sunday brunch at best mangal 3, fulham - review

 

It’s no secret that breakfast is almost universally recognised as the most important meal of the day.  Face contortions of disbelief ensue when people inform me they skip this turbo-thrust booster equivalent of the food world. How does one function on an empty tank, and more importantly, why would anyone turn down the chance to be eating? A notion I find difficult to digest.  

The high regard attributed to breakfast is reinforced by the fact that every country in the world has their own interpretation of what it involves and almost all of them make a big deal out of it.  I found a very appetising article listing, with pictures, top breakfasts from across the globe - I have bestowed upon me the challenge of gradually and authentically working my way through the whole list. Exactly how I’ll achieve this is yet to be defined. 

Best Mangal has a few branches in London and its Fulham venue is an unassuming Turkish restaurant sitting at a junction on the main road. Glance at its façade and you could easily mistake it for another standard kebab house. But wonder on inside early on a Sunday morning and you’ll be presented not only with a heaving throng of Turks fully exercising their well-versed eating skills, but also a full on multi-tiered banquet of all things great associated with a Turkish breakfast.

The spread was fresh, colourful, inviting and abundant. Crammed to the hilt with many Turkish specialities, it had a wide variety of soft, creamy and crumbly white Turkish cheeses; glorious potato salad with parsley, dill and celery; beef and lamb salamis; posh corned beef; wafer thin bresaola type beef; brimming bowls of seasoned green and black olives; wonderfully oily roasted artichokes and piled high sun dried tomatoes; smoky aubergine salad; boiled eggs; preserves and spreads including rose jam, strawberry jam, honey, tahini and thick strained yoghurt; tomato and cucumber salads; fresh melon and grapes alongside dried figs, sultanas and apricots; metal containers full of hot and fresh boreks; piles of bread made that morning warmed at request on a griddle by a waiter to the side of the spread; and more.

The buffet is open between 10am - 2pm on Sundays at the Fulham branch only, and they do not take reservations - when we arrived just before 11am, small groups and full on family forces were already seated enjoying the pleasures of good food, good conversation and the consequential satiety with life itself. 

And the best part of this whole experience? The price. £8.95 per head (drinks not included) for all the Turkish goodness you can gorge yourself on. I’ve never come across this type of format anywhere else in London, especially for breakfast; unlike other countries such as the US (who do this sort of thing quite well), it’s difficult to find quality buffet eating options outside of hotels.

A good time to arrive is between 10am – 11am. Even if the place is full, you’ll likely only need to wait for a few minutes to be seated. During the course of our stay tables frequently became available with a steady flow of customers both leaving and entering.

Needless to say, with its relatively close proximity to where I live, free bay parking on Sundays, and the exceptional value for money for what's on offer, I already know we’ll become regulars and I’ll be spreading the word to everyone I know.

The bill

buffet breakfast £8.95

Afiyet olsun.





This post is also featured on T-Vine magazine.

mauritian butter bean & lamb curry

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they hanker for some of their mum’s cooking. No matter what nationality the mother may be, what their signature dish is, or how often you get to see them, it’s an occurrence that I’m sure most can relate to. In my instance, it’s a regular occurrence. This is probably because my mum is an excellent cook and I grew up with some seriously great food coming out from her kitchen, many of them from her homeland Mauritius.

Mauritian food is one of the great Creole cuisines and is a combination of native French, African, Chinese, Portuguese and Indian, with many of the dishes created unique to the island. Some of the most common ingredients used in Mauritian recipes are tomatoes, onions, garlic and chillies. Spices are also a big part of the cuisine with turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves also used liberally. 

While the Indian population has had a huge influence on the cuisine, it’s worth pointing out that Mauritian curries are unique. They rarely contain coconut milk and interestingly, often feature what are more typically known as European herbs such as thyme. 

Due to the multi-national inhabitants of Mauritius along with the fact my mother spent a good amount of time living in Italy when she was younger, she is able to churn out international plates of exceptional flavour – Mauritian, Indian, Chinese, Italian, French. I have a list of my favourites that I can’t get enough of: her roast beef with garlic and cloves and macaroni cheese; achard (a Mauritian pickled vegetable salad); lasagne – without a doubt the best I’ve ever had, anywhere; coq au vin with white whine; chicken chow mein; escalopes with a parsley and parmesan coating served with spaghetti – I could go on.

This weekend my palette was after some spice, and my mum’s famous butter bean and lamb curry was calling out to me. A phone call during the week asking for the recipe in an email, a quick trip to the supermarket, and I was ready to indulge in a fabulous afternoon in the kitchen while Matt was out, blasting some old school Alanis Morissette and singing at the top of my lungs whilst stirring pots and pans. One of my favourite ways to while away the hours of a weekend.

