Beheshte Barin - food as good as mama bozorg's...

Beheshte Barin, I'm reliably told, translates from the Persian language (Farsi) into the English word "paradise." We met up with A’s sister and her boyfriend for a meal in Beheste Barin, a new Persian restaurant in London on Thursday night...and you know what... it was like a little bit of paradise in the middle of North London.  

It had been a warm very rainy day and it was a lovely way to catch up for supper. Beheshte Barin has only been opened a couple of months and apparently already has queues of people lining up outside at weekends.  It was still busy when we met up at 8:30 midweek, I had to wait ages for it to quieten down to take photographs. 


It's  traditionally decorated in a very quaint style with a really homely, cosy feel. As you walk through the door you're senses are immediately aroused by the sound of gentle Iranian music playing in the background and the trickle of running water from the little fountain that feeds the mosaic lined goldfish pond. Then the smell of fresh bread coming from the clay bread-oven hits you. One of the polite waiters dressed with  paisley waistcoat ushers you to your seat...but you just want to look at everything...take it all in.  From the huge low hung copper chandelier that casts an ambient glow throughout the room,  to the brick sconces housing candlesticks and books and artefacts. I just wanted  to touch everything!


Then, when the food came the Doogh, yoghurt drink arrived in a beautiful hand made pitcher accompanied by little cups. The waiters carried plates on trays fashioned out of beaten copper, the sugar bowls and tea warmer and desert bowls, too.


The food reminded me of mama bozorg, my lovely mother-in-law's cooking.  She was the best cook ever, her food always tasted like it was made with love, as though lots of time and care had been taken. This was almost as good. The seasoning was spot on...and for me this was the best Persian restaurant food  I've tasted to date...Do I always say that?


I can definitely recommend the Zereshk polo baa morgh  Persian white rice with barberries served with chicken in a tomato sauce.  The berries are tart and tangy in the  mild white rice, the chicken cooked with tomato and saffron sauce melts in your mouth.  Truly delicious.  The others had various kebabs that were also mouth wateringly tender. Starters of Miza Ghasemi dip made with aubergines, tomatoes, eggs and lots of garlic as well as Mast Moosir creamy yoghurt with wild garlic are amazing with bread, fresh from the oven. Finally we had Faludeh, frozen sorbet made with thin rice noodles and rosewater, very refreshing but just a little too sweet for my palate and of course lots of tea whilst we talked away the evening making plans for backgammon marathons...the race is on...best get practising...


It was just perfect. we had an amazing time.  Thanks so much S and T


Oh and I can't find a website to link to...they musn't have one yet, but whilst looking I found a lovely blog called  "1 teaspoon love" written by a sweet Iranian girl called Sarah who lives in Chicago.  So that's another blog I'm now addicted to reading.


So it was win, win...except for the road being closed on the way home and getting back to Oxford after  2am. Wish we'd accepted the invitation to stay over...

Garden Soup

Summer rain calls out for garden soup. Simply made with fresh seasonal vegetables, a little stock, a tiny wigwam of baby runner beans and mini snowfall of grated Parmesan.   Preferably eaten with good brown bread and butter, followed by summer fruit flapjack crumble...mmm... 

Random Recipes#7 - Back to Basics

I closed my eyes tight shut, a finger obediently pointed randomly in the direction of a pile of shuffled cookery books. On opening them I was pleased  to see that I was poking a copy of  Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries. 

 even happier serendipity when it opened at page 292 SPAGETTINI WITH PEPPERCORNS, ANCHOVIES AND LEMON. I don't eat a lot of pasts but I do love spaghetti and always have some in the pantry.  I used this instead of spagettini (angel hair spaghetti) and fortunately had all the other ingredients to hand, including some delicious Antica Cremeria butter from Carluccio's, that one of my sisters had just bought for 'A'.  It's an amazing white butter made with the cream of the milk used for making Parmigiano Reggiano cheese...a real treat.

The sauce is made by cooking anchovy fillets in butter until they soften, then adding lemon juice, rind, and crushed green peppercorns.  Letting the ingredients meld together into an unctuous savoury sauce, to serve with cooked pasta, adding some more butter and a little of the cooking water from the pasta.  Topped with grated or shaved Parmesan cheese this is delicious.

I love this kind of spaghetti recipe with not too many ingredients.  It reminded me of spaghetti cooked for us by a friend we made on holiday in Italy...a surprise  supper in a chestnut lodge in the Tuscan mountains. Served  with garlic and olive oil or butter... maybe some fresh herbs I can't remember...simple good food, but delicious. 

