Soured cream drink.

More fermented food. Sorry.

This time fermented milk using a sour cream starter.

You'll need:

• 
  A starter of some live sour cream. I use the one on the right one. I get it from the Polish section of my local Tesco. The other supermarket sour creams are not suitable because they are pasteurised and don't contain any live organisms. If you can't find it in the supermarket, have a chat in a Polish shop. I've found them very helpful.
  
• Milk. I only use full milk. It might work with skimmed or semiskimmed but they have no place in my house. I'll leave you to exeriment. I make 4 pint batches. This lasts me a week. It keeps much longer but you might want to start with a smaller batch to start. 

This is how I do it:

• Pour a half litre of the milk into a clean jug and add half the tub of sour cream. I don't think this is measurement is critical. I know someone who uses an unglazed pot for the fermentation and they reckon the culture builds up in the unglazed pot and this is enough to get the fermentation started. I use a half because I start a second 4 pint batch a few days later. Or I eat the sour cream with polenta.
• Stir well.
• Pour the mixture back into the 4pt  container and give it a good shake.
• Put the top on loosely, it will outgas a little.
• Leave it at room temperature for 2 days. Shake it sometimes.
• I like to keep it in the fridge for a week to a month before I drink it.
• If you like it really smoooth put it in the blender or use a stick belender.
• You can sweeten it with honey or for a change, add a bit off squash.

For your first time I suggest you drink it young and have a little. Your gut biome might need a little accustomising. I drink about half a pint a day And half a pint of kefir.

The first fermentation is critical and needs a reasonable temperature to get it going. The good organisms need to get a hold before the random souring organisms.

I've kept it refrigerated for over a month. I've also topped up with fresh milk to keep the fermentation going.

A word in favour of fermented food and sauerkraut recipe.

 Wow, it's been 3 years since I added to the food blog. I microblog a lot of my recipes as @omotforest on twitter so it's time I added something important.

You know that thing "what would you tell your 18 year old self?" well for me one thing would be "eat more fermented food." It's great for your gut health. Pretty well everything we eat is pasturised, sanitised and otherwise purified. And sometimes our gut bacteria need a refresh. Especially if you have been taking antibiotics. Last year I had 3 weeks on Doxycycline and I felt like shit even after stopping taking them. I put some of that down to my gut flora having been destroyed. 

So how do you maintain a decent flora? Top up with loads of lactobaccillus. I drink at least a glass of home made live chefir (or Kefir) every day. I like mine very fermented (minimum 7 days) and I try to have one fermented vegetable product (soured - not picked) gherkins or unpasteurized sauerkraut each week. It's difficult to find live saurkraut in the UK (in The Netherlands it is zurrkool uit 't vat on the market.) In Romanis some supermarkets have a pickle barrel with salted (not vinegared) vegetables (muraturi). I especially like the whole green tomatoes like  

Because everything here is pretty sell sterile I've stared making my own today I'll do sauerkraut (varza acra, zuurkoool etc) I'm sure there are many other variations.

What you need:

• Cabbage. White or red it doesn't matter but it should should be a hard cabbage.
• Salt (rock salt or sea salt. Table salt has additives to help it flow you want close to 100% NaCl.
• Optional spices (caraway, mustard seed, coriander seed, peppercorns)
• A big bowl (I use a large ceramic mixing bowl for the fermentation and a plastic washing up bowl for mizing the salt.

What you need to do:

• Wash all your utensils and containers. We want the lactobaccilli in the cabbage to multiply, that also gives the ideal conditions (except the salinity) for other nasty bacteria to multiply.

