A Corner Room

Of the Bethnal Green Town Hall. Quite simply, creative cooking and great service at very reasonable prices, especially for lunch. Two courses for GBP17/ three courses for GBP21. It is the more casual and more affordable dining option to Viajante, also in the Bethnal Green Town Hall, which was more refined, more creative and served delicious freshly baked bread with whipped butter. It also warrants its own post if I can ever find my pictures. 

This was my second visit. My first visit resulted in great appreciation for Iberico pork cooked pink. Juicy and tender and just cooked perfectly - memorable to say the least. Always apprehensive about revisiting the same dish, I ordered steak instead. My companions who had the pork said it was too salty. The dish itself was completely different to the one we had the first time around. The menu does change frequently but like the lamps that adorned the back wall, the Iberico pork appears to be a permanent fixture. Albeit, with variations. Enjoyed all my dishes but the dark chocolate thin crackers accompanied by the slightly bitter clementine with cinnamon ice cream was my favourite dish of the day. I like the bitter taste of fruits like grapefruit, and I love chocolate. Perfect combination for me. I am also just going through a crazy dark chocolate phase. Only when does a phase cease to be a phase? 

Corner Room

Town Hall Hotel

Patriot Square

London E2 9NF

Jamon Iberico

Seabass Ceviche

Hanger Steak

Sole on the Bone

Chocolate Clementine

Sweet Potato Ice Cream with 'popcorn'

Some of the dishes we had on the first occasion when it first opened in 2011.

Confit Duck with Girolles and Egg

The ever memorable Iberico Pork

Veal Cheeks with Pasta and Wild Mushrooms

This Little Piggy...

Ham Hock with Pork Belly and Puy Lentils

Went to market....who..me?..well, I suppose I am what I eat..but I mean the other little pork chop.

My favourite animal would have to be the pig, or rather, its' meat - for I don't particularly want to take it for walks in the park or throw the pig a bone. It is so versatile and used in abundance in Chinese and Vietnamese cooking that I grew up eating pork in all its forms. Stewed, Braised pig trotters with 'hair' for Chinese New Year, Roast Pork, Char Siu, Grilled Pork Chops with Rice (Com Tam), boiled trotters in Vietnamese soups (Banh Canh)...you name it...there was a way to cook it. This was every part of the pork. Intestines, liver, trotters, ears, marrow, blood. All of it. The whole concept of nose to tail eating was born long before Fergus Henderson started his St John restaurants. 

So needless to say, in the Western world, cured meats, terrines, crackling, accompanied with a glass of red simply added another dimension, another way, to enjoy this little creature.

Brawn, the sister restaurant to Terroirs, but over in the East Side served all of this. Brawn is the meat from the head of a pig, cooked and pressed into a block. This is then likely served on a wooden board, accompanied with bread. Well, it doesn't have to be, but it makes me want to eat it more then if it were served on a white plate. Just as everything is better dusted with icing sugar, everything looks better on wooden boards.

Ok, pork isn't the only thing on the menu but we ordered predominately this, throw in some salad leaves and a cauliflower and cheddar souffle. Pork scratchings, nduja scotch eggs (tasty!), mixed charcuterie platter, foie gras and a ham hock that was to serve three or more. There was four of us. The three or more did not account for the other plates we had already ordered, nor the extra chunk of pork belly that came with it. Nonetheless we ate our way through it and left Brawn feeling very much like the porker we had consumed. Great little spot at the end of Columbia Road worth returning for, but ordering just slightly fewer plates. Just.

Brawn
49 Columbia Road
Bethnal Green
E2 7RG

Pork Scratchings

Mixed Charcuterie Platter

Foie Gras

Cauliflower and Cheddar Souffle

Smokin' hot!

Nduja from Calabria

'Nduja (pronounced 'un-doo-ya) di Spilinga - A firey, smokey, soft spreadable salami which originates from the small town of Spilinga in the region of Calabria, in the deep South of Italy. 

In 2008, a stumble upon the roadside Trattoria da Mimma, in the Capo Vaticano area of Calabria, changed my life. Ok, well as far as food experiences go, the simple pasta dish I had at this trattoria had me craving it well after the holiday ended. To this date, I think this single food item forms one of the most memorable dishes I have eaten on all my travels. 

Ah, the joys of the simple things in life. Spicey and smokey, there is just something so addictive and moorish about the flavour. Fast forward a year or two later after my trip and I spot a Calabrian stand in London's Borough Market and I was ever so excited to see the 'nduja for sale here! It also started appearing on some pizza and pasta menus in London overtime.

