Many of you will know about my love for Khan’s Bargain Ltd. It’s one of the best shops in Peckham; so good in fact that I felt moved to write a whole post about it. Recently, a reader left a comment on that post saying that Mr. Khan has sadly passed away. I went down myself to verify this and sure enough, there was a sign behind the counter. The man who gave his name to such an endearingly chaotic shop is no longer with us.

I considered ways to pay tribute to Mr. K and his Emporium of Random and it seemed fitting to create a sandwich à la Khan’s because there have been oh so many over the past few years. I’ve stuffed them with various bits of cheese or vegetables depending on my mood; creamy labneh with slender crisp slices of baby cucumber perhaps, a slick of muhammara or a dollop of baba ganoush. Always a big handful of fresh herbs.

The sesame speckled flat breads they sell are incredible, so soft and moist. I split one and layered it with aleppo pepper paste (a spicy blend made almost entirely from aleppo pepper and chillies), silky fried aubergine slices, pan scorched halloumi and plenty of coriander. It was a cracking sandwich; base chilli heat, juicy aubergines and salty cheese is a winning combo. Some of the best Khan’s ingredients all together. I didn’t know Mr. Khan personally, but I know his shop inside out; it’s one of the reasons I fell head over heels for Peckham 5 years ago and it’s one of the reasons I continue to relish shopping here. Rest in peace, Mr. Khan, your customers remain loyal and your shop, the most charming ramshackle arrangement of groceries, home wares and plastic animals on Rye Lane.

Sandwich à la Khan’s Bargain Ltd. (makes 2)

2 round soft flat breads
Aleppo paste (if you can’t get this, use another spicy paste, such as harissa or make a paste with red peppers, chilli and oil)
1 packet halloumi cheese
1 large aubergine, sliced into 2cm sliced
Very finely sliced red onion
Plain flour
Oil, for frying
A handful of fresh coriander leaves

Heat some oil to a depth of about 1cm in a heavy based frying pan. Spread some flour out on a plate and dust each aubergine slice in it, then drop into the hot oil. You will need to do this in batches so as not to crowd the pan. Keep the cooked aubergine slices on a plate covered with kitchen paper in a low oven while you finish cooking the rest. When all the aubergines are cooked, keep them all in the oven while you fry the halloumi.

To fry the halloumi, slice it thickly then drop into a dry pan until golden on both sides.

Warm the flatbreads briefly, then split them in half and spread with pepper paste. Layer on the halloumi, aubergines, onion and fresh coriander. Serve immediately.

I first came across a recipe for Baghdad eggs in one of my favourite cook books, Jake Tilson’s ‘A Tale of 12 Kitchens’ (from which I also cooked a mummified chicken). Tilson discovered the recipe in the book ‘Medieval Arab Cookery‘, which describes eggs on a bed of spiced celery; my version however is more akin to modern recipes I’ve seen.

An egg is fried gently on a bed of softened onions, sizzled with lemon juice, sprinkled with cumin and paprika then slicked with melted butter. The whole lot is served on top of toasted pitta, which softens in places under the oozy egg. A dollop of yoghurt and a flurry of chopped mint contrast the richness.

This is quite indulgent considering the aforementioned butter, which is why it’s my new favourite Sunday brunch, Middle Eastern style.

Baghdad Eggs (serves 2)

1 medium onion, diced
2 eggs
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 good generous knobs of butter
Cumin
Hot paprika
Yoghurt
Mint, chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice
2 toasted pittas

Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and cook the onions gently until they start to soften. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, then crack in the eggs.

Dust each egg with a little cumin and paprika (use your fingers to do this and be conservative – you don’t want huge clumps of spice in there), plus some salt and pepper then put a lid on and let cook until the eggs are just set. Toast your pitta breads then split them apart and toast the er, untoasted side under the grill.

In a separate small pan, melt another knob of butter and sprinkle a little extra cumin and paprika into it. Leave this on a low heat to get a little brown and nutty.

