We're Going On The Beach

By Leluu

We love mail! Sometimes we get very exciting ones like:

“Remember writing this review http://www.qype.co.uk/place/1489131-Portoghetto-Beach-Cervo of a peach of a beach?

Congratulations, because you are one of three finalists for the On the Beach & Qype Word on the Beach competition!”

“Whooooooooooooo” echoes around the neighbourhood  as we are both jumping on the bed with feathers flying everywhere like in a John Vigo movie. Dogs barking and mattress creaking, the neighbours are tapping at the wall with a broom stick but we don’t care – we’re still shouting and laughing and doing star jumps!

There are competitions left, right and centre but like the lottery, you sometimes enter never expecting in a million years that you would win. We found out about the Qype Word On The Beach competition about 2 hours before the deadline. We had just got back from having dinner with Gennaro Contaldo and I was feeling pretty lazy so when I had read about it – I said to Simon that I could do it, write something, but we probably wouldn’t win anything… He said, “Do it! Do it!” and encouraged me to sit down at my table and write whilst he was going to give me tea, wine, hot chocolate, toast or whatever I wanted. So I did. Wrote. Read. Re-write, spell check. Send. And we won! We won a holiday!

Whooooooot!! We’re still bouncing! And Simon is still churning the invisible bowl of angel delight!

We are off to the beach – thanks to http://www.onthebeach.com/ who have paid for our flights to Croatia and accommodation in Hvar and Korcula. We’ve been working so hard and we are in serious need of some sun and eat food that is not cooked by ourselves!

This time last year, Simon and I went on holiday together for the first time. We went to Italy: Sicily and then to Northen Italy to a wonderful place called Cervo – as written in the winning review. We had food at the most amazing mountain restaurant – there are plenty of them dotted around in the middle of nowhere. The families who run them live there too. For 20 – 30 Euros (you can decided how much food you want to eat) you get about 8 - 10 courses – of which you do not order from the menu - the kitchen just brings out plates after plates of antipasti, pastas, secondi, carne, fish, dessert and wine by the gallon. It was wonderful and this is what inspired us to do supper clubs.

We spent 5 hours eating with our friends next to a beautiful view of mountains and valleys of olive groves. The skies were filled with those puffy pot bellied clouds waiting to burst and indeed they did. We ate and drank and couldn’t differentiate between Simon’s laughter and the thunderous heavens. The evening will be one of those wonderful nights that will live in our memories forever! I love Italy – please let me live there for at least a year sometime soon.

But Simon and I wanted to go somewhere neither of us have been before. We love to discover new things – such as the beaches, the people and the cuisine! We have no idea about Croatia - we hope to learn something and hopefully bring it back to share at the supper club to share.

In preparation for the trip – Simon has been looking at everything including the kitchen sink – he was even sent out on a bikini mission but instead, found the ultimate ‘AbbMax Swinger Plus’ – heh!

...and found much more interest in people and his journey rather than things in the shops! Looks like we will be playing it by ear...

We haven't got time to go shopping - we will be doing it all in Split and Hvar instead of feeding the fat cats of Oxford Circus. Can't wait!

Upside Down Apple Pie or Apple Tart Tatin Recipe

By Simon Fernandez (@theferdie)
I've had upside down tart loads of time, but last summer I had one of the best ever. Apples with a bite but not sour and a lovely pastry.  I'm pretty sure that I happened to be looking over the Mediterranean with a cooling sea breeze on my face, and that this had made me a little more receptive to the cool sumptuous apple tart as I put the first bite into my mouth along with some plain vanilla ice cream!! I've been trying to recreate it ever since!

As I've been looking around, I stumbled upon some factoids. Upside down tart made with apples or pears is a very old recipe from the Sologne (a region of north central France) and is found throughout Orleans. The name comes from the Tatin Sisters who ran a hotel-restaurant in Lamotte Beuvron whose version established their reputation.

