the food interpreters

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Little Chocolate Cakes

Many years ago I ate those little chocolate cakes in a friend’s house. I asked for the recipe and since then I make them regularly.During the years I adapted the recipe according to our taste. The original recipe demands for more eggs, sugar and butter, but I think that this version works better.

In the summer we keep the cakes in the fridge, in which case the cold cakes match very well with a Sauvignon Blanc.

200 g good quality dark chocolate (66% cocoa solids)
120 g unsalted butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup self-rising flour, sifted
2 Tbsp rum (optional)

Preheat oven to 180 C /fan.

Prepare a 12-hole cupcake tray lined with paper cases.

Break the chocolate into small pieces and drop into a bowl with the butter. Fill a small saucepan about a quarter full with hot water, then sit the bowl on top so it rests on the rim of the pan, not touching the water. Put over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix them. Now remove the bowl from the pan. Cool slightly.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy. Add the rum if using and fold in the flour. Incorporate gently the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg, sugar and flour mixture.

Divide the mixture between the 12 cupcake cases and bake on the middle shelf of your oven for exactly 10 minutes. Be careful not to overcook them and they will be deliciously moist and fresh for some days after they are baked.

Marmalade Cocktail

Published by thefoodinterpreter

Besides excellent beef, Hawksmoor in London have very good and sophisticated cocktails , and a very pleasant cocktail bar in Seven Dials (here is a link to their catalogue). They have published a book (Hawksmoor at Home) that is an excellent and entertaining read, celebrating Britishness in food (if you have the book take a look page 117).

There a section on anti-fogmatics ( anti-fogmatic: An alcoholic drink taken in the morning to brace oneself before going out into bad weather, before 11am, or whenever steam and energy are needed). We take ours on a latter hour, and here is our favorite:

1 tsp orange marmalade

50ml good gin

5ml Campari

15ml lemon juice

a dash of orange bitters

a twist of orange peel

Place a headed barspoon (or teaspoon) of marmalade in a shaker. Add the gin and stir, pressing the marmalade against the side of the shaker to loosen it up. Add the other ingredients, fill up the shaker with ice cubes and shake hard to break down and dissolve the marmalade. If you’re left with a big glob of marmalade after shaking you either haven’t shaken hard enough or your marmalade is particularly resilient – in which case dissolve it in a small amount of boiling water and shake it all up again (but do it quickly so the drink doesn’t become too diluted). Strain into a Martini glass and serve with a twist of orange peel.

For the twist of orange peel: To make the orange twist, use a potato peeler to pare off a rough rectangle of rind from the top of the bottom of an orange. Using your fingers bend the rind over the drink -outer side of the orange over the drink – until the oils in the skin spray over the drink. Then twist the rind into a spiral and drop into the drink.

Roast potatoes

Published by the other food interpreter

In my mind potatoes have always been the absolute comfort food,whether mashed, baked or just boiled.

The following recipe is very simple and always a hit.

Roast potatoes

1,5 kg peeled potatoes
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
9 Tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Tip the peeled potatoes into a large saucepan, cover with cold water and season well with salt. Bring to the boil and cook for about 20 minutes until tender.

Pour 3 Tbsp olive oil, some sea salt and ground pepper in a big baking tray, large enough to fit the potatoes tightly in one layer.

Crush each potato with a fork into two or three pieces depending on size. Season with some sea salt and freshly ground pepper and add 6 Tbsp of olive oil. Give the pan a good shake and put the potatoes in the hot oven for about 40-45 minutes until golden and crispy.

A book about thai food

Published by thefoodinterpreter

‘Thai food’ by David Thompson, a difficult read. See the reviews in amazon to understand the challenges imposed by this opus. Most recipes are difficult to follow outside Thailand because it’s impossible to source the ingredients – but the ones that are doable speak for the refinement of thai cuisine. You can try this salad – provided you marinated and dried your shrimps some days in advance.

The first recipe starts page 191. What precedes the ‘shrimp paste relish’ is history and food fundamentals that put thai cuisine in the middle of the historic and social web. Read about the extravaganzas of the cuisines of the palaces’ : unorthodox interpretations of western cuisine, perfumes designed for cooking, combinations of seemingly heterogeneous ingredients – refined, enhanced and balanced to a ‘posed conclusion’. There is an abyss between the thai kitchen described here and to whatever passes as thai in the west.

Thompson also runs a restaurant in Bangkok (Nahm), “vaut le voyage” to Thailand given you have booked your table- but he is no snob either. In the Thailand edition of Lonelyplanet he contributed a guided tour of the street food pleasures of Bangkok. It’s as fun and tasty as it gets.

Ninja dj

PS:Thompson’s other book is “Thai street food’. The recipes are equally challenging, but you can buy it just for the photos.

Pumpkin soup with orange juice

Published by thefoodinterpreter

This velvety pumpkin soup is a perfect entree or meal especially in the winter months.

Warm, comforting and creamy, it’s little secret is the curry powder which makes the difference.

Pumpkin soup with orange juice (adapted from a recipe of Aglaia Kremezi published in the ‘epsilon gourmet’ magazine some years ago).

5 Tbsp butter
2 cups onions, chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1,5 kg pumpkin, peeled, deseeded, grated
3 cups chicken stock
zest of one orange
1 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice
salt and pepper
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup yoghurt

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and add the onions stirring often until soft, for about 5 minutes.

Add the curry powder and stir vigorously 2-3 times.

Add the grated pumpkin and cook stirring for 5 more minutes.

Stir in the chicken stock, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the zest and the orange juice and let simmer for another 10 minutes.

Puree and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the cream and the yoghurt.

Cook, stirring over low heat until warm, but not boiling.

A lunch to remember

Published by thefoodinterpreter

This Sunday’s lunch was a commemoration of my aunt.

We prepared pumpkin soup,a Sunday roast, salad -that we forgot to bring to the table-and my parents-in-law brought a galaktoboureko.

We drank greek wines – always an argument with the aunt who would insist that we have to support the local winemakers. We used her cutlery and her old tablecloth with the small hole that makes it even more intimate and a family matter.

My aunt would throw a number of dinner parties each year, including the Christmas lunch. As she grew older and sicker, this was the last to hand-over to us.

She cooked from memory – so we try to re-generate her recipes by trial-and-error. This includes the Christmas -turkey stuffing and the bitter orange marmalade, all part of my childhood memories. A note regarding the bitter orange marmalade: in my mother’s family bitterness in food was regarded intrinsic for family togetherness and a sign of seriousness – we still have the tendency to look down on people how do not enjoy chicory or have their coffee with sugar. So loosing the recipe of the marmalade is a matter not to be taken lighlty.

Eating hummus in Amman

Published by thefoodinterpreter

I think one of the best places to eat in the Middle East is Amman. The standards of the clientele are high, judging by the waistlines of the above-forties and taking into account the low-fat ingredients of the food – marrow excluded.

The place to visit is Hashem downtown, for hummus and falafel. It’s as basic as it gets. A short walk away you can get your kunafa from Habibah. You can end here your tour of the citadel where you can admire the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad remains of one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, and see locals playing the bagpipe too.

Jordan is close to the Holy Lands. Christian Jordanians claim that Jesus was baptised on the ‘east side of river Jordan- if you look at the topology this is the sensible think to assume’.

Food and food markets are not sterilised. Somehow the relation to food materials has escaped the tension of post-industrialised societies where you can feel a distance, either because food is glorified, industrialised or the agent of compulsive behaviour.

Sharing bread and wine is forgotten in most places. I think not in Jordan. Some very ancient tradition is still very much alive – food is not the enemy, it is an ingredient of existence open to associations and interpretation.