Bite Me!

I found the recipe for these here and had to give them a try for Christmas morning, since they sounded so easy.  They are as easy as they sound, and I thought they were delicious, in part because they're slightly savoury - if you're expecting ultra-sweet American style soft muffins, you'll be disappointed.  But they are spicy and comforting and I love the crunchy sugar topping!  They'd be great with some chunks of white chocolate added, if you want that extra sugar kick.

People are always asking me what I eat for Christmas dinner - well, maybe not always, but fairly often around Christmas time!  So here's the answer for this year - roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, honey & mustard parsnips, stuffing and veggie gravy.  OK, so it's not the most sophisticated-looking plate of food, but it's reeeaaalllly good.  And (ssh!) surprisingly healthy.

I'm especially proud of the vegetarian gravy, which has a really intense flavour and is very easy to make.  You will need:

boiling water

marigold vegetable stock

Marmite

Tabasco

red wine or sherry

Worcestershire sauce

soy sauce

porcini (optional)

Method

 Very easy - simply mix a dollop of everything together in a saucepan and gently reduce down for about ten minutes.   I haven't put amounts down since I just chuck everything in and then see how it tastes.  If using the porcini, soak them in a mug of warm water for ten minutes before you start, and then add both the mushrooms and the water to the saucepan.  Sieve the mushrooms out before serving.  If you want thicker gravy rather than a jus, add a little flour or cornflour to the mixture and whisk to get rid of lumps. 

This is so good my sister even prefers it to normal gravy...

So apparently Interflora now do hampers as well as flowers, which is quite exciting.  And you don't even have to worry about postal strikes because they use couriers... Oh, to be the sort of person who can afford to send hampers to all and sundry at Christmas.  Still, they're offering the chance to win one - just tell them what Christmas food you're most like!  Actually, don't - I'm much less likely to win if you lot start entering as well...

The future of Marmite is in your hands!  Which jar design do you prefer?  Votes in by Monday - speak now or forever hold your peace...

Country pubs can be a bit hit and miss when it comes to food, so when you find one as good as The Potting Shed, it’s worth remembering!  The pub itself is worth a visit even if you don’t want to eat; they have a great range of beer and cider on tap, and I found myself wanting to take home most of the furniture, which is definitely not an urge I get in many places!  Stylish decor aside, the service was excellent and the food even better – I had a chestnut risotto with truffle oil and roasted celeriac, which was nicely comforting on a grey day.   Their menu should give you an idea of some of the other treats on offer – sadly, I was too full to attempt the cheese plate, but will definitely give it a try next time I’m passing through.

The Potting Shed, The Street, Crudwell, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 9EW. Tel: 01666 577833

Those who know me will know how crazy I am about Marmite – to me, it’s the nectar of the Gods and I eat it in everything from jacket potatoes to veggie gravy.  I was thrilled, therefore, to receive a mysterious invitation from the ‘Marmarati’ a couple of weeks ago, inviting me to a secret Marmite event.  It transpires that Marmite are bringing out the strongest blend ever (Codename: MXO) and had gathered together a party of Britain’s most fervent Marmite-lovers to help them by tasting some of their trial blends.   

Along with this, we were served canapés with Marmite dip and Marmite cocktails, which were less disgusting than they sound and tasted mainly of coffee (look out for my own, superior Marmite cocktail recipe coming soon!).   

We also swore the Marmarati oath, making us fully-fledged members of the Marmarati, the inner circle sworn to protect the mighty spread:

I hereby and hereon solemnly swear on celery, yeast extract, riboflavin and vitamin B12 to keep the following oath and agreement.

I promise to do my duty to Queen, Country and Marmite.

I swear to be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Marmarati.

I will defend the ebony elixir against all conspiracies, protect it's distinctive flavour and honour its orb-like jar.

I will reject any second-rate pretenders

I promise to spread my dark and sticky mistress throughout the land, as well as on toast.

And finally I swear never, ever to consort with members of the Marmaladi.

The Marmarati are now recruiting for the outer circle – if you, too, would like to get your hands on a jar of the famed MXO, go to www.marmarati.org and submit an entry!

Photos courtesy of the Marmarati

I just wanted to apologise for my absence from the blogosphere over the last couple of months.  I have been cooking some great recipes and eaten in some fab restaurants, but unfortunately I am without a camera at the moment, and no-one likes posts without pictures!  Rest assured I'll be back as soon as I manage to find a camera from somewhere.  Ebay, here I come...

Secret restaurants seem to be everywhere in the news at the moment, so when Foodrambler started up her very own Rambling Restaurant, I had to go and check it out.  The evening started well - I followed the treasure hunt-style clues to a mystery location in Bethnal Green to be faced with a roof terrace straight out of the Arabian nights.  The three tables filled up quickly, and it was great to chat with some other London foodies and savour a glass of champagne with rosewater.

