Summer vegetable frittata

Meals made from leftovers are often the best. Every ingredient in tonight's tea except for the eggs was originally bought for Sunday dinner, a slow roasted shoulder of lamb lightened up a bit with some seasonal vegetables.

The lamb was a great success, but then I knew it would be. The amount of fat on a shoulder makes it a very forgiving cut. Bung it in a pot with rosemary, garlic and onions, then stick it in the oven for anything from two and a half to four hours; - precise timing is hardly crucial.

What came as a surprise was how much I enjoyed tonight's frittata. All of the previous night's vegetables, lightly bound with eggs, seasoned with parmesan and pepper, and livened up a bit with lemon zest and parsley. We ate it cut it into thick wedges while still warm with just a green salad and tomatoes. A light, bright meal for a muggy August day.

Serves two to three as a main meal with salad, but would also be good cold cut into slices for a picnic. Next year I'll make it earlier in summer with the newest beans and asparagus.

What you'll need:

6 eggs
4 spring onions
very small clove garlic
small handful shelled broad beans
small handful freshly shelled peas (or frozen will do)
half a courgette
half an ear of sweetcorn
1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan
zest of 1 lemon
handful flat leaf parsley
salt and black pepper
light olive oil

What to do:

1. Finely chop the spring onions and garlic. Chop the courgette into small dice. Cut the sweetcorn off the ear. Set the oven to 170 deg C.

2. Heat up a little olive oil in a pan, then saute the vegetables until al dente. Put the spring onions in first, then the courgette, garlic, beans, sweetcorn and finally the peas. Don't let them brown.

3. While the veggies are cooking lightly beat the eggs, then season generously with black pepper and just a little salt. Throw in the parmesan and lemon zest, then finely chop the parsley and add that too.

4. Line an 8 inch loaf tin with baking parchment, then add the just cooked vegetables. Pour over the egg mixture then put in the oven.

5. Bake until the eggs are just set and it's lightly browned on top. Mine took around 25 minutes. Check for doneness with a skewer, it should come out clean without any wet egg mixture on it (like with a cake).

6. When it's done leave to cool for ten minutes before removing from the tin and slicing to serve.

 

Bacon Sandwich Quest: July

Oops, this month I almost forgot completely. You wouldn't have missed much, as it turns out I only bought one bacon sandwich in July, and it was a bit crap.

I've just been racking my brains for the last ten minutes trying to recall where on earth I bought it from, and then it came to me: a mucky sandwich van in a lay-by on the A57. Don't you yearn for a glamorous life like mine?

I can't really recommend this one, the roll was small and so were the rashers. A very meagre effort for £2.40. The bacon was also completely devoid of fat, like those Matteson's turkey rashers or somesuch abomination. There's no fun in fat free bacon now is there?

At this stage in proceedings August isn't shaping up any better. I might eat nothing but bacon sarnies for a week to improve matters as this is getting tedious. Sorry.

Here's the leaderboard.

I Am Pho, Manchester

It's banh mi time! You'll find I am Pho, or Vietnamese Pho, or whatever it's called (this isn't really clear), on George Street in Chinatown. It's a basement café, next door but one to the 'Long Legs full strip lapdancing club' whatever on earth that might be.

It appears to be everything a good Vietnamese caff should be. Basic but clean, a fine selection of condiments on the wipe clean tables and a short menu of lovely sounding stuff, pride of place going to the pho. But I wasn't here for the pho this time, I was after a banh mi, the splendiferous Vietnamese sandwich.

A single filling banh mi costs a very reasonable £2.99, and it's 50p more for each extra filling. The best thing to do is just order one with every type of pork in it. That'll be roast pork, Vietnamese pork sausage (a bit like luncheon meat, but in a good way) and pork liver paté. You might think that sounds like a lot of pork, and you'd be right.

It was stuffed to the rafters with pork. Livery pork and slightly chewy pork and tender roast pork. The standard accompaniments were all present and correct with the notable exception of chilli: coriander, cucumber and lightly pickled cucumber and daikon. It really did miss that kick of heat from the chilli though, being just slightly unbalanced towards the rich and meaty side of things. Of course you could argue that's entirely my fault for ordering triple pork, and had I eaten in rather than taken away the problem would easily have been rectified.

