Apparently there is a place in San Francisco that serves a chicken and bread salad and is famous for it. I dunno, I’ve never been to America but that’s what I found when I googled the recipe to see if anyone else had got there first.

Original or not, it’s definitely one of the most delicious salads I’ve ever made. I love how it’s not really in any way healthy. There are two important things to remember when making it, and that is to buy good chicken (free-range, doesn’t have to be organic) and really good bread. With a recipe this simple, the ingredients need to shine, cliché or not. Burnished, crackling chicken skin is glazed with lemon and honey and seasoned a little bit too much. Bread from St. John is robust and when torn into pieces, drizzled with the chicken drippings and lightly toasted, turns into chewy half-croutons; crisp in some places, moist with meaty juices in others. Cue that noise that Homer Simpson would make if he were daydreaming about a heap of doughnuts, skewered with fried chicken wings, stacked on a giant table made from icy Duff.

Watercress is just the right leaf for the salad I think, not too bolshy. Curly endive also works. For the dressing, it’s mild mustard, a touch more honey to sweeten and then let yourself go with the lemon. That rush of acidity really makes it work.

There are various bits and pieces you could add I suppose but personally, the furthest I’ll go is a few barely-existent slithers of spring onion. It’s all about the flavour of that bird.

Oh, and there’s a matching wine. Yeah, you heard me. Ben asked me to come up with a dish to match a Raimat Vina 27 Chardonnay. I was worried it wouldn’t have enough acidity to cut the richness of chicken skin but it stepped up well. Apple and citrus were predominant flavours and I’m pleased I didn’t go with the obvious choice of fish. Having to plan a dish before you’ve tasted a wine is a challenge, particularly for a novice like me. It’s all about reigning yourself in I suppose and not over-complicating flavours. Start out modest and work your way up, and then when you get a bit good, you can pare it all back down again because at the end of the day, the simplest pleasures are often the best.

Roast Chicken and Bread Salad

1 x 2kg  free range chicken
200g really good, dense bread (I used St. John’s white loaf which has the texture of sourdough but without the sourness)
A couple of handfuls of watercress
1 large lemon and possibly another
1 generous tablespoon honey
A few cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1/2 spring onion, sliced very thinly

For the dressing

Juice of half a large lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil (not extra virgin)
1 teaspoon mild mustard
1 teaspoon honey
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C/Gas 6

Put your bird in a roasting tin and scatter the garlic cloves around it. Peel the zest from half the lemon then scatter this around the bird too and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Warm the honey gently to make it runny then mix this with the lemon juice and brush the mixture all over the bird. Season it heavily, all over and then roast for 30 minutes. Turn the heat down to 160C/gas 3 and roast for another 20-30 minutes. The bird is cooked when the juices run clear when you insert a skewer sideways into the thickest part of the leg.

Remove the bird from the tray and allow to cool. Remove the majority of the crust from the bread and tear it into bite sized pieces. Put the pieces in a bowl and spoon over about 3 tablespoons of the chicken drippings. use your hands to give it a good mix about then pop them into the oven for a few minutes until lightly toasted, but not too crisp – you still want a good bit of chew.

To make the dressing, mix the lemon juice, olive oil, mustard and honey together and season with salt and pepper. Give it a good whisking to emulsify the mixture.

Arrange the watercress on a plate, then arrange some of the bread pieces and chicken on top. Make sure to get plenty of crisp skin. Scatter over a few spring onion pieces if you fancy then drizzle with the dressing and serve. I’m jealous.

It’s the end of the summer and the corn is going cheap. I bought four cobs for a quid in Peckham yesterday and a frankly quite staggering twelve red peppers for the same. Twelve. Not joking.

This soup only uses one you’ll be pleased to know, along with two cobs and some classic Caribbean flavours: thyme, scotch bonnet chilli and coconut. It’s a hearty mix, thickened with yellow split peas and potato but my version is light compared with other recipes which use pumpkin or squash and other vegetables. I prefer a fresher version which keeps the focus on the juicy bursts of corn. I strip one cob and slice the other so I’m not denied the pleasure of gnawing on it.

