Re: Vinegar

I have a rapidly growing vinegar collection. I’ve always had a love of vinegar. As a child, I used to drink capfuls of it straight for the perverse pleasure of it. I always preferred salad dressing so bitter it was, in hindsight, horrid. By extension, I have always particularly liked acidic flavours, lime juice based anything is fine for me and there is nothing I like more than a dish with a strong lemon top note.

 

Lately however things seem to have taken a bit of a turn. I am finding it increasingly difficult to walk past a ritzy vinegar and find myself increasingly enthralled to the diversity of the stuff.

It started with a trip to the Lambeth Country Fair from where I bought a lovely balsamic that incorporated local honey. Sweeter than you would expect it pares beautifully with a solid neutral oil for a vinaigrette that lifts greens and incorporates well with seeds and nuts if added to a salad.

From the apple man at Oval farmers’ markets came a cider vinegar pressed at orchard. Sharp and boldly one note, this beauty totally lacks any complexity and tastes of nothing but apple. This one needs a bit of tlc, but a wonderfully sharp flavour is there. I’m very curious to try this in hollandaise and as the acid note in a mustard.

Cornercopia is part of the extraordinary rejuvenation of Brixton Village. As well as providing an exceptionally well priced and constantly evolving menu, they stock a seriously lovely collection of pantry products such as sauces, condiments and terrific cordials, On my recent trip to the village for Thursday night dinner (Etta’s this time).

I stopped in as I had a bit to wait for my table and noticed the range had grown pretty handsomely. For £3.75 I grabbed a vinegar made with Brixton sourced elderberry. For that price I was delighted, I’d have paid twice that for what has turned out to be a vinegar as at home with a braise as over fruit for desert. That is just bloody terrific isn’t it? How could I resist?

I admit, things don’t sound too dire with this list, but I know how these things usually wind up for me. A passing interest becomes a lingering curiosity becomes me sitting in a kitchen with 150 varieties and absolutely no desire for salad.

Light, Fresh and Pork

When I'm really suffering for my sins of a Saturday night, I need Vietnamese. The fresh flavours and abundant use of aromatics and vegetables is delicious, but also gives me a smug sense of virtue.

Sure, I'm having breakfast at 3:00pm as it's the earliest I could face the day after going to bed at probably 4 or 5am, it's a little hazy. Yeah and obviously it took neurofen, enough berrocca to turn my urine neon and about a billion espressos to get me to Camberwell. That I may throw up is an unexpected and unwelcome addition to my symptoms. All that is true, but goddamnit if I didn't eat some carrot, which is extremely nutritious.

Those cheery chappies above? They were my summer rolls. Delicate and fragrant. The prawn bringing with it a lovely chew with the crunch of the Viet mint. I adore ricepaper, you could wrap socks in it and I'd likely enjoy myself. A lovely small bite for the start of the meal.

For the main event, BBQ Pork noodle soup. There are some days that noodle soup is just what's happening, if it is what I crave, then absolutely nothing else will suffice. Oh happy this soup was as well! Lovely large pieces of well seasoned pork floating amongst spring onion and herbs. The broth was fantastically rich and deep. The noodles were still quite springy and delightful. Thankfully the owners of Viet Hin are starting to get used to my presence and understand that when I ask for extra chili, I mean a lot. Firey little additions to a sublimely well balanced dish.

All for under a tenner with tea (allowing me to add thrift to my growing list of virtues for the day) made me a very happy eater. Equilibrium restored.

Van Hing
42 Camberwell Church Street
London
SE5

Krispy Kreme

To celebrate a new job my recruiter sent two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to my office. In the last two days I have eaten eight doughnuts.

Considering how absolutely awful these things are, I'm not proud of that fact, but I would feel even more ashamed keeping this a secret.

Chocolate Pudding and Clotted Cream

My Monday night dinner of vegetable soup required pudding.

I can not stand Monday night, it's just nothing. It doesn't have that loathsome feeling of Sunday night that it's followed by Monday or that light anticipation of Thursday night, when I contest the weekend actually begins.

Monday night just happens, you watch some crap and then wake up and it's just that bloody workhorse of the week, Tuesday.

Monday night is always my excuse for eating something diabolically rich or getting favourite take away.

Last night was half a chocolate pudding and Cornish clotted cream from the Co-op. Yes I got a bit of indigestion and frankly a blood sugar crash before bed isn't that great, but totally worth it. 

I enjoyed every second of it with that satisfaction that only saying piss off to something that had it coming brings.

A vengeful pudding.

The Enduring Charm of Fairly Shit Chinese Food

I like to consider my tastes as fairly well developed through dedicated and adventurous eating. I couldn't tell you the last time I ate at a chain restaurant and I am rather fond of offal. Anthony Bourdain I am not but nor am I a supporter of Mister McDonald's work.


The one glaring oversight of my otherwise flawlessly pretentious tastes is an absolute weakness for shit Chinese food. I have never seen a prawn cracker I didn't want to eat and if you want to see something pretty impressive ask me to prove that I can eat half my weight in spring rolls. And no I don't mean the nice fragrant ones with the freshly shredded fillings and served with a nice vinegar. I mean the over fried ones about the size of my pinky filled with something that I presume is meat only as it is clearly not a vegetable. on the side I like that neon red sauce that tastes mainly of neon. Beef with, what's this? Blackbean sauce! Inspired.


Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I do appreciate that Chinese food in all of its complexity is a thing of joy and beauty resembling not at all the westernised sweet n' sour muck to which I am referring. I adore the fiery and numbing flavours of Szechuan cuisine and I thrill at the very mention of Xi'an noodles. 


I can mark on an atlas the provinces of my favourite Chinese dishes but the lure of such revered and time honoured dishes such as 'Spicy Chicken Wings' remain. 


I never crave soggy pizza or crappy pho, but for some reason that must emerge from the reptilian and uncritical part of my brain I have days which just have to involve chow mein.


I am a mystery to myself.