Sights of Portobello Road Market: The Food Stalls

Portobello Road is probably London's most famous market. It's been featured in many movies; everything from the children's classic, Bed nob's and Broomsticks to the famous romantic comedy Notting Hill.





Portobello Road Market has everything; antiques, food, clothes and accessories from up-and-coming designers, music, and of course some junk. Go there on a Saturday, and go early, to avoid the huge crowds of tourist who descend upon the market by midmorning.



This being a food blog, I took a bunch of photos down at the food end of the market. When I spend time in London, I go to Portobello on the weekends to get my fruit and veg. If you go on a weekly basis, the vendors get to know you and it's really a nice feeling to go back every week, pick up some great produce and get greeted nicely by some real Londoners.

Lasagne

Ingredients: 300 grams minced beef, 75 grams chorizo, 100 ml white wine, salt, pepper, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 2 celery stalks, 1 yellow pepper, 2 garlic cloves, 1 can diced tomatoes (400 ml), tomato puree, lasagne sheets, cheese,

Number of persons: 3

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Mash in food processor 1 carrot, 1 onion, 2 celery stalks, 1 yellow pepper and 2 garlic cloves. Bake in hot oil 300 grams minced beef and 75 grams finely sliced chorizo. Bring to taste with salt and pepper. If the minced beef is brown, add 100 ml white wine and let the alcohol evaporate. Add the vegetable mixture, 1 can diced tomatoes and 1 can tomato puree. Heat well and season with salt and pepper. Put in a ovenproof dish layer to layer the sauce and lasagne sheets. Finish with a layer of sauce and cover with slices cheese. Place the ovenproof dish about 30 minutes in the oven. Enjoy!

Not All Food is Good.

Some weeks, we do good (see: last week). Everything we cook is delicious and perfectly seasoned and nice looking to boot.

Other weeks, not so good. What sounds like a good recipe sometimes turns out to be bland, boring, or just plain bad. This was one of those weeks.

Black Bean Burgers with Salsa and Avocado.
Good concept, not so good execution. The patties had virtually no flavor, and they were practically impossible to cook. The recipe is here if you really want to try them. I’d suggest tripling the spices and seasonings at the very least. Also baking them might be a better solution vs. sautéing them, if anything just to avoid having to flip them. Again, it’s an intriguing concept, but just needs a little (ok, a lot) of refinement.

Roasted Balsamic Vegetable and Pecan Salad
Again, just a bit boring. It needed more of a dressing than just the little juice left from the veggies. We also made the mistake of adding Chinese Eggplant, which has a very tough and almost bitter tasting skin. Recipe here if you’re interested. It is a healthy meal, but needs some more work before we’ll make it again.

Bobby Flay, this time, you’ve not done so great. Maybe because we didn’t grill it, or because we used frozen salmon, or maybe because we used canned artichoke hearts, but this one was not so great. I liked it a bit more than Taylor did… the olive marinade was STRONG but had potential. The artichokes had potential as well… they just weren’t fabulous. The salmon burgers we made last week would have been a much better use for this salmon!

Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Food Idols

Guess where we just got back from?

A cooking demonstration… with Alton Brown!

Aside from the folding chairs on a flat floor when it really should have been in an auditorium of sorts, I have to say that he is even funnier in person. We watched amazing demonstrations about sugar, where he made marshmallows (on our list of things to cook), cotton candy, and super premium ice cream frozen with a thermos of liquid hydrogen, along with various jabs at other well known food-network stars (teehee).

Ahh, if only we could’ve afforded the super VIP tickets, complete with dinner and meet and greet. *sigh*

Turkey Cutlets in Anchovy Butter Sauce

No! Wait! Don’t close it! Just because I said Anchovy doesn’t mean you have to duck and run for cover.

Seriously.

Not joking here.

No, really.

Believe me, I am NOT the type to go for the anchovy pizza. EVER. I grimace when Taylor adds the fish sauce to anything – let alone anchovies. But there is nothing anchovy-tasting about this dish. Why use it then? One word: depth. Otherwise this sauce would just be, well, melted butter. With the anchovy paste, it has a depth of flavor only something as repulsive as fish paste could add. Served with some lightly steamed green beans, it’s a delicious and surprisingly quick meal. One that I will try again. Anchovy is not, after all, a 4-letter word.

Turkey Cutlets in Anchovy Butter Sauce

Makes 4 servings.
Recipe from Epicurious.

INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 pounds turkey cutlets
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons anchovy paste
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons chopped chives

DIRECTIONS
Stir together flour and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper on a plate. Pat cutlets dry, then dredge in flour, shaking off excess.

Heat oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then sauté turkey in 2 batches, turning once, until golden and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Transfer to a plate and keep warm, loosely covered with foil.

Brown shallot in fat remaining in skillet, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes. Add wine and boil, stirring and scraping up brown bits, until reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in anchovy paste, butter, and chives until incorporated. Return cutlets to skillet with any juices from plate and turn to coat.

Pretty. Unremarkable. Food.

