Flicking the Vs: April 2013

It was my birthday a few weeks back. And I know what I'd like you to give me as a present: your forgiveness for the general low-rent quality of the snaps I took at Manna.

My gran bunged me a few quid at Christmas and told me to take my other half out for a nice meal somewhere. I waited a few weeks, then happily obeyed: I'd been wanting to go to Manna for ages, but it had always seemed a bit on the expensive side. Granted, it is in London's upmarket Primrose Hill area, but still, it grates hard on a South London pocket.

After a long, boozy lunch with a friend and a few drinks with another friend (I mention that to both account for my well-disposed nature towards Manna and to explain my somewhat hazy memory of the meal), I picked up my boyfriend and headed to Manna.

One waiter described the specials with all the sweet concentration and memory lapses of a young child in a particularly taxing spelling bee, while another explained the difference between the mezze as a sharing dish and as a main course for one person: "If it's for two, we put in the centre of the table, if it's for one, we'll push it more towards you. It's the same size." Rii-iight.

We started with a bit of hummus. Hummus is like the benchmark for a vegan restaurant - the one vegan dish even omnis will be familiar with, and which is ubiquitous in its chick pea glory. Was it good? I think so. I remember the bread being tasty and the hummus being good. I don't remember much more (I blame that boozy lunch, and those drinks.)

For a main, there was a mezze platter for two: three of the starters to share (or not, if you ask them to push the plate towards you). I chose the slider, basil and (cashew) cheese croquettes, and vegetable croquettes as the threesome, with some onion rings thrown in for good measure.

The onion rings were perfectly crispy if a wee bit oily, but at £4 a dish - or £1 per onion ring - I was expecting some perfection. The Primrose Hill vegans clearly have a few quid to burn.

Luckily, the mezze had it in spades. Though my cameraphone happy snaps won't really prove it, two out of the three starters were glorious. The basil and cheese croquettes were a masterclass in vegan cheese - thick, creamy, soft - and the cannelinni bean slider not only convinced me that veggie burgers are worth ordering, it was so good one bit would be enough to talk a jumper down from a ledge. There was all the goodness you'd hope for in a top notch burger: the best vegan mayo I've ever had, pickles, salad and a reassuring chunky and flavourful burger.

The tempura was solid and the accompanying soy-based sauce compelling moreish, but were firmly in the shade of the slider and croquettes' sterling work.

At the risk of refusing to change the record, at £8 for three croquettes smaller than walnuts, I couldn't help feeling that the volume of the food was in inverse proportion to its cost (no complaints on the quality though.)

Manna does provide one money-saving option to diners by offering carafes as well as bottles of wine, but given the carafes cost around as much as bottles do elsewhere, it's a bit of a wasted effort.

Anyway, this is where I stop my carping. Behold this pudding:

It cost £8. I would have happily paid double, it was that good. Caramel sauce, pecan ice cream and a sticky toffee pudding you want to take home to meet your parents. It was pretty as a picture, insanely rich and comforting on a grim winter night, and the manna from heaven the restaurant's name suggests. So good was it, my boyfriends' 'no, no, you have it' and 'I'm really not hungry' became 'just one more spoonful...'

At these prices, I'll not be coming back often, but next time there's a special occasion, you can bet I'll be straight up to Primrose Hill. And next time, I'm not sharing!

Manna
4 Erskine Road
Primrose Hill
London
NW3 3AJ
020 7722 8028

hummus

Manna restaurant review, or pudding from heaven

It was my birthday a few weeks back. And I know what I'd like you to give me as a present: your forgiveness for the general low-rent qua...

For some reason, I have of late, and whereof I know not, become particularly keen to cook with flax eggs. I have no idea what's inspired this interest in all things flax (though if you were to guess it's because I have a bag of flax seed in the cupboard in need of using, you may not be entirely wrong.)

I've not used flax in anything before, but for a first attempt I decided that cake might be in order, and a simnel cake at that.

Do you have simnel cake where you're from? It's a British cake, but I'm not sure if it's slipped the moorings and taken off for stardom and popularity abroad.

