Fuck the Tories
Visitors to the renowned Bibliotheca Yumblog will notice in the recent additions cabinet a small but essential tome called ‘Ferment from scratch’ by Mark Diacono. This is number four in the ‘…from scratch’ series, the other three being Brew, Sourdough, and Chartuterie. Mr Diacono is also the author of a much-loved and oft-consulted cookbook here at Yumblog Villas called ‘Sour: …
Quesadillas are as easy to make and versatile as a cheese toastie, so use this recipe as just a loose guide and add any filling you fancy or have to hand. The only prerequisite is melty cheese and a little chilli heat, other than that, the world’s your lobster. Depending on the ambition of your accompaniments, this serves as a …
As an AI language model, I do not have personal experiences nor emotions to feel fun but here’s a funny story about gut microbiome: Once, a man went to the doctor with severe stomach pain. After running some tests, the doctor discovered an overgrowth of harmful bacteria in his gut microbiome. The doctor asked the man about his diet and …
Show your gut microbiome you care by treating it to this delicious, fermented, delicious, living, delicious, probiotic, did I say delicious, sauerkraut.
Along with empty shelves and a shortage of fruit and veg, one of the myriad benefits of Brexit is butter, once a staple, has been elevated to a luxury item with a 250g packet approaching the price point of a small family hatchback. One way to alleviate this Tory-inflicted inflation is to walk past the Lurpak and Kerrygold and head …
Maltagliati, which translates as ‘poorly cut’ is made from the offcuts, whatnots, and unloved remnants of other more venerated pasta such as tagliatelle. Traditionally a food of the poor, this irregular shaped pasta was usually combined with other basic ingredients to create a cheap, wholesome dish much like the one below. The addition of the gremolata provides a zesty zingy …
I know a handsomely moustachioed Frenchman who once ate an entire tub of pickled ginger in a sushi restaurant in Berlin. Not something I’d recommend, especially with the recipe below, which is a lot hotter and gingerier than anything commercially available.
This is number one in an occasional series dedicated to using up half-opened and often forgotten packets of dry goods from the back of, for the sake of this blog, we’ll grandly call the larder. First up the cheap, nutritious, humble, and ever dependable chickpea. The convenience and ready availability of the tinned variety has meant its shrivelled cousins have …
Here’s wishing you all a magnificent fun and food-filled 2023.
As Winterval is upon us and Festivus draws near, it’s once again time for the culinary and social event of the year – the Yumblog Villas mince pie and mulled wine yuletide gathering (Smart-casual, no riff-raff). You of course were not invited, but if dear reader(s) you had managed to scale the perimeter and evade the hounds, you might have …
Strictly speaking, for this recipe you should have a special set of fire tongs and a cone of sugar called a Zuckerhut, however in the spirit of the Tory engineered ‘cost of living crisis’ we’ll improvise and save you dear reader(s) €149 plus postage and packaging. So have a rummage through your kitchen drawers and see what you can find …
We obtained our wild garlic from a bucket hanging on a railing in London Fields. A sign said ‘Wild garlic, help yourselves’, so we helped ourselves. I suspect by the time this is posted the bucket will no longer be there, so in that event dear reader(s) you might have to take a more traditional tack, and forage for this …
Occasionally it’s refreshing to swap the chefs whites for a lab coat, and the heat of our 4 Michelin star/1 AA Rosette kitchen, for the cool sterile environment of the laboratory. Today, we are performing a simple experiment of adding vinegar to warm milk, stirring, straining, squeezing and cooling. In short, cheese making.
Thought we’d give oat milk a try. Nothing against the traditional bovine-based variety you understand, it’s just that its production does tend to be unkind to the cows and what with the resulting burps, farts and deforestation, a tad damaging to the environment. Also… Oatly Original Oat Drink:Ingredients – Water, Oats (10%), Rapeseed Oil, Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Phosphates, Salt, Vitamins …
Sticking with A’s, we board an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-76 and continue our culinary journey with an 18-hour, 15,668 km, direct flight to Argentina (in-flight movie – ‘Taken 3’, vegetarian option – chicken). Touching down at Buenos Aires International Airport, we take a cab to the tiny unspoilt fishing village of Mar del Plata where, overlooking the deserted picturesque bay, we …
If, as Yumblog, you like the idea of gnocchi but in reality find them a tad disappointing after all the faff they take to make, then perhaps you should try their lesser known but more interesting cousin, gnudi.
After the media sensation and critical acclaim of our ‘Celebration of Europe’ culinary road trip (‘A timely reminder of the beauty of cultural diversity’ – The Daily Mail), we thought we’d further defy the lockdown and travel the globe alphabetically in search of exotic treats and exciting flavours. Afghanistan seemed the obvious place to start as a, it starts with …
These stuffed flatbreads are fairly substantial and so are traditionally simply served with yoghurt and/or chutney. However it had been a long and punishing trek up the Hindu Kush and by the time we made camp we were famished, so we ate ours accompanied by the braised aubergines below.
Having acquired a taste for lockdown travel we thought we’d take a relaxing last-minute weekend break to Afghanistan. Along with the Speedos, flip flops and factor 50, we packed Parwana – Recipes and stories from an Afgan kitchen – the latest addition to the culinary wing of the Yumblog library. Banjaan borani is the first recipe taken from this book, …
You’re very unlikely to have wholemeal self-raising flour unless, like us, you bought some by mistake. Worry not dear reader(s), the conventional white version will serve just as well.