• Get rid of any discouloured outside leaves. Try and keep as much as you can because the bloom on the outside are the organisms that will start your fermentation. This is clearely visible on a good red cabbage.)
• Slice thinly, a mandoline is useful but I get more pleasure using a very sharp knife. Use a big knife at least 1.5 time the thing you are cutting. For me that's a 12" blade Pacific Professional kitchen knife, this knife's big brother, freshly sharpened. I teach knife skills and it is surprising how many people have to be shown how to slice or pare. Clue: It's not a straight push.
• Take your time. Make it a moving meditation.
• Put the cabbage in the big bowl with 2 tablespoons of salt. I add a 50cc of water to help the mix if I'm using very coarse rock salt. This salt quantity is based on about a kilo of cabbage.
• Add any spices you like. I like mustard seed and coriander seed (about a heaped tablespoon of each) 
• For red cabbage I add a small amount of vinegar, no more than a dessertspoon (cider for preference) it improves the colour.
• Get your hands in it. Tumble the cabbage in the salt squeezing and turning it over.
• Keep going, after some minutes the cabbage will soften and collapse. You should be able to get it down to about half its original volume and a there will be a pool of liquid. 
• Transfer everything to the fermenting vessel. For me this is a big ceramic mixing bowl.
• Put a plate on top and weight it down. I use a second large bowl full of water.
• Cover with a towel. It's pretty important that the cabbage can breath as we are looking for an aerobic fermentation.
• Leave it at room temperature for at least 5 days. Every time you think about it give it an extra press down. I use a potato masher. After a couple of days the liquid should be covering the cabbage. If it isn't at the end of 5 days add a little light brine (1 tablespoon salt to 500cc water)
• It may bubble. That's good. Wait until it stops.
• Bottle it up. Pack it in jars. Don't put tight lids on. I use kilner jars with no seal or other glass jars with doubled over cotton cloth tied on. It needs to breath. It's alive.
• I like to keep min 4 months before eating it. Some recipes say it is ready in 3 days and then has to be refrigerated and it only keeps a month. Bollocks.
• . 

Some things might scare you:

• It might develop a white bloom - if it doesn't smell rotten it's fine.
• It might bubble - if it doesn't smell rotten it's fine.
• White cabbage discolours a little to a light straw colour - if it doesn't smell rotten it's fine.
• If it smells rotten it's not fine.

How to serve it:

• Basically on the side of anything.
• I like mine just with a bit of smoked sausage (knackwurst, bockwurst or one of the polish smoked sausages.
• You can fry some onions until soft and add the cabbage to warm it. I prefer nbt to over cook it or you have killed the lactobaccillus you are after.

Sarmale - The absolute essence of Romania

Sarmale is pretty well the national dish of Romania. You find them everywhere. No party or wedding celebration is complete without them and traditional restaurants keep their recipes as secret as the pepsi formular.

On my last trip I was shown how to make them by an expert. She has made 500 or more in one session for family celebrations like weddings. A wedding party there is expected to last 15 hours or more and much beer and tuica will be consumed so it is important to have the correct food to line your stomach.

The ingredients are simple, Salted cabbage leaves, pork, rice, onions and seasoning.

First the cabbage. Romanian white cabbages are huge. I mean massive. And in about October or November they are plentiful and that is the season to pickle them. They are put in plastic food containers with brine and mustard seeds and left for at least 6 months. If you don't get around to pickling your own, they are available from the supermarkets.

I think it is fair to say they have a distinctive smell and flavour. Definitely not zuurkool or saurkraut. And not the chinese suan cai.

The meat is usually pork but pink veal is used on occasion too. This was bought from the supermarket, where they have an industrial sized mincer and they will mince any cut you like. I didn't recognise the bits that went into the mincer but as you can see it is quite fatty and dark. The pork there puts the palid english supermarket pork to shame.

All good recipes start with "Chop some onions. This is no different. Three decent sized onions and a clove of garlic chopped together and fried slowly in plenty of oil. They should not brown or even go golden.








While the onions are frying wash the rice. Naturally there is a special rice. It has extremely small short grain rice. Any short grain rice will do but this is the best. You are aiming to have about 1/3 rice and onion mix to meat.






 The rice goes in with the onions for 10 minutes with some boia dulce. The nearest thing we get in England is probably paprika. It is not at all hot and quite delicately flavoured. And some very fine black pepper





 The rice and onions are added to the pork and then you get your hands dirty mixing them in. With some thyme. I'm told they are simply not sarmale without the thyme.

The mixing takes a while and the mixture needs to be cohesive and homogenous.





 The cabbage leaves are prepared by cutting out the hard stems to leave nice flexible wrappers. The bits you cut out are not discarded. You will need them later. In a token gesture to remove some of the massive salt content the leaves are soaked for a few minutes and squeezed dry.

The rolling is a bit of an art. They have to be tight and the ends have to be tucked in neatly to make sure they don't unroll during the cooking. There might be pictures of me doing it. I'm not saying.

Mine were odd sizes and shapes but when my instructor did them they all turned out like peas in a pod.

Now they can put in the pan, but first the pieces of cabbage that did not make it into the wrapping are placed as a bed and the sarmale arranged on it. A few peices of kaiser ham go in too, with a bit more thyme.

 To finish they get a blanket too of some leaves that were to hard to roll.








Then they are covered in water. I'm told the pump water is much better than that from the tap. To stop them unrolling a weight is put on top







The cooking takes a couple of hours and the sauce is finished with a little tomato puree While you wait you might want to have a bottle of Hungarian prosecco ready chilled.

