Indian sweets

Monday’s post massaged my online shopping gland. For several hours after writing it, I found I wasn’t concentrating properly. My thoughts kept wandering in the direction of squashy, silky, sugary Indian sweets like the ones from Ambala Foods. Eventually I gave in and ordered a 500g box. At £3.90, these boxes are fantastic value, so their purchase won’t weigh heavily on your mind. ( Your hips are another matter.)

Ambala cooks the sweets on the day they’re ordered and ships them immediately, to arrive with you within 24 hours. I don’t know whether it’s the freshness or the light but calculated hand with highly fragrant spices that makes them so exceptionally good, but I can tell you that we polished off a whole box in one evening. My pancreas still hurts.

It hurts because these sweets are…well…incredibly sweet. If you love the milky, tooth-hurting, concentrated sweetness of good English fudge, you’ll roll over and whimper with happiness when presented with a box of Ambala’s sweets. The 500g box contains a selection of Barfis (a condensed milk block); Halvas (sweetened nut pastes cut into rectangles); some syrup-soaked, spongy Gulabjamun and Chamcham (packed in a little plastic bag to keep them moist); a ceremonial sweet called Motichoor Ladoo (the round sweet in a black paper cup at the top of the page); and my favourite, the milky, silky pera.

Here’s the Motichoor ladoo. It’s a traditional sweet, eaten only at very special occasions, like weddings and festivals. It’s also given as a very special gift. It’s a lovely little mouthful made from little pellets of gram flour, sugar and ghee, which is cooked in a sugary syrup. A little pistachio is sprinkled on top.

Pera (right) is, according to Ambala, a sweet which is loved by children. I love it too – it’s made from sugary curds of milk, flavoured with saffron, and is sweetly silky. Each of these sweets is available to order individually, alongside some other mixed boxes, including one which is full of very lovely, fudgy Barfi.

My favourite Barfi are the plain ones. Their scented flavouring is beautifully put together; the flavour comes from orris root (the root of a highly fragranced iris, which is also used in perfumery) and cardamom seed. This box also contains Barfi with almonds and pistachios, and a slice of amazing carrot Halwa, which is also flavoured with that incredible orris root.

I’ve gone off fudge for good.

Online product shopping

In the last week or so, I’ve had several emails and comments on old posts asking me where to find certain products I’ve mentioned. I thought listing some favourite suppliers here would be more useful than replying in the comments section of each post. So here, in no particular order, are the online suppliers who I find myself using again and again. Most of these companies deliver outside the UK. If you are in the USA, have a look at Amazon, where you’ll find a lot of the ethnic ingredients listed below. (Sadly for those of us on this side of the Atlantic, Amazon in the UK is very slow in catching on to the grocery shopping it offers in the US. I’m hoping they’ll roll out the service soon.)

Many of the supermarkets in the UK now offer an online delivery service. I prefer to do my own supermarket shopping (and I get much of my fruit and veg from the very good market in Cambridge), but friends who use Ocado (Waitrose’s service) have been delighted. Tesco and Sainsbury’s also offer a similar service, but I find that the quality of the produce at Waitrose is much better, with Sainsbury’s coming in second place.

American ingredients
**Update 08 June 2007**
If you’re looking for American ingredients, check out this post.

Chinese, Thai and other oriental ingredients
The Asian Cookshop is fantastic if you’re living somewhere with no access to good Oriental supermarkets. They stock Mae Ploy curry pastes (my favourite brand), some fresh ingredients including pandang leaves and galangal, bottled sauces which are hard to find even in some Chinese supermarkets, and dried goods. They also carry Bombay Duck, an Indian dried fish which was unaccountably banned by the EU for a few years. It’s legal again now, and if you’ve not tried it, I’d really recommend buying a pack to eat as a garnish with curry. This is where I come for Vietnamese spring roll wrappers, Chinese lily pods and dried mushrooms. There’s even a sushi section. The Asian Cookshop delivers worldwide.

