I now laugh in the face of normal quantities of garlic. Since chicken with 40 cloves I consider myself a hardcore garlic eater. I’m sure you can smell my breath from wherever you are. This recipe contains a whopping 3 whole bulbs and on top of that 3 whole onions, which is a lot of allium considering there’s not much else bulking out this curry save a couple of tomatoes, chillies and spices.

The recipe comes from a book called ‘Indian’ by Das Sreedharan. In it, Das describes how people, “wonder how the garlic is so well tamed by the spicy and tangy tamarind sauce” and it is, but still…wow. Eating this curry is a little bit like being slapped in the face with a spicy lemon, I imagine. At first you pucker up with all that tamarind and then the double heat of red and green chilli kicks in before you cautiously lift a now yellow clove to your lips and bite down on a still crisp and still strong, whole clove of garlic. Then another and another. I really got into munching them down but it definitely felt a bit weird.

I served it will a coconut-heavy vegetable number and we scooped up the lot with my first attempt at chapatis using my new tava. I need to practice getting the shape more uniform but otherwise they were pretty fine and I even managed to get them to puff up a little bit.

I am of the opinion that no curry meal is complete without some sort of raita or other yoghurt based accompaniment and my favourite now is this cucumber pachadi, a recipe from one of my Flickr contacts, which you can find here. It is unusual (to me, at least) in that diced cucumber is first gently simmered with ginger so it is lightly cooked and then cooled and mixed with the yoghurt and a coconut, chilli and mustard seed paste. A temper of coconut oil, dried red chilli and curry leaves is poured on top. I served this to friends recently and they literally squabbled over the bowl.

One more thing about that garlic curry – I would suggest leaving it overnight before serving if you can bear it. Most curries are better the next day but with this the garlic and tamarind really get busy with each other overnight, melding into something  just that little bit softer. You still won’t need to worry about vampires though; I was sweating that shiz for a week.

Garlic Curry (from ‘Indian’ by Das Sreedharan)
Serves 4

75g tamarind pulp (from a block)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
200g garlic cloves, peeled (yep)
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
10 curry leaves
3 onions, peeled and finely chopped
3 green chillies, slit lengthways
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
2 tomatoes, finely chopped

Put tamarind pulp in a bowl with 900ml hot water, breaking the pulp up as much as possible. Allow it to soak for 20-30 minutes before straining the water into a bowl through a sieve, pressing down on the pulp to extract as much as possible.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a pan and add 50g of the garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of the fenugreek seeds and the dried chillies and fry for 1 minute. Remove and drain oon kitchen paper. Transfer to a blender and process to a fine paste.

Heat the remaining oil in a large pan then add the fennel and remaining fenugreek seeds and cook for 1 minute or until they are golden brown. Add the onions, curry leaves and chillies and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are soft and then add the turmeric and chilli powder, followed by the chopped tomatoes. Mix well and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Add the remaining garlic cloves, the garlic paste from the blender and the tamarind liquid. Cook on a low heat, stirring often for 15 minutes or until the mixture is thick and the garlic well cooked. I actually cooked this for about 15 minutes longer and the garlic was still crisp.

Chapatis (from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Bible)

Mix 125g chappati flour (or equal mix of white and wholemeal flours) with about 120ml water and a pinch of salt (my addition, chapatis don’t usually have any) to make a soft dough. Knead well for 10 minutes then shape into a ball and put aside in a bowl with a damp cloth over the top for at least 15 minutes. You can also chill for future use.

When ready to cook, set your tava or heavy based frying pan over a medium high heat while you knead the dough again and divide into six balls. Dust your surface with flour and roll out into a circle about 13cms in diameter. Pick up the chapatti and slap it in your hands to get rid of extra flour then slap it on the tava. Cook for ten seconds then flip it. Cook for another 10 seconds then flip again and using a damp cloth, dab it all over then flip it again – this should make it puff up.

Repeat with the remaining balls of dough. Apparently you can do the puffing up bit just by putting it in the microwave.

