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| Photo Credit - Colin Hampden-White |
The book is subdivided into Meat, Fish & Seafood, Veggie, Dough & Pastry, Sauces Seasonings & Preserves and finally Sweet Things & Drinks. All corners of the world are represented. Turkey, Spain, Thailand, Korea, Italy, Romania, India, Madagascar, China, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Vietnam and more. My mouth watered as I flicked through its stylish square pages with Photographs by
Colin Hampden-White and Illustrations by
Katherine Van Uytrecht. Despite the world food element there really aren't too many weird and wonderful ingredients that would be difficult to track down. Some recipes which immediately grabbed me and I've bookmarked to try at a later date include
Ramen Burgers (Pimp My Ramen) - these sound both delicious and eccentric. Instead of burger buns they use fried patties of noodles which are golden and crispy on the outside and soft and noodly in the middle.
Macaroni Cheese (Pig Dogs & Brisket) not just any old mac and cheese but topped with an amazing sweet, spicy topping ingeniously made of crumbled bacon and breadcrumbs.
Chicken Kofte Meatballs (Victus & Bibo) robust and zesty flavours in a delicious Turkish meatball
Sorbetta alla Pesco (BlackVanilla) a peach sorbet that's guaranteed to make a killer Bellini. Put a scoop in your glass and top up with Champagne
The Burrito Pabellon recipe from Latin American stall Munchies sounded like exactly my kind of street food. I jumped at the chance to recreate it when it appeared on the virtual street food market recipe list for PR use. The only slightly off piste ingredient that I needed to track down was Plantain which a trip to a fab international food supermarket secured. Never one to make a recipe exactly as written I cooked my Pabellon in the slow cooker which worked really well. 6 hours later it was time to prep my Burritos. Although I'd eaten plantain before I'd never cooked it myself. First battle was to peel it. Doing it banana style doesn't work! I asked my blogging friend Bintu at
Recipes from a Pantry for advice as they are one of her favourite foods. "Make a slice in the skin from top to bottom i.e. all along one side of it and just touching the plantain. Then simply just peel back the skin along its length." I'll know for next time! Do also check out her guide as to how to cook
Black Eyed Beans. I totally forgot to add the oregano to my black beans and used feta for the salty white cheese, not sure how authentic that was. Our hot sauce of choice was Sriracha. When it came to rolling our burritos the top tip is definitely 'less is more'. Being generous with the filling only ends in disaster. Big thumbs up all round in terms of the overall taste and a wonderful combination of textures and flavours. Street food at its best.
Burrito Pabellon
Serves 4–6
recipie by Munchies reproduced with permission of Kitchen Press
Pabellon is a dish eaten in a few different Latin American countries (including Venezuela, where Munchies’ very own Emmanuel hails from) consisting of slow cooked shredded beef, rice, black beans, avocado and plantain. This is one of the star dishes at their Greenwich stall: they serve the pabellon inside a burrito so that folk can walk around the market while enjoying it. It is perfect street food! Make sure you take advantage of their truly incredibly selection of hot sauces while you’re there – some do actually make your eyes water, but they have some gentler ones on offer too.
For the beef
· 500g topside beef, cut into 4cm pieces
· 2 small onions, finely sliced
· 2 small green peppers, roughly chopped
· 2 beef tomatoes, roughly chopped
· 2 tablespoons tomato puree
· 3 teaspoons cumin powder
· 4 teaspoons capers
· splash of vinegar
· splash of olive oil
· handful of coriander, chopped
· salt
For the burritos
· 200g white rice
· 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
· 2 teaspoon olive oil
· 400g tin black beans, drained
· 1 teaspoon dried oregano (Mexican if available)
· 1 large plantain
· 4 large corn or flour tortillas
· 1 lettuce, shredded
· 100g salty white cheese, crumbled
· 1 avocado, thinly sliced
· hot sauce (optional)
You’ll need to start on the beef well in advance. Put the beef, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, tomato puree, cumin, capers, vinegar and olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the chopped coriander and a pinch of salt, then pour in 200ml of water. Bring to the boil, then immediately turn down the heat and simmer for 6 hours, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Once cooked, the meat will be rich in taste and should fall apart easily. Drain any liquid from the pan, then shred the beef with two forks.
When the beef is nearly done, get on with the other burrito fillings. Cook the rice in salted water. While it is cooking, gently toast the cumin seeds in a teaspoon of olive oil in a small frying pan, then stir them into the cooked and drained rice. Gently warm the black beans along with some Mexican oregano and a pinch of salt. Peel the plantain, and cut into four lengthwise. Fry the strips in a teaspoon of olive oil until they are golden brown.
Set your grill to its highest setting. Lay out the tortillas and put all of the fillings in a line along the centre, being careful not to overfill as this will make them difficult to roll. As a rule of thumb, cover no more than a third of the surface of the tortilla. Hungry Payaso usually put the following in each one: 3 tablespoons of rice, a small handful of lettuce, 4 tablespoons of shredded beef, a small handful of crumbled cheese, a tablespoon of black beans, three slices of avocado, one strip of plantain, and a few drops of hot sauce (Valentina Muy Picante is their favourite). Now roll your burrito. Assuming the line of ingredients goes from left to right, fold over the left and right edges of the tortilla towards the centre. Pick up the edge closest to you, and tuck it over the filling, then roll up as tightly as possible so you have a neat little package with no filling leaking out.
Put the burritos on a baking tray under the grill for 6–7 minutes, then serve. If you want to eat them on the go, wrap them in foil to prevent them from falling apart as you eat them.
The Greenwich Market Cookbook is on sale from all good bookshops from March 2016, and available to pre-order now from
Kitchen Press. For those like me who are local to Aberdeen it will be available to purchase from
Hammerton Store. rrp £15.99
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Disclosure: This is a commissioned post for Kitchen Press. As always, all views expressed are my own.
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