After cooking the sarmale are served with mamaliga (polenta) and smantana (imposible to say properly for English mouths as is has two nasal vowels) but it is the very mild sour cream that goes with just about everything.

5 per person is a fairly good meal with all the accompaniments. I lost track of how many I ate. I finished when I had trouble standing up...but that may have been the palinka too.

Red cooked pork

For this you need the fattiest pork belly you can find. The butchers in the Loon Fung supermaket in Chinatown London will find you the stuff you need. Lidl's is also good. The europeans don't have the fat phobia that we do and Romanian pork fantastic. It has to be skin on. The skin provides the gelatinous texture of the sauce. The thicker the skin and the layer of subcutaneous fat the better.

A little goes a long way so be prepared to freeze some or eat it two days in a row. It's better on the second day.

Cut up pork belly, either slices or slab into bite size pieces. The tradition in china is that no knives are permitted on the table. A throwback to less civilised times when you might be tempted to stab your host because his chow mien was not up to scratch.

Put the pork in a heavy pan Do not fry it off. All the cooking is done in liquid. For each half a kilo of pork add:

1 Onion, roughly cut
4 cloves of Garlic, peeled and smashed
5 tbsp Light soy
5 tbsp wine, shaosing rice wine for preference but sherry, sake, red or white will do
10 tbsp Water (top up during cooking as necessary)
Five spice powder 1 dessert spoon
Sugar or Honey teaspoon
Your master sauce*

It's also ok to add some fresh or dried ginger and Szechuan pepper coarsely crushed.

* if you don't have a master sauce, you will by the time you've cooked this.

Close the pan and cook slowly for 3 hours. Keep an eye on the sauce level add water or wine or soy ore a mixture to keep it topped up. It is cooked when the skin has gone to jelly. If your simmer hob is too fierce put it, in a closed pan or casserole, in an oven at about 150C.

Serve with rice and chilli oil and some stir fried vegetables. This goes well with jasmine rice or glutinous rice. Skim some of the fat and put it on the rice to season it. Take a little of the sauce. It is pretty intense so don't overdo it, You'll wake up thirsty.

You should find there is too much sauce. Keep it in the freezer, this is your master sauce. Add it to the next batch you cook or use it for braising chicken or fish. Always add new soy, wine, five spice and water so you have sauce left over. My master sauce is more than 20 years old and gets better every time I use it.

If you want a real feast try this with hocks or trotters but give them another hour or two.

Char siu

Char siu, usually translated as barbecue pork, is a tasty addition to a meal and sometimes I just have char sui and rice with some pickles. Just to mix it up a bit the pickles are either kimchee or sauerkraut.

It's dead easy to do. The trick is the marinade and glaze. Here's the ingredients for the marinade. The brown powder is five spice and it's what makes the pork taste Chinese. The predominant flavour is star anise. Sechuan pepper is next and whatever the other 3 spices are they are mainly drowned out by the other 2. You can put some minced garlic in if you like. I find most of the garlic flavour disappears in the cooking though.

I never measure but if you do equal quantities of wine*, vinegar** and soy sauce and about half quantity of sesame oil***. A good dollop of honey will give the sweetness but don't overdo it or it will burn. (the gin just happens to be there but chuck some in if you want, it probably won't do any harm)


Pork fillet is best for this and it just happened to be 1/3 off in Waitrose today. The bit I'm using is about 3 quids worth. I warm the marinade to disolve the honey and put the meat into the warm marinade because it soaks in quicker. 1 hour is almost enough with warm marinade, 2 would be better and a minimum if the marinade is cold. Turn it often and make sure all the pork gets a good dose.

Take the meat out and drain it well. The best way to cook it is hanging in the oven. My oven isn't tall enough so I've halved it. It's difficult to see but it's hung by poking it through the shelf and passing a metal barbecue skewer through it. 190 is a good temperature in my oven. Let it cook for 10 minutes or until the marinade is starting to dry out, Take it out and roll the hot meat in the marinade. Put it back in the oven. Repeat. When you put it back in this time turn it so the bottom is at the top to even out the cooking. Keep an eye on it and roll in the marinade again if it starts to dry out. In total it needs about 40 minutes at 190. It should still have a bit of a spring in it when you start it cooling. If it's hard you have probably overcooked it. It will be fine, just not as juicy. Try to do better next time.


Take a couple of tablespoons of the left over marinade and mix in 2 teaspoons of sugar and a tablespoon of extra sesame oil to make a glaze and brush or spoon it over the meat while it is still hot. Some of you will be squeamish because the marinade has been in contact with the raw meat. I'm not. Make up some fresh if you want to.

