KOREAN FRIED CHICKEN WINGS

These are highly addictive and it's probably a good job they are a bit of a faff otherwise we would be eating them all the time.  These chicken wings are coated in cornflour, fried, coated again, fried again and then doused in a highly addictive hot sweet spicy sauce. You get messy eating them and messy cooking them but they are well worth the trouble.  I don't have a deep fat fryer so cook them in a high sided sauté pan which is probably the best way as they would make a horrible mess of any fryer!

I like to serve them with a very simple coleslaw. Shred half a cabbage and a couple of carrots, along with a finely sliced shallot - I have one of those plastic mandolines which makes all this very easy.  Lots of black pepper, a sprinkle of sea salt and enough mayonnaise to keep it all together. The end result shouldn't be creamy, the mayonnaise should just be enough to bind.  A squirt of lemon juice lifts it all.

A word about quantity - my husband can eat chicken wings until he explodes so this amount is dinner for the pair of us...adjust to your own appetite!





INGREDIENTS

Wings
800g chicken wings (usually two packs and you don't want the wing tips)
8 tblsp. cornflour
1 tblsp. rice wine
Oil

Sauce
1 tblsp. soy sauce
3 tblsp. rice wine
2 tblsp. white wine vinegar - or apple cider vinegar
I tblsp. gochujang, Korean red chilli pepper paste - most Chinese supermarkets carry it, it usually comes in a plastic tub
3 tblsp. honey
2 tsp. sesame oil
2 tblsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. grated ginger
1 tsp. grated garlic
2 tblsp. chopped peanuts for garnish

METHOD

Joint the chicken wings into little drumsticks and the flat two boned wing piece. Put them in a big bowl, add the vinegar and toss them together. Leave for half an hour.

To make the sauce put all the ingredients in a saucepan, slowly bring up to the bowl making sure the sugar has all melted. Simmer for ten minutes until the sauce is thick and glossy.

Prepare a grill pan or similar by lining with foil and putting on top the grill rack.

In a wide deep frying pan heat up half an inch of oil.  I use rapeseed oil (not the cold pressed expensive stuff, the ordinary cooking oil) because it gets to a nice high temperature for frying.

Bring the oil up to a medium frying heat then dip each chicken wing in cornflour and put into the pan to fry.  Don't overcrowd the pan.  Fry on each side for three to four minutes then put on the grill pan rack to drain.  They don't have to be brown at this stage but the cornflour should look crisp.  Dredge the draining wings with another coat of cornflour.

 

Once all the chicken wings have been fried and are draining let the oil cool then strain it to get rid of the residue.  Put the strained oil back into the pan, top up with clean oil and then prepare to start frying again.  At this stage I put my oven on so that the first batch of wings I have second fried keep hot but I am a bit of a fiend for hot food - up to you!

Fry all the chicken wings again at a medium heat until they are golden brown.  Transfer them to a hot wide shallow bowl, pour over the hot sauce, then toss and toss until the wings are thoroughly coated.  Sprinkle over the chopped peanuts and serve with the coleslaw, a bowl for the bones and a lot of kitchen towel.  Enjoy!

DISHOOM BLACK DAAL AND SOME CRISPY BHINDI

I have been trying to eat at Dishoom for ages but I am not a natural queuer (is that a word?) and as I never seem to be in the right place at the right time the joys of their delicacies have been denied to me.  And then the stars aligned...

My good friend Buz and her man Euan had promised to buy Mr Redding and I dinner at Tom Kitchin (which was utterly delightful) and we thought this would be a good time to catch up with some of the people I was at Stirling University with - people I haven't seen for over *cough* 30 years.  So we had a big enough party to book a table!  O frabjous day!  Between the seven of us we got through four bowls of Dishoom's trademark black dal as well as their crispy okra, squid, chicken, lots of other stuff - it was all delicious.  I was very struck by the daal so began to try and find a recipe - this is my most recent version, and I thoroughly recommend it.  I use a pressure cooker, a utensil I am using increasingly to cook both meat and pulses.  Meat seems to retain more of its flavour whilst becoming beautifully tender and both meat and pulses take a fraction of the time.  The pulses you need are Urid beans - KTC Foods do them, I bought mine in Morrisons.

