thepassionatecook

Pistachio & sumac crumbed chicken fillet

If you're following blogs or have ever thought about sharing your own kitchen experiences with the world, you probably have an opinion or two about what is "blogworthy" and what isn't. Does the world really need a step-by-step tutorial on how to soft-boil an egg? In my most dreaded blog-nightmare, such a post would probably be accompanied by matching pictures of a pot on a dirty stove, taken in 15-second intervals, always from the same lousy angle, and finish with a proud foodblog owner consuming said egg, the (perfectly soft, granted) yolk dribbling down his/her double chin.

I tend to have long and heated arguments with myself on what to and what not to publish, my food-splattered notebook is full of recipes that might be very worth sharing, but lack a decent picture to accompany it, or I have (heaven forbid!) as happens more and more lately, dispensed with the task of weighing everything dutifully as I cook and writing it down, making it impossible to provide you with a reliable recipe. Writing about a breadcrumb crust would be one of the instances where I'd argue that everybody has their way and knows how to do it and nobody would really be interested in reading about it. (The one exception being my invaluable guide Wiener Schnitzel for Dummies, the recipe for which was recently blatantly stolen by a Sydney-based TV channel, go figure! I mean, do they really need to pilfer the web for such simple recipes???)

Until now. I have been eating Schnitzel all my life, I have breaded mushrooms, cheese, chicken, etc in very much the same way and never thought twice about it. I might even sometimes have added some grated parmesan or sneaky herbs to pep things up a little... still nothing worth writing home about or boring my loyal readers with. Until I embarked on my Turkish cooking adventure recently and my eyes fell on a recipe in the Malouf's wonderful book "turquoise". This was so incredibly tasty and different enough to warrant a blog post, I think. First of all it forgoes a problem I only come to understand since living in London. In Austria, every bakery sells breadcrumbs - and by that I mean real bread, dried and grated finely, not some artificially produced crumbs the colour of a bad fake tan, the texture of rubber gloves and the taste of cardboard with a touch of salt and a hefty dose of transfats piled on for good measure. Not so in the UK, unless you live near the German bakers (and don't mind that they charge you close to 5£/kg for something that would otherwise end up in the bin).

This recipe uses fresh slices of sandwich loaf, something I had not even considered coming from an entirely different background where you buy such loaves once in a blue moon with the sole purpose of making a ham-and-cheese toastie. It also adds parmesan (yes, ok, been there, done that), chopped pistachios, lemon zest, sesame and sumac - the combination is so delightfully fresh, tasty and has that certain oomph that has given it a firm place in my list of things I'd make over and over again... We enjoyed it with Turkish spoon salad, something I also urge you to try for the love of food!

New theme for WTSIM announced!

Please head over to Cook Sister! to find out more about this month's theme of "Waiter, there's something in my..." where the chosen theme is "Retro Classics". If growing up in the 70s has left you with a bitter taste in the mouth, this is the time to reconsider and rediscover baked alaskas, Waldorf salad and prawn cocktail! You've got until the 4th of May so there's NO excuse. What. So. Ever!

Please come and play with us!!!

Chocolate hot-cross buns

A happy Easter to all of you... and what a disaster it has been weatherwise! After coming back from a long-awaited holiday in the Alsace, glorious sunshine and finally being able to leave the house without having to wrap the kids up in interminable layers of clothing, we were badly hit by five days of continuous cold and wetness. In my pre-parenthood days, I would almost have welcomed such unfortunate circumstances, spending my days reading book after book after book, enjoying leisurely meals with friends, watching movies or even reading a newspaper back to front with your (five) morning coffees.

Not so now. While the eldest is pretty much self-sufficient in her little den in the attic, spending hours worshipping the Jonas Brothers or trawling around facebook or twitter or whereever else it might be hip to surf these days, the two little toads need pretty much constant entertaining - they do enjoy a play in the garden despite a drizzle but there comes a point when there isn't any dry clothing left to be put on them and you are stuck in the house. Since we  don't like to put them in front of the TV, I try and keep them busy with arts and crafts... egg dyeing, blowing out eggs and decorating them for the Easter brunch we're having tomorrow, making bunny ears - and baking.

When I announced yesterday that we were going to bake hot-cross buns, I was met with an "oh no, they're disgusting!" emanating from my 5-year-old... he clearly had had a taste of them at school and hadn't been too impressed - none of my children like dried fruit all that much, so we decided to make them all chocolatey. Easter baking is always a great opportunity to use up any chocolate santas, reindeers etc, whereas the first Christmas cookies of the season always have some Easter bunnies in them ;-) I wouldn't say they're the best cakes I've ever made, but if you want to stick to the theme of Easter and dread the traditional ones, these hot-cross buns are something you want to try. And they kept us occupied for an entire afternoon, with lots of dancing and prancing in the kitchen while we were waiting for the dough to rise three times before they could finally shape them... a fun-filled afternoon!

Baba Ghanouj (Iraqi style)

For me, this recipe represents more than just a way of serving the probably most recognised of Middle Eastern dishes for me... I recently enjoyed my first visit to an Iraqi restaurant and the whole experience was an eye-opener. I was lucky enough not to jump into the cold water all by myself, I was actually guided and pampered by a very good friend of mine who hails from Iraq and therefore knows exactly what to order and can comment on the originality or authenticity of it all, something I would have completely missed had I gone alone.