Flapjack Crumble with the last of the gooseberries

Battling biting little thorns, I collected the last of the gooseberries hiding under bushy green leaves.They are little devils to collect.  There weren't quite enough to make a dessert but along with windfall mulberries and small yellow cherry plums made a delicious base for my favourite flapjack crumble.

I've just  rooted out the original recipe to check that I'm writing down the correct ingredients.  I discovered that it's actually called Flapjack Plum Pudding and not crumble!  Whatever you call it, it's delicious and so easy to make that since making the first one  five or six years ago I've never made a conventional crumble again.This is a great gluten free recipe.
  

Flapjack Plum Pudding

Ingredients:
•               750g stoned ripe plum

•               75g(3oz)  butter

•               75g organic jumbo oats (I prefer this made with finer oat)

•               75g light Muscovado sugar

Method:

1.             Halve and stone the ripe plums and spread them in the bottom of a buttered ovenproof dish.

2.           Melt the butter in a saucepan and mix with the oats and sugar.

3.           Sprinkle over the plums and bake in a preheated oven, 180c/gas mark 4 for 35 - 40 minutes, until the fruit is tender.

4.           Serve with warm custard or pouring cream.

Simple...

In my slightly altered version, I cook the fruit for a little while in a saucepan.  Depending on the ripeness and type of fruit I add a little brown sugar or honey to taste. Then cook the fruit for a  while until it begins to fall, but not break up.  I then transfer it to an oven proof dish and  top with the flapjack mixture, which I usually put a little vanilla extract in.  This  method cuts down on the baking time by about ten or fifteen minutes.

I make this a lot after  Christmas  when the green grocers shelves are full of cranberries, often reduced radically.  The combination of windfall apples and sour cranberries is amazing...

It's sad we're coming to the end of our little berry crop but it looks like we're going to have a lot of apples this autumn and I think I spotted what looks like a damson tree in the woods peeping over the top of our fence...and it's full of fruit...I think I'll go and investigate...

Hummingbird Bakery Oat and Raisin Cookies.

I've just baked a big batch of Hummingbird Bakery Oat and Raisin Cookies and am now trying to convince myself that as oats reduce cholesterol, they will counteract all the butter in them!  

These are really delicious cookies and very easy to make, as I'm discovering all the Hummingbird recipes to be.  They're made with half soft dark brown sugar and half caster sugar along with the butter,cinnamon, wheat flour, oats and raisins, plus a drop of vanilla extract.    

The recipe, which you can find of page 137 of The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, or link to here, is for twenty biscuits.  As usual generous with sizes, my batch made fifteen very large ones.  It's a lot of cookies...they won't last long, but I think next time I would probably make up a third of the quantity, purely because they are so delicious and my clothes are getting a bit tight and I don't want to go up another dress size!!

I would definitely rate this recipe a 10/10 for ease and results.

Inspirational Sister

All, well almost all, the photos of me...or should I say photos of bits of me on this blog, seem to involve pyjamas!

In this case rather crumpled ones in a very blurry out-of-focus, badly lit shot. That's because I'd excitedly sneaked downstairs at the crack of dawn (hence the poor lighting) whilst everyone was still snoring and crept into my inspirational sisters studio in her lovely interesting old house, that nestles in the shadow of Chester's Roman walls. I wanted to record the gifts from her and husband (I suspect more from her, than husband.) A beautiful linen and leather bag she'd made, complete with the original linen quality guarantee stamp and an equally beautiful vintage Finish plate in my favourite grey colour. I also took loads of photos of her wonderful work space...but they were similarly out of focus and blurred so I can't share them...just one...I'll get better ones next time...

She has the most amazing studio. Large canvases are mounted on all the walls, some that she's just completed, others works in progress, still others primed and ready for the next masterpiece. Her desk is covered in sketches of clothes that she's making (her wardrobe is full of her imaginative designs) and then there are shoe-trees and cut-out sections of shoes, and bags, and little soft leather slippers that would happily sit on the feet of a Tunisian princess. Oh and the illustrations for a children's story she's writing... She inspires me so much...I came back from a couple of days we spent last weekend...managing to catch up with their equally talented illustrator daughter too... fired up to do a twelve hour drawing stint...it's ages since I've done that...and don't let me start talking about her great baking and cooking...

Here's a much clearer image of the gifts I took when I got home...not quite sure where's the best place for the plate...but I'm having fun trying it in lots of different places...