Ingredients

200g Urid beans
Twice the amount in volume of water
Tsp. grated ginger
Tsp. grated garlic
1/2 tsp. chilli powder
Tsp. ground cumin
Tsp. ground coriander
Tsp. turmeric
Knob of butter
Tblsp. cream
Tsp. salt
Good couple of grinds of black pepper

Method

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan, bring to the boil. If using a pressure cooker it will take around 25 minutes, if conventional cooking probably a good hour.  Once the lentils are soft take off the heat and mash half the beans.  Stir together then add another knob of butter and maybe a splash of cream before serving.

This also responds well to being stuck in a low oven for further cooking - seems to add to its unctuousness!

Last night I served this with pork with garlic, vinegar and chilli (a vindaloo) from Madhur Jaffrey  and crispy fried okra. 

The okra are so delicious and so easy - just mix 1/2 teaspoon each of ground coriander, ground cumin, chill powder and turmeric with a couple of tablespoons of gram flour.  Cut the bhindi in four lengthwise and toss in the mixture.  leave for half an hour than heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan and shallow fry in batch.  The finishing touch should be a sprinkle of amchur, dried mango powder, which add an amazing tartness.

EATING A BIT DIFFERENTLY

I am overweight.  I feel like I have always been overweight but when I look back at photographs I see I wasn't. It was all in my mind.  But I am now.  I am also in an extremely stressful job where I am having to make people redundant and the future of my organisation is in the balance - and it's a good organisation, it's been looking after charities in London for 110 years - but I digress.

Before Mr Redding and I got married we followed the Sirt diet for a few months - it did the trick. Almost no fat, kale juice deadening the appetite, and no carbs led to a gratifying but not silly weight loss.  We tried it again last month but suddenly swamp water wasn't cutting it for us.  So I have decided to off piste, inspired in some way by a fellow food blogger @thefoodjudge. Her plates of spiralised vegetables and protein looked interesting, delicious, and a fabulous antidote to Christmas food.  So I bought a spiraliser, looked to Sabrina Ghayour for some middle eastern flavours and set off.  I will say up front that I am not counting calories but I am avoiding carbohydrates and saturated fat.

First of my recipes is a soupy noodly prawn dish - it is deeply satisfying, a bit hot, very tasty. This recipe is for two people.

INGREDIENTS

1 tblsp. oil
400g kings prawns, cut down the back and intestinal track removed
Tblsp. soy sauce

1 tblsp.oil
6 spring onions, white part sliced diagonally, green part shredded
Inch of ginger, sliced and shredded finely
Garlic clove, sliced finely
2 red birds eye chillies, sliced finely

2 stalks celery sliced
Tin of sliced water chestnuts drained
Handful of coarsely chopped coriander
2 medium courgettes, spiralised or cut into long fine strips
2 medium carrots, spiralised or cut into long fine strips
Chicken stock cube

1. Heat the oil and soy sauce together. When hot add the prawns and cook until they have just turned pink all over. remove from pan and set aside with juices.  Wipe out pan.

2. Add oil to pan, out on medium heat and add spring onion whites, ginger, garlic and chilli - sweat down until soft.

3. Add the celery, water chestnuts and the stock cube along with a mug of water. Bring to boil for five minutes.  Add the spiralised vegetables and cook for a couple of minutes, adding the prawns in the last 30 seconds to warm through.

4. Serve in two bowls, sprinkling over the green bits of spring onions and coriander.

CHICKEN SHATKORA

 

East Dulwich is on the other side of Peckham Rye from us - when we moved here 10 years ago we were very much on the 'wrong' side of the Rye, the Peckham side, the dodgy side.  Nowadays we are on the hip side, the groovy side, the oh so achingly let's have another upmarket barbers to look after all of those beards side.  Whatever. Lordship Lane is the main drag in East Dulwich and has a surprising number of restaurants - and a lot of them are Indian.  Our favourite is Jaflong, it has a few things on the menu you don't see elsewhere, the cooking is great and the staff are lovely.  It is also BYOB with no corkage which always goes down well.