When the eggs are cooked, cut up the pitta and arrange on a plate. Put an egg on top, making sure to get plenty of the onions too. Drizzle with some of the extra melted butter and garnish with a dollop of yoghurt and some mint.

Sally Butcher, the shop-keeper, proud Peckhamite and author of the award-winning ‘Persia in Peckham‘ has gone and written another fantastic cookery book, this time entirely vegetarian. There’s quite a trend for veggie recipe books at the moment (which seemed to surge when people started swooning over Ottolenghi) but I  beg of you to consider chucking your money at something a little less mainstream. Go off the beaten track and take the first side road to Veggiestan.

Veggiestan is of course a fictional place, invented by Sally to reflect the position of vegetables in the Middle Eastern diet. Meat usually takes a back seat and is either optional or reserved entirely for special occasions. We could do with adopting this attitude a little more in the West, I say. I mean, some people still don’t think they’re having a meal unless it’s got meat in it. Now, this may come as a shock to my readers, but I don’t eat meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner; in reality it’s about once a week (or maybe twice, not including Meat Liquor visits or bacon sandwiches) that I cook those big hunks of pork, beef and lamb and increasingly I find myself eating more fish and vegetables. There is something rather vulgar, I think, about eating  meat every day, not to mention the fact that is isn’t particularly sustainable or indeed terribly good for you.

Veggiestan is a visual carnival of a book; the cover bold and tactile, zig-zagged with fabric like fuzzy felts (remember them?) Bright patterns and photos are abundant throughout; presumably the budget shot up on the back of the first book’s success. The structure runs thus: bread and pastries; herbs and salads; dairy and eggs; soups, legumes and pulses; rice and grains; vegetables; recipes with fruit; sauces, pickles and preserves and of course, sweet things to finish.

I like to make at least 3 recipes from a book before I write about it. In fact, I started before it was even published as Sally asked me to test a recipe (yes she’s a friend - disclosure); this was how I found myself cooled by a silky, chilled yoghurt soup (above), a lifeline on a sticky summer evening. Hard to imagine eating it right now, I realise, but there’s a hot yoghurt soup recipe in the book too, for all your yoghurt soup needs. Yoghurt is one of the things Iranians are really into you see, as am I.

We see eye to eye on other ingredients too, herbs for example. Lots and lots of herbs. A plate of mixed fresh herbs (sabzi) are eaten like salad leaves at the beginning of a meal to stimulate the appetite; different herbs are believed to have various health-boosting properties. The Iranians also get right on down with mixing sweet and salty flavours, like the dates and feta in this salad (Salata Jamr wa Jubnat Feta) – one of my favourite recipes from the book. The textures are glorious too; squidgy dates against crisp fried chips of khobez flat bread.

I also loved this pomegranate salsa; sweet, ruby pops of pomegranate stud a ballsy salsa. I actually ate this with grilled meat but we’ll gloss swiftly over that.

Finally, more of a winter warmer: an Afghan carrot hotpot (Qorma-e-Zardak), which made me remember just how darn good carrots are when made the centre of a dish rather than an afterthought on the side ‘for a bit of colour’. The spicing is very well judged too, so the flavours remain distinct. I often think of lentils as something I eat when I’m skint but this felt like a treat on a cold Monday evening, especially with the hum of a scotch bonnet singing through (hello, Peckham influence) and a good hunk of fluffy bread for a bit of dippage.

One of the most impressive things about the book is the sheer amount of work that has gone into it; you’re drawn into the story of each dish as Sally delves into the etymology of recipe names and the anthropological background. She tries to tell me this is ‘purely the result of procrastination’ but whatever the motivation, the book is all the more richer for it.