Wholesale spices and other Indian ingredients
Sweetmart, an Indian wholesalers in Bristol, sells a great range of large boxes and bags of whole spices, alongside other Indian ingredients including some excellent curry pastes. They also carry speciality flours made from barley, beans and so forth. Check out the recipe section.

Ambala foods are a great supplier. Their thoughtful range of sweet and savoury nibbles is wide, their service is impeccable (they’ll always deliver within 24 hours, and are always exceptionally friendly and helpful on the telephone if you need to talk to someone in person). Sweets are posted on the same day that they are made. Try the absolutely delicious Ferrari Chevda (a nibbly, salty, spicy mix with puffed rice, cashews, sev and other good things) and the amazing Assorted Sweets box. Ambala delivers worldwide.

Herbs and spices
Seasoned Pioneers carries a vast range of spice blends from all over the world; I always have their Ras-al-Hanout, shrimp paste and tamarind paste in the cupboard. Every major cuisine in the world is represented in their range, and I love their resealable packs. The blends are fantastically imaginative, and the quality of the product is much better than anything you’ll find in those little glass pots at the supermarket. (The opaque packaging helps here too.) Seasoned Pioneers delivers worldwide.

Steenbergs Organic are appallingly, addictively good. The whole range is organic, and they are the first British herb and spice supplier to use the Fairtrade mark. Alongside all this social responsibility, they’ve managed to find an absolute genius to blend their various seasoning mixtures; their Perfect Salt is something I simply can’t manage without. They carry some fascinating and esoteric spices (the person who asked about pink peppercorns should look here). Look out for grains of paradise, a medieval English favourite; sumach (hard to find elsewhere) and white poppy seeds, which I’ve never seen anywhere else. Their recipes are great too. Give your credit card to someone responsible before you click on the link, or, like me, you might find yourself buying nearly everything they sell.

Steenberg’s do deliver worldwide, but if you are not in the UK you will have to contact them to arrange postage.

Flavourings
I’ve not found any British suppliers as good as Patiwizz in France. They sell flower essences which I love for sweets and cakes (there is nothing as good as a violet fondant). The baking essences are listed alongside other flavourings I’ve not dared try – artichoke, sea urchin, lamb… Patiwizz are currently developing an English-language site, but for now you’ll need to be able to read French to order. They deliver worldwide.

Mexican food
I’ve got a soft spot for Mexican food. Mexican ingredients are really hard to find in the UK, but Lupe Pinto’s in Edinburgh is a terrific source. You’ll find ingredients like chipotle chillies in adobo (an delicious ingredient regular readers will notice I use almost to the point of obsession), taco sauces, whole yellow chillies and my Mexican holy grail, canned tomatillos. They stock the hard-to-find chipotle Tabasco sauce, which means I don’t have to import it from America any more. Lupe Pinto’s also carries some American groceries for hungry ex-pats, and a great selection of tequila.

Lupe Pinto’s only delivers to the mainland UK at the moment, but they hope to expand.

Chocolate
The English language is not sufficiently developed yet to allow me to express just precisely how good l’Artisan du Chocolat, based in London, is. I promise that you have never, ever tasted chocolates this good. The prices reflect the quality of the product, but once you’ve got one in your mouth, the chocolates feel like an absolute bargain.

L’Artisan du Chocolat delivers worldwide.

Smacked cucumber

This is as closely as I’ve been able to duplicate the wonderful cucumber salad at Fuchsia Dunlop’s Bar Shu. It’s an easy accompaniment and it’s great at cutting through rich flavours. The dressing keeps for a week in the fridge; try making a double amount and keeping half for a really quick salad later in the week.

The smacking of the cucumber is an important first step in this recipe. It opens cracks up in the flesh of the vegetable for the dressing to seep into, and means that when you salt the cucumber, there will be more surface area for its liquid to escape from. I use the flat edge of my Chinese cleaver to wallop the cucumber, but you can use a rolling pin if you don’t own a cleaver.

