Those of you who know me – and I’ll accept for the purposes of this blog post a very loose definition of the word “know…” Reading a few posts here or tuning in to my ramblings on twitter (shouldn’t that be “witty and incisive social commentary”- Ed?) – would probably have clued you in to the fact that I’m not that kind of wife. Not that kind of girl.

But cooking lessons, I’ve learned (hoho!) provide two cunningly disguised opportunities:

1)      The chance to eat a meal that puts the F into fresh and

2)      The chance to really get chatting with locals

Oh, and every now and then I can reproduce the results at home. Not that any specific examples spring to mind right now… The odd bodged one here and there…Another couple that weren’t too bad…But it’s the taking part that counts, right?

Don’t answer that, at least not yet.

Enter Beit Sitti, a cooking school in Jordan’s capital, Amman

Beit Sitti, A Cooking School in Jordan

You couldn’t ask for a better sense of atmosphere…Hidden at the top of a barely-lit staircase, the smoky orange lights of the city glimmered both in the distance and up close as we arrived. The walls inside were fresh and white, punctuated only by a mirror with borders that glittered like jewels dipped in chocolate.

We weren’t in a school, we were in a Jordanian home. Not that we had long to appreciate it.

Maria, the English-speaking of our two chefs, moves at about twice my speed and speaks at about thrice my volume despite being half my size.

She confiscates my camera, my  pen and my notebook and I’m set to work. Hands washed, sleeves rolled, apron tied, knife at the ready.

She eases me in gently, by giving me an onion to chop. I relax a little. 1950s housewife I may not be, but even I can chop an onion.

“You might find it works better,” she says ten seconds later, “if you do it like this.”

She pinches one side of the halved onion and slices it swiftly until it resembles a closed accordion. She then holds that tight, turns the knife on its side and cuts parallel to the table, aiming for her palm. After enough shifts spent stitching together fingers in my former life, I can’t help but flinch at the sight.

“Here,” she sets down a glass of cloudy liquid. “Have some arak. It’s like Arabic ouzo.”

Never has a description enticed me less.

Arak - "Arabic Ouzo"

Jordanian Food After Arak

Aniseed fires along my throat and we move on to chopping parsley. Later, outside in the balmy night air, I fry pitta bread and potatoes with Ali, our driver, a timely reminder that preparing food crosses all language barriers.

Back inside, I peel smoked aubergines under the supervision of our haja.

“Haja is a term of respect for older people,” Maria explains. “People who have completed the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Haj for men, Haja for women.”

Our haja smiles, adjusts the knife so that I chop ingredients into even smaller pieces, and Maria continues talking.

“I am a ‘trained chef’ in that I take professional cooking classes – although most of that is about French food, but really our Haja know more about cooking than me. Cooking classes of any kind are a strange idea for that generation because the women here learned it all as they were growing up, they learned everything they needed to know about food and cooking that way, at home, as part of normal life.”

So, are the meals we’re preparing (recipes below) fresh from fancy chef school or do everyday Jordanians make these meals at home?

“It’s a mixture,” says Maria, and our driver nods to agree.

“The mouttabal, fattoush and siniyet kafta people regularly make at home,” she says. “Whereas knafeh people tend to buy from bakeries for graduations… Or weddings…For special occasions.”

My hands fluff knafeh dough and ghee with squidgy satisfaction.

“We want to show people that they can make knafeh themselves – easily – at home.”

Easily, eh?

Cooking can be fun...

Characteristics of Jordanian Food

Tonight, Isabelle and I are the only guests but I wonder who their usual customers are.

Maria gives a wry smile.

“When we opened, around a year ago, we thought that our guests would mainly be tourists. But then with the riots and uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East, people stopped coming to Jordan even though we didn’t have trouble here.

“So, we started reaching out to people here in Amman and it’s turned out to be very popular.”

I wash my hands and head out to the barbecue where aubergine fizzes and spits on the naked flames.