There are still so many recipes I want to cook: fig jam with nibbed pistachios; Yemeni ‘fire relish’; Iranian aubergine pickle; baked stuffed quinces; pumpkin kibbeh. I think I’d better stop there. Some ingredients may be unfamiliar, but Sally makes them entirely accessible; her warmth, wit and complete down to Earth-ness are the key. This is exactly what Sally is like in real life by the way, but you don’t need to take my word for it – get yourself down to her shop. She’s the lady with the cheery “hello!” and the big red hair. Oh and ask her to sign the book while you’re there, it could be worth a few bob one day.

Afghan Carrot Hotpot (serves 4)

2 medium onions, chopped
oil, for frying
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli, finely chopped
1cm knob of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch ground cloves
600g baby carrots or the equivalent of grown up carrots, cut into wedges
300g yellow split peas
3 large tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Salt, to taste
2 tablespoons sour grape juice or 2 teaspoons vinegar
About 500ml veg stock (I found I needed a little more to cover mine but then I did have very beasty carrots)

Fry the onions in a littl eoil in the bottom of a big saucepan and add in the garlic, chilli and ginger. When the onions have started to soften, add in the spices, carrots and split peas, followed a couple of minutes later by the tomato paste and fresh tomato chunks. Add some salt, then either the vinegar or sour grape juice, and then just enough stock to cover all the ingredients. Bring to the boil and set to simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the carrots and peas are cooked through.

Serve over plain white rice or with bread and most definitely with yoghurt. I added a good handful of fresh mixed herbs too.

Sally also gives a recipe for a ‘Salaata’ which sounds like a very nice accompaniment:

3 small continental cucumbers (or half a regular one)
3 tomatoes
3-4 spring onions
Half a bunch of coriander, trimmed
Handful fresh mint, trimmed
1 small regular onion
2 small, hot green chillies (optional)
Salt
Juice 1-2 lemons

Just chop all the ingredients together – bigger than a salsa but much smaller than a regular chunk. Sprinkle with salt and drizzle with lemon then cover and pop in the fridge for about half an hour to let the flavours mingle.

Sally’s book is currently worth £25 but you can buy it for the frankly outrageous price of £15.54 on Amazon. 

Sally also writes a Veggiestan blog, a Persepolis blog and does the occasional Persian pop-up at Anderson’s in Peckham. She also runs Persepolis, the shop, with her husband Jamshid. Phew!

When I saw some lamb shanks going cheap, I snapped them up then scuttled away fast before anyone remembered to make me pay through the nose for them. I’m a bit in love with the flavour of lamb cooked with sweet dried fruits (see my saddle stuffed with dates, aubergine and pistachios), especially for a long roast or braise; this time I decided on a very ‘Peckham’ mixture of squidgy semi-dried figs and pomegranate molasses. I added a quantity of sliced onions described in my scrappy notes as ‘a shitload’, which cooked down to a caramelised base; the figs plumped and leached their sticky treasure while the pom molasses licked everything it touched with that magical, Arabian Nights perfume.

A scotch bonnet was pin pricked to gently seep heat, riding the bubbling sauce for a good 3 hours until the meat was flopping off the bone in great silky lobes; it was all I could do to get them onto the plate in one piece.

We ate it with a pomegranate and cucumber salsa because we’d eaten rather a lot already that day (the perils of recipe writing: I’d done a dhal for AoL and a decadent quiche for the new Lurpak Christmas site) but it would be lovely with something stodgy to soak up that sauce; rice, mash or even a hunk of Middle Eastern style bread.

Lamb Shanks Braised with Figs and Pomegranate Molasses (serves 2, although you could divide up the meat and serve 4, with sides, if you have big shanks)

2 lamb shanks
Flour, for dusting the shanks
2 large onions, sliced into half moons
4 cloves garlic, peeled
400ml stock
1 scotch bonnet
6 semi-dried figs (the squidgy, ‘ready to eat’ ones)
4 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon honey

Fresh pomegranate seeds to garnish (optional); some chopped coriander would also be nice, now I think about it.

Preheat the oven to 150C.

Cover a plate with flour and season it with salt and pepper. Roll the lamb shanks around in the flour until they are completely covered. In a large, oven proof casserole dish, heat a little oil and brown the lamb shanks well, all over.