There are 35 species of apples, the species that gives us most of our eating apples is Malus x domestica, which can be subdivided into 4 categories of apple: Cider, Dessert or eating apples, Cooking apples, and Dual Purpose apples such as Granny Smith or Golden Delicious. Eating apples are used in this recipe.

The things you find out!! Anyway here's the version I made this weekend, I may post refinements...

Ingredients:
6 apples (~800g) cut into 4mm thick slices
200g sugar
200g butter
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
300g pastry

300ml double cream
rose water to taste
or sugar and cinnamon

Method:
Put the sugar and butter in large sauce pan together and leave on high heat until the butter and sugar have combined into a golden brown caramel at this point there's still a bit of grain in the sugar (when making a caramel try and avoid stirring and sugar on the pan wall which will cause his crystallisation), add the apples.

Juice from the apples will flavour the sauce. Coat the apples with it and leave the heat on until the mix starts to bubble, then simmer for 10 mins and take off the heat. Leave to rest for 30m or until needed.

Use a slotted spoon to place the apple into baking dishes and keep the remaining sauce for topping.

Cover the rolling pin, pastry (method here) and surface in flour, and roll out a rectangle that's an inch bigger than the baking tray.  My baking dish was 25 x 18 x 4cm.

Cover with flaky pastry tucking the pastry down the sides to create a lip when it's turned over and paint with a beaten egg.

Put it in the oven at 200C / 20-25m : )

Whip the double cream, and depending on whether you decide to have rosewater cream or cinnamon cream, add the sugar and cinnamon, or the rose water to your taste.

On taking the pie out of the oven, drain off any excess liquid there might be into the sauce that you set aside earlier.

Place a large heat proof tray over the pie and turn it upside down to turn out the tatin.

Sprinkle caster sugar over the apple and caramelise sugar and slightly char apple with a blowtorch.

Bring the reserved sauce to the boil, simmer until the sauce is a lovely golden brown. Drip on the apple tatin slices and serve with a tablespoon of whipped cream!

Tip: don't cook the apples too long or you'll have apple sauce rather than apple slices that still have a little bite to them.

Tip: for the caramel sauce stir it as little as possible and try not to get sugar on the sides of the pan, both will cause the caramel to crystallise. Don't go a darker colour than mahogany or the sauce will be overdone. 

Tip: get a proper blow torch, you can get one with a handle and built in lighter for around  £20. Don't bother with a pencil flame blow torch, you'll be there all day and your sauce will burn!!  You'll be farting around so much you'll be liable to blow yourself through the kitchen window!

Left: Good torch, built in piezzo electric light, works in all directions!!

Right: Not so good, goes out when you point it down!! And quite tricky to light!!! Don't bother.

Our Guest Blog Post on "Ooh.com"

An insider’s guide to the supper club phenomenon

This week we’re proud to have a guest blog post from Uyen Luu, supper club owner extraordinaire. Here, Uyen writes about the movement of supper clubs and how her and her partner Simon Fernandez’s supper club, Fernandez & Leluu, has influenced them in the past year.

Supper clubs, the new trend for private dinners held in someone’s home, where you get to sit with other guests, just like at a friend’s dinner party, is blooming on all our street corners. You get to enjoy whatever the host is cooking up, you bring your own wine and you make a donation towards the cost of the meal. You hear about it through friends, through blogs and through secret things to do.

This time last year, we had no idea that this time this year, we would be having hundreds of people on a waiting list, wanting to have dinner in our flat! On top of that, we had no idea that we would make so many foodie friends and get invited to restaurant openings, launches, press events and parties – where we get to meet even more friends and spread the word about our supper club, Fernandez & Leluu.

I met Simon at the end of 2008 when Simon gate-crashed my dinner party. It was apt that we met in the kitchen where we now host a supper club, cooking up 8-course meals for 26 people over 2 or 3 nights every fortnight.
Having already had a surprising amount of guests in our home for dinner, including the legendary supper club maestro, Jim Haynes, we have made many good friends and connections where we would not have otherwise done. We have become part of a movement – engineered and pioneered by our own hands.