It was at Jaflong I first encountered shatkora - or satkora, spellings vary - an Indian citrus fruit which seems to be a bit like a lemon, a bit like a lime, and has very thick peel and pith.  I have hunted far and wide for this and finally tracked down both fresh and frozen versions - in Taj Stores in Brick Lane - where else?   I bought a bag of frozen and this is my first experiment using it.  I think the delicate citrus flavour is very well suited to chicken so I have used chicken thighs for this.  A mound of fragrant basmati and maybe some bhindi would go well with this.

Ingredients

I tblsp. vegetable oil
4 black cardamom
I tblsp. grated ginger
1 tblsp. grated garlic
1 large onion very finely diced
1/2 tblsp. tomato puree
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. chilli powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. garam masala
5 slices of satkora
500g boneless chicken thighs, cut into chunks

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the cardamom pods.  Sizzle for a minute or so then add the onions. Fry gently for about five minutes until soft then add the ginger and garlic, fry for another couple of minutes.

Add the tomato puree and spices and cook out gently for a another minute then add the chicken.  Continue frying for another couple of minutes then add the satkora and a mug of water, turn down the heat and let it all simmer for 40 minutes.  Taste, adjust seasoning if it needs a touch of salt, and serve.

MY LAMB CURRY

I love Indian food, I love eating it and I love cooking it.  I have always been intrigued by it and on the purchase of my first book by Madhur Jaffrey in 1986 (!) I set about trying to learn the secrets of the spicing and the textures, all so different to the food my Mum taught me to cook…

Since then I have tried many recipes and this has become my own curry, the one I cook when I can’t be bothered to follow a recipe.  I make no claims for its authenticity so I want no howls of outrage about my technique or ingredients but we love it.

As an aside, if you love Indian food I do urge you to book into dinner at one of Asma Khan’s Darjeeling Express events – cooking the food she was brought up with and drawing on the cooking of Hyderabad and Calcutta it really is some of the best, authentic, Indian cooking you will find in this country.

This recipe gives a thick smooth gravy (apparently what ‘curry’ means) which is well flavoured but not particularly hot – if you like your curries hot add more dried red chillies to the spice mix.  I will also admit to the fact that I now buy frozen pureed garlic and ginger, makes life so much easier...

INGREDIENTS

Curry Powder - 2 tblsp. cumin seeds, 4 tblsp. coriander seeds, 1 tblsp. fenugreek seeds, 1/2 tblsp. cardamom seeds (and yes I mean the seeds out of the pod - good Indian supermarkets will sell the seeds by themselves), 2 inch cinnamon stick, 4 dried long red chillies, 12 cloves.

2 tblsp. vegetable oil

5 cardamom pods

6 cloves

0.5kg lamb shoulder, cut into 2" chunks

3 red onions

1 tblsp. grated ginger

1 tblsp. grated garlic

4 large ripe tomatoes chopped

Handful of chopped coriander

1 tbsp. tamarind paste

 METHOD

Put all the spices in a frying pan and warm over a low flame until you start to smell them – don’t try and rush this stage with a high heat as it will burn them…they should be ready after a couple of minutes.  Tip them into a spice grinder and grind until you have a fine powder.

In a large frying pan heat half the oil and add the onions, garlic and ginger. Cook on a low heat for around 10 minutes until the onions are soft.  Add the tomatoes and cook for a couple more minutes.  Once everything is collapsed blend it – I do it by putting everything in a bowl and using a stick blender but whatever works for you.

Give the frying pan a quick wipe out then add another tblsp. of oil.  Heat it then, once hot, add the cloves and cardamom. Once they are sizzling add the tomato onion paste, cook for a minute or two then add 2 tblsp. of the spice powder.  Stir everything round briskly for a couple of minutes, making sure it doesn’t catch, then add the lamb.  Keep stirring for a few minutes then add half a pint of water.  Make sure everything is well mixed then turn down to simmer for an hour.  Check from time to time to make sure it’s not getting too dry.