For those simnel-unfamiliar among you, it's a fruity, spicy cake traditionally made at Easter (yes, it's taken me that long to get around to posting this) and it's normally covered with marzipan. There are 11 marzipan balls on top, a nod to the 12 apostles minus Judas, who's forever been bumped from his shot at cake glory. The Wikipedia link to simnel cake is here if you're interested. (And it's still there if you're not.)

That all sounded like too much hard work though, so I wrapped all the usual simnel ingredients - sultanas, mixed peel, cinnamon, nutmeg and the requisite marzipan - into a few muffins.

Flax got in on the act as an egg replacer, and here's what happened next:

Taste and texture wise, not bad, not bad at all. There wasn't a whole lot of rising, and the top was a bit crusty from being left in the oven too long, but you can't have everything. (Well, OK, you can, but you have to be a better cook than I am.)

After that Easter-themed rush of blood to the head, I had to cook MOAR FLAX CAKE. And for that, I turned to a recipe from Bill Granger that had been in The Independent a while back. (For some reason I can't find it on the Indy's website, but this appears to be the same one.)

It's not a vegan recipe, but the substitutions aren't hard - almond milk for milk, vegan margarine for butter, and those all important flax eggs for the eggs.

This turned out much better - a load of rising, and a delicious soft cake. It even convinced the other half that coconut could be good, after many years of confirmed coconut hating. Score!

More flax experiments are definitely on the way...

baking

First attempts at using flax eggs - simnel muffins and coconut bread

For some reason, I have of late, and whereof I know not, become particularly keen to cook with flax eggs. I have no idea what's inspired...

Here's a recipe that does it exactly what it says on the tin. Or in this case, the mug.

Yes, it's a recipe for hot soup:

Last time I went to see my brother in Manchester, he cooked up an amazing butternut squash soup. It was soup with the sort of lovely soft velvety-ness that made me want to just climb in like it was a huge bath of soup and spend a few hours there. Maybe take in a magazine. That sort of thing.

What made my love of this fine, fine soup even greater was that I'm a card-carrying butternut squash sceptic. As veggies go, squash is Conference rather than Premier League in my book. It's the veggie equivalent of something like Birmingham or support stockings or something - you're glad they're there, but you kind of hope your paths don't have to cross too often.

But after eating that soup, I was ready to become a convert, and went out and got me some and tried to recreate the recipe at home.

I didn't succeed. Pah. Defeated by the butternut squash! *shakes fist*

In order to crack the secret of how to make butternut squash into a food friend rather than a food foe, I emailed by brother. Here's what he emailed back: "OK, you have to realise I don't really *do* recipes." Gah!

Luckily, he sent me what he thought the recipe was anyway. Hoorah! Here's what you do, at least as far as he can remember...

Ingredients
6 large carrots
2 medium potatoes
1 large butternut squash
2 large onions
about a litre of vegetable stock
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
black pepper to taste

What you do
Halve the squash lengthways. Scoop out seeds. Peel and half one of the onions and put into recesses left by seeds. Roast in preheated oven flat-side-up at 180C for about an hour, or until the surface of the squash starts to caramelise.

While that roasts, peel and roughly chop the other onion and sweat it down in a large pan with a little oil. Add the stock when that's done. Peel and roughly chop the carrots and potatoes and add to the stock. Gently simmer on a medium heat until the carrots and potatoes are soft. Add the spices. Stir and leave on a very low heat until the squash is roasted. Add the flesh of the squash and the steamed onions from the squashs' recess to the soup. Blend to thick smooth consistency.
Serve with crusty bread.

butternut squash

Butternut squash soup - it's good, who knew?

Here's a recipe that does it exactly what it says on the tin. Or in this case, the mug. Yes, it's a recipe for hot soup: Last...

Poached pears have always scared me a bit. I remember my mum having a recipe book when I was a kid and telling me how generally disgusting they were and how they were second only to a pile of veruccas on the list of things you generally wouldn't want to put in your mouth. (I'm paraphrasing here, but that's the general gist of her anti-pear sentiments.)

So, for a good few years after that - alright, a good couple of decades - I generally ignored the poached pear. But eventually it wore down my resistance, and I gave in and started eating them.