Supper clubs are held in beautiful to trendy council estate homes, to Michelin Star Chefs’ posh lofts. Every supper club boasts its own uniqueness and holds true character to the owner’s identity. Places are in high demand due to the trend – eating experiences has evolved and people are too used to eating out. Nowadays, people want to enjoy dinner and make friends in the process!
As we talk about movements, more and more supper clubs are opening, because, for those who love cooking and entertaining, what better way to master your skills, try out new things, make new friends and divert your life into other directions? Having a home restaurant, you do not need to go to chef school, you do not need to get a business premise – you just do it around a dinner table!

People always ask if we mind having all these people in our home. If we did, we wouldn’t be doing this. We believe that good food makes us all feel so well and invites us to open ourselves towards and accept others around us. Having a new group of people enjoying our food and making friends, turning the room into an electric atmosphere is always such a high. There are tons of roars, laughter and banter: and ideas, concepts and trends are shared while engaging with each other over great (hopefully!) food.
It feels really good. I think we must be addicted to this high. We love to see happy faces and we’ve made friends with so many happy faces this past year.

Check out Fernandez and Leluu’s blog for upcoming supper clubs, and don’t forget to browse the tasty menus…
Thanks to Guilherme Zauith for use of photos.


Ooh.com is a great website where you can find out about lots of exciting and even secret things to do all over London and the world. They have sections dedicated to adventures, food, sports, travel crafts and all sorts! Check it!

Bacon Swirls Recipe

By SimonFernandez (@theferdie)

These - amongst other excellent pastry thingies - are something me mum used to make for us at Christmas, I made them for Uyen one time and ever since I quite often hear her chanting "bacon swirls! bacon swirls!!" This weekend we had a lovely group of people who also commented not only on the swirls but also about loving to cook so here's for you guys Keith and Kate : ) this will make around 16 swirls.

Ingredients:
400g flakey pastry
150g soft cheese,
12 rashers bacon, (smoked or plain)
1 onion shredded,
1/2 bunch (20g) parsley coarsely chopped,
150g cheddar grated,
1 clove garlic – crushed and mixed in to onion
1 egg - for shine

Method:
Flour your surface and rolling pin so pastry doesn't stick to either.
Roll out the pastry (click here for recipe) into a rectangle 30cm x 45 about 2mm thick.
Spread a thin layer soft cheese onto all the pastry using a palette knife, leaving an inch clear at the top.
Cover the cheese with the bacon and then sprinkle the cheddar, garlic and onion mix and parsley on top.

Use a brush to wet the top inch of pastry so it seals, and roll the pastry from the bottom until sits onto of the clear inch.
You should now have a 45cm roll of bacon cheese loveliness (and naughtiness!!)
Oil the base of a baking tray then cut your roll into approximately 2.5 cm slices and place them side ways into the tray.
Coat the tops and sides of the rolls with beaten egg to give a shiny finish.

Tip: remove the rind from the bacon this makes the rolls easier to cut, and use a very sharp large knife using long strokes to get a nice clean cut.

Tip: don't place the rolls too close together, they need room to spread as they cook, at least 3 cm between rolls.

Tip: for a veggie version, you need to adjust the pastry recipe to use butter, and take out the bacon, these are quite nice with some cajun spice added too!

Meeting & Eating With Gennaro Contaldo

By Leluu

There wasn’t a moment of consideration when we were invited to meet, learn from and eat with Gennaro Contaldo at L’Atelier des Chefs – (a cooking school in Central London). Yes Please! Genarro is Jamie Oliver’s mentor! The guy is a genius, a respected TV chef, a personality, an entertainer and above all he is an Italian!

