Abercrombie & Feast

A few weeks ago, when we were walking around Borough Market in London, I stopped at a stall to sample a few lovely olives.  The gentleman manning the stall was chatty and friendly and insisted that I try one of the marinated garlic cloves as well.  They were whole garlic cloves, smooth and white as a pearl, in a marinade of chilli flakes and other tasty bits.  I think that many of you know about my well-documented love of all things garlic, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be walking around London all day with the type of breath one acquires after eating a whole clove of garlic.  However, the nice man assured me that the marinated garlic was mild… and so it was. 

The garlic cloves still had a slight crunch, but they were yielding and mellow, sweeter than I expected.  They were full of flavour from the marinade and I could already think of a dozen uses for them.  I asked him how they were made and he gave me a detailed answer, including the amount of time needed to blanch them, various marinade ingredients that could be used, etc.  He was most encouraging when I said that I would like to try to make this type of garlic at home.

Well, true to form, I promptly went home and forgot all about my goal of making marinated garlic.  Until… we went to our local farmers market a several weekends ago.  I saw another stall selling very similar garlic cloves.  They were not available for tasting, but I mentioned to the stall-holder that I was thinking of trying to make these marinated garlic cloves myself.  He was selling stacks of garlic, so I thought I might buy the needed garlic for my experiment from him.

But, oh no.  When I announced that I wanted to try making marinated garlic, he looked at me like I was fully crazy.  He said, “Oh, you can’t make this yourself.  It’s too hard and really complicated.  You can’t do this at home.”

Well, my friends… he said the magic words.  No one tells me that I “can’t” cook something.  I promptly went and bought a ton of garlic (not from him!), some vinegar and spices and set to work.  I’m not sure if I would have ever gotten around to marinating my own garlic if it wasn’t for that cranky man, but he spurred me to action and really, I must thank him. 

The marinated garlic was simple.  Really easy.  And it looks so impressive on salads or on cheese platters.  I encourage you to try it.  And if you think you can’t handle it… you’re probably right.  Don’t even bother. 

Marinated garlic cloves

You will need a clean, sterilised glass jar for this project.  To sterilise your jar, wash it in hot soapy water, then put it in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes.  Remove and dry thoroughly with a clean towel or paper towels. 

This recipe doesn’t have a lot of specific measurements.  Basically, I don’t know what size jar you’ll use or how big your garlic cloves will be or how you want to flavour your marinade.  Don’t let the lack of specifics deter you.  Just use this a guide and make these to your own tastes. 

2-3 heads of garlic, cloves separated and peeled but left whole
1 packet of Pickling Spices, or mustard seeds, peppercorns, coriander seeds
2 birds eye chillis or other small chillis
sea salt
white wine vinegar
mild tasting olive oil

Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil.  In batches, par-boil the garlic cloves for 30 sec to a minute.  Remove from the water and drain thoroughly on paper towel as you do the next batch.  Once all are par-boiled allow to cool and dry.

Place the spices  and salt to the bottom of your jar.  Put the garlic cloves into the jar, tightly packed.  Add the chillis on the sides.  Once you have all of these ingredients in the jar, pour in the vinegar- enough to fill the jar to 1/4 full.  Then add olive oil to fill the rest of the way. 

Seal the jar tightly and place in the fridge to marinate for at least 1 week, but more is better.  These should keep for several weeks. 

I had a small dinner crisis last weekend.  Despite having been to the farmers market in town on Saturday, I didn’t really have anything to cook on Sunday night.  This always happens to me with farmers markets.  I get all eager and excited and I buy whatever looks good.  Then I get home and I realise that I have no complete meals, just random bits of deliciousness. 

I suppose there is nothing wrong with that.  I know that the French shop like that every day… they wander around their local markets to find out what’s fresh and in season, and they build their meals around those ingredients.  I aspire to be like that some day.  But my personal problem is that I forget to build a meal around the stunning ingredients that I find.  I just buy them on their own, with no friends or mates to serve them with.

So, I waltzed home from the farmers market last weekend with the following in my bag:
3 bunches of British asparagus
2 venison shanks
1 packet of free range smoked bacon
1 piece of local goat’s blue cheese
1 jar of homemade onion marmalade
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
1 jar of asparagus pickles
1 loaf of bread

On Saturday night we had a sort of mezze dinner of cheese with the onion marmalade, char-grilled asparagus, fresh sliced tomatoes and chunks of fresh bread.  It wasn’t what you’d call a well-planned meal either I guess, but it tasted great.  Then on Sunday afternoon I was squatting down to look into the world’s smallest fridge, trying to figure out what we could eat for dinner that didn’t require me to trek back into town. 

Now, let’s play a game.  Assume that you want to save the venison shanks for another night, and your fridge also contains a small head of lettuce, mustard and garlic… go back to that list above and see what you would serve…. I’ll wait here…..

Welcome back… what did you come up with??  I’d love to hear your ideas, because the foods on that list are amongst some of my favourites in the world and I’m always looking for new ways to combine them. 

Here’s what I came up with… BLT salad.  The bread was slightly old by this point, so I cut it up and made croutons.  I fried up the bacon, made a super tangy dressing of mustard, white wine vinegar, olive oil and garlic and tossed the rest together.  It was a satisfying dinner and truly tasted like a BLT.  I must admit, I was rather pleased with my fridge-raiding efforts.  So perhaps my farmers market strategy of buying whatever looked good did pay off! 

Homemade croutons

Day old bread
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Chilli flakes (optional)

This recipe is too easy… I feel silly even giving it to you.  But these are so good and are much lighter and less greasy than store bought croutons.  I’m not giving specific measurements because this all depends on how much bread you have to use up.