It was a great couple of days ending up with breakfast at Carluccio's in Chester...that has a lovely bustling vibe great food and really friendly service and a shop where she treated us to even more good things...

..I can't wait to catch up again...

Bargain finds at KOA and Honeysuckle Salad

I know summer's here when the KOA shop is open in the village. This year the money is being raised to help young people in Ghana. I found these baking pans there including a nice bunt pan; and some garden vegetables, perfect for summer salads. Thankfully not everything got eaten on the walk home...I can't resist those tiny baby courgettes...


(oh and a cute little fish knife...I know it's not much use alone but I like it and I'm sure it'll come to good use for something...)

I used the courgettes to make a garden salad with baby spinach leaves, cooked sweet potato, walnuts and tangy Persian feta cheese. Dressed with pumpkin seed oil and Balsamic vinegar it was a perfect balance of sweet and savoury...mmm...


I was really pleased to get the green beans at just 30p a bunch, as you can see mine are still too tiny to pick. They were delicious in a mixed salad with baby cos lettuce leaves, radishes, spring and red onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, boiled egg, carrot shavings, honeysuckle flowers and dill from my rubbish bin bed! This time I made a dressing with honey, grainy Dijon mustard, olive oil, a little sea salt and Balsamic vinegar.


I'm obsessively reading Jekka's Complete Herb Book (the revised edition) written by Jamie Oliver's friend, Jekka McVicar and discovered that not only are honeysuckle flowers edible but you can also make tea from them that tastes fragrantly delicious, is used for treating coughs, catarrh and asthma, as a lotion is good for skin infections; and "has an outstanding curative action in cases of colitis." ...well blow me... hence the use of flowers in the salad...and the copious mugs of honeysuckle tea I'm consuming...

you can see other peoples finds this week here

Hummingbird Brooklyn Blackout Cake and the Class of 2011

Hummingbird Brooklyn Blackout Cake is perfect if you want to make a chocolate celebration cake.  It’s a moist cake, baked in three separate layers and then sandwiched together with luscious eggless chocolate custard that looks lovely and glossy, a little bit like a ganache, but without all the rich cream.  Once constructed, you decorate with even more of the custard and a sprinkling of chocolate cake crumbs…mmm…

I made one for H’s graduation last week and was really pleased with the results.  As you may have realised by now I’m not the best cake decorator…I know I should take more time and effort but food is more about taste for me…so I didn’t even attempt to make the decorations, especially when we have the most amazing shop in the covered market that makes awesome decorations…so I ordered a little mortar board, scroll and girl pirate, (because I thought H would appreciated the humour) with the obligatory sparkler it was ready for the celebrations.

You can find the instructions here if you would like to have a go for yourself, or page 54 of The Humming Bird Bakery Cookbook. They are very easy to follow.  I only have a couple of recommendations and that is to ensure that you use the correct size baking pans as the ingredients make three very thin cakes and if you used any larger they would be so thin that they would be difficult to work with.  The custard is easy to make but does require a lot of vigorous whisking and when I next make this… which I’m sure I soon will;I’ll use an electric whisk to ensure any lumps are removed more easily.

After a panicky week helping H move out of her old student house, then looking after 'A' who was really ill but thankfully ok for the graduation, then help moving her into a new house...the celebration in-between was a welcome break.   Especially as although H studied in London, the graduation was held in the impressive Guildford Cathedral. It's only fifty years old, and so new in cathedral terms and situated in the grounds of Surrey University, where one of my sisters works.  So, kind sister, arranged for a celebration party at her home in Sussex afterwards...and an amazing two days. 

Gloriously sunny, first the formal bit even more emotive for the grand setting, being congratulated by the chancellor, children's author Jacqueline Wilson, the throwing off, of hats (I nearly wrote 'throwing-up' then), photo's and champagne and canapes.....back to sister B's sunny garden for the five of us that had been to the actual celebration.  Lunch and board games whilst waiting for absent friends and family members, then party...accompanied by the most delicious fruit and cream Pavlova courtesy B and lots of other yummy food and more champagne...


Evening constitutional to walk off all that cake and meet the local horses and llamas in a field across the road...then back to candlelit garden to listen to music and talk until we all exhaustedly dropped into our beds.

...then the best breakfast in the world...mostly because of the company....

...thanks B and M for an awesome time...must get that Pavlova recipe off you...

Oh and congratulations H...well done you...!