Bánh Xèo

Our submission for this year’s pancake competition had a Vietnamese flavour. When we were in Ho Chi Minh city we fell in love with their Bánh Xèo. These enormous crispy, Simpsons coloured pancakes are stuffed with prawns, pork, bean sprouts and mint and are then wrapped in lettuce and rice paper, before being dipped in nuoc cham. Our favourite was this monster in Ho Chi Minh City which was the size of a satellite dish and as crispy as a Pringle.

We learned that Bánh Xèo is an onomatopoeic word that connotes the sizzling or crackling sound you hear when you make one. The batter is a mixture of rice flour, coconut milk and turmeric which fries in a way that leaves a pock marked surface similar to baddy’s face in Licence to Kill.

We found it took longer to cook the pancake than a traditional English version. But the patience was rewarded with a crispy shell to take on the filling.

We opted for a chicken and prawn filling instead of pork and prawn. You could just as easily use oriental mushrooms if you fancied a change. It’s important to marinade the ingredients in fish sauce, lemongrass, garlic, chilli and ginger first to infuse the flavour. Then fry away with some spring onions and keep warm whilst you make the pancake.

Ingredients:

For pancakes

200g rice flour

Half a can of coconut milk

200ml water

2 teaspoons of turmeric powder

Pinch of salt

Coconut oil for frying

Pancake filling

4 chicken thighs

2 cloves of garlic – finely sliced

1 lemongrass stem – finely sliced

1 chilli – finely sliced

Large thumb of ginger – grated

Big slug of fish sauce

150 g prawns

Handful of mint

Bean sprouts

Palm sugar

Lime

Coconut oil for frying

Nuoc cham dipping sauce

100ml fish sauce

50ml lime juice

3 finely sliced red chillies

1 teaspoon of palm sugar

1 clove of finely chopped garlic

Method:

Marinade the filling ingredients in fish sauce, ginger, lemongrass, garlic and chilli for half an hour. Then fry till cooked. Add the marinade towards the end to cook off. And some palm sugar. This should form a nice sticky sauce. Keep warm.

Whisk the rice flour, coconut milk, salt and turmeric together with the water to form a batter. Allow to rest for a bit.

Then add some coconut oil and groundnut oil to a frying pan and when hot add a spoonful of batter. The batter should fizz and crackle. It should also look pockmarked.

Once set and crispy on the other side, give it a careful flip. Because these are lacking in gluten they aren’t as stretchy so be a bit more cautious at this stage.

Serve the pancake, bent in half with the filling spooned in, like a taco. Then plate up with a wedge of lime, some bean sprouts, mint, and extra chillies.  And a little bowl of nuoc cham to dip into.

If you wanted to be extra authentic you could wrap the pancake in rice pancakes – but, they are just as nice on their own I think. And a lot less fiddly.

Some nice people from Roberson Wines gave us a bottle of Cono Sur Single Estate Chilean Reisling which paired perfectly with the Bánh Xèo. Fresh enough to slice through the complex flavours and rich enough to cope with the hint of spice. Not bad for £9 a bottle.

Truffled tuscan sausages with polenta, braised fennel and gremolata

Walking into the Italian deli near my office in King’s Cross is to be transported to the scene in Goodfellas where they are cooking in prison. The store is run by an Italian version of the most charming version of Arkwright from Open All Hours, who has never failed to be a gracious an inspiring host. He will make you enormous sandwiches cut from whole loaves of ciabatta laced with freshly sliced cured meats and cheeses, moistened with a healthy slick of olive oil; or more conventionally he’ll send you packing with genuinely Italian ingredients and delicacies that will stink your office out for the afternoon, before transporting your family to an Italian holiday when you get home from work.

Inspired by a colleague who had come back with a truffled pecorino, I popped in for some KC Continental magia. My head was almost blown off by the smell of truffle as I walked in. But alas the cheese had sold out. But true to form Arkwrightioni sent me packing with some amazing truffled sausages from Tuscany. These puppies positively wreaked of truffle and almost had all the dogs in our office howling like deranged wolves. There’s something deeply primeval about truffles and I couldn’t wait to cook them.

I thought about making an Italian version of toad in the hole with loads of rosemary and a healthy dose of mushrooms, but decided that would be more suitable in autumn. I also dismissed a truffle sausage and bean stew for similar reasons. And sausage and lentil casserole suffered a similar fate. Instead, I opted to combine my amazing truffled sausages with a slick of polenta, a smear of gremolata and some braised fennel.

Ingredients

6 truffled Tuscan sausages from KC Continental Stores

3 bulbs of fennel

2 large onions

300g of frozen peas

2 glasses of white wine

400ml of chicken stock

200g polenta

50g grated parmesan

3 garlic cloves

100g butter

1 pack of parsley

4 sprig of thyme

Method

Make the gremolata by very finely chopping the parsley. Then douse in olive oil and squeeze in a lemon’s juice and add some of it’s finely grated zest. Season aggressively.

Brown the sausages in a casserole dish and set aside.

