CAROLYN'S KITCHEN: FOOD WITH SOUL IN SOUTH CENTRAL

A few weeks ago, when my good chum Aaron and I were staring down a plate of serious BBQ at Bludsow’s in Compton, one of the regulars told us that his favourite place for soul food in L.A was Carolyn’s Kitchen, a short distance away in South Central.

Neither of us had heard of it, but both nodded politely and made a note to give it a try the next time a bit of down home food sounded good to us. That day came around sooner than we both expected and at noon today, Aaron picked me up and pointed his car down the 110 towards our destination in one of the more notorious parts of Los Angeles.

I am certain that the neighbourhood in which Carolyn’s Kitchen is situated is not one that I would want to spend a great deal of time in after dark, but as we pulled into the parking lot in broad daylight, the area looked benign enough.

Like most of the best Soul Food restaurants I have visited in the US, the food at Carolyn’s Kitchen was served canteen style, the dishes sitting in trays waiting to be decanted into polystyrene containers for take out or plates for eating in on the few dining tables available.

The menu is small and we were told that we would have to wait fifteen minutes if we wanted fried chicken as it was cooked fresh to order. We are both suckers from deep fried anything, so agreed to share a portion of that and then popped outside to have a look at the one menu on offer, posted on the window, before deciding on the rest of our meal.

By the time they called out that our chicken was ready, we had already agreed to supplement it with an order of slow cooked beef short ribs and sides of mac & cheese, sweet potatoes, green beans and creamed corn. The guy behind the counter piled them high on the plate next to our main protein and then popped a fresh warm biscuit on the side of each order just for good measure.

There is nothing fancy about the Soul Food in general, but when well prepared it is the sort of food that can make me very happy. I am delighted to report that Carolyn’s Kitchen makes really rather good Soul Food indeed. The meat, which was covered in a rich gravy, fell from the bones of the beef ribs with one prod of a fork, the sweet potatoes were creamy and delicious and even the mac & cheese whose attraction to others is normally a mystery to me, was not half bad. Star of the show, unsurprisingly was the freshly fried chicken which had a wonderfully crunchy coating and moist flesh juicy enough for us to both require a good washing of the hands and face as soon as we had finished our meal.

With a couple of soft drinks, our bill came to $27, and left us so full that we could not bring ourselves to order the slabs of butter cake covered in caramelized butter icing that had just been put on show as we went up to pay for our meal.

I guess we will just have to give it a try next time we both decide that we need a bit of Soul Food in South Central.

VINOTECA MARYLEBONE – A LITTLE WINE? EEEEEEEEE.....

Somebody asked me the other day why I hadn’t written a post for a while.

Well, there was Christmas and New Year when many places closed down for the holidays. There were the visits to old favourites that wouldn’t necessarily have blog-worthiness, the right blogicity if you will; but mainly it was down to that ennui with the London dining scene that strikes me de temps en temps.

Sure, there have been shedloads of new openings and the law of averages probably guarantees that some of them might have been adequate (almost), but merely reading the offerings of the majority just sent my feet to sleep.

Looky-likey, me-too menus are the last refuge of the lazy restaurateur. I mean, I like charcuterie as much as the next diner but it’s hardly the world’s most onerous task to buy some decent cured meat and cut it. As HS once said to the chef at a famous Wandsworth restaurant "Well sourced and sliced". In most cases very, very thinly indeed.

Luckily on a recent visit to the brand spanking new outpost of the rather wonderful and very successful Vinoteca I didn’t have to endure the heart-attack inducing excitement of Beer-Battered Fish and Chips or Rib Eye Steak with faux Triple-cooked chips on the menu.

To be honest I was a little worried about my prospective meal. Dos Hermanos have been frequent visitors to the original in Clerkenwell since it opened and despite a few changes in personnel it has kept the quality of its food and wine and the warmth of its welcome at pleasingly high levels.

The owners have always talked about not rolling out the 'concept' but happily in the case of this new branch they've managed to succeed with that difficult second restaurant.

Hidden away in a side street off the Edgware Road the setup at the new gaff will be familiar to anyone who's visited the mothership. Open kitchen, bar and a dining area with some tables so restricted of width my legs wouldn't fit. I spent most of the meal with my limbs akimbo (and if that ain't enough to put you off your Sauvignon Blanc nothing is).

Toytown tables aside, the experience at Vinoteca W1 continues to be a good one. Staff are friendly and enthusiastic, there's a great selection of wines by the glass and the range of food is interesting and prepared with care.