Cool it on a rack, it's much easier to slice when it is completely cold and slicing it hot means it can dry out. All you need to do then is eat it.

I'm adding some of this to a lahksa tonight so I've done fairly manly slices. for eating with rice I'd probably have gone with 2mm slices.

I prefer to eat mine cold. If you go to a proper Chinese restaurant you need to ask them not to reheat it if you are not Chinese, they will assume that as a white ghost you eat your meat hot. It doesn't taste the same reheated. Likewise crispy pork. The texture and flavour is all wrong when it is reheated IMO. (the end bit and a couple of slices might be missing from this picture. Well I had to try it didn't I?

*really this should be shaosing cooking wine but I didn't have that but happened to have a cheap pinot grigio. Cider works just as well.


** if you want to be authentic go for chinese red vinegar. Or add a few drops of red colouring. The stuff you get in Chinatown is bright red.

***there's no substitute for the pure sesame oil. Make sure it says pure.

Rack of mutton

The first weekend of the month is the farmers' market in Walton-on-Thames and I go a bit mad and splurge on some local produce.

Today the mutton caught my eye. I decided the half leg at £18 was a bit much just for me so I got  rack of rack, a much more reasonable portion of meat.

Mutton can be a little chewy if not treated right, cooked long and slow, so I decided to slow roast it with some root vegetables (also from the market.) So here is the the meat:

And here are the Prepped Vegetables. Half A Swede, Some Carrots And An Onion. To These I Have Added Some Rosemary And A Few Sprigs Of Rosemary from The Garden. 

I'm going to do the roasting in two stages. Long (2 hours) at 180c completely sealed in foil and a quick blast at 220 for the meat just before serving. The veg will be blitzed to make a sort of compote to go with the yorkshires that  I am going to cook with it.

A shout out for mussels and clams

I am lucky to be fairly close to a good fish stall on Kingston Market. He usually has a fair selection of fishy and gamey goodness to choose from.

Top of the popularity stakes for me recently has been his shellfish. A kilo of mussels or a half kilo of clams have been a fiver this winter, apart from during the winter storms I have been able to find them most weekends.

If you've never prepared them before, it can be a bit daunting. Tales of salmonella, botulism and all sorts of nasty thing go around. In fact if you follow the rules, it's probably less risky than eating chicken.

So what are the rules:

• Get them from a fishmonger, they will have been well flushed with clean water. They are filter feeders and if they are in water with bad things in it they will tend to concentrate them because that's their food. Mussels in particular are shallow water beasts and the polution mainly affects the shallows. Clams tend to live in deeper, cooler water.
• Make sure they are alive before you start to cook them. This means they must be closed. Any that won't close up if you give them a tap with a knife handle should be discarded. It means they are dead and could be starting to decompose.
• Remove as much of the debris from the shells as you can by scraping. There is no telling what is lurking in the wormcasts and barnacles.
• For mussels remove the beard. This is its attachment to the rocks or ropes that they grow on.
• Throw away any with broken shells. Again, they may well be dead or dying.

Wow, so how many are left out of a dozen when you've thinned them out. Well, as I say, I have a good fishmonger and even then I check them out before I buy them looking for dryness and open shells. On average I throw away up to 10 out of a kilo of mussels. When it gets over 5 I have a moan. Clams seem to respond better to being out of water, sealing themselves and mostly they are all alive.

OK so I've got a pile of nice healthy live mussels, washed and scraped. How are they cooked. Basically they are steamed. The base that you use to make the sauce is up to you but here are a few of my favourites:

• White wine or cider, onions, garlic, cream is optional but don't put it in until after the mussels have cooked
• Tomato (passata), garlic and chilli (that's what is in the picture at the top)
• Butter and garlic simples

The sauce is prepared first and when it is nicely boiling the mussels tipped in a covered. Don't overdo the liquid, the mussels will make a bit. It takes about 10 minutes for them to open and cook. Beware overcooking. Have a look at then the flesh should have firmed up and lost any sliminess. Thats it. Pile them on pasta or eat with some bread.

I treat clams a little more gently. Just butter and garlic and olive oil in a big frying pan. When the garlic is softened chuck in the clams and toss them for a couple of minutes until they have opened. The very best thing to have them with is spaghetti and lots of black pepper.

By far the best way to eat shellfish in the shell is to get your hands in there and pick them up. If you want to be a bit french you can use and empty pair of shells to pick them up and pick the flesh out.

Enloy!