The first course, a selection of three dips, was served with soft, freshly-made flatbreads and harissa lamb, for the meat-eaters among us.  My favourite dip was a sweet, nubbly carrot dip served with tangy crumbled feta - a great combination.  The main course was a flaky chicken bastilla for the others, and a big, hearty pepper and orange salad for me, dressed with a superb garlic yoghurt. 

The pudding, though, was the piece de resistance - a divinely squidgy, dark, chocolate torte, served with two distinctive and unusual ice-creams - a pomegranite sorbet and an orange-blossom ice-cream.  They were so nice I've decided to buy an ice-cream maker for myself so that I can have them again!

All this, for only £15?  Brilliant.  For bookings and news of future events, see the Rambling Restaurant Facebook page.

For our last night, we decided to go for some traditional French food, and headed off to the Polidor.  It certainly looks the part, with checked tablecloths, spotted mirrors, and a "charmingly rustic" (i.e. tiny squatting) toilet. 

The food is equally traditional, with liver, snails, fois gras and other such delicacies on the menu.  I realised, a trifle too late, that I might have difficulty finding anything I could actually eat.  In the end, I went for a green salad and some eggs with mayonnaise.  Abi, on the other hand, plunged straight in and ordered steak tartare.  It duly arrived in a giant mound, garnished with chips (which I stole).  Abi tucked in, but sadly found herself unequal to the task of finishing such a large amount of raw meat.

To finish, I ordered a baba aux rhum, purely down to the fact that it was Poirot's favourite pudding.  Well, either he has terrible taste or what the Polidor served me was a travesty of the real thing.  It arrived - a cold, solitary little dumpling - speared through the middle with a fork as if it might try and run away.  I tried to eat it, but it was so rum-soaked (not with nice rum, either) that the only way I might have finished it is if it was liquidised and diluted with lemonade.  The cold custard wasn't that appealing, either. 

On the way home, we stopped off at the crepe stand.

After the boulangerie, there was just time for a little snackage before heading out for dinner - some Brittany cider fit the bill, with a bagette and some truffle-studded camembert that Abi bought from the fromagerie on Rue Cler.  The cheese was good, but very pungent, with the sort of smell that seeps into every corner of the room despite being muffled by several layers of plastic.  I actually think that the cheese might have tasted better if it hadn't been quite so ripe, as the truffles were rather too subtle to make themselves felt over the taste of the camembert, but nevertheless it made a very nice snack.

After a hard morning's shopping at the Rue Cler market, we stumbled across this pretty boulangerie and had to try it out.  We were actually heading to another restaurant for lunch, which turned out to be closed - well, it was 3 o'clock by the time we were hungry enough to venture out for another meal!

I went a bit mad here and bought several cakes - first up was this figue, which I was hoping would be fig-flavoured as well as fig-shaped.  Sadly it wasn't, but it was very nice, with a marzipan coating giving way to a pastry and cream centre. 

Next up was a tarte aux pistaches, which looked a bit more durable, so I decided to save it for my early Eurostar journey back the next day.  It made a lovely breakfast.

Finally, I couldn't resist a goats' cheese tart - again, I decided to save it for the next day, and ended up eating it for lunch in my office in London, in an attempt to import some of that Paris feeling to my desk. The Paris feeling failed, but the tart was scrummy.  It's a good job we don't have much of that sort of thing in London, or I'd be fat as a pig (and exceedingly poor).

No trip to Paris would be complete without a spot of shopping, but in our case we skipped the Champs-Elysees and the Rue de Rivoli and went straight to the Rue Cler, home to some of Paris's finest food shops.  To fortify myself for the hard day of shopping and eating ahead, I popped into one of the boulangeries and bought a delectable cherry and almond tart, which I ate at a little table outside on a street corner, in traditional Parisian style. 

After this a little liquid refreshment seemed to be in order, so I went to meet Abi in Le Petit Cler, one of the many small cafes that line the Rue Cler.  I had an extremely sharp (even by French standards) citron presse and, again, sat down outside to watch the people strolling past.  The Rue Cler seems to be fairly well-known so there were quite a lot of tourists around, but it is obviously still a popular destination for Parisians to do their shopping as well, as there were plenty of French shoppers carefully inspecting the produce and debating with the shopkeepers.  As well as the cafes and boulangeries, there are also a number of fruit and vegetable stalls, a fishmongers, butchers, delicatessans and even a shop devoted entirely to honey.  Our priority was, of course, the fromagerie, which had every French cheese you could think of at perfect degrees of ripeness. 

After wandering around the shops for a while, breakfast started to feel quite far away, so we made a beeline for the crepe stand outside the cafe Ulysse.  This cafe used to be a boucherie chevaline (horse butcher) and the handsome art nouveau tiles proclaiming the fact can still be seen on the front of the building.  We joined the queue for a huge cheese, feta and egg crepe which was delicious, and ultimately so filling that we ended up skipping lunch. 