The scotch bonnet chilli is left whole and slit lengthways to release just moderate fruity heat and the creamy coconut milk smooths things over. It tastes tropical and most importantly, it celebrates the corn. At that price, it would be rude not to.

Jamaican Corn Soup

1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli
150g yellow split peas
1 litre stock (I used vegetable)
400ml tin of coconut milk
2 sprigs of thyme
2 cobs corn
1 red pepper, diced
1 large potato, diced

Heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable or groundnut oil in a pan and add the onion. Let it sweat over a lowish heat for about 8 minutes then add the garlic for a couple of minutes more, taking care not to let it burn. Make a cut down the length of the chilli, but keep it intact and add it to the pan with the split peas, thyme and stock – simmer for 30 minutes.

Prepare the corn by shaving the kernels from one of the cobs, running your knife down the sides, top to bottom. Slice the other one into 2cm thick slices (I nicked that idea from this recipe recently. I also nicked their presentation). Add the corn, coconut milk and potato and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the red pepper for the final 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Allow the soup to cool a little then remove the chilli, thyme and corn slices (reserve the corn slices) and blend half the soup. If it is still quite hot then make sure not to fill the blender more than half way and hold the lid down because if you don’t you will end up with soup all over your kitchen. It will blast the lid off the blender. Return to the pan and add back the corn slices. Reheat if necessary, adjust the seasoning and serve.

I came across this dish when I was looking for new ways to eat pickled garlic, which is something I’ve been doing a lot. What a condiment. Spiky yet sweet, it’s an unusual and addictive flavour. My friend Sally Butcher who owns the Iranian shop and deli, Persepolis tells me that in the Middle East, “they eat it with everything.” This makes sense to me.

On my internet travels I came across an apparently famous Chinese dish called the mutton or yangrou paomo; it’s from Xi’an, the result of cuisines converging via the Silk Road. Small pieces of unleavened ‘Muslim flat bread’ are an Arabian influence; the diner tears the bread into peanut-sized pieces and returns the bowl to the cook who tops it with mutton slices, spiced broth and often, glass noodles.* The dough pieces swell to form springy nuggets as they soak up the liquid. Common accompaniments are chilli paste, coriander leaves and most importantly, the pickled garlic. I was having me some of that.

The bread was a bit of a ball-ache. An e-mail exchange with Sunflower revealed that it’s usually a “heavy, griddled bun similar to an English muffin” but attempts to find a recipe failed. I considered substituting a muffin but it seemed the wrong way to approach a challenge. In the end I used the ingredients found scrawled on a piece of paper, apparently the results of a frantic searching session; I have no recollection. Cooked in a dry pan, it was dense enough to form the desired sticky dumplings rather than gummy mush.

Mostly you just need to chuck everything in a pot, but it will take a good three hours to cook, so one for the weekend. Other recipes cook broth and meat separately but I didn’t have time for that so I asked the butcher to cut up a leg of mutton and simmered the meat and bones together. Mighty black cardamom pods swelled like giant raisins on the broth, releasing their smoky, underground flavour. A lean over the pot made my nostrils buzz with chilli and star anise.

I’m pretty sure that this dish only partly resembles the real thing. I needed more broth in the bowl that’s for sure and usually the meat would be added separately before the hot stock is poured over. At least, that’s what I managed to glean from some rather dodgy translation. I do know however, that the dish is the most famous contribution of Xi’an to Chinese cuisine and apparently, served nearly everywhere in the city and also as part of the state banquet. I think it’s fair to say they are proud of it. If I’ve made it wrong or done it a disservice then I apologise but in my defence, it tasted great.