We all know that the Italians are loud about loving their food and they love to cook well, eat well and live well. Its summer time and summer means Italy! Whether you’re going there on holiday to take some sun, living la vida loca, or take some time out for “Eat Pray Love” like Elizabeth Gilbert - whose trip was all about la dolce vita (we will soon see highlights of our Liz portrayed by Julia Roberts at the movies) or you’re just at home and the taste of Italy is just in simple ingredients like garlic, tomatoes and basil.

Gennaro from Amalfi has always struck as a typical Italian with his ancient Neapolitan gestures and mannerisms. You know, the one with all the tips of the fingers of one hand bought together pointing upwards and then shaken violently up and down depending on the degree of impatience. Is he a caricature of his own stereotype or is this how he always is – at home and elsewhere – a marveling Italian with spirit and ‘passione’, having a lifetime love affair with food.

This is a very nice book, "Supplement To The Italian Dictionary" by Bruno Munari you can learn how to speak volumes with gestures or at least understand what the heck the Italians are on about. (I always thought the one with the finger turning in circles pointing towards the ear means: you’re thick – but it means – Call me.. he he)

Gennaro is the new face of Bertolli for the new soffritto range of pasta sauces such as Basilico, Arrabbiata and Napoletana (the ‘soffritto’ technique is chopped onions sweating in the finest olive oil as slowly as possible to make a flavoursome base). 

Whom better than this strong, vocal, humorous and fatherly figure we see on TV – a household brand and a household celebrity chef hand in hand.

His hand shake is as steady as a rock, his presence and charisma locks you captive as he sets to inspire, teach and share the wealth of his knowledge and skill for making good food. He shouts, his voice is loud and his gestures make you listen and hear every word and every detail is an inspiration. Here is a man defined by his love, his passion, his talents in honour of good food and he is willing to represent jar sauces. Might you be cynical?

As a lazy so-and-so, I don’t always cook sauces from scratch for myself– because I don’t always have the time or the energy to after a hard day’s work. Before coming to this event, I am already a Bertolli consumer – its one of the tastier ones from the supermarket – I am already sold.

The Italians believe that great food makes life worth living but also don’t always want or need to cook from scratch every day. Therefore, many Italian households consume sauces from a jar such as Bertolli – because if a good sauce already exists – sometimes you just don’t want to go through the bother of cooking when you can be doing something else.

I wouldn’t believe for one second that manufacturers of these sauces would get away with selling such bad tasting sauces like the famous ones sold in the UK, that fill supermarket lanes because no one would buy them. Thank goodness for Bertolli, (Barilla & Agnesi).

It is amazing to think that some Italian guy, Francesco Bertolli, probably the same as Gennaro back in 1865 set up a small family stall selling olive oils, wine, cheese and olives. Did he imagine that generations after he had lived that so many homes of millions of families around the world would enjoy a range of what he started underneath his family home?

Our “cooking lesson” with Gennaro was just like watching him perform as he does so well on shows. He must have taste a pomodoro sauce a thousand times and over but it seems that every time he tastes his creation – its like it’s the first time. He bangs his spoon in delight and exclaims to God, “Oh! Its beautiful! Fantastic! Uhmmmmmmmm! God! I am good at cooking!"

Gennaro is possessed as he stands at his kitchen, creating magic – it is like he is in his element, his whole body language and expressions is deployed like poetry. We were all in awe. Don’t we just love these characters who are not afraid of expression. Who are so free about their passion and so high in spirits. He is a very funny man and to learn from him must be the greatest gift you can receive.

He is still working with Jamie Oliver and trains new chefs at ‘Jamie’s Italian.’ Gennaro also gives private cooking lessons at his home in North London – you can check it all out on his website: www.gennarocontaldo.com

At dinner we were lucky enough to sit next to him and his best mate, Paolo, a chef at Etrusca and they were both teaching us Italian signs like, your brains doesn’t work, you’re breaking my balls and so on. Heh! Gennaro was rolling out the jokes, “in Italian, its funny”. Cultures always love talking about their culture and of course we had some pasta, one with mackerel and one with beef and Bertolli sauce. It was really nice. And a delight to meet Paolo and Gennaro.