To smack enough for four (although we can easily demolish this amount between two) you’ll need:

1 large cucumber
2 teaspoons soft brown sugar
4 cloves fresh garlic
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon soya sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon Chinese chilli oil (leave this out if you prefer your cucumber not to be spicy)
Salt to sprinkle

Lay the cucumber on a wooden board and slap it hard with the flat of a cleaver until cracks have opened up all along it. Chop the cucumber into bite-sized pieces, put in a colander and sprinkle with salt to disgorge some of the liquid from the flesh.

Meanwhile, chop the garlic finely and mix it with the sugar, soy and rice vinegar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the oils and set aside.

When the cucumber has been draining for 40 minutes, pat it dry with kitchen paper and place on a large flat plate. Sprinkle over the stirred dressing and serve immediately.

Slow-roast citrus lamb shoulder with pilaf and accompaniments

I hate this time of year. The weather’s glum, it gets dark absurdly early, and waking up to a foggy view over very damp fenland full of dead things does not make me leap out of bed springheeled with happiness. It’s time for some summery spicing before I am driven to emigrate.

I’ve written about how brilliant slow-roast lamb shoulder is before – the meat becomes falling-apart-tender, all the fat renders out, and the skin becomes crisp and delicious. In this recipe, you’ll push tiny pieces of lemon zest and garlic into pockets in the fatty flesh before cooking, infusing the whole joint with sunny flavour. I accompanied the lamb with hummus (I blogged the very simple recipe last year), an idiot-proof tzatziki (no recipe needed here – I just stirred a handful of chopped mint into a tub of Greek yoghurt with a little crushed garlic and some pepper), roast pointy peppers and a spicy pilaf. This makes a fantastic supper dish if you have guests, as the hummus, tzatziki and peppers can be prepared well in advance. The lamb needs very little attention for the four hours it’s in the oven, and the pilaf is all cooked quickly, in one pan. To serve six, you’ll need:

Lamb
1 lamb shoulder
Zest of 1 lemon, pared into strips
1 large bunch rosemary
5 cloves garlic, cut in half lengthwise
Salt

Using a very sharp small knife, make little pockets in the lamb shoulder just large enough for half a clove of garlic. Push a piece of garlic and a strip of lemon zest into pockets all over the joint. Lay the shoulder in a roasting tin on a bed of rosemary, skin side up. Sprinkle the skin with salt and place in an oven at 220° C for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 170° C and roast for four hours.

Pilaf
1¾ lb basmati rice
4 pints chicken stock
6 large shallots
2 tablespoons butter
5 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon Ras-al-Hanout
2 teaspoons harissa
1 large pinch saffron, steeped in an eggcup of boiling water for 20 minutes
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 handful sultanas
Salt and pepper
1 handful chopped fresh coriander

Slice the shallots finely and sauté them in the butter in a large pan with a lid until starting to brown. Add the chopped garlic and all the spices except the saffron and harissa, and continue to fry for four minutes. Add the sugar and vinegar to the pan and simmer for two minutes until the mixture looks syrupy. Add the rice, stirring well to make sure it is well coated, with the sultanas, salt and saffron. Pour over the stock and bring to a fast boil, then immediately turn the heat down, put the lid on and simmer gently for 12 minutes. Stir the coriander and pepper through the finished rice.

Peppers
Slice sweet red peppers in half lengthways (use pointed peppers if you can find them – they’re sweeter than bell peppers) and place an anchovy fillet and sliced clove of garlic in each half. Drizzle with olive oil, place a knob of butter in each pepper half, and put in the oven alongside the lamb for the last hour of cooking. These peppers taste their very best at room temperature, so take them out at the same time you take the lamb out, and leave them to cool as the lamb rests while you prepare the pilaf. The lamb will keep its heat as it rests, but if you place the peppers on a cold plate they’ll be the perfect temperature when it’s time to eat.