Jordanian food relies heavily on fresh ingredients, often finely chopped. It throws in a hefty dose of subtle spices I’ve since struggled to find at home: sumac, tahini and bakleh. Most meat dishes come with salads that burst with their own flavour, rather than using separate salad dressing as a crutch, and meals usually take the guise of a self-service kind of affair. Broad ceramic dishes glazed in royal blue are set down on the table, from which everyone helps themselves.

It’s tasty and healthy, well, except for the knafeh that oozes with that kind of sweet, delicious moisture that you know can’t come from polyunsaturated lipids.

It’s also surprisingly easy to make. Although I rather wish I hadn’t told you that, in case I ever invite you over for dinner.

You should always remember, though, it’s good manners to look impressed.

Jordanian Food Recipes

Fattoush at Beit Sitti

Siniyet Kafta at Beit Sitti

Moutabbal at Beit Sitti

Knafeh at Beit Sitti

The Early Stages of Siniyet Kafta

Making Siniyet Kafta

Jordanian Food: Sumac, Spice & Slice first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Portuguese food doesn’t get anywhere near the recognition it deserves. Eat Portugal – The Essential Guide to Portuguese Food attempts to address that.

Eat Portugal – The Essential Guide to Portuguese Food

Growing up in England, I heard plenty about French food. And Italian food.

Yet for some reason, even though Portugal’s so close, I’d have struggled to name a single Portuguese dish.

For shame.

Since then, I’ve travelled through Portugal, albeit nowhere near enough. From upscale restaurants in Lisbon to the tourist trail in the Algarve, whatever else has happened, I’ve never had the proverbial bad meal.
Which is why, when I was offered the chance to review Eat Portugal, I took it, tastebuds tingling and eyes and stomach ready for a treat.

About the Book

Eat Portugal is the work of Portuguese journalist Célia Pedroso and British illustrator Lucy Pepper (a great name for writing about food, although I’m sure I won’t be the first person to point that out.) It comes in a glossy, novel-sized format and tells stories about the food as it goes along.
For example:

• Some say that Japanese tempura is of Portuguese origin (like their word for thank you, arigato, which is uncannily similar to obrigado.) Portuguese traders and missionaries did start arriving in Japan in the 16th century. Tempura is very similar to these beans (peixinhos da horta) deep-fried in batter and to the Portuguese word temperar (to season), so there might be some truth in it.

The book details 52 recipes (which I wish I could have tested out for you, but alas time, kitchen restraints and general lack of talent have held me back) as well as including a bilingual dictionary, key phrases and a thorough glossary.

Keen fans of Spanish food will no doubt recognise some similarities with the country’s close neighbour – think of the salted cod bacalau/bacalhau, the cold tomato soups and the prawns served in whisky.

Eat Portugal – In Conclusion

Eat Portugal is a delicious introduction to a much-overlooked cuisine. I look forward to exploring the food more in person – and on reporting back to you here. In the meantime, you can buy the book here, prices start at 14.95 Euros. Disclosure: I was provided with a free review copy of Eat Portugal. Read the whole, delicious disclosure policy.

Eat Portugal – The Essential Guide to Portuguese Food first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

How to Make the Real Ragu

Tuscany, Italy

Recently, I wrote about my cooking lessons in Tuscany. In short, how I’d always thought of Italian food as something cheap and easy that you threw together in your student days, when you didn’t have an oven – or much of a clue.

Then, I visited Tuscany. Or, perhaps to be more precise, Cuoche in Vacanza, an Italian cooking class, visited me. In addition to rewriting the whole section of my brain labelled “Italian food,” they also shared a recipe or two. Here, as promised, is one:

Recipe for the Real Ragù

Ragù – Ingredients

1 medium onion

1 carrot

1 celery stalk

500 grams of minced meat (pork or beef)

1 sausage – opened (optional)

1 can tomatoes

4 cloves

Extra virgin olive oil

1 glass white wine

Method: How to Make Real Ragù

Chop the onion, carrot and celery together, heat a small amount of extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of a pan and fry the chopped onion, celery and carrot until soft. Add the minced meat and opened sausage and allow to cook until the meat is quite dry. Add the wine and let it evaporate.