Maybe my reason for lack-of-posts this last week has been the food itself. Yes, I took pictures. Yes, we actually DID eat something. But I hate sharing recipes and photos of things that I wouldn’t necessarily make again myself.

But then I thought, why waste some pretty photos?

I’ll link to the recipes in question as well, just in case you decide it’s something you might like to try. And I guess it’s not all bad, with some adjustments, they might be better.

Grilled Portobello Burger with Red Onion Jam and Horseradish Sauce

Each element of this burger was good, and Taylor actually enjoyed it for the most part, but I just found the tastes combined into something I can only describe as ‘funny’. The mushroom, red onion jam, and horseradish sauce were a strange combination. Or maybe I was just in a funny mood? It might be worth a try.
Recipe from Food Network

Broiled Chicken and Artichokes

This recipe just lacked… what do you call it… oh yes, flavor. The artichokes were the only thing that made the chicken edible. We even sprinkled some spicy moroccan berbéré, and that didn’t even help. I was trying to give chicken a chance, but other than the dishes where it’s shredded and soaked in flavor or caked in spice, it just tastes like, well, chicken. Chicken with no flavor whatsoever. Oh well.
Recipe from Gourmet

Fish Fillets in Parchment with Asparagus and Orange

This poor dish didn’t even have the good fortune of a pretty photo. It just falls into the unfortunate category. I’ve done some “en papillote” (in a pouch) fish recipes before, and they can be quite good. It’s a healthy way to cook fish, for one thing. Unfortunately, it’s also a way to make some of the worst fish you’ve ever eaten, and completely slaughter some perfectly good asparagus while you’re at it. The fish itself had no flavor. The wilted tarragon leaves and splash of orange juice did nothing to help it out. The asparagus was reduced to something akin to slightly fibrous baby food. Doesn’t that sound appetizing?
Recipe from… well… I’m going to spare this poor recipe, and anyone who might have been tempted to try it by not linking to it. It’s for the greater good, I promise.

Mongolian Beef

This recipe is supposedly a “copy-cat” recipe of PF Chang’s Mongolian Beef. Neither of us can remember what exactly that tastes like, so I can’t say if it actually is or not, but it was pretty darn delicious. By no means healthy, but delicious nonetheless.

We used about half the oil the recipe calls for to cook the beef, but it was still a bit oily, though I guess that is to be expected with Chinese take out food. Mmm grease. The sauce itself is practically candy, and I’m sure the dish would be just as delicious if the beef were quickly pan-seared instead of submerged in cooking oil (sounds appetizing, doesn’t it?).

We added some yellow onion, which Taylor insists is always in a good plate of Mongolian beef. And he would know. It’s his go-to meal whenever we go out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. You think he’d be more adventurous, but nope. Mongolian beef it is.

All we were missing were those crispy rice noodles that I love so much (and that are a blast to fry up yourself). Next time, since, you know, we still have two fajita packs left in the freezer.

Mongolian Beef

Makes 2 servings. Recipe adapted from here.

INGREDIENTS
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
vegetable oil, for frying (about 1 cup)
1 lb flank steak
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 large green onions

DIRECTIONS
Make the sauce by heating 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over med/low heat. Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches. Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then raise the heat to about medium and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Remove it from the heat.

Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/4″ thick bite-size slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts. Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef. Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.

Heat up one cup of oil in a wok or large skillet until it’s nice and hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and saute for two minutes, or until the beef just begins to darken on the edges. You don’t need a thorough cooking here since the beef is going to go back on the heat later. Stir the meat around a little so that it cooks evenly. After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels, then pour the oil out of the wok or skillet.

Put the pan back over the heat, dump the meat back into it. Add the onion and saute for one minute. Add the sauce, cook for one minute while stirring, then add all the green onions. Cook for one more minute, then remove the beef and onions with tongs or a slotted spoon to a serving plate, leaving the excess sauce behind in the pan.

Glazed Pork Tenderloin

There is so much to be said for a meal that is versatile (you can serve the leftovers multiple ways and still make everybody happy); simple (it takes hardly any preparation and cooks with almost no oversight); and tasty (it satisfied the sweet tooth and the salty tooth in our household). Yes - lots to be said about it - as I've just proven to you! It's no secret that we're a pork-loving household; this isn't the first tenderloin recipe I've shared, and I doubt it will be the last. But this one? It's going into my cooking repertoire. I've told you about that file before; it's called the If I Ever Own a Bed and Breakfast file. This recipe? It's already in it.

Glazed Pork Tenderloin / AllRecipes / Submitted by Bernice Dean
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Ingredients

• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 (1 pound) pork tenderloin
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1/2 cup pineapple preserves
• 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

Directions

1. Combine salt and pepper; rub over pork. Place in a 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan coated with nonstick cooking spray. Place one sprig of rosemary under the pork and one on top. Bake, uncovered, at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, heat preserves and horseradish until preserves are melted; stir until blended. Remove top rosemary sprig. Brush pork with 1/4 cup pineapple sauce. Bake 10-20 minutes longer or until meat thermometer reads 160 degrees F. Let stand for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve with the remaining sauce.