Set the shanks aside and add the onions into the hot fat in the pan. Keep cooking and stirring until they start to colour. Add the stock, scraping around the bottom of the pan to get all the good caramelised bits to loosen then turn off the heat and add all the other ingredients plus some salt and pepper. You can cut open a few of the figs to encourage them to give forth their contents.

Put a lid on the pan and cook for about 2-3 hours, or until the meat is falling off the bone. You can then take the lid off an reduce the sauce if you want but I was too hungry so I just drizzled a bit over and chowed on down.

On Saturday I will be selling my new,  improved, spingly spangly shiny shiny jerk marinade at Ms. Marmite Lover’s Underground Farmers Market. I originally wanted to cook jerk chicken or pork but hoofing a jerk drum between Peckham and Kilburn without a vehicle is just impossible, and anyway, cooking it yourself at home is all part of the fun. I’ll be selling jars of various sizes so you can buy one that will perfectly suit your jerk needs.

As I said, I’m there on Saturday 5th but there’s a night market/bonfire party too on Friday 4th. To buy tickets, check the link below. It would be lovely to meet some of my readers, so if you do come along, make sure to say hello!

Do click through to Kirsten’s post about the market to see the list of stallholders – it’s a cracking line up I think you’ll agree. There will be hot food to eat on the spot, home made stuff to take away, music, booze (including a cocktail bar on the ironing board), crafts, masterclasses and even a food Dragon’s Den – all in Kerstin’s beautiful home. What are you waiting for?!

Buy tickets for both days HERE.

Last night, I went to check out the Queens of ‘Cue supper club/underground restaurant/whatever you want to call it, in Peckham. At 6.30pm, we found ourselves wandering around what seemed like a derelict yard off the Old Kent Road, BYO booze in hands, lost and slightly confused. The signs, they are small.

Eventually though we came across a precarious metal staircase and ascended to a vast, bright studio (one of the hosts is an artist), stopped briefly to wallow in envy and then followed our noses outside to find 3 BBQ’s on the go, one stuffed with beef ribs, the other grilling steak, various pots and pans bubbling on top. An excellent (spiky and tart) caipirinha was thrust into our hands and we munched on ‘giobada and queijo toasts’, which were in fact little chewy, cheesy buns, kind of like savoury scones, with home-made cheese and a guava paste exactly like membrillo, but obviously made with guava. The theme of the evening was Brazilian you see, and they’d gone to town on making things ‘authentic’.

The steak had come from a Brazilian butcher in Brixton; they’d intended to buy it from the East London Steak Co. but felt a pang of local loyalty post-riots and decided to support a local business instead. Good on them I say. We helped ourselves to salad from the table and demolished slices of perfectly cooked, butter-tender steak. The flavour of the meat was excellent (I’d been a bit dubious for some reason) with a moreish, properly seasoned crust.

The ribs had come from the East London Steak Co. after all and were huge; a peek under the BBQ hood on arrival had got me very excited. In the end they could have done with a bit more cooking to be honest; I’m not against a chewy rib believe me but they were very large and a bit hard to eat. That said, great flavour, great rub and fantastic sides of feijoada (a rich stew of beans with beef and chorizo), rice with sweetcorn and peas and a healthy serving of kale. Oh how I love the iron intensity of kale.

An unexpected watermelon granita filled a gap and preceded a creme caramel made with condensed milk because, according to our hosts, “almost everything in Brazil is made with condensed milk.” There was coffee to finish, served with obscenely good chocolate truffles which we wolfed before staggering out into the night to our taxi.

So, I would recommend Queens of ‘Cue to locals and non-locals alike. One guy said he “hated South London” after he’d had a hard time travelling from Dalston. Did he go via the moon? “You’re talking to the wrong woman mate” I hissed through gritted teeth.

