Bite Me!

I do love a good farm shop, and the Rhug Estate shop is one that I always try and visit whenever I’m passing through Wales (which is not that often, unfortunately).  Instead of the usual sheep, you’re greeted by the sight of a field of bison grazing contentedly – well, to be truthful, last time I was there they were all lying down looking like big brown clumps, but I expect they do the noble prairie grazing thing too, when it’s not raining.

The shop itself has grown rapidly over the past few years and is used by tourists and locals alike – always a good sign.  There’s a proper, award-winning butchery selling organic meat from the estate, a coffee shop, a take-away for more substantial snacks and meals, and the main shop which sells fresh fruit and vegetables along with local cheeses (including my favourites from the Snowdonia Cheese Company), preserves, cakes, olives – you name it!    

If you can’t see yourself visiting Rhug in the near future, the empire does seem to be expanding and they now have a stall at Borough Market, as well as an online shop which is worth a look-in.  No bison online though, sadly.

Rhug Estate, Corwen, Denbighshire, LL21 0EH

Traditional Gambian cooking is a sloooow process.  After marketing and a quick snack of cashew fruit, we start to prepare lunch, which will take a good couple of hours to cook.  We made vegetable benachim (literally, “one pot”).  This is most often served in the Gambia with fish, but the ingredients we used were:

salt

whole peppercorns

a few cloves of garlic

one onion, roughly chopped

a handful of tomatoes

one tin (400g) of tomato puree

vegetable oil (a lot)

water

short grain white rice

three whole tamerind

two bitter tomatoes, whole (you might have trouble finding these in the UK)

one sweet potato

one cassava  (try Caribbean/African food shops for this one – they sell it in Brixton Market)

two scotch bonnets

two baby aubergines

a handful of okra

two carrots

To start with, put the oil (at least a large cupful) on the heat – in the Gambia, a small outside stove is usually used for cooking purposes, with either wood or charcoal as fuel.  While the oil is heating, pound the salt and pepper in a grinder (a normal pestle and mortar will do, if you don’t have one of the giant versions in the picture above!)  When this is ground, add the garlic and onion, then the tomatoes, and pound into a paste.   Once the oil is bubbling, add the paste, along with the tin of tomato puree and a tin.  Cook this for about twenty minutes – you should see the start to separate slightly when it’s cooked. 

In the meantime, prepare the vegetables.  Peel the cassava and sweet potato and cut into very large pieces.  Halve the baby aubergines and dice the carrots very finely.  Everything else can go in whole.  Once the tomato paste mixture is ready, add the vegetables (except the carrots) and a couple of cans of water and leave to simmer until the vegetables are ready.

While the vegetables are cooking, rinse the rice, add the finely diced carrots and steam until partly cooked.  Once the vegetables are done, take them out of the broth and keep them warm on the side.  Now add the rice to the broth and cook until all the liquid has been absorbed. 

To serve, place the rice on a large plate, and arrange the vegetables on top.  Blob the sorrel (or hibiscus) around the plate artistically. 

Now comes the fun part – eating!  If you want to observe Gambian etiquette, eat with your right hand, and make sure you only take food from the part of the plate or bowl nearest you – no reaching over.  Most Gambian families will eat all together like this, gathering around the same plate or bowl, so make sure you have one big enough!  And watch out if you don’t have asbestos fingers, as the food will be hot and if you’re greedy (like me) you can burn your fingers...

To eat, simply grab a handful of rice, and squeeze it into a solid ball in your hand.  Then chuck into your mouth.  Simples!  You will probably drop rice all over yourself if you’re not used to doing this.  If you want a bit of heat on your food, squeeze one of the scotch bonnets over your rice – don’t try and eat one, whatever you do, as they are really, really hot.  The vegetables you can just break chunks off and eat separately. 

Enjoy!

www.gambiahomecooking.com

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...

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