Cafe Maitreya

My father is a vegetarian. Now hang on, bear with me. It's not his fault, it's just the way he was raised.

Because he grew up before vegetarianism was really accepted as a thing that exists, he's gotten pretty used to not having much choice when he goes to restaurants. Let's just say it's a good thing he likes cheese omelettes. So when he came down to visit me on his birthday the other week, I suggested we try out Cafe Maitreya, a vegetarian restaurant in Easton I had heard about.

We could see why it has 'Cafe' in the title as soon as we walked in. The decor has that sort of laid back, daytime vibe, with light-coloured tables a touch too close to each other, big windows, and overpriced local artwork on the walls. It felt very informal and sociable, especially with the very decent music selection (until that abruptly stopped halfway through the evening).

We liked the sound of all the starters so the four of us ordered a different one each to make sure we would all get to try a bit. You've got to cover your bases. I had samphire fritters that were lovely, and as salty and greasy as scampi. Pete had an easy, classic asparagus and goats cheese. Mum had a 'weird but it works' radicchio, hazelnut and passionfruit salad, and Dad had a chilled garlic and almond soup with melon balls. I really liked the idea of this, but there was some sort of fortified wine in Dad's soup which made the whole thing strongly reminiscent of cream sherry. I marked that as nice enough, but more than a little odd.

For main I had spiced sweet potato pancakes with halloumi, while others had: 1) a coconut, cauliflower and tamarind laksa, 2) a warm salad of jersey royals, asparagus and lentils, and 3) a squash and applewood tarte tatin. Mum had read some reviews that said the portions were small, so we ordered extra wedges. The reviews were lies, told by lying liars. Do not order extra wedges. You will not need extra wedges.

The flavours of the sweet potato pancakes were powerful, but the texture was so dense and stodgy that eating it eventually became a chore. The consensus seemed to be that in the rush to pack in as much flavour as possible, a couple of things became a little overworked; the squash tatin was a little too sweet, some dressings were a little too acidic.

Despite the little hiccups here and there, we had a very enjoyable meal. Staff were attentive and friendly, and the food was, if not consistently amazing, always interesting.

It was also quite nice for Dad to have a bit of choice, and not be forced into a corner. If nothing else, Cafe Maitreya does an admirable job of proving you don't need meat to have a 'proper' substantial meal with strong flavours. I left with my belly all full of vegetables, and, as tradition dictates, farting like a trooper the next day.

Bristol Food Festivals

Against all the odds, it appears to be Summer. Y'know, an actual one. I caught the sun while wearing a t-shirt, thereby giving myself an absolutely epic farmer's tan, so there's no going back now - even if it starts raining tomorrow I'll have the embarassing evidence that sunshine actually happened this year.

Summer means food festivals, and in Bristol (the spiritual home of the grubby festival goer) there's a lot of 'em about.

Last weekend was the Foodies Festival at Bristol Harbourside. It looked like fun, but there wasn't a huge amount of detail on the website, so at £12 a ticket I had no intention of going. Until I won two free tickets in a Twitter competition, that is.

It was bigger than I was expecting, quite sprawling really. There were large tents for demonstration, but other than that everything was outside. Rain wasn't a problem, but there wasn't any shade. This became an issue, as on the day I went it was hotter than the devil's own arsehole.

The selection was nicely varied, and the options for lunch were excellent. I had a tasty if rather oversalted sauteed potato, saucisson and comte tartiflette, but my friend Anna really won the round with the finest Rib Eye Sandwich I have ever seen. It came from El Gaucho Barbecue, and it looked and tasted amazing (she was good enough to let me try a bit).

Shhhh. The meat is resting.

There were your usual stands of fudge, olives and sauces, and all of pretty good quality. We decided to pick up enough ingredients to have a Ploughman's for dinner. We got 'Wyfe of Bath' cheese from The Bath Soft Cheese company, some goat's cheddar, a garlic pickle from The Cherry Tree, and some venison salami. All were delicious, but the goat's cheddar rather suffered from the heat. The garlic pickle was particularly good.

In danger of sounding like a weak, wilting flower, I am simply not built for hot weather. I sweat like someone turned a tap on, and the efficiency of the irrigation of my underboobs make me consider using their design as a way to alleviate drought in sub-Saharan Africa. This was a heat that even gelato couldn't handle. I needed to sit down and have some fizz.

Classy

While Anna had a coconut.

Classier

Usually I would be happy to wander round indefinitely, but considering the heat (did I mention that? It was a bit warm) we didn't hang around too long. Despite that it was a well organised and varied festival, although I doubt I'd go again as I'm more a fan of the 'free' variety.

