Mostly Unproven

I have a few favourite things in the world. Somerset County Cricket club is one. Indie music from the late 80s/early 90s is another. The landscape of South-West England. Post-war British fiction. Cats.

Pizza is up there. Very close to the top actually. It was what weekends in Italy were all about, whether at the beach in summer, snacking on pizzette on white plastic tables, or else the Sunday night takeaway on the sofa with friends, watching Serie A. It is my takeaway staple, my not-so secret crush and my totally innocent pleasure.

I’m not exactly a purist either. I’ve been known to consume frozen varietes of many brands and drunkenly ordered it from the menus of the most scabrous eating establishments. I’ve eaten it when there were better things on offer, when I couldn’t be bothered to cook; I’ve had it for supper when I already had it for lunch.

I do however generally like to keep it simple and I am consistent in my ordering. Either a plain margherita, perhaps with added anchovies, or, when I was more of a meat eater, al piccante with spicy salame. One can gild the lily too much with those meat feasts and four cheeses. Like a good sandwich I believe a maximum of three key ingredients is all that’s needed.

Having said that I’m going away tomorrow for a couple of weeks so I took the opportunity of using up a few things in my fridge which would otherwise not keep to put on my homemade pizza.

A pizza, moreover, made without yeast. I told you I wasn’t exactly a purist. I didn’t have any yeast anyway, only baking powder. The combination of flour, salt and baking powder doesn’t make a totally authentic pizza dough, but for a home cook – especially one pushed for time – it’s close enough. No need for any proving time as once the dough is made it’s ready to be rolled and topped.

The ingredients I felt would sit better on a ‘white’ pizza rather than a tomato sauce-based one. It ended up as more like cauliflower cheese on bread, but what’s not to like about that?

For the dough-making recipe I followed this link, but adapted the quantities to make one single pizza. So:

• 200g flour
• 1 and a half tsp baking powder
• half a tsp of salt
• 100ml water
• 20ml olive oil

For the topping:

• half a head of cauliflower, florets only (stalks retained for future use, they freeze)
• one leek, sliced
• 100g mozzarella
• 25g blue cheese
• 25g parmesan
• a few spinach leaves, torn
• palmful of fresh thyme leaves, chopped
• olive oil
• dried oregano, enough to sprinkle
• salt and pepper
• smoked paprika, half a tsp.

 

Method to make the topping:

Blanch the cauliflower and leek in salted boiling water for a minute or two. Remove and leave to drain well and cool. Once the pizza dough is rolled, brush with olive oil and then arrange the vegetable mixture on top, leaving some space at the sides. Add the thyme, oregano, salt, pepper and grated parmesan, then the other cheeses. Sprinkle over the paprika, if using. Drizzle over a little more oil. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celsius for about 40 minutes. Add the spinach leaves after about 30 minutes.

 

 

 

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All this Kungfusion

Hot here, so very hot and humid. A drenching, mind-sapping heat. No sun, just thick treacle-like sultriness. The sort of closeness that wears you down, strips all motivation away, renders you virtually immobile and sees you gasping for air, any air. It is with heavy fingers and my last ounces of willpower I sit down to write.

My sister, famous in these pages as sender of magical spices, came up with the idea I should write posts based around the various different vegetables and other produce mostly native to these shores. It is a good idea, especially since I am aware I have barely acknowledged the culinary culture of this country in these posts. To be honest, I am somewhat indifferent to many of the dishes here. There is an unappealing habit that everything has to be saturated in oil, second-hand oil sometimes, and often nothing seems to taste of anything. There are notable exceptions of course.

韭菜，that’s jiu cai (pronounced gee-o tsy), is an ever-present in dumplings, chopped finely, and also makes a very successful appearance at barbecues where it is grilled in strips then smothered with a spicy paste of chillies and cumin seeds. It tends to be translated variously as ‘garlic chives’, ‘leek chives’ and ‘Chinese chives’ and I prefer the first option because there is a definite alliaceous tang to the allium, as well as, I think, a slight citrus note in the finish. In Chinese medicine apparently it is used to ‘tonify the Yang,’ perfect then for people lacking some sunshine in their lives, literally and metaphorically.

First I had to find some. My local unfriendly greengrocer didn’t have any and eventually I located some in the fridge compartment of a nearby supermarket. I rather had the idea of cycling home with the herb fronds flapping from a paper bag but in the end I had to be content with walking back over a bridge with the chives sealed inside a plastic container.

