well as the juices dribbled down my hands. The prawn filling was expertly cooked, with a dice of red onion, some salsa and a few coriander leaves to liven it up. Pork and pineapple was another favourite what with it being tender and smoky. The Nopales y Queso Fresco was standout - crunchy cactus with a fresh cheese and some jalapeno. It was nothing like the rubbery, bouncy salt slabs of queso fresco I suffered in Nicaragua.

We ended with probably the only drink I'd order happily again, and it was this watermelon margerita. Fresh watermelon smashed up with plenty ice, it belied the merest hint of agave.

So while I haven't been swayed towards the so-called merits of tequila, I've fallen in love with verdita and sangrita. I'd drink tequila just for them. And the next time I'm back, I'll be exploring that menu more extensively.

Green & Red

51 Bethnal Green Road
London E1 6LA

Tel: 0207 749 9670

Smoked Mackerel, Beetroot & Horseradish Salad

Smoked mackerel, beetroot and horseradish are handsome trio. The spiciness of the horseradish plays along nicely with the earthy sweetness of the beetroot, livening and freshening the very rich fish. Key here is to use horseradish sauce with a high percentage of horseradish to get that kick.

I was accused by a commenter of my last smoked mackerel salad of being too unhealthy - in all honesty, I don't care. Balance, and all that. But if you want a lighter and healthier version, this is for you. The bacon and cream combination is still more satisfying though.

Smoked Mackerel, Beetroot & Horseradish Salad

Serves 1

1 beetroot
1 fillet of smoked mackerel
half a red onion
A handful of green beans
A handful of broad beans, podded, cooked and deskinned
1 red chilli
1 tbsp horseradish sauce / creamed horseradish
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt & pepper

Cook the green beans lightly. Peel the beetroot and slice paper thin on a mandolin. Chop the red chilli roughly, and the onion into semi circles. Whisk together the horseradish, lemon and oil. To assemble, lay out the beetroot discs on a plate. In a bowl, toss together the flaked smoked mackerel, red onion, green beans and broad beans with the dressing. Season to taste - the fish is quite salty so watch how you go.

Sam's Bistro, Fowey

Every so often, an escape to the countryside is essential. Big skies, clean air, good views and a different pace of life soothe the soul and loosen those scrunched up shoulders. Last weekend, a few of my mates and I went to Fowey in Cornwall. Aided by a friend who hails from there, we got all those typical seaside activities in there; ice creams, cream teas, eating pasties, driving boats, long walks, pubs, crabbing. That kind of thing. As soon as we arrived we craved seafood.

Sam's Bistro doesn't take bookings and we waited at the bar until a table became free. There's something very American diner about the place, right down to the gaudy laminated menu. We squeezed into a booth and armed with bloody Marys, we set about the mammoth task of choosing our lunches from the seafood-driven menu.

A seafood platter comprising of prawns, mussels and calamari cost £15 each, with a salad and bread which the waitress kindly swapped for fries. It was a monster portion - the prawns are hiding on the other side, obscured from view by the mountains of mussels.

The mussels hid a bowl of white wine sauce that was perfect for dipping chips into. Two sardines each was plenty, and the skin had a lovely charcoal flavour to it, cooked perfectly.

I had enormous food envy when my friend's special of skate wing in a caper butter sauce turned up. Two meaty wings - two! - with a rich buttery salty dressing was easy to get stuck in to as the flesh slid off the cartilege easily. Morsels of meat around the edges of the wing were nice and crunchy. My friend couldn't finish it to our glee and we gladly helped ourselves to it.

With a couple of drinks, our bill came to about £23 each with service - really very bargainous.

Sam's Bistro

24 Fore Street,
Fowey,
PL23 1AQ

Tel: 01726 832273

Not all our meals were good. Our potential brush with death (ok, horrible sickness) is blogged here.