Earlier this year, on a dark, cold night in South London, a group of six bloggers gathered together to celebrate some gastronomic guilty pleasures – those things you really shouldn’t enjoy eating but oh, how you do. We had so much fun the first time round that we gathered again a couple of days ago for round two. I decided to step up my game this time and bring not one but two guilty pleasures, the first a regular in my repertoire and the second, one I’d been sitting on, just waiting for the right opportunity to make it.

We all arrived at host Niamh’s house, dripping wet from pelting rain but with bags of enthusiasm for the feasting ahead. As so many of us were to include pork in our offerings, we decided to re-name the meal ‘pork party’ and amused ourselves with the expected nature of extra traffic this would likely bring to our blogs, while nibbling on ‘canapes’ of cheese strings, babybels and dairylea dunkers, provided by Chris.

We decided to start the meal proper with some mini chorizo pizzas from Niamh, followed by my first GP of soft boiled eggs with buttery anchovy soldiers. Somehow I managed to hard boil the eggs and when Niamh cooked some more they were under-done; who knew food bloggers can’t even boil an egg?! Thankfully, the anchovy dippers went down a treat despite the double fail.

Next Lizzie whipped up some Spam pancakes or Spamcakes, as they were quickly re-named. These were wonderfully stodgy, with a salty hit from the spam – even better dunked in a dollop of hot sauce for a double GP hit. As we all scoffed the pancakes, a spicy, meaty aroma started to waft around the kitchen and Dan soon produced his ‘sleasy cheesy silly chilli’; nachos were melded together with an oozing layer of melted red Leicester, ready for scooping up piles of his frankly rather brilliant chilli. His secret apparently, is to add a splash of Dave’s Insanity Sauce plus a touch of our beloved swine meat. Always with the swine. It was meaty, fiery goodness and I ate rather too much of it. I won’t go into details.

Niamh did what she does best and whacked a big old lump of spiced pig belly in the oven,  roasting until the crackling was bubbly crisp and the meat still juicy. You can never eat enough pork in our opinion, which brings me nicely onto my second contribution – David Lebovitz’s candied bacon ice cream (top photo). I even bought an ice cream maker just for this one recipe. I’ve only made ice cream once before and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, particularly now I don’t have to take it out of the freezer and stir it every couple of hours. One word of warning though, you’ve got to watch that bacon like a HAWK. I burnt two lots and totally ruined a baking tray in the process.

Once I’d finally managed to get it right, the bacon was chopped into teeny pieces and stirred through the ice cream at the last minute. The end result was a vanilla scented fudgy flavour from the brown sugar, although I was a little disappointed that it didn’t taste more bacon-y so I candied some extra at the last minute to sprinkle on top. If you are the least bit sceptical about bacon ice cream let me reassure you, it really does work. Think bacon with maple syrup and honey glazed ham – the sweet/smoke/meat combo is a winner.

So there you have it – an unashamed pork-fest, with a bit of plastic cheese and anchovy dippers thrown in. Guilty pleasures ahoy. Dan and Denise also brought along some interesting wines, which you can read about on their blogs. My personal favourite was the Alois Lageder Gewürztraminer, which made a valiant attempt at taming that ferocious beast of a chilli. The wine flowed, the food kept-a-comin’ and the revelery was typically raucous. We faced some nasty weather conditions, a broken down fridge, a double egg disaster and a crackling fail but ultimately, we triumphed, such is our dedication to the filthy snack.

You can see my full Flickr set from the evening here.

Thanks to Niamh for the top photo.

Call me radical but I like a good old fashioned burger bun – sweet, seeded and soft. One of my favourite examples comes, somewhat controversially, from McDonald’s. Yes, really. When I saw this post about Haché back in June, I was reminded of my loathing for the trend of sandwiching a burger with an inappropriate bun. Ciabatta? For a burger? No.

