Bibimbap House, Cambridge

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Pork Bulgogi Bibimbap (£9.50)

When I wrote about going to Little Seoul a while back, I had incorrectly thought that it was the only Korean restaurant in Cambridge. In fact, there's another restaurant on Mill Rd with an interesting approach to Korean food...

N and I decided to pay Bibimbap house a visit for lunch recently, and were pleasantly surprised to find only one kind of item on the menu - Bibimbap! (not surprisingly) In some way, I almost prefer a restaurant that does not offer many options because it means they have confidence in whatever it is they specialise in serving.

Bibimbap House only do 7 different kinds of bibimbap, from your standard bulgogi bibimbap to japchae bibimbap and even the infamous ham (read: spam) and kimchi bibimbap.

We order the regular bulgogi bibimbap and the pork bulgogi bibimbap which both come as a nice set with miso soup and two of my much beloved sides. Unfortunately, they weren't my favourite sides - a mash potato salad and some vegetables - I'd much prefer some kimchi, or those fish cakes, or the jelly things, or those marinated potatoes... yum yum. I should probably learn their names.

The bibimbap itself was tasty and sizzling hot, full of gochujang goodness, although the rather large looking bowl was actually deceptively shallow. I very much liked the two bulgogi types, more watery than I'm used to at other Korean restaurants and not so sickeningly sweet, which made it better than usual!

And to top it all off, (presumably) the son of one of the chefs was at the table next to us, wolfing down a meal himself whilst playing his DS.

Yes, I like this place.

Bibimbap House
60 Mill Road, Cambridge, CB1 2AS
01223 506800

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Simple Doughnut Balls!

Hi I'm Francis, the host of this show, "Cooking with Dog".

It's not what you think.

Today, we are going to prepare simple "doughnut holes" following a youtube recipe from Francis.

Sift 100 g of plain flour and 2 tsp of baking powder into a bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 egg, 2 tbsp brown sugar, roughly 1/4 cup milk and 1 tbsp melted butter. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix to form a batter.

The milk/flour ratio is important - you can adjust it so the batter is liquid enough to be mixable, but not runny.

(I tried this once with the 2 tbsp milk in the original recipe and ended up with what looked like dry chicken nuggets...)

Heat oil to 170 deg C. Drop a little bit of batter into the oil - it is the right temperature if it bubbles but not too vigorously. When ready, take a half spoonful of batter and scrape it into the oil to form small balls.

A little misshapen sometmies - the batter was slightly too runny.

Once the dough balls have grown in size and are browned on the outside (a few minutes), leave them to cool on a rack.

These doughnut balls are delicious when still warm and crisp on the outside. Eat as many as you like at this stage - they taste surprisingly like those asian fried dough things "haam jim beng???" (咸煎饼) or even "you tiao".

Once cooled completely, place them in a plastic bag and shake together with your desired coating (sugar, cinnamon, matcha etc.)

Identify the magazines for 10 points.

Serve with your favourite ice-cream!

Matcha doughnuts with black sesame ice-cream.

For a black sesame ice-cream recipe, it was basically the same as my green tea ice cream recipe, except with ground toasted black sesame seeds.

Trinity BA Feast, Michaelmas 2011

Good old Harry has his Christmas pants trousers on this evening...

BA Feast - the highlight of the Trinity culinary term. Five courses, sparkling cocktails in the Master's Lodge, ample wine, £22. Really £22??? 

I've always been sceptical about the cost of BA Feast, given that a normal Trinity BA formal costs £8.25. Does the food quality and overall experience really justify a more than doubling in the price? At my first ever BA feast, I decided to find out for myself.

Trinity College engraved knives... I'd seen the TCK silver cutlery, but this was new to me.

Starting with a collection of prosecco-based cocktails in the Master's Lodge was not a bad start at all - bucks fizz, bellinis and kir royale all went down well (bar a rather major scheduling error, ahem).

Fennel veloute (amuse bouche)

Upon arriving in hall, first off the bat was the amuse bouche of fennel veloute, served in (my favourite) charming little blue and gold Trinity coffee cups. Whilst there were claims of "this just tastes like chicken" from some, the soup was a very warm welcome opener after braving the cold Cambridge winter weather outside. Quite mild, very light on the fennel to be honest, but definitely pleasant and almost reassuring.

Tuna carpaccio

The starter was a tuna carpaccio - startingly large, beautifully thin pink slices layered on the plate topped with a Trinity's standard leafy garnish thing. I don't think this is standard for carpaccio, but the tuna was lightly seared at the edges with a herb/salt/pepper crust which worked really well. I was expecting more lemon and oil marinade, but actually the fish on it's own was great quality and best enjoyed as is! A rarity for Cambridge...