Add the tomatoes and cloves, and if the tomatoes are peeled, break them up with a wooden spoon.

Allow to simmer until the meat and sauce are unified (about one hour.) Stir occasionally.

Add salt during the last five minutes of cooking.

Buon Appetito! The ragù is now ready!

Post-Ragù Analysis

In many ways, this recipe for ragù isn’t too different to my student version. So where did I go wrong? Well, I never used cloves or celery, I probably grabbed sunflower oil or whatever oil there was to hand, and in all probability, I drank the wine. Now I’m older, wiser (ahem) and have a much more discerning palate, I’ll have to try this at home myself!

Real Ragù Tips

“When I was small, my grandmother let me try it by spreading it on a slice of Tuscan bread (bread without salt.) This will always be the most delicious way of eating ragù for me.” Cuoche In Vacanza

Disclosure: Casa Gentili invited me to attend this cooking class in Italy.

The Real Ragù first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Life sometimes reinforces our inadequacies in a brutal, confrontational way. Soon, I’ll be introducing you to Norbert Niederkofler, an imaginative, creative chef who began life in the Dolomites, travelled the world, then returned to his homeland to bring his vision of art to the table. He’s won awards, published two books and is working on a third, and deliberately chose against a career as a professional skier in order to become a Michelin-starred chef. His restaurant, St Hubertus in the unfairly gorgeous Rosa Alpina, attracts folk like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes looking for somewhere special on their honeymoon. He’s hardworking, humorous and confesses that his girlfriend is a better cook than him.

You’ll meet him in a minute. But first, I have to reheat my frozen soup. Like I said, harsh realities.

Over to Norbert.

You’re all about food. I’m all about travel. How important do you think travel is for chefs?

To travel is the most important thing. I was born here in Alta Badia (in the Dolomites.) I was nineteeen when I left, I just wanted to get out of here. I went to America and I was amazed. I thought this is how food should be – with huge plates and all the flavours there, you know? In America you have one, two three, sometimes more flavours all on one plate. Later I realised that you have to find your own style and for me that is linear. Everything must come from nature.

So how did you develop your own style?

San Cassiano

I spent one month with the Hopi Indians in the USA. That’s when I really learned to appreciate nature, to work with it. I’ve travelled and worked in America, Germany, Switzerland, Austria…but my time with the Hopi made me realise that the “American Way” was not for me.

(At St Hubertus), we try to make it as simple as possible, because with every ingredient you add, you distract from the original product. But the more you do this, the more perfect your technique must be.

I can make dough in one hour, no problem, but I have to use warm water and I have to use yeast. The dough expands and becomes enormous  – but then it collapses again and when you eat it, it carries on fermenting in your stomach. Instead, we age the dough for 3 days so that we don’t need to use yeast. We use mother dough that’s over 100 years old. So it’s all coming back to nature, back to the natural product.

How did you get into this line of work?

Well, my parents were always cooking. When my father died, I was 16 years old. I realised I needed to do something serious. Something to look after my family. So I stopped ski racing and became a chef.

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

It’s easy but hard work. Ideas are easy, you could do it right now. (He clearly hasn’t seen the inside of my microwave…)

Ideas are easy, you could do it right now

Stop and imagine mint. Imagine its flavour. It is fresh, slightly sweet, it is alive. Then think about fish. Which type of fish and how you want to prepare it. That’s how you do it. And your success depends upon how many flavours you have…(Norbert taps his head) up here and how many you have tried.

And the hard work?

I work from 8 until 2 and then from 6 until 12. It is a hard life (he shrugs.) I could work as a chef  for only eight hours a day and no weekends. I could work in New York. But it is the same with everything, whether you want to do woodcarving or sculpture or whatever.