I commented on the post that I thought it would be a rather interesting experiment to take a Maccy D’s bun and put it either side of a proper burger. I resolved to make it happen and put the idea out on Twitter where the lovely @byronhamburger jumped in and offered to make my dream a reality. So it was that I found myself in McDonald’s a few weeks later asking, “could I just have three plain buns please? No nothing in them, just plain.” “OK” the guy said, “but you’ll have to pay for the full sandwich.” “You what?” I countered, “but how can they be worth the same when there’s nothing in them, can’t you just charge me for one?” Apparently, there was nothing he could do. In fact, he was so resolute about it that he just kept repeating the same phrase in a slightly scary robotic fashion. “OK, thanks anyway,” I said. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,” he replied.

Burger King on the other hand were more helpful. Three buns, toasted – £1.99, and I got a few funny looks thrown in for free. I stashed them in my bag and toddled off to meet Lizzie, Ollie and Chris for the bun-off. Tom Byng, the MD at Byron was waiting and oh my giddy aunt if he hadn’t had their bakers (Miller’s) make up a selection of buns for us to try! “Have you got the er, you know?” he asked me, referring to the BK buns. “The dark side has indeed passed the threshold,” I replied. He’d even made up tasting sheets. There were 9 buns in total and for each we first tried the bun au naturale before moving on to bread and burger combo. This was serious business.

Here’s the pick of the bunch. First, the BK bun. On its own, too dry and bready but with the burger? Great. Sweet flavour and the all important robust structure – there’s nothing worse than being reduced to eating a burger with a knife and fork. Shockingly good.

Next, the brioche, a strong contender for my favourite too; sweet, buttery goodness, which complemented the meat perfectly. I loved it at Hawksmoor and I love it still. The only problem here is structural – it tends to wrinkle up and deflate somewhat on top. Oh and it needs seeding.

The worst bun on the night (no surprises here people), was the ciabatta – just too much effort to eat. Ciabatta is an event in itself, it is hard work, has a strong, yeasty flavour and it hogs the limelight. I think I’m right in saying that none of our party even took another bite after dusting off our floury faces.

Others included a wholemeal version (just plain wrong), onion sour dough (too much sourness competing for attention), sesame seed (pretty damn good, more sweetness needed) and the plain white (the Byron standard, actually very good, simple, doughy but lacking seeds). So my dream bun then? Well, it would combine the structure and seeds of the BK offering with all the sweetness and fluffiness of the brioche. Operation bun – phase 1 complete. Now I just need to work out how to make this ‘ultimate’ version. Any tips will be hugely appreciated.

A massive thank you to Byron for making the whole thing happen in the first place and entering into it with such enthusiasm. I didn’t confess this on the night, but I’d actually never been to Byron before. I cannot tell you my relief when I bit into one of their burgers – perfectly pink and juicy with plenty of beefy oomph. Fresh, crisp salad and carefully considered saucing. An absolute pleasure to try, all nine of them. You can see what a good time I had by the state of my tasting sheet above. I can’t wait for phase 2 – recipe testing. I’m going to be eating a lot of burgers this summer…

Byron
300 King’s Road
London
SW3 5UH
Tel: 020 7352 6040
There are other locations: see website for details

When you go to a restaurant, you generally know what to expect – sit down, order, eat, drink, pay and leave. If you can afford it, the realm of molecular gastronomy may be within your grasp, in which case things can get a little more wacky; challenging texture and flavour combinations and a more full on assault on the senses – think Heston with his ‘sounds of the sea’ ipod for example. Lately, however, there are some new kids in town – the crazy culinary partay creators Bompas and Parr.

This year is the centenary of the birth of the Italian futurist movement. To mark the occasion, Bompas and Parr collaborated with Time for Tea and the Dhillon Hotel Group to throw a big old shindig in the form of a banquet, a futurist aerobanquet – or as B & P put it, ‘dinner with a plane crash and explosions’. You must know by now that I adore pretty much everything they do – I’ve wolfed down their glittering gold leaf flecked Prosecco jellies, I’ve breathed in their vapourised walk in cocktail and now I’ve piled onto a coach out to The Olde Bell Inn, Berkshire for the most random, spectacular and just downright fun meal in my recent memory.