Then brown the onions and fennel until golden. Then add the garlic. Then add the wine and let the alcohol bubble off.

Then add the sausages and 100ml of chicken stock. Add the thyme. Allow to simmer until the sausages are cooked through.

Meanwhile make the polenta according the packet instrucions. I used chicken stock rather than water which worked well. And then beat in lots of parmesan and butter.

Add the peas to the casserole. Let them cook through. Season everything.

Then serve with a good dollop of mushroom. And a glass of very cold white wine. We probably should have had a Tuscan white… but instead we had a dry German Riesling which worked very well indeed.

Venison Rydberg

Biff Rydberg caught my attention as I was thumbing my way through a Swedish butchery book. Even though there was no photo and all the text was in Swedish there was something interesting about it. From my basic grasp of Swedish I understood it to be a more grown up version of Pytt i Panna – which is minced beef mixed with cubes of sautéed potatoes that is to Sweden what chilli con carne is to Texans.

Intrigued, I dipped into Marcus Samuelson’s Aquavit book and discovered that Biff Rydberg is indeed a Swedish classic. Apparently it was invented in a hotel in Stockholm – much like the Wallenberger. It’s a very simple dish of flash fried cubes of beef fillet accompanied by squares of fried potatoes, onions and an egg yolk. Super straightforward. High quality food, simply cooked. It could barely be more Scandinavian. Check out Nordic Nibbler's stunning blog post about this wonderful Scandi dish.

My first attempt at Biff Rydberg actually featured elk, rather than beef, supplied by a fabulous Swedish intern whose brother was a keen huntsman. I cubed the lean elk and served it with diced sautéed potatoes and an egg yolk. It was a big success but I forgot to photograph it and felt as though the meal had slipped away. At the time I remember thinking that it would have been even better with some more interesting root vegetables and some tarragon to make the egg yolk form a sort of bernaisey sauce as it mixes with the warm meat and hot potatoes.

When I moved back to London I planted a few Jerusalem artichokes in the spring along with some golden and pink stripy beetroot. All summer I wished them along and marveled as the artichokes grew up into the stratosphere. And cursed as the beetroot seemed to laugh at me as they tip-toed their way towards adulthood. They were destined for my alternative take on Biff Rydberg – along with some wild mushrooms, the tops from my beetroot and crucially, some venison.

The venison was wild and I didn’t know what cut it came from. So rather than flash frying it – it seemed more sensible to sear it and then let it braise gently with some rehydrated wild mushrooms, juniper and red wine.

And rather than using boring old potatoes, I gave the starches an upgrade with c combination of cubed celeriac, beetroot and artichokes which balanced the metallic savouriness of the game with some earthy sweetness.

It’s a lot of effort. But as the egg yolk mingles with the gamey meat and sweet, earthy vegetables you’ll hopefully agree it’s worth it. It was so satisfying to put my artichokes and beetroot to good use.

Ingredients

For the braised venison

500g of cubed wild venison

300ml of red wine

Handful of juniper berries

Handful of dried mushrooms – rehydrated in 500ml of hot water

3 sliced onions

1 minced clove of garlic

Dried tarragon

Dusting of plain flour

Salt and pepper

Vegetables

4 beetroot

½ celeriac

4 Jerusalem artichokes

Beetroot tops

Dressing

Fresh tarragon

2 egg yolks

1 lemon

Method

This isn’t a hard dish to cook. The only thing that is tricky is juggling lots of different aspects so that they are all ready at the same time. You need to do the 3 different tasks at the same time.

Dust the venison in flour and season with salt and pepper. Brown the meat in a pan. Remove from the pan. Then sauté the onions. Then deglaze the pan with red win and add the venison and juniper berries having given then a gentle bruising first. Chuck in some dried tarragon and the rehydrated wild mushrooms along with enough liquor to cover the meat. Cook in a low oven until the venison is soft. Set aside and get cracking with the other parts.

Bake the beetroot whole. When they are cooked peel off the skin and then slice into cubes and keep warm. Mine were so small there was no need to cut them.

Cut the celeriac into 2 cm and the Jerusalem arichokes into 4 cm chunks and then parboil in salted water until they are almost tender. Then drain, dry, season and roast in a hot oven for 20 minutes or so until golden.

Steam the beetroot tops (or spinach if using) just before serving.

Separate the venison, mushrooms and onions from the liquor and reduce this to a sticky, syrupy sauce.

Arrange the venison in the centre of the plate with an egg yolk nestling inside its shell. Then add the cubed root vegetables so that they fan out across the plate.  And fit the beetroot tops in where you find space. Adorn then meat with the mushroomy mixture and the now reduced sauce. Then scatter the fresh tarragon over the whole plate along with as much seasoning as you think is required. And finish with a little spritz of lemon juice to help the egg yolk and tarragon to meld.

Enjoy with a nice glass of red wine.