Pork Cracklings came as long strips which were dense and crisp. They gave my choppers a good workout but in an era where a lot of food has become very soft this is a good thing.

A big bowl of mussels and clams was notable for a particularly good broth that was devoid of the grit that plagues lesser examples and had me wishing their good bread wasn't served in such parsimonious portions. The mussels and clams were sweet and fresh which is all you could ask of bivalves.

Crubeens are made from Pigs Trotter which have been cooked, shredded, breaded and deep-fried. A serving of three of these blighters were excellent: hot and porky and with a satisfying crunch. A chunky sauce gribiche and a few leaves made a starter that would make grander places look very silly indeed. Intelligent wine pairings too: the suggested Sicilian white to go with this dish just made things better.

When I go for a meal I appreciate the little twists that show there’s someone with a brain and imagination in the kitchen. A big hunk of roasted Brill came on top of some decent greens with a sauce made from minced anchovy and chilli oil.

Sounds de trop, right? Wrong. Although it pushed the envelope of what would be a reasonable match for a non-oily fish it worked very, very well adding a hot, savoury (oh ok, umami) dimension to the dish.

Only a meanie would complain that the (unadvertised) potatoes were a prosaic and unnecessary addition and that the fish could have done with a little less cooking…so I won’t.

Pudding was a little game of let's investigate geometric solids with a Sphere of Vanilla Ice Cream atop a cube of Sticky Toffee Pudding. Light, not too sweet, it did exactly what it said on the tin.

I liked the Coffee too and in place of the usual Grappa I had a rather lovely, chocolately, dusky, Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva to help the chocolate truffles down and which had me walking down the road about a foot above the pavement, happy with the start to the new blogging year.

Oh and Vinoteca also do charcuterie. But I won’t hold that against them.

METHI CHICKEN: A LITTLE BIT OF HYDERABAD AT HOME

Two cooking posts in a row and, you can expect more to come.

I have been spending a lot of time pottering around my small kitchen in the last few weeks, working on recipes for some articles and,  I thought I would share some of the results with you just in case anybody wanted to try preparing them at home.

This time, Methi Chicken, a  dish of chicken thighs cooked with yoghurt, spices and a great deal of Methi (fenugreek) leaf.  You can often find fresh methi leaves in Indian stores, but if not, the dried leaves make an adequate substitute as they did in my version.

The dish, which originated in the Hyderabad region of India, is best made with chicken thighs. I find they add far more flavour to the final sauce than just using the bland breast meat.  The end result is rich, creamy and delicious and well worth a try.

I would love to hear back if you do decide to give it a go.

METHI CHICKEN (Chicken cooked in Yoghurt, Spices and Fenugreek Leaves)

INGREDIENTS
Bone in Chicken Thighs (Allow 2 per person)
1 Cup Whole Milk Yoghurt
1 large White Onion (Sliced)
3 Cloves Garlic
3 Green Chillies
2 Inches of Ginger
1 Cup Fenugreek Leaves ( I used dried, which are easier for me to find in my local Indian store)

WHOLE SPICES
3 Cardamom pods
1 Stick Cinnamon
½ Tsp Nigella Seed
½ Tsp Fennel Seed

GROUND SPICES
1 Tsp Ground Turmeric
1 Tsp Chilli Powder
½ Tsp Ground Mustard Seed (or mustard powder)
¼ Tsp Ground Clove
1 Tsp Ground Cumin
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 Tsp Ground Fenugreek.
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Sugar

METHOD
Remove the skin from the chicken thighs. (I always keep these to make chicken crackling to eat while cooking)

Blend the ginger/Garlic and Chilli into a fine paste with a little water and salt.

Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a deep-sided pan and add the whole spices.

When they begin to sizzle and pop add the onions and cook slowly until they are coloured, making sure they do not burn.

Add the ginger/garlic/chilli paste and cook for a further three to four minutes until it loses its raw smell.

Add the ground spices and combine well.

Turn the heat down and cook the mixture until the spices begin to release their oils. If the mixture begins to catch, add a few drops of water.

Once the spices are cooked, remove the pan from the heat and blend in half the yoghurt.

Return to the stove and cook over a low heat until the yoghurt is combined.

Add the fenugreek leaves and combine well with the mixture.

Add the chicken thighs and coat with the mixture.

Cover the pan and cook on a gentle heat for twenty five minutes, turning the chicken thighs once.

After twenty five minutes, the thighs should be cooked and the dish should have created a great deal of its own sauce.