What to do with them. As well as a dumpling filling they are also added to pancakes and, in general, they go well with many egg dishes. I can see them being involved in a late night scramble at some point. But I wanted them to feature a little more prominently, to add an extra kick to something else. I thought of the risottos made in the Spring with wild garlic pulled from banks by the side of the road and decided the jiu cai could do the same job just as well and perhaps even better.

So, base of white onion and celery – the obsession continues – softened in butter and rice stirred in. Stock, already prepared and defrosted, simmering in a pan and doled into the rice mixture when the previous ladling had evaporated. Low heat and a steady stir with a wooden spoon. I considered blanching the chives but in the end didn’t think it was necessary, and besides I only have two hobs, right? I would chop them finely and add with the last ladling. That’s what I did.

A very pleasing finish to the dish with the creaminess offset by the specks of chives. The risotto was lifted, much in the way lemon zest will add zing to a big beefy stew. A soothing, slippery rice dish with the added tang of garlic chives. A winner. And now I feel better. 

POSTSCRIPT: As is customary I made enough food for two meals but, returning to the risotto the next day I discovered the chives had soured somehow, giving the dish a very unpleasant bitter taste. Nothing to be done with that, no way to salvage it. If I repeat the dish I will just make a basic risotto and add the chives, possibly slightly blanched, for each serving. 

Cheddar stands for comfort

Just got back from the Land of Smiles. I did a lot of that while I was there, and other people reciprocated. I also, unsurprisingly, ate a lot of food. Despite its proliferation, also depressingly at times paired with beer as a kind of backpacker ‘meal deal’, I only had Pad Thai twice. The first time on my first night in Bangkok’s Chinatown, at a streetside stall on plastic chairs with a large cold Chang beer. On this occasion they folded the noodle mixture up into a kind of omelette and served it so. The peanuts and accompanying sauces were on the side, to be added at one’s discretion. The second time was at Yam’s Kitchen on Koh Phangan, and this was a more sprawling, but perhaps more delicious, affair, with all the trimmings artfully arranged around the side of the plate. Contrasting atmospheres too: the first was a vibrant night scene, with vendors and pedestrians jostling alike for alley-space and the scent of fish sauce in the air; the second was a calmer affair, alone, with a glorious pink sunset and the dusky breeze hushing over the waves. Chang beer the only constant.

pink light near night

Yam’s Kitchen presided over by the indomitable lady herself. My eating house of choice on Koh Phangan.

Other culinary highlights included the barbecued tilapia fish at Lert Ros in Chiang Mai – a literal step away from the front of my hotel – a Beef Pha Naeng at the same Yam’s which was all sweet and sour liquid deliciousness, the food made by ‘Mom’ at the resort where I stayed on the island and, my final meal enjoyed with the boon of unexpected companionship, Khao Soi, a northern curry topped with crisply-fried onions on Ram Buttri road in Bangkok.

All these flavours of red and green chilli, fish sauce, coconut, peanut and lime, could have influenced my palate to the extent I might have been craving more of the same on my return. And yet. I believe in more transitory experiences, as a certain piece of music heard at a particular time cannot have the same effect when re-listened to, so the my eating experience in Thailand shall, for now, stay there too, elbow to elbow on fold-up tables, before a collide-oscope of colour, under the sinking salmon sun.

When I arrived yesterday late morning I was weary, having managed only a restless pair of hours on a lightly padded set of chairs at Macau Airport while screaming children ran amok around the deserted departures lounge. In this instance I fall back on an old favourite, something that requires little thought or imagination, that can be prepared more or less eyes closed which was, more or less, how I was anyway. I have no desire to go into pointless discussions concerning how this simple dish can be served and, apparently, the best way to eat it, on what type of bread, grate the cheese or slice the cheese, what make of cheese, cha cha cha.

Suffice to say: some sort of cheese. I had some in my fridge, bearing a colour that should make a man such as myself, from the home of Cheddar, ashamed. I had bread too, cheap stuff that toasts poorly. And I had chutney, brought back from the Christmas holidays. An unpromising set of ingredients. And yet. The bread toasted the best it could, the cheese melted sloppily: I ate it in less time it’s taken me to write this paragraph.

I lay on my bed with the early afternoon sun slanting in over me and slept like the proverbial.