Funny Bunny

I guess I’m kind of old fashioned when it comes to ethnic restaurants. I sorta expect to see Japanese chefs in Japanese restaurants, Chinese chefs in Chinese restaurants and so on. When I see a Chinese chef in an Italian restaurant then there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance there for me so I was a little bit apprehensive reading about a new wow restaurant in New York serving lekker Souf Efrican chow in general and lekker Bunny Chow in particular. You see the restaurant is run by New Yorkers Paul Simeon and Manu Dinghra, one is from the Caribbean and the other is Indian but not from a restaurant background. Anyway a video tells a thousand stories so check out this version of bunny chow.


Other “traditional” South African specialities on offer include “biltongs with champagne grapes” , “Grilled Cape Town Cuttlefish with ground nuts, molasses and chillis” and “Sausage Sliders ostrich or boerwors with yogurt and feta spread”. Now that’s why I’m kind of old fashioned!

Dumb recipes

I'm a rapacious recipe reader. I've read many thousand more recipes than I'll ever cook in my life. Wherever there are recipes there you'll find me, in bookshops browsing through glossy cookbooks (all written by glossy cooks), books which I have absolutely no intention of buying, standing in line at supermarket checkouts reading those little recipe cards that they display in racks and which litter everyones car dashboards along with unsolicited traffic tickets and on wet afternoons sadly lurking in newsagents in a flasher's overcoat, leafing through the gastroporn magazines - if there's a recipe to be read it seems I just can't resist it.
I read recipes that I don't need to and I don't know why. Maybe I think that I'm going to find some great new idea, some previously un-thought of way of preparing racoon, maybe I just feel I want to be au fait with " Delia having fun with souffles ", I really don't have an answer. However this silly little habit has taught me one or two things about recipes, I can recognise the ones which will work, the ones which might work and the ones which have been written by a committee ! And every so often I come across a real gem which screams out at me "Why the hell would anyone want to do this?"
"Chicken grilled under bricks" is a perfect example of one of those really dumb recipes. Hailed as a so called Grill Master, a Barbeque King, author of several barbeque cookbooks, the bozo who came up with this lulu and who shall remain anonymous, purely in case any of you might be tempted to rush out and buy one of his books, has created one of the dumbest recipes I have come across in a long time. He recommends you take some skinless chicken breast and sprinkle with salt,pepper and chilli flakes. Then you douse them with lemon juice and olive oil which sort of defeats the object of sprinkling with the spices because now you wash them all off. Next you place the chicken breasts on a hot grill and position a brick wrapped in tinfoil on top of each breast........why???? to stop them flying away ????, to keep the flies off ???? No, he reckons it keeps the chicken from drying out (you've lost me there pal) and it makes just dandy grill marks on the breast, that is if you can pry them off the grill bars with a hammer and chisel!
I'm going to keep this one for when I get around to writing a cook book in the style of "Gourmet Cooking for Dummies". The title I'm working on a the moment is "Gourmet Dummies for Cooking" .

Beat your greens

You’ve got to feel for poor old Vicki Larrieux, a 22-year-old student from Portsmouth, who claims she is unable to keep to a healthy diet because she is frightened of vegetables. Miss Larrieux survives on a diet of meat, potatoes, cereals and an occasional apple but refuses even a single slice of carrot on her dinner plate.She suffers from a fear known as lachanophobia, which leaves her sweating and stricken with panic attacks at the merest sight of a sprout or a pea. "I have always had an irrational fear of vegetables even as a child I used to properly freak out if some carrots or a few peas were on my plate," she said. "But as it continued into adult life I started to think it might not just be a dislike for vegetables but an actual phobia. Every time I would see vegetables not just on my plate, but anywhere I would get feelings of panic, start sweating and my heart rate would shoot up. People might think it is a bit of a laughable affliction but I have a genuine fear of greens it's not just that I dislike the taste of sprouts or broccoli, but the actual sight of them fills me with dread and I could never touch them." I’ve got to admit that there’s a few veggies that put the fear of god into me also but usually only after they’ve been massacred by some kitchen cowboy!

Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Trust those pesky Frenchies to come up with a way to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew even when slightly pissed. These boots were made for drinking. FeedBlitz subscribers should visit the site to view
.