Speaking of free food festivals, guess where I went this morning? The Love Food festival in the Paintworks. No pictures this time, I left my camera at home.

Although much smaller, I think I enjoyed this one even more. The stalls with cooked food were outside and the rest of the stalls were inside, although in a nice airy, temperate space. As soon as we got there we were approached by a boy of about 12 offering us samples of baby back ribs. He had style, that kid, and the kind of grifting attitude that wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of Oliver! The ribs were pretty good too. Nice one.

We had pies for lunch. Mine was a pork pie, hand made with British Lop pork by a very nice middle aged lady. Her whole stall had the unpretentious air of the School Fete about it - a mish-mash of pies, cakes and preserves, all obviously made (to a very high standard, of course) in her own kitchen. Pete had a much more professional looking 'Bath' pie from the local company Lovett Pies. It had braised beef, ale and blue cheese in it. Very tasty.

Pete also got a hot chilli sauce called 'Fire Wata' from  Sister Gee. He was impressed with what he tried, and the man knows his chilli, so it's probably good. We went home with some Potato and Rosemary bread and some really ripe strawberries.

I think I'm about food festivalled out for now, so instead I might go round someone's house, take a look in their cupboards, then smile and say 'I might come back later' with no intention of doing so. Practically the same thing.

No Cream Chocolate Sauce

Chocolate sauce is not difficult to make. Melt some chocolate in some cream. There. Done. Oof.

What? You want to make it without cream in it? Why? Because you're having it with a rich dessert and don't want it to be too fatty? Also you don't want to go to the shops and buy cream because it looks like it might rain? Christ, that's no sort of excuse. I've just given you a perfectly good way to make chocolate sauce and you've thrown it right back at me. You're too picky, that's your problem.

Fine. I'll look it up on the internet...

OK, here's one. It's a bit complicated, but basically you make a a syrup with cocoa powder and... Wait, what?

You want to make it with chocolate because you don't like cocoa powder? What the hell is wrong with you?

FINE I GUESS I'LL JUST MAKE A NEW RECIPE UP MYSELF.

You will need:

100g plain chocolate
250ml water
3 tbsp golden syrup
1 shot liqueur or flavoured alcohol. Cointreau is ideal.

Break the chocolate into pieces. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan, and slowly melt the chocolate. Keep the saucepan on a low heat and stir continuously until the chocolate has completely emulsified, the water reduced, and the sauce has become smooth and glossy (up to 15 minutes).

This can be served hot or cold, but I prefer it cold as it stays nice and thick.

Happy now? Probably not. God, you make me sick.

Pearl Barley Meatballs

Pearl barley is actually barley grains that have been polished ('pearled') to remove the tough outer bran, and not, as it sounds, the name of the brassy landlady of your local pub. After tiny pasta stars, pearl barley is my absolute favourite starchy non-essential addition to soups and stews. The reason tiny pasta stars won out is because they only take about ten minutes to cook, whereas pearl barley will set you back at least 45 minutes.

But since I like it so much I've started cooking it in big batches, then adding the pre-cooked grains to anything that takes my fancy. So far I've sprinkled it on salads, mixed it into chilli, and had it on its own with some chicken stock for a very quick and easy lunch. Really you can use it anywhere you might use other starchy staples, like rice or potatoes.

Extreme Close-up: Whooooooa!!

Potatoes, you say? Potatoes, exactly. So, if I would usually use something starchy like breadcrumbs or grated potato to bind something, like, oh I don't know, meatballs, I could use pearl barley instead? I don't know, Creepy Inner Voice, but let's find out!

To make about 20 meatballs, you will need:

400g lean minced lamb or beef (the pictures below are with beef, but lamb is tastier in my opinion)
150g cooked and rinsed pearl barley
1 small onion, finely diced
Salt, pepper, any other seasoning

Mix everything together using your hands. It's messy but thorough. Form the mix into balls using your hands or a spoon, or one spoon and one hand.

Shallow fry in batches in a large frying pan until browned all over. Don't move them around too much to start off with or they'll stick and fall apart.

Serve any way you see fit. Tomato sauce works well. I had mine in pitta bread with salad and tziki.

The pearl barley here gives a really interesting textural dimension to meatballs, and they soak up a lot of juice so they don't go too dry. Thanks, Creepy Inner Voice, you've saved the day again!

