Anyone else suffer from wedding come-downs? Our friends Becky & Huw got married over the weekend and it was a joyous, tear-filled, 00s pop banger filled occasion, with very nice flowers. Top points for the pulled smoky lamb and giant couscous salad paired with perfectly pickled cukes, from Jen Goss and Anja Dunk. And the woodfired pizza van that came to save our hangovers the next day – shout out to the goats cheese and caramelised onion slice that allowed me to sit in a car for six hours.
Monday’s general vibe mixed with London’s unseasonally grey weather meant an existential crisis only to be saved by sausages and butter beans, simmered slowly with thinly sliced leeks, fennel, garlic and chilli flakes. Homemade aioli because garlic is a salve. This week’s leftovers are dedicated to the many meals coming out of my little kitchen that serve one little broken (fractured, perhaps?) heart, and the speed with which I can consume Netflix dramas.
The aforementioned sausages and beans. So chubby, so cute. Would always recommend making your own aioli because it’s ridiculously easy. All you need is a yolk, some oil, a clove of garlic, lemon juice, dijon mustard and salt. Whisk the yolk and slowly pour the oil until you get a mayo-like consistency, then grate the garlic, add the lemon juice and dijon mustard so it thins out a bit, then season with salt. True cooks will tell you to use a neutral oil, and I would do but I keep forgetting to buy it, so I guess I’ll waste my expensive Brindisa extra-v on my aiolis instead.
The first half of this pack of sausages went into a white sausage ragu: I squeezed the meat out of their casings, browned the meat, set aside then fried leeks with garlic, chilli flakes and fennel seeds in the juices. Add white vermouth, sausage meat then steamed tender stem broccoli, pasta water and big twirls of fusilli. Plenty of parsley and pecorino to follow, and I think it would have been even better with a sprinkling of homemade anchovy breadcrumbs but that’s for next time.
Having another weird love affair with lamb mince, and thinking next time I’ll fry it up with plenty of chilli crips and add it to my favourite tahini soba noodle salad (tahini, lime juice, soy sauce, chilli vinegar + shredded cukes and thinly sliced spring onions) for dinner hit.
Eating dinner with a French woman (my very good friend, Coco) means always leaving room for le fromage, in our case it was a deliciously soft and tangy goat’s cheese called lingot des causes and made me remember why cheese after mains exists. Because it’s perfect. Coco told me to eat the cheese, drink a glass of red (we went for a chilled cab sav), and aerate the sip so it breathes new life into the cheese and it sounds ridiculous but it honestly works. To be extra francais, finish with two thinly rolled ciggies outside.
Adult Material on Netflix. Watched it in less than 12 hours. Hayley Squires is an absolute gem in this show, written by playwright Lucy Kirkwood (NSFW, Chimerica), and examines the British porn industry with appropriately seedy and dark humour. Also Anatomy Of A Scandal, which I’m late to the party to; thought it was very good and troubling, and it reminded me in parts of Laura Wade’s Riot Club. Another undressing of British upper-class privilege, although wondering if we need more stories vindicating what we know is already wrong instead of narratives that uplift people of colour in joyous and celebratory and also just normal ways?
The joy of being able to hop on my bike and cycle ten minutes to help soothe a sad friend and bring leftover beans and a few other fridge leftovers. Great to repay the favour after two months of constant crying. Went with grilled courgettes with crumbled feta; the leftover beans with a crème fraîche and dill saucy number; and a simple rocket and raw fennel salad with preserved lemons dressed with lemon juice and a drizzle of unctuous and velvety Cafe Cecilia olive oil.
Rhia Cook, founder of Potluck Zine, posted something on her stories the other day which showed a newsletter (I can’t find which one, please let me know if you know what I’m talking about!) that discussed the accessibility of ingredients and made a case for not always buying into the ‘buy local’ ethos. It made me think a lot about how much I write about is a reflection of my very privileged surroundings. Yes, buying local can be great – supporting independent shops versus big supermarkets – but also it’s not possible everywhere, and not always necessary. Buying local in London especially doesn’t mean buying locally sourced produce. A lot of it may still come from Europe or further afield, which I try and check as much as I can. Great if you can buy direct from a farm or grow your own. But at the end of the day, food is food and when we need to feed ourselves, we don’t always have the luxury of spending 1.5x the price to ‘buy local’ or ‘support independents’.
Getting really drawn into the Dimes Square/New York hipster wars content that’s coming out of the NY media elite. Do we have the equivalent in London? Not quite sure, unless Hackney is Brooklyn and somewhere else like Nunhead is the downtown Gen Z equivalent, but I’m not quite sure if that tracks. All I know is that they talk a lot about really great New York restaurants like Cervo’s and Clandestino and it’s making me want to plan an autumn trip.
Esther Choi is my number one Korean chef, she always comes up with really easy innovative ways of cooking Asian food. The way she adds egg yolks to her leftover rice to give it that lovely, sunshine yellow, glossy hue? Genius.
I also loved this reel that spoke about how authenticity in food is an outdated concept – so many things go together that aren’t necessarily authentic (if one more Italian person tells me to stop grating lemon zest onto my pasta or that parmesan doesn’t go with seafood, I’m gonna lose it). If anything, this newsletter is a celebration of all those combinations of flavours that cross cultures and perceived notions of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ with a dish. If you like it, that’s all that matters, DON’T LET THE HATERS STOP YOU FROM EATING FISH FINGER PASTA (a great hangover invention I’m yet to make).
Speaking of, just want to dive into this creamy nuoc cham potato salad from Molly Baz.
Barbecue season needs this crispy smoky mushroom rice! Obsessed!