Beef wellington ; Honeyed baby carrots, roast kumara, green beans

For main course was beef wellington, which I've actually never had before. The meat was tender enough, perhaps slightly too well done, although with differing degrees of cooked-ness, depending on which cut you got. Still pretty delicious, although from all reports, it was more tender last year and with a more significant layer of pâté.

Molten chocolate souffle with strawberries and whipped cream

Inspired by the Shok's doppleganger, I decided to put molten chocolate souffle on the menu for dessert! Nitpicking slightly, the centre could have been even more molten, but I think the kitchens did a great job here, especially having to make 110 of these in one sitting.

After a special request to the Catering department, we managed to get a pretty nice selection for the cheese course. Of special note was the Saint-Marcellin cheese which was very mild but had a beautifully creamy texture almost like goats cheese. General consensus was that the black cheese platters were most impressive!

And to finish, coffee and chocolate truffles - definitely beats the regular chocolate mints they provide at regular formals.

Wow. Whilst the regular BA formals strike me as better value for money, the feast was definitely worth the money we paid for it. One major contributing factor was the atmosphere of the dinner - with a significantly lower number of people (110 vs 190), it really felt far more comfortable and relaxed, with no rush or competition for food and wine.

Definitely a great night, and still a little tipsy whilst writing this!

SMBC Season 1 Finale - Homemade Pasta

All good things must come to an end.

Move aside Epic Meal Time, this has to be the most epic video of pasta making you've ever seen.

This is SMBC time and we're making pasta from scratch. The Shok's bringing along a few of his mates and we're going to rock Blue Boar R top floor kitchen with some serious dough rolling. Wholemeal style.

There are no bacon strips in here.

Starting with 800 g strong flour (high protein content for pasta), 8 eggs and salt, we smash it all together into a proper dough. Easy as pie. Or pasta. PC can't find regular pasta flour so he goes for strong wholemeal flour instead. It's good for you.

Homage to Xinmei at Pudding Pie Lane

We're rolling Rick Astley style because we're students and never gonna give up. Who needs a rolling pin when you have empty wine bottles? In Cambridge, there are always empty wine bottles. And empty port bottles. And empty sherry bottles. And empty gin bottles. But gin bottles aren't cylindrical, and so would be bad for rolling dough.

When the wine bottle is useless, we throw it out the window. Defenestration is the only way to dispose of wine bottles. Then the dough goes through our brand spanking new pasta roller, increasing the settings until it's the right thickness.

Then we cut the dough like a boss. Are we finished? Think again. We cut the dough once more, this time with the pasta roller. Like a boss.

This is pasta madness.

It only takes a few minutes to boil as fresh pasta cooks quicker than the dry stuff. In the mean time, we blitz a ton of basil, extra virgin olive oil, parmesan, pine nuts and garlic into submission for a smooth pesto. We also heat through some passata for extra variety.

But wait, I bet you didn't see this coming.

It's the motherquacking Italian flag... buon appetito.

Next time on Epic SMBC, we roast a pig on a bonfire.

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If you were wondering why there hasn't been an SMBC in quite a while, it's because with the new academic year, the three of us (PC, Hangman and The Shok) have moved into separate housing...! OK so it's only like 3 minutes walk between all of us. We'll do something again soon!

Petrou Brothers, Cambridge

You can't get more British than a dreary grey sky and a plate of fish and chips.

The thing I never understood about fish and chips is why this dish is so strongly associated with British food. There's nothing about it that strikes me as particularly British.

On a similar note (that The Fastest Food Blogger also noted recently), it strikes me as unusual that Cambridge should have at least two dedicated fish and chip shops, yet it is so difficult to buy good fresh seafood for cooking...

Anyhow thanks to a tip from LL Cool J, n∈R and I decided to head to the mall outside the Grafton to lunch at a fish and chippie called Petrou Brothers. What were we there for?

Oh yes. When LL mentioned last week that you could get a "mini" (read: maxi) fish and chip meal for around £3, this was an opportunity that could not be passed up.

Objects in photo may appear smaller than actual size.

Maxi alright, he wasn't kidding. Out comes a rather generous portion of fish and chips, slopped with a pretty damn huge ladle of mushy peas.

The fish was actually pretty well fried, with a good crunch and not at all sogged with oil. I have to say I wasn't the biggest fan of the chips - they were quite good for British fish and chip standards I think, but still there was less golden crunch and more of a hardened skin to the outside of them, needing quite a bit of salt & vinegaring. (I miss Uni Bros chips for any usyd people out there. Mmm chicken salt.) Mushy peas are mushy peas ie. tasteless green volume that counts as one of your "5-a-day".