It is apparently made with various parts of the pig that produce a high fat content, including belly, shoulder and jowl. The meat is ground very finely and then mixed with some salt, and ALOT of roasted and ground sweet and hot peppers (another region specialty). It is then stuffed back into the large intestine and smoked for about a week, then dried for three weeks or more. Then voila, you have this versatile ingredient, that can be spread on bread, eaten with cheese, mixed into pasta sauces and a whole host of other recipes that I can't wait to try!

For now though, it is best as a quick and simple pasta sauce.

My quick pasta alla'nduja e pomodori (Serves 2)

Ingredients
1. Enough pasta for two people (traditionally served with a long fusilli of the region, but linguine or whatever pasta you prefer is fine)
2. 1-2 tbsp of 'nduja to taste, depending on how much spice you can handle
3. Handful of cherry tomatoes
4. Salt and pepper to taste and basil to garnish

Method
1. Cook your pasta as you normally would
2. At the same time, in a little olive oil, throw in some cherry tomatoes and add the nduja to gently melt it. I prefer the cherry tomatoes still relatively fresh, so only cook these until the skin bursts. You could also use chopped tomatoes (tinned or fresh) if you prefer a more tomatoey flavour with just the hint of 'nduja.
3. Drain the pasta, reserving some of the cooking water and mix the pasta into the sauce. Add some of the liquid if the sauce is to dry. 
4. Salt and pepper to taste and garnish with basil if so desired. I have also seen it served with ricotta, so you could add a dollop of ricotta or other soft cheese when serving, to soften the flavour of the 'nduja - it will melt and mix into the sauce.
5. Enjoy!

Quick and tasty dinner - 'nduja with pasta

Trattoria Da Mimma - Capo Vaticano in 2008

Fusilli alla 'nduja - the original dish I had

New Experiments and a Fresh Tart

Lemon and Lime Tart

I love citrusy and tangy foods. I have made a lemon meringue tart only once before, four years ago, inspired by my brief stint in the South of France at the time. For some odd reason as much as I enjoy this dessert, I have not made it since. 

Then Delicious magazine came and it was on the cover page and calling out to me to bake it, in an attempt to expand my repertoire. Of all the shortcrust pastry recipes I have tried, this one turned out the best. I didn't have to mould and press and mend the dough into the tart tin. It fell in in one go and did not break, so I will definitely be using this recipe again. 

The tart filling had the right amount of zest and sourness I thought (if you prefer your tart sweeter, this tart is not for you!). However, it was slightly under cooked and needed perhaps another 10 minutes. I made small tarts with the leftover pastry and filling and they were a good alternative if you prefer a less citrusy filling to pastry ratio!

Rick Stein's Lemon and Lime Tart (serves 10-12)
(Takes 25 minutes to make, 50 minutes to cook, plus resting and cooling)

Ingredients

For the pastry
250g plain (all purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
25g icing sugar
150g chilled unsalted butter, cubed
2 medium free-range egg yolks
1 egg white, lightly beaten

For the filling
3 large or 4 small lemons
2 limes
6 eggs
250g granulated sugar
150mL double cream
icing sugar to dust (optional)

Method - For the Pastry

1. Begin by sifting the flour, icing sugar and a pinch of salt. Next, chop your butter into small cubes and, if you have a magimix, pulse until it resembles fine crumbs. 

Add the yolks and 1-2 tbsp water, then pulse again until the pastry comes together. Remove and gently knead the dough before wrapping in cling film and leaving to chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

2. Once the pastry has chilled, roll it into a thin layer (using flour to dust) to line a 25cm diameter, 3cm deep loose bottomed tart tin. Prick the base of the tart with a fork and put it into the fridge to chill for 25 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/fan 180ºC/gas 6/395ºF and place a baking tray in the oven to pre-heat as well.

3. Line the tart tin with baking paper and baking beans, and bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges are very lightly browned. Remove the baking paper and beans, and bake for another 4 minutes. Remove once again, brush with the whisked egg white, and return to the oven for a final two minutes. Remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 120ºC/fan 100ºC/gas ½/250ºF.

For the filling

1. Begin by grating the zest from the lemons and set aside, then squeeze the juice from all of the lemons and limes (to achieve 150-175ml of liquid). In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs and sugar together by hand (you don’t want the eggs to be frothy), add the citrus juice and cream, and sieve the resulting mixture. Add the lemon zest last.

2. To bake the tart, to avoid spilling, Rick Stein suggests placing the baking sheet back in the oven, placing the pastry case on the tray and pulling the shelf half way out of the oven. Pour the filling into the pastry case, slide the shelf back into the oven and cook for approximately 50 minutes (until just set). The mixture should be quite wobbly in the centre still but will continue to firm up after it comes out of the oven. Remove from the oven and leave to cool (don’t refrigerate). Dust with icing if you feel inclined and serve on the same day if you can.

Perfect pastry

Fresh out of oven

Slightly runnier than it should be

Mini lemon tarts