Remove the chicken thighs and keep warm.

Reduce the sauce until it is almost dry.

Combine 2 tablespoons of the remaining sauce with the remaining yoghurt and incorporate well. Add it back to the sauce, cook for a further two minutes and return the chicken thighs to the pan.

Serve making sure that each chicken thigh has a liberal coating of the sauce.

PRAWN NOODLE SOUP: HOT & SOUR, SWEET & PERFECT

The other day, I needed to make some space in the freezer. I found the bone from a pork shoulder I had butchered to make sausages and decided that it would make the perfect base for a stock prepared with celery, carrots, onions and a bouquet garni.

The kitchen smelled fantastic as it simmered and end result was just as good, "jellifying" as Mr. Pierre-White would have it, as it cooled.

I was determined to put it to good use as soon as possible. I decided, in the interest of lighter post Christmas eating, to make a soup of the sort I grew to crave in my brief time in South East Asia.

I posted the image of the finished dish on Facebook and Twitter and received over a dozen requests for the recipe. So, being a good sort, here it is.

You could replace the prawns with thin strips of chicken breast, or even pork. Just add them to the broth & stock before the other ingredients to give them time to cook through thoroughly.

Enjoy and let me know if you give it a try.

SERVES FOUR

INGREDIENTS
FOR THE BROTH

1 Pint of water
1 Lemon Grass Stalk (bashed with the end of a knife to release its oils)
3 Cloves of Garlic (peeled and roughly chopped)
1 Inch of Ginger (peeled and sliced)
1 Lime (juice and zest)
3 Green Chillies (roughly chopped)
2 Tsp Brown Sugar

FOR THE SOUP
25 Large raw prawns (shelled but with tails intact)
1 Pint of Broth (see above)
1 Pint Stock (I used a stock made from a pork butt bone, but good chicken stock or vegetable stock will be fine)
5 Spring (Green) Onions (chopped using both white and green parts)
1 Cup of Shitake Mushrooms (sliced. You could also use enoki mushrooms)
1 Lime (juice and zest)
1 Green Chilli (sliced thinly)
2 Tsp Fish Sauce (will add salt)
1 Packet of Glass Noodles (can substitute any type of noodle you prefer)
Coriander Leaves (optional)

METHOD
Bring all the ingredients for the broth to heat in a pan on the stove and simmer gently for fifteen minutes until the sugar is dissolved and the other ingredients begin to release their flavours. Leave until cooled and then strain until you have just have the liquid.

Add the broth to the stock in a large saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer.

Add the Spring onions, lime zest, green chilli and the prawns.

When the prawns begin to change colour from grey to pink, add the mushrooms.

Simmer until the mushrooms begin to soften, but still retain a bite and add the noodles.

When the noodles are cooked, add the fish sauce and lime juice.

Serve sprinkled with coriander leaf if you wish, but this is optional.

ON THE SANTA FE TRAIL

That time between Christmas break and the New Year return to work has always been one of my least favourite times of the year. I hate being idle at any time and now, when the rest of the world seemingly comes to a standstill, e-mails dry up and people leave their desks unattended for nearly two weeks, it is all too easy to believe that things will never return to normal.

Add to this the insecurities of being self employed and it is only a matter of days before I start to worry about never working again. It’s very silly, of course. I mean at the very least a stud muffin like me could always earn a decent crust shaking my tail out on the streets. But I really do look forward to the return to a normal routine in January and to discovering what adventures it might bring with it for the New Year.

To try and distract me during the break, Sybil has instigated a new family tradition in the form of a post Christmas road trip. In 2009, we spent a few days in Las Vegas. This year, we both decided to go even further a field with a round trip of nearly 2500 miles to Santa Fe in the heart of New Mexico.

It’s certainly not a journey for the faint of back. The drive to our stopping point for the night required us to be on the road by 6am and the best part of thirteen hours behind the wheel before we reached our motel in Albuquerque. Two hours more on the freeway the next morning saw us reach our destination city just in time for lunch.

New Mexico, as the name suggests was an extension of the Mexican territories until 1846 when it was ceded to the United States. It was far enough away from Mexico City that it began to develop its own unique culture and with that a cuisine that drew not only from its Mexican roots but also from local Native American tribes and also from settlers from other US states. While New Mexican food has many similarities with traditional Mexican, there are regional differences. Not least because the New Mexico green chile, the state’s biggest crop, is to be found in just about everything.