The place we went to (Masgouf House in Knightsbridge) may be unassuming in terms of decor, the service could be friendlier and more forthcoming, but I enjoyed my visit there tremendously - and not just because of the wonderful spectacle that is the people-watching involved. I had expected the food to be much more exotic or foreign to what I know, but learnt that Iraqi cuisine is a mixed bag, leaning either to the Persian or the Turkish side - and what we enjoyed was decidedly the latter. Lots of grills, succulent pieces of chicken marinaded in saffron and yoghurt, the speciality of the house, Masgouf seabass, was a whole bass butterflied and seasoned with salt, pepper and tamarind, then skewered up and grilled in the wood-fired oven... very nice indeed. For starters we had kibbeh halab (rice balls filled with lamb mince - I am usually not too keen on lamb, but thoroughly enjoyed the taste of this), a "salad" which was basically a plate of big chunks of baby gem lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes and peppers, Khubz baked in the tannur, the most wonderful flatbeard I have ever eaten, and Baba Ghanouj.

Now, this Baba Ghanouj was very different from what I had enjoyed under the same name until then - for me, Baba Ghanouj was a paste of bland-tasting aubergines, seasoned with more or less garlic, always involving yoghurt and a drizzle of lemon juice but definitely nothing worth an entry in my diary, if I had one. The Baba Ghanouj at Masgouf House was an entirely different affair: it had such a wonderful smokiness and was so pleasantly creamy, as opposed to slimey, I also don't think it had much, if any, yoghurt. From what I could find in my internet research, the Iraqi way of making Baba Ghanouj is using tahini - an ingredient you don't find in Turkish Baba Ghanouj if my latest cookbook (turquoise) is to be believed.

So last week I tried my hand at Baba Ghanouj for the first time and boy, it was love at first sight (not sure the sentiment was returned, as I gobbled the whole pot up almost entirely on my own, getting really greedy with my fellow diners). I seriously charred those aubergines under the grill until the skin was hard and brittle, completely black, not just browned - I basically went as far as my smoke-detector would let me... then scooped the flesh out, chopped it up, mixed it with a good measure of tahini, just enough not to be overpowering or sticking to the palate, a good squeeze of lemon juice and just enough garlic. And I was rewarded with what I believe to be the best Baba Ghanouj ever. I could eat the whole pot for lunch without any help at all - Next time my friend Dabia comes over I will let her try my version to see if she, as an Iraqi, approves... if I can get myself to share, that is!

Turkish "Spoon salad"

Finally the time has come to reveal my first experiments with Turkish food. You should think that growing up in Austria, a country which has become a second home to many emigrated Turks, I should be a tad more familiar with the cuisine, but I am not. I have spent years ignoring doner kebab, to be honest, I can't stand the smell and tend to hold my breath when I walk through that part of Vienna's Naschmarkt. When I was pregnant with my second child, I had to walk from the train station to the ad agancy where I worked in Camden and on my way back, I would always walk a side street to avoid the Kebab bar... you get the idea.

I have eaten at a few Turkish restaurants back in Vienna, but it never stuck in my memory, maybe because they just weren't memorable or because I wasn't the foodie I am today and still walking around with my eyes closed when it came to exploring any cuisines that sounded more foreign than Italian or Chinese. Since living in London, I have become more aware, I guess, and more curious - but Turkish food doesn't feature much here compared to other, more exotic temptations.

For the past few weeks, my couch table has been dominated by a brilliant new tome: "turquoise" by Greg and Lucy Malouf. I am not sure how to classify this book as it is so much more than yet another cookery book - it has tons of recipes, yes, and very tempting ones at that, but also takes you on beautiful journey of discovery. History, architecture, people - you sort of want to jump in there, despite the fact that their whole journey happened in the winter time, so no glossy pictures of tourists lined up like sardines in a tin, roasting on the (no doubt beautiful) beaches, but snapshots of the real people, the real life. No make-up artists or set preppers either. I like that. A lot.

With regards to the food, I'll repeat that I have had virtually no exposure to Turkish food, so I am not one to judge the book by its authenticity. But so far, everything I have made out of it - and believe me, there are still dozens of earmarked pages to go through - was absolutely brilliant. The first time I cooked from it, I decided that rather than spending hours devising a perfect course of dishes from amuse-bouche through to coffees, I would just cook whatever took my fancy and we'd consume it, tapas-style, all at the same time.

This "spoon salad" basically combines all the flavours of a gazpacho: cucumbers, onion, beautifully vine-ripened tomatoes, red peppers, chilli, fresh herbs and some Turkish condiments. As I haven't made it to a Middle Eastern deli yet, I had to play around a little: where "hot Turkish red pepper paste" was required, I used harissa (I was slightly suspicious when I bought a Sainsbury's own-brand, but was pleasantly surprised by the "fruitiness" of it and the fact that it seemed to contain red peppers, which made it perfect for the occasion), I used sherry vinegar instead of red wine vinegar and I didn't have any pomegranate molasses, so just skipped that part... I still very much liked the result, it's a beautifully versatile dish located somewhere between a salad, a dip and a salsa that was equally delicious eaten on its own with some flatbread as well as accompanying a pistachio-crumbed chicken breast (recipe to follow).

Definitely a keeper. And I know I'm sometimes obsessed with authenticity and I wouldn't be seen dead in most Mexican restaurants in Europe or Austrian eateries here, just because it doesn't taste like "home", but if anyone were to tell me that the recipes from turquoise are not authentic, I'll respond that I couldn't care less because they taste pretty darn amazing and that's certainly good enough for me.