Mum's Mauritian butter bean and lamb curry with carrot salad

Packed with flavours from the island – delicious and wholesome. Serve with the dressed carrot salad for the zingy freshness.

Makes 5-6 portions

For the curry paste
Whole bulb of garlic
1 tbsp cumin seeds
8 cardamom seeds
8 cloves
1 inch of fresh tumeric root (or 1tsp tumeric powder)
2 x thumb sized piece of fresh ginger
10 curry leaves
2 heaped tbsp curry powder
1 tsp garam masala
2-3 chillies, deseeded and sliced finely

For the rest of the curry
250g dried butter beans (soaked over night in lots of cold water)
4 bone in leg lamb steaks (or approximately 450-500g of any diced lamb)
1 large white onion thinly sliced
1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
Coriander to serve
Vegetable oil

For the carrot salad
1-2 carrots per person, grated
Small bunch of coriander
Lemon
Extra virgin olive oil

You first need to make your curry paste – you can do this earlier in the day or even the night before and keep it covered in the fridge to help you get ahead.

Dry fry (no oil) the cumin, cloves and cardamom in a non-stick pan on a low-medium heat until they become aromatic – keep moving them and be sure they don’t burn. Remove from the pan and grind in a spice grinder to a powder.

Tip If you don’t have a spice grinder, that’s fine. Be sure to grind them quite finely in a pestle and mortar before continuing. Whether using the spice grinder or the pestle and mortar, remove the cardamom husks after.

In your pestle and mortar, grind the garlic, ginger, turmeric, chillies and curry leaves along with your ground spices. Adding some rock salt to the mortar will help with the grinding process, as well as season it. 

Tip I grate my garlic, turmeric and ginger first using a fine grater as my pestle and mortar is not heavy enough to pulp it on its own - must get a big stone one.

Once it’s quite smooth, add the curry powder and garam masala and mix well. Add a little water to the mix until you have a paste. Your curry paste is now complete.

Tip If you have a home made mix of curry powder or garam masala, then do use it. Otherwise, quality pre-mixed ones are readily available from supermarkets.

Tip If you like your curries hot, by all means add more chillies. I prefer a hint of heat, rather than crying over my dinner – my threshold is not that high. The two little chillies I used are of a very hot variety, and they provided enough fire for me. Matt would have liked it hotter, so I may add a third next time.

After soaking the beans overnight, thoroughly rinse them in lots of cold water and put in a large pan. To prepare your meat, chop them into cubes and remove any gristle or fat they may have. Put the chunks in the same pot as the beans – there’s no need to brown them first.

Tip The bits of bone in the legs that are left after cubing your meat is for adding flavour to the curry rather than eating. Although if you’re partial to bone marrow (the part my dad loves best), then feel free to suck it out when the curry is done – yum.

Cover the beans and meat with cold water (up to around 1-1.5 inches above the contents) and bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Lots of scum will float to the surface – keep skimming this off every time you see it with a large metal spoon. Don't pour this down your sink as it's mostly fat - tip into a sandwich bag and discard.

Stir occasionally so nothing gets stuck to the bottom, and cook with the lid on until the beans are partially done but still too hard to eat. If the water gets low, top it up. You want to end up with the water covering the contents by about an inch once this stage is complete – too much and your curry will be too watery. Remember it’s easier to add then take away and you can always add more later.

To start making the curry, fry your onion in some hot oil in a separate pan until brown (but don't burn them) – I use a wok at this stage as it’s non-stick and holds a large volume. Add your curry paste and cook for a few minutes on a low-medium heat – again, don’t let it burn. Add the can of chopped tomatoes and cook for another 5 minutes or so.

Once your curry paste and tomatoes are cooked, pour the whole contents of the beans and meat into the wok – water and all. Stir well. You then want to cook the beans and meat in this curry paste for the remainder of the time it takes for the beans to become nice and soft – probably 45-60mins, but keep checking. If the liquid gets low and the beans are still not cooked, add a little more to just cover them again.

Tip You can decide on your curry consistency at this stage – if you do want it more saucy, then add water accordingly. I like my sauce quite thick so once the beans were cooked, I kept the lid off and let the sauce reduce down until I was happy with the consistency.

In the meantime, make your carrot salad. Grate your carrots, add chopped coriander, olive oil and lemon to taste. I love lemon, so I add quite a lot and find the fresh sharpness works very well with the packed flavour from the curry.