But I didn't get round to making them til this week, when I went out and bought a huge truckload of pears just for the purpose of poaching the life out of them. I used a bottle of dessert wine, some water, a point of star anise, cloves, a little cinnamon stick, some clementine zest, and some sugar. (And some pears, of course!)

You boil it all up for a couple of minutes, then turn the heat down and let it simmer for a while. Here's what you get at the end:

And yes, like all of my food fear experiments, I really liked it. Even though the idea of cooking off the alcohol in my wine goes against everything I believe in, the end result was pretty much worth it. (And I topped up the booze content by adding a load of the clemencello I made a couple of months back.)

I'll be cooking up poached pears again, only next time, I'll be making sure there's a huge load of ice cream to go with it.

feel the food fear

Feel the food fear and do it anyway episode 4: Poached pears

Poached pears have always scared me a bit. I remember my mum having a recipe book when I was a kid and telling me how generally disgusting t...

I had a first go at making cheeses from Artisan Vegan Cheese recently, and so impressed was I (not to mention so replete with rejuvelac in need of using up) I thought I'd give it another go.

One recipe that had been whispering my name since I got the book was pub cheddar. Cheddar was pretty much the king of cheese for me in the pregan days, and adding the prefix 'pub' was only going to make it better. What makes it 'pub' cheddar, I hear you ask? Because it has beer in it. Oh yes.

You already know this is going to turn out well, don't you? The beer for this experiment was Black Sheep Ale, and there was pretty much a whole bottle left over once I'd contributed enough for a half-recipe of the cheese - what better to help me relax after a very stressful cheese making session.

Alright, it wasn't that stressful at all. With the rejuvelac already made, it was just a case of blending up some cashews and other bits and pieces - nooch, beer, chives, that sort of stuff - and leaving it all to culture.

It wasn't a very firm cheese, but it was hugely tasty. It didn't bear a huge resemblance to cheddar though, but it had the smooth spreading consistency and sharp tanginess that made it more than satisfying.

The other cheese was the pink peppercorn and lemon chevre. It was no pub cheddar, but it had such an interesting flavour - pink peppercorns are now on my 'use more often' pile - that I was blow away. It's a nice, smooth spreadable cheese - just the sort of thing that will get you over that bored-of-bagles hump.

Two definite winners, and both convinced me that I'll be digging out Artisan Vegan Cheese once again. Now I've mastered the art of rejuvelac, as well as the art of eating my own body weight in cheese, there's no stopping me.

artisan vegan cheese

Artisan Vegan Cheese part two - pub cheddar and peppercorn chèvre

I had a first go at making cheeses from Artisan Vegan Cheese recently, and so impressed was I (not to mention so replete with rejuvelac in...

You've got to hand it to Dan Lepard. He's not normally shy of using eggs and dairy, but a while back, he used his baking column in The Guardian to make some vegan goodies.

And not only did he dip his toe in vegan baking, he published articles on it for a month, and did it without the usual 'hey, I love butter, but if you're one of those stupid hippy freaks that doesn't, this one's for you...' style of writing that occasionally dogs non-vegans cooks doing a spot of vegan cooking. (For US readers unware of Dan Lepard, he's the dude that would have taken the gold home at last year's Olympics if there was a medal for baking.)

The one recipe that caught my eye most out of his month of vegan recipes was this one: mocha fig muffins.

The first thing I really like about this recipe is that it's so easy to make - I managed to fix up the batter in about 10 minutes or so. The second thing I really like about it was that it tasted really, really good!

The batter's a mix of figs, oil, flour, sugar and flavourings like coffee and cocoa (I left out the almonds as Mr Flicking the Vs is pathologically averse to them), the wet ingredients are blended, then the dry added then it all goes into muffin tins while you wait and wish the oven would hurry up.

25 minutes later, this is what you get:

The crumb is perfect and the muffins were so moist. And, given the figs are by far the biggest ingredient in the muffin, I reckon you'd look the other way if I counted it as one of my five a day! (Oh alright, more like three of my five a day...)

Dan Lepard, when you want to go vegan, you do it with style. Next stop, Mr Lepard's chocolate passion cake and walnut black cherry cookies...

dan lepard