Persian-spiced Halloumi

There’s a shelf in our fridge full of emergency foods. There’s emergency bacon (for those evenings where nothing but a bacon sandwich or some magic beans will do), emergency anchovies, emergency chorizo and other good things with a good long shelf-life. They’ll all make a quick and tasty supper dish. Among the preserved meats and fish, there’s always at least one emergency packet of halloumi, a lovely, salty, Greek ewe’s cheese, which does not melt when grilled.

Grilled or pan-fried Halloumi has a soft texture with a crisp surface, pleasantly resilient to the tooth. It makes a quick and delicious supper dish with a few extra ingredients – the pine nuts and sultanas work well with the salty cheese, and the capers add a lovely aromatic zing. (Rinse your capers well to make sure the dish isn’t too salty.) I served this with some cous-cous which I’d spiked with harissa and a lemony green salad.

To serve two, you’ll need:

1 pack of Halloumi
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon nonpareil capers in salt, soaked in cold water for ten minutes and well-rinsed
1 tablespoon fat sultanas
1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
3 chopped shallots
Juice of ½ a lemon

Melt the butter in a large, non-stick frying pan, and saute the shallots with the cumin until they begin to take on a golden colour. Add the halloumi, cut into 1cm-thick slices, and lay in the pan surrounded by the shallots. After five minutes, turn the halloumi and sprinkle over the capers, sultanas and pine nuts.

After another five minutes, turn the halloumi again and pour over the lemon juice. Stir to make sure everything is combined and serve immediately.

And normal service has resumed…

I’ve not been around for a couple of months – apologies to all those who’ve emailed. Normal service resumes today, so please keep checking back.

A year and a bit of food blogging had done awful things to the way some of my clothes were fitting, so I’ve put the last couple of months to good use and have been on a rather tedious diet. The next month or so promises to be interesting blog-fodder – I’m off to the US skiing again this year (there being no snow in Europe), but I’ll be stopping off in Las Vegas for a few days beforehand and am hoping to snag a booking at Le Cirque or Picasso, as well as Michael Mina’s new restaurant at Mandalay Bay which, of course, you’ll get to hear all about. Sad news for Vegas-loving foodies; Commander’s Palace, one of my favourite Vegas restaurants, is closing from today (Jan 16). For the uninitiated, Commander’s Palace is an exceptionally good Creole restaurant, whose impeccable service, 25c Martinis and glorious, glorious Tasso Shrimp Henican were always a real highlight of our trips to Vegas. They were to reopen at The Palazzo (the Venetian’s new extension), but apparently talks with the Venetian have stalled – I’ll let you know if I hear any news about a new location. (Of course, the original Commander’s Palace in New Orleans is still open and still marvellous, by all accounts.) Rumour has it that the restaurant location in the Miracle Mile shopping mall (formerly the Desert Passage) will become a Jamaican restaurant.

More sad news comes from Oriental City in Edgware. It’s still open for now, but there are plans to redevelop the site it occupies for housing, a DIY superstore and a school. The developers are making vague noises about rehousing the retailers and food stalls when the current building is bulldozed, but there is very little detail as yet; for now, watch this space and I’ll keep you updated. Do visit soon if you can – it’s a great experience which may not be around for much longer.

So, what have I been up to for the last couple of months? Well, I’ve been eating a lot of porridge with skimmed milk, discovering that a cappuccino really doesn’t work with skimmed milk in it, and that it is highly irritating to watch your husband eat toast and honey every evening before bed when you can’t.

There’s plenty to blog about, anyway. I’ve been to visit my brother in France, where I spent an hour or so annoying market stallholders with a camera. I bought a truffle in Cambridge, learned a new application for my Chinese cleaver, gained custody of a box of cocoa nibs, found a new and excellent supplier of herbs, worked out how to make a pilaf in the rice-cooker, and have come into possession of a moulded brick of tea. It’s good to be back – I’m off now to do something interesting with some bits of chicken.