If you want to be good, then you have to work hard and you get better. And then, on the one side it is good that people invite you here or there (as example, I’m about to cater for 300 people for three days in a row.) On the other, it is more work and you worry about whether you can get it right…

Would you do it all again?

Of course.

If you want to be good, then you have to work hard and you get better. It is the same with everything.

Why do you think you returned to the Dolomites?

Look outside (we’re in the Rosa Alpina, where lilac snowy peaks overlook the postcard pretty town of San Cassiano.) Almost every afternoon I can go outside and be out there in the wild. You cannot do that in a city.

So have you gone back to skiing?

When I was young I stopped because I couldn’t race. Instead, I tried the snowboards that were old style in 1986. Now I’ve returned to skis as the new carve skis allow you to do things you couldn’t before.

And the snowboarding?

(He throws his hands in the air.) I’m 48. I’m getting old.

And the snowboarding? I’m getting old.

When he’s not carving up the slopes, you can find Norbert Niederkofler and his linear cuisine at the St Hubertus Restaurant at San Cassiano’s Rosa Alpina.

Norbert Niederkofler takes inspiration from nature in the Dolomites

Cooking Beneath the Stars: Norbert Niederkofler, Michelin and Wide Open Spaces first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Toulouse’s Victor Hugo market is the largest in southwest France. It sells cheese from nearby Roquefort, peppers from Espelette and wine from neighbouring Bordeaux.

It also sells pre-prepared brain:

Brain Food

These are cervelles d’agneaux (lamb brains), nestling in between trays of rabbit in a prune sauce and a chunky beetroot salad. What’s a girl to do? Experiment, of course!

“You do know what these are?” asked the serveur as he loaded them into a container.

Cooking Brain - Stage 1

“Oh yes.”

“And what to do with them?”

“Er, no…”

Cooking Brain - Stage 2

As it turns out, brain should be heated gently in a saucepan to bring out the garlic and parsley seasoning…

Brain Food - the Finished Work

…and then served with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice as a final flourish.

So, I tried to forget about all those infectious diseases transmitted by eating central nervous tissue and tucked in, to discover a smooth, surprisingly melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Low marks for flavour, however: a kind of grey nothingness saved only by the garlic and lemon. And as for appearance? Well, the next time I’m in a French market, I’m just going to pick up a box of these instead:

Sugary Macarons - A Favourite

For more on foreign food finds, visit OrangePolkaDot, a Lonely Planet Blogsherpa blog. To buy some brain food yourself, visit Victor Hugo Market, Toulouse.

Brain Food first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Papas Arrugadas

They may look as though they’re just potatoes with more wrinkles than Mick Jagger and a crusting of salt on the top but…No, hang on, it’s true. The recipe boils down (ho-ho!) to potatoes and, er, salt. Some daring souls throw in a splash of lemon juice but I suspect that’s because they feel embarrassed to list a “recipe” with only two ingredients.

Yet papas arrugadas* (wrinkled potatoes) taste better than they look.

When the Spanish conquistadores headed home from South America, they brought with them the humble potato and made a pit stop in the Canary Islands, just off the northwest coast of Africa. The islanders took these pebble-sized potatoes and invented this deceptively simple dish.

If served well, papas arrugadas carry a hefty bite, with a surprisingly moreish sweet-salty tang. Served in earthenware dishes, the potatoes usually come with mojo – a spicy sauce made from peppers (mojo rojo) and coriander (mojo verde) respectively. Both include vinegar and a hint of garlic to bring the dish alive.

I was sceptical at first – but now I’m hooked.

Recipe for Papas Arrugadas

Wrinkly Potatoes Go With Almost Anything

Here’s the recipe. Sadly, it’s harder than it looks:

Choose good quality small potatoes (bigger than new, smaller than baking)

Put them in a pan, pour water on top but don’t cover them completely

Throw in loads of salt (recipes vary from saltwater levels to several teaspoons. Experiment. Unless, of course, you have high blood pressure.)