Kaiserschmarrn

I waited until the final day of our Austrian skiing holiday last February to ask Cowie’s dad if he had any objections to me marrying his younger daughter! It was minus twenty three degrees centigrade and we were sharing a rickety old chair lift somewhere about St. Anton. As the lift reached the top of the mountain I plucked up courage and fortunately David said yes – followed by a comment that will stay with me forever: “As Prince Philip once said – you’ve been practicing long enough”.

Having agreed to keep it a secret until I asked Sarah the following week – we shot off down the mountain in search of our final lunch of the holiday. Feeling giddy and a bit extravagant we finished our meal of spaetzles and schnitzels with an enormous serving of Kaiserschmarrn. It’s a classic Austrian pudding made of fluffy chopped pancakes studded with raisins that is often served with a plum compote. Apparently it was invented for Emperor Franz Joseph and his very hard to please wife who wanted a nice light dessert. It translates as Emperor’s Nonsense which all seems quite appropriate.

With Pancake Day almost upon us and almost a year gone by from when I proposed to Sarah, I thought sharing this Kaiserschmarrn recipe would be rather appropriate. If you felt like taking the nonsense to a new level you could use blackberry or quince jam instead and maybe even add some different nuts. 

Adapted from a BBC recipe

Ingredients

50g butter, softened to butter the pans
175g caster sugar, plus 40g for dusting the pans
4 free-range egg yolks
300g crème fraîche
75ml dark rum
75g plain flour
60g raisins, soaked in rum
8 free-range eggs, whites only
½ tsp cream of tartar
60g icing sugar, for dusting

Method

Butter two ovenproof dishes and then dust with sugar. Cream the egg yolks and 25g sugar with a whisk until smooth. Then beat in the crème fraîche and rum, followed by the flour. Add the rum soaked raisins.

Whisk the egg whites along with the cream of tartare and remaining sugar until you’ve got stiff peaks. 

Then fold the egg whites into the batter and pour into the two pans. Bake for 20 minutes – or until lightly browned and set. Remove from the oven and chop.



Then dust with icing sugar and serve with plum compote and whipped cream.





If you've got any suggestions for recipes for pancake day please let me know. We're more determined than ever to win our annual competition this time round.

Flaming Wild Mushroom Crepes

My Godfather gave us an unbelievably exciting collection of dried wild mushrooms as a very generous engagement present. The sight of jumbo Morels, dried Chanterelles, Porcini and Trompettes de la Mort were too much to cope with, so I decided to give our Flaming Wild Mushroom Pancake recipe another outing, but with turbo charged fungus.

We first created it for our entry into this year’s Pancake Day competition. It came about when we wondered how we could capture the excitement of a flaming Crepe Suzette with my obsession with mushrooms. Initial plans involved truffles and fine cognac, but it got scaled down to a more sensible wild mushroom ragout spooned inside a pancake and then doused in flaming brandy.

Full of confidence and low on voting smarts we came second in February to a Chile Con Carne Crepe, which, it pains me to say it, was a deserving winner. Stung by defeat, we went back to the chopping board and tweaked our recipe to dial up the shroom factor and weave in some complementary flavours into the batter and mushroom ragout.

We decided to add some porcini powder and chives to the batter to make it more savory. And also threw in extra tarragon, thyme and parsley into the ragout to make it more complex. We also decided to use Taleggio rather than Parmesan because it melts better and has a tang that makes the mushrooms stand out more.

Ingredients:

Pancake batter:
Porcini powder (or throw dried mushrooms into the batter and then remove them after you’ve let the batter prove)
Flour
Eggs
Water
Salt
Chopped chives

Mushroom Ragout:

1 onion
3 cloves of finely chopped garlic
600g button mushrooms
3 handfuls of dried wild mushrooms
600ml hot water
Rocket
100ml double cream
Tarragon
Parsley
Taleggio
Salt
Pepper

Method

Start by making the batter. Whisk together the flour, eggs, water and add in the porcini powder or dried mushrooms.

Then chop the chives very finely and add them too. Let the batter prove overnight.

Rehydrate the dried wild mushrooms in boiling water and leave to steep for 30 minutes, or as long as the packet says.

In the meantime, fry an onion in olive oil and butter over a low heat and once softened add in the chopped garlic. Don’t let it brown. Then add the chopped fresh mushrooms and cook until soft and coloured. Add some salt and sauté until the liquid that the mushrooms leach has bubbled away.

Then squeeze the now hydrated, formerly dried, mushrooms into their bowl and add to the pan. Give this some heat to drive off the excess liquid and then, perversely, add in the mushroom stock 200ml at a time. Reduce this down until there it is a bit saucy.

Then add in lots of chopped tarragon, thyme and parsley. Season and then add in 100ml of double cream and continue to reduce until you have a rich mushroomy sludge.

Keep this warm and fry some pancakes using the now proved batter. Once you’ve fried the pancake on the bottom, flip it and spoon some of the mushroom ragout onto half of the pancake.

Add a few rocket leaves, a few slices of taleggio, salt and pepper and fold over.

Pat down with a spatula and douse in brandy over a hot flame. Stand back. 

Serve with a peppery side salad.