Verdict? Pretty tasty fish, reasonable chips, um yeah peas, and a bloody good price.

Petrou Brothers
12 Burleigh St
Cambridge CB1 1DG
http://www.petroubrothersfishandchips.co.uk/

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Lemon and Blueberry Cake

My goodness it's been far too long since I did this blogging thing. Life is busy etc, you all know how it is. Just a fantastic little recipe I found at Joy of Baking which I whipped together (literally) at 12am today, since I had two spare lemons and Wednesday is Problem Session day (aka Cake day) in our research group.

Despite not having a bread-loaf tin, I have a cake tin of the same volume as described in the recipe, except far flatter and wider... still came out lemony and delicious! Joy of Baking is amazing. (It's like the Organic Syntheses of the baking world)

Protip: I made extra of the lemon glaze - strangely delicious on vanilla ice-cream

Ingredients:
Cake Batter:
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 cup (120 ml) milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Lemon Glaze:
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Recipe:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place the oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter (or spray with a non stick vegetable spray) the bottom and sides of a loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3 inch) (23 x 13 x 8 cm).   In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until softened (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three additions) and milk (in two additions) alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Mix only until combined. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 55 to 65 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring the 1/4 cup (50 grams) of sugar and the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.  When the bread is done, remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Pierce the hot loaf all over with a wooden skewer or toothpick and then brush the top of the loaf with the hot lemon glaze. Cool the loaf in the pan for about 30 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

This bread is best served on the day it is made.

SMBC #7 - Homemade Pizza

After the ridiculous excesses of our previous SMBC, M&M decided that it would be a fantastic idea if we all made him pizza all made pizza together from scratch. As our usual kitchen didn't have an oven, we packed our things and headed to the communal BA kitchen to bake up a storm.

Going on a recipe from PC's mum, the pizza dough was made by mixing:
- 600 g flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup lukewarm water
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 sachet of dried yeast (or cube of fresh yeast if available)
- salt

Disclaimer: PC says this isn't the traditional Italian recipe for pizza dough - the real thing has a specific type of flour and no milk... apparently you can google it.

Once the dough has risen, it can be rolled out and shaped to your hearts desire.

We tried two different methods after this:
- either baking the bases first, then adding the toppings and rebaking, or
- adding the toppings to the raw bases and baking all at once
The first resulted in a crispier lighter base, but the second is easier, so I can't recommend one over the other.

Baking the pizzas bases first really makes them puff up, almost like lebanese pita bread.

The tomato sauce was simply a mix of tinned tomatoes, lots of garlic, rosemary, oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Our collection of toppings included traditional ingredients like mozarella, basil, olives, red onion and peppers capsicum, as well as some less typical ingredients such as tuna, feta cheese and (heaven forbid) sweet corn.

Baked until brown, then best eaten immediately! Few things are better than melted mozzarella straight from the oven...

Here are some mugshots from the pizza gallery:

The old favourite, the margerhita.

A few more toppings: olives, zucchini, capsicum, red onion, capers.

Tuna. Is that weird?

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We haven't had an SMBC post in ages - we actually did this quite a while ago, plus one other thing that I'm going to post up next in a back-to-back of SMBC posts! And this next one is going to be the last SMBC for the academic year 2010-2011, so don't miss it! (especially the awesome video in the next one, courtesy of M&M...)

Munchin' in München (Part 3)

"Why are most of your holiday photos just food?" - a complaint I commonly receive.

Leberkässemmel at the Viktualien markets - contains neither liver (leber) nor cheese (käse) - Germans really know how to make meat products taste good.

Roast pork from Hofbräuhaus - so tender with really crunchy crackling.

Sausages from Hofbräuhaus with sauerkraut and mustard.

Hofbräu Original Helles (left) and Weißbier (right).

The beautiful Schloss Nymphenburg where we ate...

...far too much cream in this mutant oversized profiterole thing.

Delicious pork knuckle at Bachmaier Hofbräu - a little overpriced. Beware the heaviness of potato dumplings. So good, yet so filling.

Goulash with buttered spätzle at Gasthaus zum Erdinger Weißbräu - hearty and full of flavour.

Watching Bayern Munich tear Villareal apart at Atzinger near Universität...

So they're just wedges, but with quark! Great substitute for sour cream.

Ratatouille! A welcome relief from the meat overload that is Bavaria.

Kaiserschmarrn with apple sauce - oh my goodness, this was heavenly, especially the ovened-top-bits.

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So ends the posts about Munich - we'll return to normal programming next time!