On arrival we were welcomed by a group of radiant air hostesses and one rather stern captain. They ushered us through security, which involved a cloakroom disguised as an x-ray machine, ticket and visa collection and some light frisking – all in exchange for canapés and cocktails.

The canapés were designed to celebrate the multi-sensory approach promoted by the futurists and we were invited to close our eyes and pop our chosen nibble down the hatch while stroking the attached textural appendage. Think stickily glazed kumquat accompanied by velvet and the rasping scratch of sandpaper complementing a baby fennel. Looking around at this point I could see some hesitancy from fellow passengers and so made a beeline for one guy who was really getting into it and then proudly displaying the textured sticks like army stripes on his lapel.

My favourite cocktail was a red wine and lemonade effort, sporting what I thought was a wedge of pineapple as garnish. When I bit into it however (excitedly encouraged by the woman standing next to me), I was surprised to find it was cheese. Red wine and cheese at the beginning of a meal? Those crazy kids.

Drinks in hand, we moved through to the ‘departure lounge’, our chattering drowned out somewhat by the whoosh of plane noises overhead. Then suddenly, a huge swathe of silver sheeting was pulled down to reveal a magnificent room containing the most stupendously large and shiniest table I’ve ever clapped eyes on. As we were seated and prepared to take flight, our hostesses performed the necessary safety instructions (exits here, here and here etc.), before the engines fired up and we were (literally) blown away by the force of huge fans aimed from the corners of the room. I may or may not have squealed with delight.

And then the food started to arrive, the first course, a ‘futurist tasting menu’ was arranged on specially crafted aeroplane style plates, with a little indent for each nibble, including ‘geraniums on a stick’, swordfish and fig skewer, ‘dates in moonlight’ (pressed dates and ricotta tart) and a savoury jelly – a ‘cubist vegetable patch’. Apparently the futurists thought it might be better if everything we ate could be consumed in a single mouthful. The starter then, would have gone down very well. The main course on the other hand – a juicy, crackly, herby stuffed beast going by the name of ‘pork fuselage’, perhaps not so much (fools!).

While we waited for the fuselage to make its grand entrance the hostesses appeared again, this time resplendent in stockings, jewels and feathers, to perform a magnificent chorus line show – kicking, flapping, shaking, strutting – there was even some upside down scissor leg action.

A porky waft indicated the fuselage had arrived and I rejoiced in the excellent crispy crackling on my portion, bulking it out with some new potatoes and slippery, buttery greens and washing all down with an excellent Innis and Gunn beer – malty, toffee heaven.

I was feeling a little merry by this point after cocktails, wine and beer and so the ensuing evacuation amidst explosions, smoke and full on fire in the garden accompanied by a screeching ambulance and emerging jelly in the shape of an airport sent me into a whooping, cheering frenzy of giddy excitement.

We queued up with plates for a slice of the wobbly stuff (me and my mate opting for absinthe flavour), a scoop of ice cream and a mini pastry plane. This was eaten whilst standing in the flickering flame light of nearby plane wreckage.

Then there was mingling and drinking of brandy, before we retreated indoors to enjoy the futurist jazz band, accompanied by some rather excellent and professional dancers who were thoroughly impressive although perhaps a little intimidating until I’d downed my third brandy.

Bompas and Parr combine the two things I love most in the world – eating and partying. In many ways, I enjoyed this meal more than I have enjoyed meals at high end restaurants because of the creativity, the element of surprise and the invitation to open your mind and become absorbed in the fantasy experience. It made me laugh, it made me think, it made me clap my hands together in excitement more than once. I ate, I danced, I whooped and cheered and I was more than a little drunk at the end of it. The only way anyone could not have had a fantastic time at this event is if they were a) ill b) totally lacking in imagination and spirit or c) dull as bloody dishwater.

Aircraft Commanders Time for Tea and Bompas and Parr I salute you.

Distressed hostess photo courtesy of Bompas and Parr.