Mutton Paomo (Yangrou Paomo)

1kg of mutton (mostly chunks of meat and a few large pieces of bone)
2 onions, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 x 2 inch piece of ginger, finely grated
1 mild red chilli, slit lengthways or chopped (I slit mine as I wanted to add chilli paste as a garnish)
200g glass noodles*
2.5 teaspoons of salt
8 peppercorns
2 star anise
A few pieces of cassia bark
3 black cardamom pods, crushed with the side of a knife
2 tablespoons cooking wine

Pickled garlic (available from Persepolis and Khan’s if you live in Peckham), plus chilli paste and coriander leaves to garnish

Trim your meat of any large pieces of fat. Put your meat, bones and everything else apart from the noodles and garnish into a large stock pot. If you want to get fancy, you could bundle your spices into a piece of muslin to make them easier to remove later on. Cover with water (mine took about 3 litres) and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and allow to cook, uncovered for about 3 hours. After this time, remove the bones, whole spices and any remaining pieces of visible fat. I now allowed the broth to cool and skimmed the excess fat from the top. There is already enough fat in the broth to give a good flavour.

Cook the noodles according to packet instructions.

To serve, re-heat and spoon over peanut sized pieces of the bread (recipe below). Add a serving of noodles to the bowl and garnish as desired with the chilli, coriander and pickled garlic.

For the bread

300g plain (all purpose) flour
1 teaspoon salt
200ml boiling water
1 tablespoon lard, softened (by softened I mean leave it out until completely soft)

Mix all the ingredients together until you have a smooth dough. Let it rest for a little while before rolling it out into 8 pieces, about 4-5 inches in diameter. Wipe a heavy skillet or tava with oil and cook each bread for 5 minutes or so on each side until lightly golden. To serve, tear into small pieces and spoon the broth and condiments on top.

* As you can see, I only had wheat noodles.

I was on the verge of writing about a great new jerk place I’ve discovered in Peckham but when it came down to business, I just couldn’t do it to you. She’s writing about jerk, again?! May as well re-name the blog Jerk Stories and be done with it.

So I’ve spared you. For now.

What do you want? What does anyone want instead of some juicy jerk and a hummin’ curry goat I asked myself. Probably a pretty little cake or something.

Here you go then; here’s your cake. The only real woman-power involved is dealing with your coconut. It’s easiest to break them open with a hammer but I don’t have one so I just smashed it against the wall a couple of times. Once you’ve cracked it, the best way to remove the insides is to use one of those nifty winding corkscrew de-flesher wotsits but you probably don’t have one (me neither), so carefully slip some kind of implement (I used a combination of butter knife, skewer and thin-lipped spoon) between husk and flesh; large pieces will ping out across your kitchen. You can then retrieve them and go about the business of grating. It’s a faff. I recommend investing in the proper equipment. Whatever happens though, don’t use desiccated coconut; it’s gross.

This recipe was sent to me by a friend. It’s light, so you can eat a gargantuan slice without feeling sick, which is brilliant or dangerous, depending on your attitude towards healthy eating. I ate too much, then packed the rest off to work with Chris. We take it in turns to feed the fruits of my labour to our colleagues, thus garnering favour in both camps. This earns me extra cups of tea throughout my working day and means I can gatecrash Chris’ work events every now and then, (“just happened to be passing…”) where the beer is always free flowing and the people are nice. Nothing keeps things sweet like a slice of cake. Except perhaps a leg of jerk chicken.

A fresh coconut cake
(This is my friend’s recipe. She has asked me to say that she is not entirely happy with the icing, so there you go, I’ve said it).

This fills 2 x 20cm loose-bottomed cake tins

For the cake
175g self-raising flour
75g fresh coconut, grated
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 large eggs
175g butter, softened
175g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the icing
100g softened butter
100g icing sugar
200g softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g coconut, grated, plus extra to garnish

Preheat the oven to 170C
Grease and line the two tins with greaseproof paper

Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixing bowl of an electric mixer. Add the eggs, butter, vanilla and sugar and beat for a couple of minutes on low speed until well combined. You can do this without an electric mixer, using a wooden spoon. Add the coconut, stir it in and divide the mixture evenly between the two tins. Cook in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes or so, until evenly golden and a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tins and then turn out onto a wire cooling rack. I find the easiest way is to position your cake tins on top of a can or jar then let the sides drop down leaving the cake and base of the tin resting on top.

When ready to make the icing, beat the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and vanilla and mix well then add the coconut and mix again. When the cake is cool, spread one third of the icing between the two layers and sandwich them together. Spread the remaining two thirds over the top and around the sides and then garnish with extra grated coconut as desired.

