I Went Shopping - Old Kent Food Centre

This is the inaugural post in a new series called "I Went Shopping."  Slate has recently discovered the thrill of sharing your purchases with other people.  Puh-lease, I had the idea for a blog dedicated to pictures of sharing shopping years ago.  I think the nucleus for the idea began in 2007, when a friend and I returned to his apartment, displayed, and photographed the bounty of our trip to Hyderabad.

India inspires great feeling towards purchases because the voyage out is long, the shopping itself uncovers new things (and even new categories of things!), and often, you don't know when you will return.  On my trip to India this past winter, my sister, our friend and I nightly took out our purchases and laid them out to narrate to each other the work of that day.  Of course we had been with each other continuously, it was not only about showing what we had bought, but also reidentifying with those objects by telling why they were desired.

Here in London, I've been feeling disoriented by the time changes and the distance from homes.  I spent yesterday organizing my life and then went shopping to fill my cupboard.  I first went to Tesco, and the items I bought there were necessary and not so interesting.  But at the Old Kent Food Centre, a favorite of mine, I just wandered the aisles and marveled at the range of products.

The Old Kent Food Centre is a halal butcher shop and grocery store.  The above picture doesn't adequately capture its treasures--just in this aisle, there were pickles from Turkiye, Iraq and India, fish sauce and chili pastes from Thailand, and this treasure from the USA I found at the far end.

Crystal's Louisiana Hot Sauce, bottled for the Arabic-reading world, and sold in London.  I didn't pick any up today, but here's what I did get:

The produce there is so beautiful, the herbs especially are so fresh and green that I wanted to pick up some cilantro and mint too, but resigned myself to this big bunch of parsley only.  I bought some white wine vinegar, canned tomatoes, hot red chillies, pickled gherkins, lemon roasted almonds, sesame crisps, cerassie tea ("Old traditional folk tales of the Caribbean suggests Cerassie tea to be a good cleanser of the blood, giving a healthier, fitter and stronger body."), cardamom tea, and jasmine hair oil.

So far, the real winner is the Ahmad cardamom tea.  It's delicious, and with milk and sugar, tastes like an Indian sweet in liquid form.  So good!  The white wine vinegar made a delicious dressing for my salad, and I have yet to try anything else.  Except for the jasmine hair oil which doesn't smell like anything.  Oh well.

In the Old Kent Food Centre, as I heard the men talking without understanding a word, spoke with a woman about the best brands of tea, and took in the world of pickled vegetables, I felt content.  A feeling similar to the one I had the day before in Monmouth Coffee, a local roaster that buys their beans from organic producers around the world.  They did not have my favorite coffee in stock, and when I asked why, the bean man explained that this year's crop had only just come in, and they hadn't tasted it yet to see if they liked it.

I've been thinking a lot about these two experiences and why we shop.  When shopping, we experience the tension between desire and fulfillment.  I wanted the Balmaadi Estate coffee, but it is unavailable to me at this time of year.  I have limited resources, and yet in the market I am overwhelmed by goods, all packaged and bright, and potentially delicious.  I know nothing about these foods, I can read the label, but I have to make hard choices and take a risk with each item.  Both of these experiences opened me up to the bigness of the world, the ways in which we are connected through the chains of supply and demand to people far away and yet also the limited ways in which we participate in the world.  It may only be as a customer in a shop, but even without spending, we have the chance to see the world, which is so often shuttered from us in our everyday lives.

I say see the world, but not necessarily because of the origins of the particular products I bought that day.  It's not the series of food items like a parade of nations that inspires the feeling.  This is not an experience to be had at the supermarket, which is a timeless space of limitless fulfillment.  There, the fruits and vegetables are the same regardless of the season, and the foods, whether Lincolnshire sausages or ginger from China are available to the point where they lose any sense of their origins.  The unavailability of the Balmaadi coffee beans at Monmouth makes the coffee I had there in the fall all the more precious, and the cup of coffee I did have on Monday, produced by Familia Mamani Mamani in Bolivia, more precious too.  The Old Kent Food Centre also inspires the feeling that the foods come from somewhere, and mean things to the people they were originally produced by and for, which remain beyond my understanding.

But not beyond my enjoyment!  More soon after I try the pickles...

Banana Hazelnut Bread

Here's another sorta vegan (no eggs, no butter, only lactose-free milk) recipe, for banana bread.  The betrothed decided he didn't like the little bananas we found in the market.  Too sweet for him.  So I made this bread, I wish I had chocolate chips to throw in, but none in the house.

I label my recipes "vegan" because I think they could easily be made vegan by substituting soymilk, juice (depending on the recipe), or even water for the lactose-free milk.  As a vegetarian and a personal chef to someone with food issues, I am always reading recipes that include meat and dairy and eggs, and thinking about how I could make the recipe work for us.  So rather than a strict classification of the recipe, the "vegan" tag works as an indicator of the recipe's suitability for adaptation.

Since I've started sorta vegan baking, I've realized the egg replacement is the toughest challenge.  1 large egg equals 3 1/4 Tablespoons of liquid, but you not only have to replace the liquid for the recipe, but the eggs account for so much of the texture of baked goods, the fluffiness of cakes, and the dense chewiness of cookies.  Because I like dense, moist banana bread, I didn't add extra baking powder and vinegar to this recipe (a common elementary school science solution to creating a rise in vegan baked goods--think that food coloring volcano you did in third grade happening inside the oven).