Dilly Diner of the Week

There's a funny little restaurant in the North East of China in the town of Jilin which qualifies for this week's Dilly Diner. You see everyone is welcome except for the Japanese. Well that's not quite true because they will serve Japanese guests if they have a proper perspective on history and are prepared to apolgise for Japan's occupation of Manchuria during the years 1931 to 1945.
Mr Tian, the manager, stuck a notice up in his window saying "Japanese people barred from entry" as tourism started to expand in the region but at the same time he came up with an apology policy which would allow them to secure a booking in his restaurant as long as "they can correctly view history". But as for the others who refuse to admit to history then they are forever barred and will have to seek a meal somewhere else.
Many Chinese believe that Japan has never owned up to atrocities committed during it's occupation including the 1937 Rape of Nanking in which it is claimed as many as 300,000 Chinese men, women and children were slaughtered by Japanese troops and so Mr Tian says he " is happy to welcome those Japanese customers who can correctly view history but those who refuse to admit to the sins of their forefathers, well we just don't like them ." Let's hope this idea doesn't catch on elsewhere otherwise some of us with British backgrounds could end up being very hungry on our travels.

That Was The Week That Was

Are French chefs becoming a little bit less snooty and more down to earth as they seek out new customers for their restaurants? This week a trio of top French chefs took their art into the Paris underground, cooking up a treat for a crowd of commuters in a bid to prove haute cuisine can be cheap and simple. “Sharing our cuisine with people is so great,” said Eric Frechon, who runs the kitchens at President Nicolas Sarkozy’s favourite Paris haunt, the top-end Le Bristol hotel. Frechon was the first of a trio of gourmet chefs, each graced with three-star status in the famed Michelin restaurant guide, to come down to the people with his pots and pans in a makeshift kitchen set up for three days at Mirosmesnil station in the Paris subway. Carrots were Frechon’s dish of the day, “to show people you can cook simple and cheap food.”



Meanwhile the news from another famous French three-starred Michelin chef released this week confirmed what many had been speculating on for many months - Daniel Boulud will open at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge London. The announcement follows that of fellow three-Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal opening his first London restaurant at the same hotel next autumn. Boulud will launch French restaurant Bar Boulud in the space of the former Grill restaurant of the luxury hotel. It will be modelled on the Bar Boulud in New York and will offer a French bistro menu with signature terrines and pâtés made on site under the direction of acclaimed charcutier Gilles Verot. Lyon-born Boulud trained in France under legendary chefs Roger Vergé, Georges Blanc and Michel Guérard. He moved to the USA in 1982 and shot to fame a decade later when he opened Daniel, his first and most celebrated restaurant, which last month gained the top accolade of three Michelin-stars.



Heston’s name also popped up this week in connection with another restaurant due to open in London as plans were announced to re-open the revolving restaurant at the top of the BT Tower in London after a closure of 30 years.The 620ft skyscraper, formerly known as the Post Office Tower, closed to the public in 1980 amid security fears. Now BT plans to open the 34th-floor venue and will approach chefs including Heston Blumenthal, Jamie Oliver and Gary Rhodes to oversee the restaurant. Rhodes already runs a restaurant on the 24th floor of Tower 42, once the NatWest Tower, which was London's first building to surpass the BT Tower in height. The revolving restaurant, used by BT for corporate hospitality and company events, is set to reopen around Christmas 2011 with seating for 60 to 70 diners. Sitting on the 10ft-wide revolving part of the floor, guests would take 22 minutes to complete a circuit as they dined. Seems the ideal venue for Heston’s “pie in the sky” cuisine.

I wish I could bake a decent croissant

There are few things in the culinary arena that I haven't tried my hand at over the years. Like most chefs my natural bias is towards working the stove top, grilling, sauteeing, poaching, stewing, vast bubbling pots of stocks and sauces but occasionally I've ventured into the pastry kitchen with less than stunning although still edible results. But one thing which has eluded me is how to make a decent croissant. Oh, I've eaten thousands of them all over the world, I know exactly what the perfect croissant should be, buttery, flaky and feather light but this pastry chef's work of art is one of the kitchen's supreme tests of skill.
Although something similar may have been already in production, we can pinpoint exactly when the croissant as we know it was invented. As the Turks tried to invade Budapest in 1686 by digging under the city walls, bakers, who were already at their work, raised the alarm and the attackers were chased off. As a reward for their vigilance the government allowed them to sell a speciality at a premium price which was essentially a bread roll which they cheekily shaped like a crescent to mock the crescent moon of the Turkish flag but it was the French who, later in the 19 th century, created the now familiar flaky dough that we associate with the dish.
Some things just haven't changed as far as the modern croissant is concerned, especially in Cape Town . We still pay a premium price for what essentially is flour, fat and water and many of our Cape Town bakers must be of Turkish origin because they still produce croissants which are beautifully shaped but taste like bread rolls and on the odd occasion when you can find one which is buttery, flaky, crisp on the outside, tender and moist in the middle, then you can also find a little bit of kindness in your heart and forgive the French for lots of other sins.