Do you know why I was able to resort to using flash so I could show you this food? Because there was no-one else in the restaurant, that’s why. This didn’t bode well.

We were actually in the area looking for a Turkish place. As you know, I’m not really one for tramping around up norf but I’ve sploshed up and down the Essex Road twice recently (both times: raining), because I  just can’t resist a budget recommendation. That, and the fact it was an excuse to visit The Mucky Pup, a damn fine boozer and home of my Chilli Cook Off victory (very modest, me). I met The Restaurant Recommender at a food event a few months ago, a food event which did not have much going for it in the way of food. So it happened that polite chit-chat turned into a frenzied slobbering quest to find grilled meat. I was sceptical (I mean, it’s in Islington. We’re talking cheap. This is Islington?) but I remained open-minded, for the first half hour. By the time my canvas pumps were sodden and my hair a frizzed shock, we decided to give it up and go home. I won’t tell you what I ended up eating that night.

This time we knew the location but forgot the occasion – Ramadan. The place is shut for a month. Right next door though was Zigni House, which ticked all the boxes what with it being a) open and b) serving food. Zigni is an Eritrean and East African restaurant. My only previous experience of the cuisine had been at Asmara in Brixton, which was fun but not exciting enough for a return visit.

With every table in the place to choose from, it had to be the funnel-lidded example with woven wicker chairs. Five minutes of creaking and fidgeting put paid to the idea of that being any fun; we moved swiftly across to something more practical. If you’ve never eaten East African food, you should know that what happens is they bring out an injera, which is this brilliant huge pancake full of bubbles like a giant flat crumpet. The batter has an addictive sour taste, which comes from fermentation for a couple of days at room temperature. It’s made with yeast, but you wouldn’t know it because the mix is runny, which allows it to be spread thin during cooking. It’s like a skinny sourdough crepe. In Africa it’s traditionally made with a small grain called teff but in other countries often replaced partly or entirely with wheat flour.

Dishes are served on top of the injera and everyone rips in, using each piece to scoop at the various stews. While you are eating, the juices from each dish are soaking  through the porous surface, making everything tastier as you work inwards; the final, gut-busting stages are the most precious; we’re talking crispy chips at the bottom of the packet stuff here. It’s every woman for herself.

We ordered a variety of meat and side dishes and it fast became apparent that this place was better than Asmara, its South London counterpart (sniffle). Dulet was a ballsy tripe dish, mysteriously fusty but freshened with yoghurt and herbs. More yoghurt arrived as a side dish, strained of excess liquid and whipped; a perfect contrast to dishes like Quanta-Fit-Fit (dried beef and injera pieces in hot ‘Zigni chilli sauce’). The almost biltong-like Zil Zil brought a welcome texture break from saucy stews, its spice rub as addictive as crack. It came with Ajbo Hamli, chopped spinach, cheese and butter. Nice. Other vegetarian dishes were great too; our starter of Timtomo Rolls was injera filled with richly spiced lentils. Kategna was – you’ve guessed it – injera, this time fried, dusted with chilli and slicked with ghee.

At Asmara, everything was a bit samey, like an Indian curry house that uses the same sauce for every dish, adding more or less chilli powder and calling it a different name; at Zigni each dish was bold and surprising. Even the injera was better (more sour) which makes them on to a winner considering it pops up in every other dish.

Why the place was empty I do not know. Okay, so it was Tuesday night and pissing with rain but the reverse-snobbed SE Londoner in me wants to think it’s because the well-to-do people of Islington were all wolfing down meringues in the gorgeous but pricey Ottolenghi then stopping for a cupcake on the way home. This is probably rubbish. I hope for the sake of the owner, Tsige Haile that the place was just a victim of a rainy Tuesday because the food at Zigni is satisfying, unusual and cheap. Did I mention cheap? People of Islington, hear me now! Cupcakes are all style and no substance and anyway, who wants icing on the seat of the 3-wheeler buggy when you can let the precious ones work it out of their systems by pawing at the mighty injera? Deep down, everyone wants to eat with their hands – child or not.

330 Essex Road
London
N1 3PB
Tel: 020 7226 7418
http://www.zignihouse.com