Boil away until they are soft when you pierce them with a knife

Now for the tricky bit…drain away the water but continue cooking until the skins wrinkle and salt crystals appear. Keep them moving otherwise they’ll burn…

As for finding your mojo (groan – Ed.) – you’ll have to wait for another post. Or buy some.

*Papas arrugadas also go by the name of papas arrugas or patatas arrugadas across the rest of Spain.

Mojo & Wrinkly Potatoes first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Crema Catalana

Crema catalana is often described as a Catalan crème brûlée, a dessert with a rugged, citrus twist on the delicate French classic.

I’ve tried it in log cabins in the Pyrenees, in the art havens of Collioure and Barcelona and as a very dodgy liqueur in one of Andorra’s cut-price supermarkets.

But don’t be fooled by the apparent resilience of this custard dish. The list of ingredients may be short, the instructions simple but, as it turns out, making crema catalana is just not that easy.

First up, the ingredients:

6 Eggs

200 Grams of Sugar

1 Litre of Milk

40 Grams of Corn Starch

Zest of One Lemon

1 Stick of Cinnamon

Well, alright, it’s not going to be too difficult to stockpile those things.

Now, what to do with them:

Separate the egg yolks (messy!) and mix with the sugar. Add 750 mls milk and stir thoroughly. Add the lemon zest and cinnamon stick.

Heat the mixture over medium-high heat in a saucepan.

Meanwhile, dissolve the starch in the remaining milk then stir that slowly into your canary-yellow mixture in the saucepan.

Bring to the boil, stirring all the time and set aside right before the first bubble appears.

Hang on a minute, say that again:

Stir but set aside before the first bubble appears. I swear that’s what I did, but somehow instead of a thickening, smooth, fragrant liquid, my cauldron produced a lumpy, speckled scrambled egg soup.

Luckily, there’s an antidote (if you can decipher my handwritten scrawl.) Whisk & sieve.

And no-one need ever know…

After the conspiracy and cover up, ladle the custard into large, flat earthenware ramekins and leave to cool.

Finally, the Fun Part

Brûlée the sugar-sprinkled surface with a blow torch, like this:

Until you reach the desired result.

How Does It Taste?

I love the crunchy caramel topping and would probably reverse the recommended ratios if social convention allowed. The gelatinous part tastes of cool citrus, more orange than lemon.

But, not a lump in sight!

Disclosure. My cooking lesson took place at CookAndTaste in Barcelona, funded by the Catalunya Tourist Board. The toxic crema catalana liqueur, however, I paid for myself.

Crema Catalana: When Burning Food Is Good first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

France does not claim steak tartare as its own, but the French do treat the dish as a child lovingly adopted into the fold. It appeals to their less squeamish approach to food – along with piglet trotters, frogs’ legs and snails – and also to the widespread aversion to actually cooking things (even medium-rare steaks ooze blood.)

With steak tartare, French chefs can go for gold by not letting a single flame warm the cherished final product. For extra flourish, waiters then mix the ingredients at the table and entice you into the magic by asking how you like it blended.

It seduces me every time.

It doesn’t matter to me that Worcestershire sauce has infiltrated most recipes. Nor that my friend Dr Yeap warned me about toxoplasmosis and various other communicable diseases. I fell in love with steak tartare in Toulouse and neither raw egg nor raw meat can keep me away.

Under certain conditions. (Because those infectious disease lectures from medical school still bubble up from time to time.)

It has to be in a restaurant that I trust. And luckily, France has plenty of those. My favourite restaurant in Toulouse is Chez Carmen. Like steak tartare, the appeal isn’t immediately obvious. It’s opposite a museum called the Abattoirs, it still hasn’t washed the graffiti off its doors and its terrace merges with a main road.

However, the museum in question actually used to BE Toulouse’s abattoir and from this, Chez Carmen carved a reputation of serving some of the finest and freshest meat in Toulouse. When it opens its doors, the red-chequered tablecloths and old wooden barrels work their own magic, transporting you to the kind of France pictured in romantic films set in the 1940s.