Our last stop on the Rue Cler was to the decidedly unglamorous Leader Price, which seemed to be the equivalent of my local Iceland, complete with homeless people drinking outside.  Despite its unsavoury appearance, it had quite a good cheese selection, and since it was considerably cheaper than the proper fromagerie we visited earlier, I stocked up on cheese to take home.  Beautifully ripe, paper-wrapped cheese may be perfect if you are planning on eating it for lunch, but for travelling back on the Eurostar and going straight to work, give me slightly unripe, plastic-wrapped supermarket cheese anytime.

After Les Bouquinistes, we went for something quite different for supper. 

Restaurant Shunda came recommended by a friend, and turned out to be a cheap and not particularly cheerful little Vietnamese place.  Apparently there are huge queues outside at lunchtimes, but since we turned up at 10 o'clock on a rainy Monday night it was pretty much empty.  I imagine the ambience is better during the day.

The food, on the other hand, was nice, although the portions were MAHOOSIVE.  I could have fitted my entire head into my bowl of soup.  This seems to be a peculiarity of Vietnamese restaurants and I should expect it by now, but it always takes me by surprise. 

My pho (soup) was, as I said before, nice; there was nothing wrong with it, but again, I always expect something a bit more exciting-tasting.  This came with the usual array of bits to dunk - beansprouts etc - and I got stuck into the chilli sauce to pep it up a bit.  The real treat was the prawn dumplings (or "ravioli", as the menu described them) that came with it - they were large and meaty and there were at least ten of them, which seemed like good value for €8. I failed to finish them, which was a bit sad but not surprising when you consider that we had the same dumplings, fried, as a starter.  Prawn overkill.  (They were actually slightly nicer fried, in case you're wondering).

Foodrambler had beef noodles, which were apparently very good and were the reason that Shunda was recommended to us in the first place.  To be honest, I probably wouldn't rush to come back here - there wasn't anything wrong with it, but I'm sure Paris has more exciting places to offer.

Having said that, I didn't have the noodles, so what do I know?

Restaurant Shunda, 12 Rue Volta, 75003 Paris

Wanting to start my Paris trip off with a bang, we decided to start off our culinary adventures with a lunch at Les Bouquinistes, a lovely restaurant on the banks of the Seine.  It is run by celebrity chef Guy Savoy (think a French Gordon Ramsey), who holds three Michelin stars for his main restaurant, also situated in Paris. 

Les Bouquinistes is a more modest establishment, with equally modest prices - the set lunch menu was a mere €29 for three courses, plus a glass of wine and coffee.  The restaurant itself is contemporary yet comfortable, with artfully exposed brickwork and modern artwork on the walls.  The ground floor, where we ate, was filled with light from windows on two sides of the room, making it an excellent choice for a lunch venue (there's nothing more depressing than being shown into a basement for lunch on a lovely sunny afternoon).

On to the food. For the starter I chose a tartine of tomatoes and green beans with goat's cheese, served beautifully in a Martini glass.

This was absolutely sublime.  The tartine itself was a subtle compound of the finely chopped tomatoes, tiny new green beans, chives and olive oil, topped with croutons for a bit of bite and surrounded by the fresh goat's cheese, which had the texture of yoghurt and a fabulous tangy taste.

 For the next course, I had to order off-menu, as none of the options were vegetarian.  I was a little nervous about this, given that vegetarianism is still uncommon in France, but I needn't have worried.  They said that they would put something together, and this is what I got:

A plate of young broad beans, carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, preserved lemons and grilled aubergines, simply but perfectly cooked.  The sauce was a lemon froth, which was buttery and rich yet light, so as not to overpower the delicate flavour of the spring vegetables.  I was very impressed.

I'm not sure why, but I went for an English classic for pudding - apple crumble. The apple, as I was coming to expect, was perfectly cooked, tender but still retaining its shape. The crumble itself was a little too hard for my taste, but the custard couldn't be faulted, and the coconut ice-cream on the top added an interesting twist to an old favourite.

As you may have gathered by now, I loved this restaurant.  The service was swift and friendly: the staff tolerated my halting French and we tolerated the fact that they kept trying to give us each others' meals.  And the location is perfect - after lunch we strolled down to the Seine and lazed in the sun for a while, feeling very contented. 

I will definitely be going back.

Les Bouquinistes, 53 Quai des grands Augustins, 75006 Paris.  For reservations call 0033 143 254 594 or book online here

I can think of no better way of spending a couple of days than wandering around Paris eating, and this is what I and my friend Abi (of Foodrambler fame) had the good fortune to do last week.  The sun shone, the Parisians were remarkably friendly, and our only regret was that we couldn't fit more meals into the day.  My posts this week will be the distillation of all our hard research... I hope you enjoy them.