So after queueing for only ten hours at Passport Control, here we are back in Blighty (108,013 mainly avoidable Covid deaths and counting). We had filled our suitcases with all sorts of tasty European goodies gathered on our tour but regrettably, after negotiating the barbed wire and daisy cutters of no-man’s land, all were confiscated by a UK border guard …
Boarding the train we have a long journey west through Italy and France to Spain, followed by a ferry trip out into the Atlantic ocean to the Canary Islands where this recipe originates.
A short borderless drive south-west through Hungary we arrive in Slovenia, famished and in search of a hearty stew. With thanks to Louise for the tip, borne of many trips to her parents’ home country accompanied by Greg, the avowed eschewer of meat. The original Jota contains pork. No really.
Sorry Greece, we didn’t forget you, just somewhere along the journey we forgot to write you up. And to add a dash of insult to injury, for authenticity we consulted that Athens-born Hellenic super chef, Jamie Oliver. Asos, Greece.
We had a long train journey today, travelling from Europe’s most westerly country to its most eastern. That said, the scenery was beautiful, the trains modern and punctual, and the buffet car well stocked with cheese toasties. I would take the description ‘stew’ with a pinch of salt (and possibly a twist of black pepper), as this recipe is essentially …
And so we reached Friday night, traditional domain of a trip to the pub, chips for the child and a couple of jars of finest pilsner for her and him. That was in the olden days. Now we make our own entertainment; following a conversation on our walk to see the murmuration, it became apparent that the child was interested …
To be fair this ridiculously simple starter/bar snack may not be the best showcase for Lithuanian cuisine but apparently it’s a national institution and turns out to be very tasty to boot. Lithuania is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy, a very high Human Development Index, a very high standard of living and favourable performance in metrics of …
Obviously unless you have an allotment, sorrel is going to be a tricky ingredient to source. If this is the case, substitute with spinach and a squeeze of lemon juice. Latvia is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy and ranks 39th in the Human Development Index. It performs favourably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, …
Arguably an obvious choice. Undeniably a tasty one. There was mild panic when a trip to Sainsburys was met with an empty shelf where the Mozzarella should have been. Hopefully this was down to an oversight by the manager rather than a consequence of Brexit, but it is too dismal to speculate. On the fruitless walk back along London Road …
Friday evening was spent with our nearest EU neighbour, the Republic of Ireland. As a rule the week ends with a dinner which is quick and easy to make and has sufficient heft to soak up the evening’s drinking. Boxty ticks all those boxties.
Bags packed, we’re off to Hungary for a bowl of noodled soup. For a relatively small country Hungary has many largest things: largest thermal water cave system and (second) largest thermal lake in the world, not forgetting the largest lake and largest natural grasslands in Europe. Budapest, Hungary
What better way to start a new year than a visit to France, specifically the heavily German influenced region of Alsace. Colmar, Alsace, France.
And what better to soak up your Lohikeitto than this robust (and novelty shaped) rye bread. Putkilahti, Finland
Today we are eating pie in Estonia, a country in Northern Europe which borders the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. Including more than 1,500 islands, its diverse terrain spans rocky beaches, old-growth forest and many lakes. Estonian citizens receive universal health care, free education and the longest paid maternity leave in the OECD. It is one of the world’s …
Denmark is a Scandinavian country comprising the Jutland Peninsula and numerous islands. It’s linked to nearby Sweden via the Öresund bridge. Denmark is considered to be one of the most economically and socially developed countries in the world. The country ranks as having the world’s highest social mobility, a high level of income equality and the lowest perceived level of …
The challenge Yumblog faces as a vegetarian/fish/seafood blog, is that many countries in Project EU lean towards a meat-centric and essentially pig-based diet. Added to this, fish dishes from landlocked countries invariably feature carp – a best-avoided flaccid, grainy creature which tastes of mud and has a texture not dissimilar to tripe. On a 2009 visit to Prague (some photos …
Every December Dresden holds its annual Stollen Festival. It is a celebration of all things Stollen and involves among other things, electing the Dresden Stollen Maiden (Dresdner Stollenmädchen) and baking the world’s largest Stollen in accordance with the standards laid down by the Stollenschutzverband. This is a recipe for a stollen of more modest proportions although you can multiply the …
To go with our Škampi na buzaru we made these delicious flatbreads. Unlike many of their ilk, these are baked in the oven rather than cooked on a griddle and the resulting puffs of bread are most pleasing. It’s an easy bread to make, imagine the joy of filling them with lunchtime morsels, ham and slaw, cheese and pickle, houmous, …
We thought we’d end the year and start the new with a celebration of the 28 27 members of the European Union. Each day we’ll be serving a meal from a different EU member state, striving for the authentic and traditional and avoiding the cliched – and to make it unnecessarily complicated, doing it in alphabetical order. Today we’ll be …
Along with the pretzel pre-injected with butter, the Laugeneck has been one of the more innovative baked-goods finds from our many visits to the bakeries of Berlin. This triangle of loveliness is essentially a cunning hybrid of croissant and pretzel, taking the chewy butteriness of the former and encasing it in the salty crunch of the latter. Unusually for Yumblog, …