Once your beans are adequately soft and your sauce has reached your desired consistency, it’s ready to bowl up. Sprinkle with some fresh coriander and serve alongside the carrot salad and either some chapattis (my preference) or rice (good for mopping if you ended up with a more liquid sauce).

The lamb comes out incredibly tender and the wonderful creamy consistency of the beans is beautiful, with the carrot salad providing a welcome sharpness and crunch to the meal.

This curry freezes very well, so make a vat of it and save some portions for when you’re hankering after mamma’s cooking again.

Afiyet olsun.

Edible Christmas Gifts - I

I get a lot of satisfaction from making or creating things. It’s part of the reason I enjoy cooking – the idea of concocting a dish completely different from its component parts which on their own would be far less exciting, is a big draw. Alongside the glaring fact that I like to eat.

It’s also why I enjoy gardening, particularly fruit and vegetables - the Spring-time ritual of applying an inanimate seed to some dirt, adding water, giving it light and time and that resulting in the beautiful slow motion animation of germination, growth, bud, bloom and the setting of fruit is immensely gratifying. Not to mention the produce is quite handy for my first point.

Then there are textiles and sewing. I can’t walk into a shop and look at a cushion without giving it the once over and proudly exclaiming ‘£25?! I could make that myself’ (not always the case, alas). 

And so I put my money where my mouth is, and I attempt soft furnishings. I have so far been successful in making several cushion covers (one even from an old unwanted cardigan); a pair of curtains for one window in the main bedroom (lined, I might add) – the second window is still patiently waiting to be dressed; personalised Christmas stockings for Matt and I; and I am about 9 patches into a kingsize patchwork quilt (that project is a labour of love). Knowing I can make things very similar to those priced quite highly in the shops just by trying it out and watching a few handy youtube videos, has a huge satisfaction factor. Making things, being creative, working with my hands – all activities that appeal to me.

And so I see Christmas as the green light to get out the craft kit, get the apron on, and start cooking up some edible homemade gifts. What’s particularly appealing about this is I can incorporate my love of cooking with my penchant for craftiness in their packaging and decoration. These are little stocking fillers to give to friends and colleagues on the last few days at work before breaking up for the holidays, and to leave a little something with family when squeezing in fleeting visits on Boxing Day.

The sneaky tip over into December marks the time to start on the chutney. They need about 1 month to develop their flavour before being consumed, so now is a good time to get them done and ticked off the list.

This is a recipe I’ve used for the past couple of years now and it goes down a treat.

Caramelised red onion chutney

This goes incredibly well with strong cheeses and biscuits – get your fill in before ‘normal eating’ returns post festive period. Very simple to make.

Fills about 5 small-medium jars

Preparation
You will need five small to medium glass jars with their metal lids. You can either purchase kilner jars specifically, or if you happen to keep jars when you finish with their contents, use those. Screw tops are preferable to flip tops as the seal is stronger. The jars I used were smaller than jam jars – small caper jars, jars with mustard, small honey jars etc.

These jars will need to be sterilised and need to be filled when both the jars and the chutney are still hot. You can either put them through a cycle in the dishwasher and time it so that your chutney is ready once the cycle is complete. Or you can put the jars (lids off) in an oven at 180C for at least 20 minutes. The heat from both of these methods will kill of any germs that could contaminate your delicious chutney contents. Hand washing them in hot water will not suffice for sterilisation, but be sure to do this anyway once you’ve finished with their original contents.

10 large red onions
1 large red chilli
2 bay leaves
Olive oil
200g brown sugar
150ml balsamic vinegar
150ml red wine vinegar

Slice your onions very finely. You want to be sure you first slice off enough top and enough of the root to get rid of any parts of the onion that are tougher. Then remove two layers of the outer onion after the initial paper layer (this is why you want large ones to begin with). It’s the remainder that you want to slice up. Slice your chilli in half, remove the seeds, and chop the rest of it finely.

Tip The easiest and quickest way to slice this volume of onions with a consistent thickness is with a v-slicer or mandoline slicer. This is the one I use – worth putting on your Christmas wish list if you don’t already have one. It can of course be sliced with a knife, it will just take a bit longer.  If you are using a v-slicer or mandoline slicer, be sure to slice the onion in the holder in half with a knife first so the slices don’t come out as rings, otherwise they’ll be too long to spoon out of your jar.

Add your onion, bay leaves and chilli to a large pan with some olive oil and cook over a low heat with a lid on for a good 20-30 minutes, or until they soften and become sticky and a bit stringy. Add a sprinkle of salt to help draw out the liquid. I find a wok is very  useful for this as it holds a large volume and distributes the heat to more of the onions than a large saucepan would.