Our first sampling came at local favourite, Adelita’s restaurant about ten minutes drive from our hotel. It came in the form of an order of “Tacos De Tripa” tortilla filled with strips of tripe, deep fried until crunchy and served with a hot red salsa and a fresh pico de gallo. Similar tacos had been my favourite breakfast during my time in Guadalajara and, after applying a few drops of lime juice, one bite transported me back to one of my best bites of Eat My Globe. While I polished off my plate, Sybil tore into an unfeasibly large Burrito Carne Adobado, a tortilla stuffed with pork marinated in red chile, vinegar and oregano. The food was freshly prepared and excellent. It was also cheap and served in portions large enough to send us back to the hotel for a brief nap before we headed out again to explore what Santa Fe had to offer.

While Sybil had been in charge of the hotels and directions, I had been placed in charge of the eating end of things. I had neglected to book somewhere in advance for our first night in the city, so we were lucky that one of my choices, The Inn of The Anasazi, was able to accommodate us at short notice for supper.

I know that American’s like their restaurants to be quite dark compared to those in Europe and that is normally fine, if not particularly blogger friendly. The dining room at The Inn, however, takes things to a whole ‘nother level. The room was so dark, in fact that we had to request a flashlight from the waiter to actually read the menu. We also asked that he leave it with us so I could take some pictures. From the look on his face it was not the first time he had heard either request.

All a bit silly and unnecessary as the cooking at The Inn is, on the whole, excellent and does not need to hide its light. The chef is actually British, not that you could tell it from the menu which contains all the pre-requisite ingredients for any American Menu. Sybil had a salad while I began with one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, a duck mole enchilada. The tortilla casing was tough and slightly leathery, making me think that they had been prepared earlier in the day. However, the filling was terrific and the smoky mole sauce worth the price of admission on its own. Main courses were well executed and particular mention has to go out to the braised pork dish of Syb’s which you can just about make out in the rather artfully shadowed photograph.

I had a bit of a hangover the next morning. Hardly surprising as I had downed a bath tub sized Martini before supper and the best part of a well priced bottle of Spanish red with my meal. I was therefore not entirely against the idea when Sybil demanded breakfast within about twenty paces of having left our hotel. Fortunately, we were just passing a small French bistro & bakery called Clafoutis, which was already filled with locals supping coffee and eating the house made croissants. Breakfast shouldn’t be terribly hard but is so often a disappointment, but not at Clafoutis, where they managed to serve up a perfect Croque Madame, superb hot chocolate and fresh orange juice without any great drama. Perfect for soaking up the excesses of the night before and to fuel us for a day wandering around this rather attractive city.

I am often told that I am unsympathetic to the problems restaurants face when serving customers. It may well be true. While they are taking my cash in return for a service, any problems they have are not my concern. That being said, I am not entirely heartless and, when the owner of Max’s restaurant in the Guadalupe district of the city told us that they were running late with our reservation, it was obvious that people were still lingering long after their meals, knowing that work did not summon them in the morning. It also helped my good temper that she also dealt with the situation in a perfect and professional way, taking us into the neighbouring bar, setting up a tab and then coming to collect us when she had finally managed to free up our table. Other restaurants could and should take note.

Once we sat down, however, I could see why tables had not been turning as she might have hoped. It was because the service was, quite frankly, a bit hopeless. Not unfriendly, just woefully inefficient and sloppy leaving us sitting for a further twenty minutes until we received our menus and had our order taken. The kitchen was obviously struggling too and food emerged from the kitchen at a glacial pace that would need a calendar rather than a clock. When the food did arrive, it was universally excellent and showed that if Max’s could get its FOH act together, it has the potential to go from being a good restaurant to a potentially great one.

An amuse of parsnip soup with roasted hazelnuts and melting dark chocolate was far better than I anticipated and a starter of two hour egg with creamy polenta showed that the chef, one Mark Connell, really knows what he is about. Fantastic main courses reinforced the impression, although for once, pork came out in second place in the “thumbs up” stakes. My tasting of suckling pig was delicious if slightly routine, but Sybil’s boneless stuffed quail was arguably the best dish of the whole trip and made sure that we were four for four in our dining choices for this road trip.

There was another horribly early start the next morning. Ever the organiser, Sybil had realised that the 1-40 freeway would be closed by snows about halfway along our journey back home. We decided to head south and pick up the 1-10 near Las Cruces which gave us the chance to pass through the wonderfully named town of “Truth or Consequences” and to stop off at another well recommended restaurant for lunch.