The only slight downer was the bread; a fresh and perfectly acceptable regular baguette, but not the lighter, crisper rice flour baguette like they use in Vietnam itself. Lighter bread and a chilli hit and this would have been an outstandingly good sandwich.

The folks in there were absolutely lovely too, they fetched me a cup of tea to sip while I waited. A great new addition, I'll be back to try the pho.

7/10

44 George Street
Chinatown
Manchester
M1 4HF

Little Hanoi, Sheffield

Vietnamese food has well and truly arrived in the north, and not before time. This is one London food trend that's been slow to catch on outside the capital, but one that I wish really would (unlike certain others, like burger joints with sweary menus and queuing for example).

There's lots to love about Vietnamese food, it always seems healthy with the nourishing broths and generous use of herbs but never fails to satisfy with a good dose of meat, carbs and spice. Although the cuisine has plenty more to offer it's to the two most well known meals that I return time and again. Pho, the beef noodle soup of wonders, and Banh mi, one of the finest sandwich creations known to man (a Banh mi can involve no less than three different types of pork so must be amazing).

Manchester and Sheffield had single Vietnamese food outposts until recently, and there's the odd place in smaller towns (Ilkley for one), but we haven't had anything like competition until now. Both Sheffield and Manchester have had new openings recently, with Little Hanoi in the former and Hanoi Quan and I am Pho across the Pennines, about which more tomorrow. I took a trip to Little Hanoi to sample the pho.

The classic rare beef pho at Little Hanoi was very good, the finest I've eaten outside London (where I like Café East at Surrey Quays best), the all important stock offering up deep, savoury satisfaction. The beef, thin slices of flank, was marvellous, tinged pink and delicate in texture but strong on flavour. Springy noodles completed the package.

There's room for improvement on the herbs front though, this was a better effort than Pho 68 over the road but single sprigs of coriander and mint is still a bit lacking. More of both and some of the Vietnamese specific ones (sawtooth herb in particular) and they'll really be on to a winner.

The rare beef pho will set you back £6.80 and everything on the menu is under eight quid. I drank an iced coffee but they are licensed if you fancy a few beers. Service was friendly and the food came fast. It's worth noting that although my pho was great, others haven't been so lucky. Clare from Feast and Glory tweeted a photo of the same dish that didn't look a patch on mine, so they may be a little inconsistent. Go, and hopefully you'll get them on a good day.

8/10

216-218 London Road
Sheffield
S2 4LW

 

Thai Aroy Dee, Leeds (revisited)

Since I first discovered Thai Aroy Dee last November I must have eaten there seven or eight times. It's never been anything less than brilliant, and a recent visit was possibly the best yet. The salads, stir fries and one plate meals are so good I've yet to even try one of their curries.

Some of the better dishes were previously only listed on the Thai language menu, but happily the whole lot has now been translated. Order anything from the sections of the menu titled 'Special' anything and you'll not go far wrong.

Here's a photo post of some of the fantastic dishes I've eaten there in recent months. My original reviews can be found here and here.

Pad Prik Kraduk Moo - Pork ribs stir fried in red curry paste with Thai basil, lime leaves, chillies and fresh green peppercorns. This isn't on the menu but call and order it in advance and they'll prepare it for you. Thanks to Jools for this one!

Seafood Yum Wun Sen - glass noodle salad with mixed seafood, lemon juice, chillies, shallots, coriander.

Som Tam and Gai Yang - pounded papaya salad with grilled chicken. Beware this is spicy!

Yen Ta Fo - seafood stock soup with fish balls, noodles and tofu. Strange but delicious.

Khao Kluk Ga Pi - Shrimp paste fried rice with all the trimmings (which include caramelised pork, mango, peanuts, shallots, chilli, chopped bean and crispy shrimp). This is vying with Pad Prik Kraduk Moo for my overall favourite.

Gung Chae Nam Pla - raw prawn salad. Basically just prawns doused in fish sauce and lime juice, then covered in chillies and garlic. Surprisingly delicious. Seems to have disappeared from the recent menu though...