Grilled Lettuce

Is there a more pointless ingredient than lettuce? That was rhetorical - the answer is no. There is nothing more pointless than lettuce. It is nothing but magnolia walls, daytime TV, Michael Mcintyre flavoured banality. Lettuce is a chef's way of cheating you out of a tasty garnish. Lettuce coasts by and lets everyone else take up the slack. Lettuce should be ashamed of itself.

I am not a fan of lettuce.

On the other hand, if something is seriously reduced in price and not yet entirely inedible, I'm probably going to get it. That's just the way I roll. And that is how it came to pass that I had two little gem lettuces in the fridge, with few ideas about what to do with them. A salad would have been bleak  and disappointing without stronger flavours to go with it, so that was out of the question. I've heard that you can braise them, but I honestly wouldn't have known where to start. But what else can you do?

Griddle them, that's what.

Now, I know I use this griddle pan an awful lot, so I hope I'm not putting off readers who don't have one. A large, heavy frying pan will do just as well, but mine is at the bottom of the cupboard and it's really large and really heavy and I'd have to pull out a load of saucepans before I could even get to it, so I'm griddling instead.

I took one little gem lettuce and washed it without removing the stem, so all the leaves remained attached. After shaking it dry, I cut it in half and lightly brushed it with chilli oil and a sprinkle of salt. I then cooked them on the hot griddle for about 3-5 minutes each side, until the bottom part of the leaves started looking translucent and the outer leaves were nicely charred.

I am happy to say that the lettuce, on this occasion, redeemed itself. The charred bits were particularly delicious, and the whole thing was bitter, tasty and interesting.

These would be excellent served whole as a side to a main instead of a regular, boring, lettuce fucking salad.

Panzanella, aka Bread Salad

Considering the lovely weather today, I popped over to the lovely city of Bath to have a nice wander round in the sunshine. I don't know the place that well so my wandering was fairly aimless, but I had a lovely time. The one low point was encountering a frozen yoghurt shop that had aggressively loud music being piped outside by, I shit you not, an actual DJ. In a yoghurt shop. After shedding a brief tear for humanity, I checked out some of the lovely delis to cheer myself up (and get something for dinner). In Chandos' Deli I found a beautiful load of red and yellow tomatoes, and some fancy bread aswell. You know what you can do with bread and good tomatoes? Other than tomato sandwiches, I mean. Panzanella! Basically the two things chopped up and mixed together! I love it when something that ludicrously simple not only works but even has a name to make it sound all proper.

You will need: 

250g bread, (half a baguette is about right)
250g good quality tomatoes, a mix of varieties is best
25g chopped fresh basil
100g hard goat cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
1 clove of garlic, crushed
A good glug of olive oil

Chop the tomatoes and cut the bread into about even pieces. Mix everything together in a bowl, and leave to macerate for about half an hour. Then eat it.

This will make two large servings if you're having it on it's own for dinner (I did), but four if it's a side dish.

Usually I wouldn't stipulate getting the best ingredients. Obviously it helps, but we're all on budgets here, aren't we? Unfortunately, this really lives and dies with the tomatoes so don't bother making it unless you've got a really ripe and tasty lot.

This is great hot weather food. I will never be able to convince myself just to have a salad for dinner, so the bread here is essential to make it feel like you've actually eaten something, and since it absorbs all the delicious juices I'm pretty sure it counts as a vegetable. Trust me.

Experimental Soup

So I was chopping up a cauliflower the other day, as you do, and I remembered that people in the know recommend keeping the core of the cauliflower to use in soup, but when I cut the blasted thing out it was kind of piddly and not nearly enough to make anything decent with. So then I looked at the pile of cauliflower leaves next to the chopping board, and wondered if they were edible.

Note: In hindsight, if you're wondering whether or not something is edible, it's probably a good idea to check before you cook and eat it. But on with the story.

I figured throwing the leaves and core of the cauliflower all in a soup together was a decent enough way to find out whether they were, in fact, digestible. But I didn't want to waste perfectly decent ingredients to go with them just in case it tasted horrible. So I also threw in an old carrot, and a potato that was sprouting and a little softer than usual. Solid logic there.

I chopped everything up fairly small, covered it with water, and added a chicken stock cube, some salt and pepper, a crushed clove of garlic, some lemon juice, and some dried tarragon, then simmered for 20 minutes or so, and loosely mashed everything to keep it chunky.

And the verdict is... edible!

It turns out cauliflower leaves taste like a cross between cauliflower, cabbage and spinach. They're a little on the bitter side, but the lemon juice helped with that.

Experimental Soup - tell your friends.