It rose beautifully, and the finished bread had a crispy, thick crust, and a moist interior.   I used a local flour mill's unbleached "white" flour, so the the bread also had a nice crunch to it.

I also think the hazelnuts are a better flavor match with the bananas than the traditional walnuts.

Banana Hazelnut Bread

Takes 2 hours

Makes 1 loaf

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup almond oil

6 1/2 tbsps. milk

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (approx. 3 big ones, or we had 6 little ones)

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup toasted and crushed hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Grease and flour 1 loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In the banana bowl, add the sugar and oil, and beat.  Add milk and vanilla and stir to combine.

Pour wet ingredients into the flour ingredients and stir until well-combined.  Add hazelnuts and pour into loaf pan.

Bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours, until a fork inserted into the bread comes out clean.

Let cool 10 minutes (if you can).

Yum.

Aloo Paratha

Aloo (Potato) Paratha is one of my favorite foods.  I often make myself sick eating Aloo paratha, yogurt and mixed pickle.  So it is important to only make myself 2 parathas, and only eat 2 parathas, and not gobble up everyone else's.  It's actually quite easy to make, and so delicious, you don't really need anything else to eat with.  A simple dal, leftovers, anything.  The dough works best when it is rested, so it's easy to make what you want to eat the parathas with while the dough naps.

Aloo Paratha
Makes 9 parathas

Takes 1 hour

2 cups whole wheat chapati flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup water

some oil (canola or vegetable)

2 large potatoes, quartered (Those long Idaho potatoes work really well)

1 small green chili, chopped very fine (Serrano and the small green chilies work well)

1 handful cilantro, chopped fine

salt

Mix the flour and salt, and then add the cup of water.  Mix together to form a sticky dough.  Oil your hands, and turn the dough ball out onto a floured surface.  Knead until it is smooth and no longer sticky, adding flour as necessary.  Let rest for 30 minutes.

Starting the potatoes in cold, salted water, bring to a boil and cook until when you stick a fork in them they slip off.  Drain, and let cool completely.

Divide the dough evenly into 9 balls, let rest for 15 minutes while you get the potatoes ready.

When the potatoes have cooled completely, add the cilantro and chili, to your taste.  The chili will not make a huge impact on the spiciness of the finished paratha.  If you want more spicy, add some chili powder.  Check for salt, and add to your taste.  

Grease your hands with oil, and divide the potatoes into 9 balls.

Flatten the dough into thick circles and place the potato balls into the center.  Wrap the dough around and pinch the dough tight.

Let rest for 15 minutes while your griddle (tawa) heats up, admire your handiwork.

On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll into thinnish circles.  You can begin cooking the first ones as you roll the others out.  Make sure that you do not stack the rolled out parathas on top of each other, because they may stick together.  This is not a big deal because if they do, just combine and redivide into balls and roll out again.  But you've made such pretty parathas, your work deserves to be honored.

It is important that your tawa is the right temperature, hot but not too hot (on my stove 4.5 out of 5), and your first paratha will be a bit of an experiment.  Put it onto the tawa and let it be for a couple of minutes (roll out another paratha), it should begin to puff!  Turn it over, the cooked side should be nicely browned in spots.  When the second side is finished, take the paratha off the heat and rub with a little ghee or oil.  

Serve to your ravenous fellow diners immediately, or if they are patiently waiting for you, place on a plate on which you have put a paper towel, and cover with another plate.  They do make chapati warmers in India, but if you don't have one, this works fine.  As you make a stack, you can just ghee one side of the paratha because the other side will get the ghee from the paratha below.

We ate these with really simple spinach and chana masala.  I'll post a recipe for that soon!

Happy Birthday Cookies

By request, for someone's very special birthday, I made these sorta vegan chocolate chip cookies.  The no-egg, no-butter, lactose-free milk versions of amazing chocolate chip cookies.  These came out really well, the perfect size, crisp, but with some chewiness as well.

Chocolate chip cookies 
Makes 3 dozen cookies 

Takes 2 hours (for all the baking and cooling)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup Earth Balance, softened

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

8 1/4 tablespoons Milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 ounces)

1/2 c. lightly toasted walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together Smart Balance and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the milk and vanilla, and beat until combined.

Stir in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips and nuts.

Evenly scoop big spoons of dough onto 2 baking sheets, 8 cookies per sheet.  Pat them into a flat circle.  The cookies will grow very little while baking, so make sure you make them as thick or as thin as you want.  I prefer 1/2 inch thick cookies.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 12 or 13 minutes, turn sheet around in oven half way through if your oven is uneven. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and keep making cookies.

These cookies definitely do not last as well as conventional amazing chocolate chip cookies.  They become hard the next day.  And yet, they are still very good!

John Makes Chicken

 

Sorry for such a long break between posts!  It's been a long month, and I've been so bad about taking pictures of food!  So here is a picture of John's beautiful chicken.  He's been in a new kitchen, new equipment, and had been sad not to get his chicken breasts the right crunchy skin soft inside (or whatever you say about meat) balance, and he was so proud of this attempt, I promised I would share it on my blog.  Here it is!

Also, hope you are all following the cake v. pie tournament on jezebel.  

 

Go pie go!

Promise, cooking up all kinds of posts to be available soon.