Ever since I met Bompas and Parr back in January, I’ve been a truly devoted fan. I mean, who can fail to like people who make jelly for a living? And when they offered to whip me up some jellies for an upcoming bloggers dinner party (a ‘pork belly summit’ – a celebration of well, pork belly), I liked them even more. I nearly bit Sam’s arm off graciously accepted, a jelly exchange took place and after some brief unmoulding instructions via telephone – ta da! They were resplendent on the plate, wobbling and sliding around like nobody’s business.

The jellies were based on the shape of cogs and flavoured with Prosecco and fruit. My favourite was this rather glam version with gold leaf in the centre.

As three of the other bloggers were cooking a pork belly dish for the summit, I decided to make something different – another little homage to B & P in fact, something they served up at their Monnow Valley Drive Thru event – the magnificently named ‘Luther Burger’ (below). It is exactly what you think it is by the way – a Krispy Kreme with bacon in the middle. Now before you recoil in horror, think about it – sweet stuff works with bacon – take maple syrup for example. Don’t get me wrong, I found the idea slightly daunting to begin with but I was pleasantly surprised to find it does actually work (although as Sam himself admits – it is a seriously guilty pleasure).

If you think the Luther Burger is wacky, let me tell you that previous B & P events have included a ‘scratch ‘n’ sniff cinema‘, ‘flavour tripping‘ and these past two weekends, ‘alcoholic architecture’ – a walk in, breathable cocktail of (Hendrick’s) gin and (Fever Tree) tonic.

I arrived for my intoxicating mist fix at 8pm to find the charming Sam (Bompas) working the door (top photo), while simultaneously being interviewed, filmed and politely informing curious passers-by that the event was all sold out.

I was becoming increasingly over-excited at the prospect of entering as people started to emerge – slightly sticky and giggling – from the previous session. Before my time arrived however, Sam asked me if I would mind doing him a little favour by ‘doing the door’ while he nipped off somewhere for ten minutes. A few brief instructions, a clipboard thrust into my hands and he was gone. Adapting quickly to my role I placed a hand firmly on the shoulder of a punter slipping past, unaware of the queue. When she turned around I was pleased to see the smiling face of Ms Marmite Lover – chef and patron of the Underground Restaurant and now my partner in boozy crime.

When Sam returned to relieve me of the clipboard I realised that door duty had the added bonus of leaving us firmly at the front of the queue, first to be handed boiler suits and ushered in to the sounds of Spandau Ballet or something similar.

We ducked through to find ourselves in the changing rooms where we donned our oh so flattering boiler suits before twitpiccing ourselves for the amusement of others and moving through to the bar for preliminary refreshments (double gin and tonics).

I even managed to get a sneaky shot into the boys changing rooms (above) – all perfectly clean fun thank you very much – the suits go on over your clothes – although Sam did report that he had to stop a few people from actually stripping off lest all be revealed when the suit starts to get damp in the mist.

Here we paused to arse about taking photos for a bit before following the sign downstairs…

A spooky red lightbulb hung above the entrance door…

And we’re in…and it’s misty and, and…it tastes like gin and tonic! At first, all we do is laugh and tweet and take pictures and laugh some more. I’m amazed I actually have enough signal to receive a phone call halfway through the session, ‘I’m in a breathable cocktail!’ ‘A what?!’

The foggy room was actually very small, there were perhaps just twenty of us in there, all suited and giggling and er, sniffing because breathable gin and tonic makes your nose run…

To create the mist, B & P used the same technnology as the brilliant ‘Blind Light’ installation by Anthony Gormley at the Hayward Gallery back in 2007. Anthony’s mist however, was much denser – you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I mentioned this to Sam and he explained that, aside from the tehnicalities of vapourising alcohol, health and safety blah blah blah, the Blind Light installation cost a mere 40p per litre to vapourise – gin and tonic costs more in the region of £40.

We emerged after 40 minutes feeling sticky, slightly giddy and smelling faintly of booze. It’s definitely the strangest evening out I’ve enjoyed since some late night shenanigans at Bestival in 2007, which started with me crawling through the back of a sofa and ended with a fortune teller. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if I heard that Bompas and Parr were behind it.

Keep an eye on the Bompas and Parr website for details of future events.