El Comedor in Las Cruces was an amiable place to have our last meal in New Mexico and provided a tasty if slightly unattractive sampling plate of New Mexican specialities including delicious chiles rellenos (stuffed chillies) Flauta (thin deep fried taco) potato stuffed gordita and, of course, lots of green chile sauce. It was the perfect end to another memorable trip in my newly adopted homeland and enough to fill us up for the journey to our overnight stay in Phoenix.

2010 was the best year of my life and I am already looking forward to fining out what 2011 has in store for me. I know one thing however and that is that Sybil and I are going to start planning our next post Christmas road trip very soon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

TOP TASTES OF 2010: THE H2 EDITION

It’s that time of year again, folks. Time to look back on what has been another fantastic year for eating, drinking and generally having a great time.

I may not have travelled as extensively as I did in the last three years, but it has been a no less momentous twelve months.  I got married, published my second book, EATING FOR BRITAIN, and was also fortunate enough to be selected as a judge on The Next Iron Chef.

Back in London, there were three very different DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS events; at Indian Zing, H.Forman & Son and of course, the latest event in October at the newest branch of Hawksmoor, in Seven Dials. There was also the now legendary ‘Blokes Eat Beef” event at Goodman in Mayfair where twenty-six blokes, er, ate beef (thirty six kilograms of it, to be precise) until we all lapsed into a smiley coma. Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement of more events on my return visits to the U.K. next year.

There was an unforgettable journey through twelve states of the Good Ol’ US of Stateside with my chum, Neal. We ate enough ‘Q to beat the recession by ourselves, before ending up in the best of all American cities in which to eat and drink, New Orleans. I have more road trips planned for 2011 as I research what I hope will be my next book project. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you.

Despite my whining, there were still plenty of great meals to be found in my newly adopted home of Los Angeles. Most of them were to be found in the city’s astonishing array of ethnic restaurants and even more remarkably, some of them were even prepared in my own kitchen. I look forward to more investigation of what The City of Angels has to offer in the New Year.

And, of course, there were some journeys to foreign climes in the company of my wife, Sybil. Trips to Portugal, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia, which offered endless opportunities to stuff our faces with almost impossibly great food.

Below, in no particular order, are just some of the highlights of my year in eating. What is particularly noticeable is that many of my favourite tastes also go to support the notion that America's greatest contribution to world cuisine is making sandwiches something of an art form.

2011 is already shaping up to be another memorable year. If it is half as much fun as 2010, it’s going to be a cracker.  In the meantime, let me take the opportunity to thank all of the readers of Dos Hermanos for joining us for the ride and to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year.

In the words of Jose Feliciano

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Porchetta (Porkcamp, Germany)

Blokes Eat Beef (Goodman, London)

Prawn Pathia (Chez DH)

Martini Made By Alessandro Palazzo (Duke's Hotel, London)

Hamburger (Cassell's, Los Angeles)

The "No 19" (Langer's, Los Angeles)

Drop of The Good Stuff (Bushmill's, Northern Ireland)

Gribene Sandwich (Gorbals, Los Angeles)

Fresh Sea Urchin (Quality Seafood, Redondo Beach)

Whiskey Tasting (Bushmill's, Northern Ireland)

Brain Sandwich (Hilltop Inn, Evansville)

White Port & Tonic (Quinto Do Noval, Portugal)

Chilli Crab (Mellben, Singapore)

Samgyetang (Busan, Korea)

Leitão Assado da Bairrada (Pedros Dos Leitoes, Mealhada, Portugal)

Banana Shortbread (Valerie's Confections, Los Angeles)

Chicken Rendang (Rebung, Kuala Lumpur)

Pan Mee (Kuala Lumpur)

Pulled Pork Sandwich (Paynes BBQ, Menphis)

Garlic Soup (Bayona, NOLA)

Pasteis De Nata (Lisbon, Portugal)

Pastrami Sandwich (Johnny's Pastrami, Los Angeles)

Breakfast (Monell's, Nashville)

Shrimp Po'Boy (Parkway Tavern, NOLA)

Rojak (Donald & Lily's, Malacca)

Braised Short Ribs (Chez Moi, Los Angeles)

Dog & A Beer (Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles)

Lobster Roll (Grand Central Oyster Bar, NYC)

Snoots (Roper's Ribs, St. Louis)

Sunday Gravy (Chez Moi, Los Angeles)

Cheese Blintzes (Nate & Al, Beverly Hills)