The evenings each have a different theme; ours was a ‘cow feast’ and the next is ‘fish’ (3rd September) followed by ‘game and venison’ (17th September). It’s £25 and BYO booze. There’s a lot of food for your money (seconds were offered too), the hosts are charming and interesting, the studio space is great and you get to wander around a ramshackle yard in the dark, pissed, looking for a questionably plumbed toilet in an outhouse. That last bit doesn’t sound appealing? Oh come on, where’s your sense of adventure…

Queens of ‘Cue, Peckham
£25 pp, BYO booze
Address available after booking, see blog for details

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend all my time eating jerk pork and barbecuing things in the rain. I do other stuff, okay? No really. Here’s some things I cooked, ate and felt happy about in the past couple of weeks.

Firstly, a little tooting on my own trumpet as I point you in the direction of The Independent’s ’50 Best Food Websites’ article. They said nice things about Food Stories and 49 other sites, including blogs, online suppliers and all-round giants like Chowhound. I’m flattered to be included.

And while we’re talking about ME, I’ll take a moment to point you once again, this time in the direction of my recipe column at AoL Lifestyle. The latest recipe is a very easy smoked mackerel ‘pâté’.

I’ve been out on the town too, as per. Sometimes a woman has to step outside of Peckham you know. Last weekend I made what was frankly a humongous schlep up to the wild wilderness of Seven Sisters to the Akhaya Cookery School, for a Nigerian cookery class. What with Peckham being ‘little Africa’ and all, I wanted to find out more about the ingredients I see in local shops every day. During the 3 hour class we made egusi (a soup thickened with melon seeds), jollof rice (rice cooked in a spicy tomato stew) and akara (black eye bean fritters). The akara were my favourite; very light, savoury fritters, which are incredibly easy to make. I’ll be experimenting with those so expect a recipe soon. The classes cost £75 per person, you cook 3 dishes per class and take home more than enough food for 2 people. Here are some pics:

The bright and airy classroom.

 Very familiar ingredients for the Peckhamite; dried shrimp; chilli flakes; black eye beans; palm oil.

Egusi soup. The white stuff is the egusi (ground melon seeds), mixed to a paste with water then added to the soup. The green dried stuff is afang (a dried leaf which is a little like Spinach). 

Fried plantain chips. You can’t hear a thing when you’re eating them – that crunchy.

I’ve been eating out too. Last night I perched very happily for several hours around the bar of the Maille Mustard Pop-Up in Spitalfields Market. They kindly invited me down to try the ‘mustard menu’ cooked by Kerstin Marmite Loving Rodgers. I had rather too much fun; the market was buzzing, the wine was flowing and the food was great. It’s on tonight and Sunday too. Here’s the lowdown in pics:

If it’s mustard you’re after…

A ‘Mustardy Mary’  = the best ever bloody Mary. I can’t ever drink one again unless it has wholegrain mustard in it. A brilliant idea.

Steamed artichoke with mustard mayonnaise.

Smoked haddock with mustard and cheese and Asian mustard greens. The fish was umami-packed and delicious. The name of the yellow flower in the middle escapes me but Kerstin picked them from her garden; they surprised everyone by tasting incredibly sweet and delicious. A flower actually worth eating.

Amazing cheese board featuring Langres, Moustardier, Charollais and Comté surrounded by palmiers.

Mostarda tutti frutti ice cream with berries, mint sugar and mustard candy floss. Kerstin and I are both of the opinion that tutti frutti ice cream should be BROUGHT BACK IMMEDIATELY.

And in between all that, I’ve been rapidly expanding outwards due to my extremely close proximity to The Rye pub, which is serving Meatwagon food for the summer. In addition to my favourite chilli burger I’ve been packing away the following, at least 3 times a week.

Smoked pork sandwich

Pulled pork sandwich

Baby back ribs with slaw and deep fried okra. I will be deep frying okra very, very soon.

Smoked buffalo wings with blue cheese dip.

What can I say, get yourself down there.

The Rye
31 Peckham Rye
SE15 3NX

So there we go. Ooof. I think I need to go and exercise now.