But what if you’re not in Toulouse and want to try a little of the magic yourself?

Simply mix this all together – according to taste.

PS – just like gazpacho, everything depends on the quality of ingredients, instead of a complicated recipe. Unlike gazpacho, if your ingredients aren’t fresh enough, you risk serious illness. There, disclaimer said.

Ingredients
600g beef fillet
50g gherkins
50g capers
50g shallot
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
3 egg yolks
7 drops of Tabasco (if you’re brave enough. Otherwise reduce)
1½ teaspoons of Worchester Sauce
A few squirts of tomato ketchup (in French cooking? I know, I know)
10g Dijon mustard
A dash of lemon juice

Bon App!

Steak Tartare: Raw Egg + Raw Meat = Perfection first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Gazpacho, like pizza, had humble beginnings. Although the Romans and Moors used to pound together bread, vinegar, olive oil and garlic, gazpacho as we now know it developed in the kitchens of country workers in the sixteenth century. Perhaps dazzled by this strange fruit from the newly discovered Americas, they threw tomatoes into the vinegar-soaked emulsion, plus whatever else happened to be lying around…peppers, cucumber or Iberian ham.

I actually had my first taste in Toulouse, courtesy of a Spaniard from Córdoba, who told me that in his hometown gazpacho takes the name of salmorejo. From Andalusian homes to the top tables of experimental cuisine, gazpacho today reappears in a variety of guises. Reinventions use lobster as a base, or add strawberry, melon, cherry or piments.

For me, though, I found my favourite gazpacho in the midday sun at Segovia, a stunningly attractive Spanish town where even the stone buildings wilt with the heat. It arrived, a dose of cooling, nutritious refreshment, with a selection of ingredients in tiny dishes at the side: crunchy onions, croutons, cucumber, gherkins. Everything I needed to adapt the dish to suit my own, sun-drenched tastes.

The Simplest Gazpacho Recipe – serves 2 (generously….)Soak half a stale baguette with 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon of water and one of olive oil. Leave while you chop the rest of the ingredients.

8 Ripe, juicy red tomatoes
Half a Cucumber
1 Red Onion
1 Red Pepper

Optional Extras: a few cloves of garlic, kidney beans, a dash of Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper.

Mix together in a blender.
Add the bready emulsion from above.
Blend again.

Optional Stage: If you prefer your gazpacho smooth, then sieve the mixture several times to remove traces of tomato seeds or skin. If you’re happy with it hearty, then leave it be.

Pour the mixture into bowls and chill for a few hours.

That’s it!

Optional Garnish: Iberian ham, sliced hard-boiled egg, a swirl of olive oil.

The Zing in Gazpacho first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Which is why I loved this story so much. I heard two versions over the same Sunday lunch on a rural southwest farm, between servings of apple-roasted liver, tapioca soup, roast chicken, cheese and of course the dish itself:
the Tarte Tatin (pronounced in a seamless exhalation, tartartan.)

The legend caramalises down to this. A rushed and harassed sister, baking in Paris at the Hotel Tatin, around 1898, accidentally overcooked the sliced apples in sugar.

Recognising the sinister aroma that develops shortly after the ‘golden-brown’ stage, she rescued it from the hob, threw a pastry lid over the top and slammed it into the oven. Depending on the story, the mistakes didn’t end there, with butter-fingers tipping the pie upside down onto the plate.

With the singed smell of desperation closing in, Ms Tatin felt she had no choice but to brazen it out and present this ‘creation’ to the crowds.

And thus, a legend was born.

According to staunch critics, therefore, a true tarte tatin should have the slices balanced upright on the thinnest part of the wedge, to guarantee they have been cooked upside down.

So perhaps I have damned my culinary exploits too soon; the next time I get distracted while cooking, I might be creating a legend.

Photo courtesy of LemonFish. I’m afraid we’d eaten it all before we thought to take a picture…

Disasters & Legends – the Tarte Tatin first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...