February 2024 Favourites list

Welcome to this month's Favourites list. 

The pictures for this month are from two favourite Turkish restaurants of mine. 

Turkuaz, in Catford, south east London, is an award winning restaurant, having been named 2023 Best Turkish restaurant in south east London by TURTA (if you knew the level of competition in this part of the capital, you'd understand this is quite an accolade!) and 2023 Best customer satisfaction award at the British Kebab Awards. 

Levante, in Lewisham, south east London is an informal restaurant/cafe which has been serving up great Turkish food for decades. It used to be a bit of a little secret. However, Jay Rayner recently found himself here, and wrote a glowing review, so the cat is well and truly out of the bag. Jay's review is here: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/feb/04/levante-london-a-very-happy-find-restaurant-review

I hope that this month's list provides something for everyone. Please do let me know what you think of this month's selections!

Food articles

This is wonderful. Sushi art by Tama-chan. Scroll through all of them. They're almost too cute to imagine eating them! https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/jan/27/takayo-kiyota-tama-chan-sushi-edible-art-van-gogh-picasso-frida-kahlo

Aubergine in sauce - Patlican soslu, Levante

Fascinating long read by food writer Jonathan Nunn of Vittles and Eater fame: how Nicholas Saunders changed the way Britain eats and deserves far more recognition: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/23/nicholas-saunders-forgotten-genius-changed-british-food

The Michelin star list for the UK for 2024: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/michelin-index/michelin-guide-results-2024

Grumpy food writing at its best – a rant against QR codes instead of proper menus: https://thewalrus.ca/qr-code-restaurant-menu

Kiymali Peynirli Pide - meat and cheese Turkish pizza, Levante

 

How Britain fell in love with Chinese food: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/features/how-britain-fell-in-love-with-chinese-food

Where chefs go for a bite to eat in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/21/where-chefs-go-to-grab-a-bite-great-pizza-sushi-cafes-and-value-for-money-meals-across-the-uk

Kitchen know how and cooking tips

Herbs are aromatic and flavour delivering heroes – here are some storage and cooking tips for using these green treasures: https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/food-drink/food-heroes/8-questions-about-herbs-answered

Most people boil them or fry them – but baked eggs are underrated (perhaps because I don’t like them thoroughly cooked): https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-make-baked-eggs-any-way-you-like

In the past I have shared my recipe for Chinese style chicken and sweetcorn soup with egg (aka Egg flower soup), here’s a cooking hack to make the egg flowers even more delicate: https://www.foodrepublic.com/1507984/how-to-make-egg-ribbons-in-soup-cornstarch-slurry/

(My recipe can be found here: https://snigskitchen.blogspot.com/2021/03/chicken-and-sweetcorn-soup-with-egg.html)

I bought a jar of preserved lemons from the Turkish grocery shop, and now I need to know what to do with them! https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-are-preserved-lemons

Acili ezme (chilli paste dip), hummus and bread - Turkuaz

Recipes

Cold Sesame Noodles or Liang Mian, a Taiwanese cold noodle salad recipe from Clarissa Wei’s new book “Made In Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation (A Cookbook)” as featured at Kavey’s blog, Kavey Eats: https://www.kaveyeats.com/taiwanese-cold-sesame-noodles

Fiona Maclean’s recipe for Truffled potato soup – for Valentines day eating in: https://www.london-unattached.com/truffled-potato-soup/

Ravinder Bhogal shares her recipes made from tinned ingredients including a chickpea chaat masala with nachos, anchovy-flavoured cheesy, peppery pasta and, for dessert, a hassle-free no-churn coffee and chocolate ice-cream: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/24/cooking-with-tinned-food-recipes-ravinder-bhogal-nachos-pasta-ice-cream

Lahmacun - Turkish flatbread with mince, Levante

 

What you might have missed at Snig’s Kitchen

My review of Sushi Revolution in Brixton, south London: https://snigskitchen.blogspot.com/2024/02/sushi-revolution-brixton-restaurant.html

Rick Stein's Greek style rice pilaf. Recipe for 2: https://www.tumblr.com/snigskitchen/741067066741800961/rick-steins-greek-style-rice-pilaf-i-made-ricks

My other writing

How to use case law in civil procedural submission advocacy work (guidance for Bar course students and those learning civil advocacy): https://snigsclassroom.blogspot.com/2024/02/using-case-law-in-civil-advocacy.html

Lamb guvec, salad and rice - Levante

Film

The Kitchen    

Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya’s co-directed film imagines a London of the near future which only has one remaining area of social housing; “The Kitchen”. Everywhere else has been socially cleansed. Kids are recruited into committing scooter robberies for peanuts, risking imprisonment, while those in charge remain safe and distant. Police brutality is rife. Into this hard environment, Izi meets Benji and a unique relationship is built. With a revelation of a cameo by Ian Wright (yes, the football pundit and legendary former football player), this is a film which explores gentrification, poverty, life and death.

Available on Netflix.

Please note: as with every monthly Favourites List, all of these items have been selected by me simply because I love them. I do not receive any money, benefits in kind or other incentive for posting these links or recommendations