Food Safaris (4)
Eating on the road
Sticky Toffee Pudding
This classic English Dessert was insanely delicious sweet gooey and Indulgent. One of the best desserts I ate while in London! This is a recipe from a small UK restaurant chain called Giraffe
Serves 8
Pudding
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
180g butter, softened
240g dark brown sugar
2 medium eggs
375g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
75g sultanas (golden rasisins)
Toffee Sauce
100g dark brown sugar
100ml double cream
Method-Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Line a brownie tin with baking parchment. Bring 250ml water to the boil, add the bicarbonate of soda and set aside. Whisk the butter and sugar and beat in the eggs. Fold in the flour, baking powder and sultanas. Stir in the reserved water. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and cover with buttered tin foil. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until the mixture is cooked - an inserted skewer should come out clean. Leave to cool for five minutes and turn out onto a chopping board. Remove the parchment and cut into squares.
To make the toffee sauce, dissolve the sugar in a deep pan 200ml of water over a low heat. Turn up the heat and boil until caramel point is reached. The mixture will be a dark mahogany brown. l Remove from the heat, allow it to cool for a couple of minutes and then add the cream. Take care, as the mixture tends to bubble up. Mix gently. You may need to return it to the heat briefly to loosen it. Serve with the toffee sauce.
Adapted from 'The Giraffe Family Cookbook' by Hugo Arnold, published by W&N at £9.89
Britain bests US grocery stores food to go
2012 was a big year in England, especially for London; the host of The Queens 60th year Jubilee and of course the Summer Olympics. I traveled to London recently, and just missed the Paralympics closing ceremony by a day. The city of London was its best, tourists still lingering a few days after the Paralympics ended. I was really impressed with the food; the day of boiled beef is long gone. This is a NEW Britain and from a food perspective, I was shocked. The restaurants were diverse featuring many of the ethnic cuisines you would find in America such as Middle Eastern, pan Asian, Spanish, and French with a fair amount of classic American joints. What was most noticeable though, was the public transportation hubs that were filled with kiosk after storefront selling fine food to go. Tenderloin of Beef seared and served with white asparagus wrapped in a see-through oven-able tray as well as fresh sausages, steroid free chicken, very cool filled pasta, lots of organic and free range meats could all be bought at the train station on your way home from work. I suppose London might not have a well respected culinary identity other than bangers and mash, pastys, the aforementioned boiled beef and sticky toffee pudding, but it was quite evident that the citizens of England want, and pay for clean labeled, high quality and delicious foods…perhaps the US will follow suit. The people by the way, were gracious, kind hearted and couldn’t have been nicer.
Headed to London and Brussels
This morning I am headed to The United Kingdom and next week to Brussels Belgium to dine on both sides of the English Channel.
Stay tuned while I check out and write about real English bangers and mash, boiled beef (there has to be a better name) and classic pommes frites (french fries).
See you across the pond.
B
Tomorrow I am headed to New York City on a local food safari with my buddy Brian. Having lived in the city off and on over the years, I still feel like a virtual stranger when I go to Manhattan. It's a culinary world that morphs from day to day. Restaurants go hot, super hot then cold, the immerging food truck trend keeps growing and ethnic cuisine reigns.
Breakfast is still big and getting bigger and the best bagels in the world come from New York City. There is a breakfast food trend that seems to be exploding..donuts. Yes Dunkin locations are on every street corner and local bakeries are thriving but there is one breakfast bakery, in my eyes, that stands apart from the rest. The Doughnut Plant. The Doughnut Plant has two locations in New york City and several in Japan. Their oversized yeast raised and cake donuts use the highest qulaity of ingredients including Valrhona chocolate and freshly made jelly and jams. My favorite is their square shaped huge peanut butter and jelly donut, filled with freshly made preserves dipped in a sweet glaze and rolled in chopped peanuts. Check out the pic above and notice the complex flavors combinations. This place is the Ben and Jerry's of Donuts. For more information, phone numbers and New York City locations, go to www.doughnuttplant.com