Vietnamese on Kingsland Road

Fittingly for the final farewell dinner with one of my besties, we went for Vietnamese on Kingsland Road last night. One of the good things about living in Shoreditch is the amount of Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road.

Dinner last night was:
Prawn summer rolls with Hoi Sun sauce
Chilli Squid
Ribs (Pauline ordered these – was not a fan)
Followed by:
Prawn and Papaya salad
Lemongrass and chilli prawns
Whole steamed sea bass with coriander and lime (As usual, this was sublime)
All washed down with a lovely crisp bottle of white.

I do find it amusing and also indicative of our friendship that the (many) farewell's we've had the past few weeks have been around food. One last champagne lunch! One last Tuesday Night Dinner! One last Vietnamese on Kingsland Road! I'll miss G & S dearly - this is very much the end of an era.

Lunch at Zetter

I had a business lunch at The Zetter today, and while I've been there for cocktails before, I hadn't eaten there so I was rather looking forward to it.

To start I had "Grilled Green Asparagus With Poached Egg, Teruel D O Serrano Ham & Truffle Dressing" followed by the "Pan Fried Sea Bream With Braised Salisify, Rocket Pesto & Clam Ragout".

The starter had a generous amount of the Serrano ham on the plate, although strangely light on the asparagus. And the asparagus tips were peeled, which I thought to be a little strange considering they were quite young and tender. An all round good dish.

My main course was also lovely. The sea bass was pan-fried perfectly, with the skin being lovely and crunchy and the clams delicious. The 'braised salisify' - which I do admit to not having eaten before today - was more of a novelty vegetable than an automatic first choice. I do think there were a few other vegetables that could easily have worked as well - including something like pak choi if there was a need to bring a bit of fusion into the dish. We ordered a few sides - roasted new potatoes (far too salty but crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside), rocket and Parmesan salad (undressed and as you would expect) and then wilted spinach, which I think had some sort of light soy dressing.

Lunch was finished off with a decent double espresso (no sugar).

Smoked Eel Salad

Planning Monday night's dinner party has had me thinking about the more unusual salads I've made recently, and one that stands out is the smoked eel salad with roasted butternut, wild rocket, horseradish and pomegranate seeds. There's a wonderful fishmonger in Clapham South, and while I was very disappointed that he'd sold out of clams for the spaghetti vongole that I was planning on making that evening, he did suggest the smoked eel for my starter. The butternut was an interesting twist, and more included because a) not being widely eaten in the UK, I have an obsession with roast butternut and b) I had my heart set on including it in the meal somehow. Not that it didn't work well, I just think the combination of the peppery rocket with the rich, oily eel with the horseradish and crunchy pomegranate seeds can stand on their own.

More than just salad

I have a bit of a thing about salads. Maybe it was all those years being a vegetarian that did it for me.

I tasted the most gorgeous salad on Market Kitchen yesterday, which was part of a "Beetroot Masterclass". I know prior to tasting the salad, we were cracking jokes about the need for a beetroot masterclass, but in fact, I was completely impressed. I normally roast my beetroot, but steaming it just adds another dimension to the beets.

Jeremy Lee made a steamed beetroot salad with boiled egg, lambs lettuce, watercress and (made-from-scratch) salad cream. The combination was just incredible. The steamed beetroot was truly gorgeous - the colours on the plate were brilliant.

I made a lovely salad the other evening: Courgette ribbons, strawberries, crushed walnuts, goats cheese and fresh coriander. The flavours, textures and colours work really well together, and I love strawberries, goats cheese and coriander as a combination of flavours. I'm doing the courgette ribbons a lot lately as it's so easy and a perfect way to serve what could be an otherwise wintery vegetable in summer. It also brings a bit more depth to the salad.

I still have never managed to perfect the sublime carrot dressings that I had in New York a few years ago. I also had an amazing beetroot dressing (vegetable-based salad dressings must have been very on trend at the time) which I am definitely going to be trying out.

A day at Market Kitchen

I met Matthew Fort today, and I did develop a bit of a (non-sexual, of course) crush on him during Great British Menu. He is absolutely lovely, and incredibly funny. Tom Parker-Bowles is also rather lovely, and Jeremy Lee is very, very camp but a great chef. I was filming for Market Kitchen, and while that deserves a post all in its own, it did re-ignite the foodie fire in me.

I really enjoyed meeting Rose Grimond, who has given up acting and has started a business supplying food from the Orkney Islands (http://www.orkneyrose.com/). She sells her produce at Borough, and we got so deep into conversation about Borough, its alliance with the wonderful Boqueria market in Barcelona, that she almost missed her queue to answer Matthew Ford's question.

Such a lovely day out!

Herring cake - ingredients

There seems to be great interest in the Herring cake, and while Christian and John spent hours making it unfortunately most of it was thrown out at the end of the night. First you cut the crusts off some good quality white bread. Arrange on a tray/dish. Start layering on a good deal of mayonaise. Layer up, adding prawns, bread, maynaise. Leave to settle and for the mayonaise to soak into the bread. Then add smoked salmon, gerkins, sliced raddish and caviar. It wasn't particularly appitising, to be honest.

Herring Cake or 'Sill Tårt'

Apparently this cake is traditionally eaten at Swedish Midsummer.