Preheat your oven to about 350F or gas mark 6.  Cut the bread into bite sized chunks and place in a baking tin or on a baking sheet.  Pour a little olive oil over the bread and toss to coat.  The bread does not need to be soaking with olive oil, just a light coat.  Add sea salt, pepper and chilli flakes if you’re using them and toss again. 

Put your pan in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until the croutons are golden and crunchy. 

You can also make these with various flavours, such as sprinkled with cumin for a roasted pepper soup, or tossed with basil and parsley for an Italian flavour.  The combinations are endless!

You can smell it long before you see it.  From blocks away come the scents of roasting coffee and grilling chorizo.  As you get closer to Borough Market you get wiffs of curry powder, fresh fish and spilled wine.  It all made us hungry, even though it was still a few hours before lunch.

Borough Market is also known as “London’s Larder.”  There has been a market on the site for hundreds of years.  We spent a Friday in London recently and our first stop was Borough Market.

It’s early spring here in England, which has taken some adjustment on our part as we left Sydney at the end of the Southern Hemisphere summer.  At Borough Market we saw the last of the winter root vegetables right next to the first of spring’s asparagus and greens.  Beautiful. 

We shared a juicy and savoury corned beef sandwich and a tangy and crunchy organic falafel for lunch.  To have had either of these delicious sandwiches for lunch would have been a treat… but to get half of each… well, I felt spoiled. 

We walked around and sampled cheeses and olives and whisper thin slices of salty cured ham.  We admired the brightly coloured tomatoes and the glossy piles of sunshine-bright lemons. 

I was impressed by the amount of organic produce and the emphasis on local foods.  There was literally something at each stall that tempted me.  I could have strolled around the market all day, but the rest of London was calling.  So, we headed off, with a creme caramel to eat during our walk!

It’s lucky we won’t be living in central London or I would find excuses to visit Borough Market every day!  As it is, “London’s Larder” will be on the agenda for everyone that comes to visit us here in the UK!

Andy started his new job last week.  I was so excited for him… it’s great fun to take on a new challenge, to meet new people and to learn new skills on the job.  So far his  job is going really well, so HURRAH!

I was also excited for me.  I’m not working yet (I’m looking… but nothing great yet), so I’m around the flat most of the day.  I’ve been very busy unpacking our things, finding things we need for the flat and getting our stuff organised.  It’s been fun!  And the best part of my day is… lunch time!

When I’m on my own all day I can have whatever I want for lunch.  More often than not I make a little salad with beans or warm up some lentil soup.  But last week I was feeling adventurous and I decided to cook something for myself.  I opened the fridge to see what I might rustle up and there, on the door of the world’s smallest fridge, was 1/2 a red bell pepper*.  It was shiny and red and practically purred… “Stuff me!” 

Well, who can argue with that?  I had some tomatoes, some coriander, some leftover rice and some feta cheese kicking around the fridge as well so I threw them all together with  1/2 a chopped onion and a clove of garlic.  A drizzle of olive oil, a shower of sea salt, a crack of black pepper and a dance in the oven later and I had the perfect lunch for one. 

Stuffed pepper for one
(Bell peppers vary a great deal in size so adapt these measurements to fill the pepper you have)

1/2 bell pepper- any colour
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 medium or 8 small tomatoes finely chopped
1/4 cup cooked rice
1 large handful coriander (cilantro), chopped
2 tbs feta cheese, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to about 250F or 120C (or gas mark 5 if you’re me and getting used to a new, crazy gas cooker.)  Line a small baking dish with tin foil and set aside.

Mix onion, garlic, tomatoes, rice, coriander and feta together.  Place this mix into your bell pepper.  Make sure you really fill the pepper, as the mix will shrink a bit as it cooks. 

Drizzle the olive oil over the pepper and add salt and pepper to taste. 

Place the pepper in the baking dish and wrap the foil around the pepper to form a little package.  Place the baking dish in the oven.  Cook for 20 mins or until the pepper is soft.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before enjoying on the couch, perhaps whilst watching day-time cooking shows? 

*Now that we’re in the UK I can say bell peppers, instead of capsicum.  I do try hard to use the right terms for the country I’m in.  This means that eggplant and zucchini are both about to change.*

We spent our first three weeks in England in a serviced apartment.  It was nice actually- like three weeks of being on holiday and having someone else to change our sheets.

But, three weeks of instant meals or eating out all day everyday wasn’t going to cut it for us.  So, I made easy things in the small kitchen… a pasta bake, a roasted chicken, a few risottos, lots of soup.  It wasn’t fancy food, but it was all good and kept us going during our marathon searches for a new town to live in.

We decided on the town of Winchester.  Located in the county of Hampshire, Winchester was once the capital of ancient England.  The town is full of ruins and cobble-stone streets and cozy pubs.  Basically, it’s an English town direct from central casting.  We love it.  Here are a few shots of our new hometown. 

Each of those photos was taken within a five minute walk of our new flat.  How cool is that???

And now… we are in our new flat (HA!  I said “flat”!)  Our flat is in a gorgeous Georgian era heritage listed building. I thought it was appropriate that two travellers from Georgia ended up living in a Georgian era building.  We have huge windows, lots of light, a big kitchen and the world’s smallest refrigerator.  I guess there are always trade-offs.

To celebrate our new place, and to say thanks to some lovely friends (Hi, Kim and Shane!) who have been very helpful to us during our move, we had our first “dinner party” here last night.  I wish I had a recipe to give you, but it was a super simple menu of Greek flavoured lamb meatballs, hummus, tzatziki, flat bread and a big Greek salad.  Simple and fresh and easy to make even when some of your things are still in boxes. 

So things should be back to normal around here now.  I’ll be posting at least once a week, giving you fun recipes as I try them and showing you the food-related adventures that we have here in England.  Cheerio!  It’s good to be back!