With poussin, roasts are not just for Sundays

For 2 people in 1 hr 20 mins – mostly roasting time, which leaves room for plenty of wine appreciation time J

So, it’s currently four degrees centigrade. It’s going to get down to zero tonight. Later this week, it should get to minus one. It’s also April.

Constant talk about the weather is one of those quaint stereotypes I thought was hysterical in my parents’ British friends while I was growing up. And yet, seven years in a city where you need to be armed for the day with an umbrella and sunglasses and I find myself talking about the weather. Constantly.

Will or won’t the sun shine? How has the snow turned to rain and then back into snow in the space of 15 minutes? Where did this biting wind come from?

All fascinating stuff, and it makes me dream of soups, thick stews, big bowls of pasta and filling, warming roasts.

If you fancy a mid-week roast, this one is easy, delicious and takes just under an hour and a half to make, which is not too bad really.

Poussins are a great roast as they cook quite quickly and are very tender and moist. If you buy them spatchcocked they roast in 20 minutes flat. They also look great on a table as everyone has their own individual bird.

Ingredients

Birds

2 poussin

½ lemon

2 cloves garlic

1 sprig rosemary

Sauce – note this is actually enough to serve more like 6-8 people

½ bottle red wine

195g cranberry sauce

8 juniper berries

1 big sprig rosemary

5 black pepper corns

Parsnips

2 parsnips

A generous slice of butter

A few tbsps cream

1 tbsp grated fresh horseradish

Salt and pepper

Method 

I served this with steamed kale on the side for some greenery.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put all the ingredients for the sauce into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer until it is reduced by 1/3 or substantially thickened.

Cut the lemon into quarters, garlic cloves in half and rosemary spring in half. Stuff the birds with an equal amount of each and put on to roast.

Peel and cut the parsnips into cubes. Put on to boil until soft. Mash with a generous slice of butter, a couple tablespoons of cream or to taste, the horseradish and salt and pepper to taste.

Plate up, serving the sauce in a gravy boat on the side for people to help themselves.

Duqqa – a dry dip from North Africa

Ready in about 10 minutes and a good accompaniment to many things.

The tagline to this blog is “The joy of food is in the finding, discovering and cooking as well as the eating”. However, I am not sure how much the finding and discovering is coming through.

When I started this blog, the idea was the showcase certain ingredients. It was to be seasonal and discuss where the ingredients can be found. My intention was to show how one ingredient can change an entire dish, and that creating one delicious dish needn’t be hard. London is full of cultures and, as a result, full of different types of flavours that can be easily accessed and incorporated if you know where to look. Some of my posts deviate from this and are just dishes I like.

This recipe is about an accompaniment rather than a dish, in that it sense goes back to the intention of the blog. Once you’ve tried it, it is a wonderful discovery, but does not require specialty stores to source ingredients.

I took my inspiration for it from a cookery book some family friends from Kenya gave me: African Kitchen. The stories of cooking on safari bring back the spirit of adventure so readily available in East and South Africa.

I have now seen Duqqa on what feels like every menu is London.

Traditionally, Duqqa is an Egyptian dip. It is made out of a number of ground nuts and herbs. Fresh bread or vegetables are dipped in as an hors d’oeuvre. The ingredients used and texture they are ground to vary.

I like to sprinkle it on things as a finishing touch, and it can be used with a wide variety of foods.

When I first made it, I used it with sweet potato, labneh and roast chicken – great combo. The sweetness of the sweet potato is great with the creamy tartness of the labneh, and the Duqqa and a nutty and subtle added flavour.

For my Duqqa, I used:

• ½ cup macadamia nuts
• 3 tbsp coriander seeds
• 3 tbsp sesame seeds (I used black and white mix as I like the resulting colour better)
• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1 tsp sea salt

In a dry pan over a medium low heat, brown all the seeds and nuts separately by type as each will brown at different times. Make sure you stir them so they brown evenly.

When they have all cooled, grind them with a mortar and pestle or food processor until fine. I would recommend doing all the nuts and seeds together except for the macadamia nuts as they are quite oily. Do the macadamias on their own and mix them with the others.

Add the salt and thyme and store in an airtight container. It will last for months.

Some of the things I have used it on include:

• Poached eggs (with the labneh as well)
• Open face sandwiches
• Salads
• With olive oil and bread the traditional way

Lunch! Caramelised radicchio and dolcelatte on toast

Serves 4 in 30 mins-ish.

Sometimes good ideas come when you have very little in the fridge and you are forced to get creative.

One winter’s day, when I was working from home, I had the perfect ingredients:

1. The impracticality of leaving my house: it was cold outside, and I was not about to leave the warm cocoon of my flat for groceries
2. The contents of my kitchen: slightly hard bread, radicchio, onions and dolcelatte
3. A smell-driven memory: My mother caramelising onions as she was preparing dinner. Such a lovely smell  (to which I have an absolutely Pavlovian response) with such a lovely purpose - taking the sting out of onions.

To make this gooey warmer of a lunch:

To do it yourself, you need:

• 4 slices of bread - something substantial like sourdough or Poilane (which is what I used)
• 1 head radicchio washed and cut into narrow strips
• 1 small red onion
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Pinch of thyme
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Salt & pepper to season
• Squeeze agave nectar
• One chunk dolcelatte

Heat the oil over a medium-low heat and slowly cook the onions until soft and light brown. Then add the radicchio and thyme and continue to cook until the radicchio becomes brown as well.

Then add the balsamic vinegar and a squeeze of agave nectar to counteract the acid. Cook down slightly. Season with salt and pepper.

Toast the bread and cut the dolcelatte into thin slices. Divide the radicchio amongst the bread and top with a couple slices of dolcelatte. Watch them melt!

The sweetness of the onions and dolcelatte, along with the creaminess of the cheese and underlying bitterness of the radicchio are to die for!

Hawai’i in four bites

I went home to see my parents for the holidays. They live on Oahu, Hawai’i.

Hawai’i has some amazing food due to the diversity of nationalities (Hawaiian, American, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and more). This creates an interesting mix of tastes and inspiration.

Here are some photos of what I ate while there, mixed in with some shots of the island:

Ahi sliders from the Farmers' Market– cubes of raw ahi (Yellowfin tuna) on tempura fried kale with oyster sauce and chilli mayonnaise.

The town I call home and beach from a hike.

Garlic shrimp – on the North Shore there is a shrimp farm that has spawned a number of trucks that serve shrimp with rice, typically garlic and chilli flavours.

This is the shrimp truck – beside a 7-11 parking lot and one of the best!

Lemon li hing Ono Pop – this is a lemon popsicle with pieces of lemon peel coated with li hing. Li hing is of Chinese origin and has a sweet, sour and almost salty flavour.

The distinctive, moody volcanic mountains.

Sweet and sour pineapple – more li hing! Li hing is a red powder made from pickled, dried and ground plum skin and is very popular Hawai’i.

A Hawaiian sunset – the only place I have seen a true 360-degree sunset.