Kai Dao - crispy fried eggs. Not on the menu. Ask for them, then mash them up in plain steamed rice. Bloody brilliant. Crispy, yolky loveliness.

Tod Gratiem Prit Thai - Garlic and pepper stir-fried chicken

This is consistently a 9/10 place. Please go.

www.thaiaroydeeleeds.com

The Wig and Pen, Sheffield

It came as a surprise to see the Wig and Pen on a deals website. When it comes to dining out these sites rarely have much to offer, the advertised discounts being for restaurants of dubious quality, corporate chains or those on their last legs, trying in desperation to lure people in.

The Wig and Pen is neither of those things. As far as I can tell it’s successful, popular and serves very good food. The plan must be this: entice people in, feed them very well and they’ll return, happy to pay full price. Our deal, a glass of prosecco, starter and main from the a la carte menu was just £29 for two people, outstandingly good value for cooking of the quality and execution here.

It’s a nice restaurant too, formerly a regular pub by the look of it. The tables are solid and bare, those by the window have a lovely view over Paradise Square with its attractive Georgian terraces that I didn’t even know existed until that evening.

Both of my courses were good, but AS really got lucky. Hers were excellent. Two mouthfuls of her heirloom tomato salad with basil sorbet made me grin from ear to ear. Rejoice: tomatoes and basil with depth of flavour. For want of a better word it was just so tomatoey, tomatoey in a way you usually have to travel two hours south on a plane to find. If all the tomatoes I eat in Spain next month taste like these I’ll be happy.

My salt cured salmon was a far subtler proposition. Everything was delicate and mild, the salmon so lightly cured as to almost seem raw. Little cubes of chorizo in the dressing didn’t overwhelm, but just added a little saltiness and depth.

 

Bavette steak was a fine piece of meat, impressively tender for the cut and served with an oxtail dauphinoise. A nice idea but I couldn't really taste the oxtail. The sauce was also a little too sticky and over-reduced and there was a bit of a broccoli overload. Look it at all sat there like lurid bonsai. I did like the bone marrow fritter though. A greaseless crumb stuffed with beefy buttery goodness. Yum.

Guinea fowl with peas, roast onions, mash and a cep sauce wasn’t mine, which made me very jealous. It looked and tasted beautiful, the couple of mouthfuls I ate bringing crisp skin, moist flesh, sweet, soft onions and an intensely savoury, earthy sauce. That all sounds a little wintry but the peas brightened the whole thing and the overall impression was of a perfect summer roast. In the interests of balance, what with me being in raptures over something I hardly ate any of, AS who actually ate it thought the meat was a little dry in parts but that it was otherwise lovely.

We shared a dessert, a plate of tropical fruits with weird stuff done to them. Mango, coconut and passion fruit rendered in rectangles of marshmallow, parfait and jelly. I’m usually unsure about this sort of thing, a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to pudding, but I liked this. It was soft, cooling and fragrant, reminding me a little of the salmon starter in these respects, not in the taste but in texture and experience. Both were summer dishes through and through, showing the thought that’s gone into the menu.

Service was excellent throughout the meal, friendly and with none of that second class customer effect you sometimes get when you’re on a deal. A la carte prices are a lot more than we paid but about what you’d expect for food of this standard, starters around £7 and mains in the teens. I’ll definitely return, deal or no deal.

8/10

44 Campo Lane

Sheffield

S1 2EG

http://www.the-wigandpen.co.uk/

Costello's Bakery, Headingley, Leeds

Someone on Twitter suggested Costello's to me as somewhere I might find a good cake. I didn't find a good cake there, but I did find a very good lunch deal so thank you very much whoever you are.

It was a little incongruous sat eating this on a warm sun dappled afternoon, it's probably more one for the dismal winter months, but who am I to turn down pie, mash, gravy and a drink for £3.50? I got the choice of ordinary or special mash, special being ordinary with added leeks and bacon. Entirely predictably I chose the special.

I enjoyed the pie, a sturdy affair of short pastry and tender, stewed beef. The mash and gravy weren't half bad either and there was bloody loads of it. Give it three months until there's a nip in the air then get yourself down there. In the meantime the sandwiches looked good too.

7/10

61 Otley Road
Headingley
LS6 3AB

http://www.costellosbakery.com/