At the end of the cooking time check that the lamb is tender – if not, give it a bit more time.  Add the tamarind and coriander, give it all a good stir and taste – it might need a bit of salt.

I usually serve this with dal and a vegetable.  My current favourite vegetable is spinach and potatoes.  Take a large bag of spinach, put it in a frying pan and let it wilt in the heat then drain and chop. At the same time cut a couple of potatoes up into 1” cubes and boil for 10 minutes, drain.  Heat a tblsp. oil in a frying pan and add a teaspoon of turmeric and a teaspoon each of coriander and fennel seeds.  Toss the potatoes in this, once coated add the spinach, then add a dash of water and let the whole thing cook and homogenise for five minutes.  Add a bit of salt to taste.

 

 

MY WEDDING CAKE

Apologies for having neglected this blog for so long - life kind of takes over and my job has been very busy recently and I have also had something else on my mind.  Finally, Mr Redding and I can get married.  We've been together for nine years  but now he is free to make an honest woman of me.  The first time I got married was in 1987 which now seems several life times away.  It has been lovely organising this wedding, deciding exactly what we want rather than what is expected of us.  I have a lot of free time on Sundays so I decided I would make my own cake.  It's a fruit cake using Delia Smith's Christmas cake recipe and I have marzipanned the bottom two layers - the top was left naked as my eldest brother doesn't like marzipan. I used roll out fondant to ice it then decorated with sugar balls stuck on with thick glace icing.  I'm very happy with the way it has turned out, I feel it's very 'us' and that is how we want this wedding to be.  So, I will endeavour to blog more this year but for the next few weeks I will be getting married and honeymooning in Madeira.   

MEDLAR, CHELSEA

I don't do restaurant reviews but this was just so enjoyable I have to share. Neither Mr Redding nor I work on a Friday - a sign of the straightened times the charity sector finds itself in but an arrangement we have both embraced. Normally we spend Fridays looking for the ideal seaside town to retire to in a couple of years but this Friday an unexpected work engagement meant we felt justified in taking ourselves out for lunch.  I remembered seeing a couple of reviews of Medlar, and various Twitter people saying how good it was, so on a cold November lunchtime we were very happy to enter the lovely dining room - nothing pretentious, cool and neutral tones, and a gentle murmur of happy people eating...and no music, praise be.

Before we get on to food I must put in a word for our sommelier - we kind of knew what wine we wanted  but he was so thoughtful and knowledgeable, and didn't try to upsell. As someone who comes from a background where a bottle of Piesporter was the height of sophistication even though we were eating steak I can still feel a bit overwhelmed when it comes to wine but he made me feel those 6 evenings spent on a wine tasting course in Putney five years ago weren't totally wasted.

So, with a glass of champagne in hand, we read the menu, ordered and ate - it was all delicious, beautifully cooked, with magical little touches like the rissole that accompanied the venison - and the crab ravioli with its seafood bisque was something I would be happy to have for lunch every day - just the right side of grand French opulence.

I will let the pictures do the talking....

Buffalo burrata with tempura artichoke, speck, rocket pesto, vincotto and hazelnuts
   

Crab raviolo with samphire, brown shrimps, fondue of leeks and bisque sauce

Under blade fillet with shin and pickled walnut croquettes, triple cooked chips and béarnaise

Venison loin with rissole, choucroute, beetroot and braised shallot

Cheese and biscuits

Rose custard with orange, cardamom, saffron and pistachio 

Accompanying it all were delicious wines including a slightly off-dry white from Luxembourg for our starters, an incredibly deep, spicy, complex Cote du Rhone with our mains and an amazing yuzu flavoured sake to go with the pudding. Service was friendly, efficient and professional - the whole experience was delightful, down to the bag of passion fruit marshmallows and chocolate truffles we were given to take home.  When you next need spoiling go to Medlar.