Once the onions are soft and sticky, add the sugar and vinegars and simmer for 30 minutes or so with the lid off, until almost all of the liquid has disappeared and the chutney is thick and dark. Be sure to give it a stir now and again.

Pour the chutney into your hot, sterilised jars – try to not let any touch the tops of the jar where the lid screws on. If you do, wipe with clean kitchen paper. Push the contents down so any large air pockets are filled. Put your lids on and allow to cool. After a while, push the pop button of your lid in if it has one – it should stay down. This happens because the air in the jars has contracted whilst cooling down. When the lid is first opened after this, the button should pop indicating freshness as it would have done with its original contents.

Keep your jars in a cool dark place for the chutney to develop their flavours for at least a month before consuming.

Et voila – my first set of Christmas stocking fillers complete.

There is then the matter of decorating these little gifts. You can let your creative juices run free here, using up any scrap bits of crafty stuff you might have lying around. I plan furnish mine quite simply. I will top the jars with a square of material – I have some red and green gingham along with some festive looking check left over from last year. 

They will be secured with basic brown jute string tied around the neck of the jar, and from them needs to hang a label. I have a wad of brown paper that I have saved from various packaging received in parcels throughout the year (did I also mention I like to recycle and re-use?) and I’m almost certain I can turn these into neat looking labels. Turns out after a bit of origami style experimenting, some well concealed cellotape and a hole-punch, it’s actually fairly easy. If you’d like to replicate, I’ve included the instructions below.

Take a rough square of your chosen paper and fold it about two thirds of the way up. The height you are left with will be the total length of your label.

Fold the top two corners down to the centre until they meet.

Fold the two edges in to create a label shape and secure with a bit of sticky tape folded over into a loop so it's sticky on both sides - this way you can conceal the tape.

Turn it over and you have a label. Use a hole punch to create a hole for the string. Repeat for as many as you'll need.

I hope these will go down a treat for the lucky folk receiving them.
Don't forget to make an extra jar for yourself.

Alfiyet olsun.

buttermilk & blueberry pancakes with crispy bacon - recipe

Tonight I need to squeeze into a clingy burnt orange floor-length piece for my work’s black tie Christmas ball. In order to do so, it would make sense to hold off any large volumes of food today. Especially as the evening will include a three course meal my dress will need to contend with. Lettuce for lunch then, right?

Sod that. It’s the 1st of December. It’s a Saturday morning. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It’s an excuse for Matt’s infamous pancakes. And lots of them. 

Yes please.

Matt’s American buttermilk and blueberry pancakes with crispy bacon and maple syrup

Makes around 12-14

120g plain flour
120g fine polenta / cornmeal
1 egg
100ml milk
300ml buttermilk 
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
Large handful of fresh blueberries
Pinch of salt
Pinch of cinnamon
Quality bacon rashers
Canadian maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lay your bacon rashers on a sheet of baking paper on a baking tray. On top of these, lay another layer of paper and another baking tray to weigh them down – this will prevent the rashers from curling up while cooking.  Cook in the oven until crisp.  

Meanwhile, sieve the flour into a bowl and add the polenta. Add the remaining dry ingredients – bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

Whisk the milk, buttermilk and egg in a separate bowl with a hand whisk for a minute or two to get some air into it, until it has thickened and looks frothy.

Tip You can quite easily make your own buttermilk if you don’t want to make a special trip to purchase it ready made – have a look at No knead to prove to find out how.

Slowly pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and add the blueberries, gently combining with the whisk as you go until all the dry ingredients are combined.

Tip At this stage you don’t want to over mix the mixture as this will result in tough pancakes.

Heat a heavy based non-stick frying pan on a medium-high heat for 2 minutes.

Rub a stick of butter over the area of a circle in the middle of the pan.

Pour batter (use a ladle) into the pan and cook one pancake at a time. You can make them as big as you want, but remember the longer they cook the drier they will become.

Matt stood a large cookie cutter in the pan and poured the batter into them to keep the shape and thickness.  When the surface of the batter starts to bubble, flip it over.

Keep each pancake warm on a plate in a low oven while you’re making the rest – stack ‘em high.

You will be presented with delicious thick pancakes that are soft, light and fluffy on the inside. The addition of the polenta or cornmeal is traditional and creates a crisp surface. The salty bacon, sharp sweetness of the blueberries and the caramel flavouring from the maple syrup is a perfect combination.

Enjoy with a cup of strong coffee and no agenda for tight outfits that evening.

Afiyet olsun.