Paladium, promethium, potassium, polonium

[venta]

When I was little, conversations about Easter eggs tended to happen in our house around August. They tended to start with the mother demanding whether I was ever going to get round to eating them, or whether she should throw them out[*]. As a result, the parents habitually give me a present at Easter rather than an actual egg. It is, of course, still referred to as an Easter egg. This year my Easter egg was a cookbook.

I noticed a month or two ago that Itsu had produced a cookbook, and requested it for Easter.

I've commented before that, while I'm not fussed about eating vegetarian, I do like vegetabley food. Which is quite different. Often vegetarian options when eating out appear to be made entirely out of cheese and soya, and contain no actual identifiable vegetables. Carnivorous options are frequently devoid of any veg at all.

So I'm delighted that Itsu, started by some of the people who started Pret, has become popular in London. They do sushi and salads, and that sort of thing, but they also do extremely tasty hot noodle and rice dishes that are quite-to-very vegetabley. (Although, due to their habit of putting fish sauce in everything, they actually aren't that great for vegetarians.) Itsu's philosophy is all about being healthy, and low-calorie, and low-cholesterol, which I regard as side effects. I'm in it for the vegetables.

I collected my new cookbook a while back, and took it home and had a read-through (while eating huge bowl of cheese and bacon pasta, and drinking a glass of wine, because I find irony makes everything so much more enjoyable).

I'm actually quite pro this cookbook, but I have some niggles about it, so let's get them out of the way:

According to the cookbook, all the dishes can be made in under 30 minutes. It's probably true; though they have a nasty habit of including the output of recipe A as an ingredient in recipe B. (This is perfectly sensible, really, especially if lots of recipes use A. I just find it irrationally annoying.)

Some of the dishes require exotic ingredients (like the tamarind paste I was questing for in a recent LJ post), though there is a list and suggested stockists at the end of the book. Having tracked some lime leaves down in Waitrose, I think I'm now up to speed on all the storecupboard extras I'm going to need.

The problem with many of the recipes is also the reason I like them. They have a huge variety of ingredients. In theory, the dish I kicked off making should have had 25g (per person) of this vegetable, and that vegetable, and the other vegetable... It didn't, of course, it had a few purpose bought and the rest supplemented with things I found in the fridge. I'm sure the recipes make sense when cooking in restaurant quantity, but for home use the piddling small quantities get annoying. 4 tbsp of coconut milk is all very well, but what do you do with the rest of the tin? (Answer: freeze it. I'll let you know how that goes.)

So, armed with my tamarind sauce and all the rest, I made up a quantity of "ithai sauce", the Thai-style sauce that shows up in a lot of Itsu's dishes. And I cooked something that, stripped of the hyperbolic text, is rice[**], grilled chicken, steamed veg, and spicy sauce. It looked a bit like this:



(You can just about see my rather off-message glass of sparkling sake in the background. I remain unconvinced about sparkling sake, it was incredibly sweet. Maybe that will teach me not to by things in very pink bottles when I can't read the label.)

Rather cheekily, the book also includes a recipe with a completely different name which under close examination is revealed to be the same thing, but without the chicken.

I feel I'm not really selling this recipe book :) But the worth (to me) is in the details of the sauces, and the soup bases. Things that change a dish from "heap of chicken and veg" into an actual thing, and that can be hard to get right. There are interesting salad dressings, and dips, and many other things than I'm looking forward to trying. In fairness, the things I've cooked so far have all been pretty speedy - armed with a tub of "dynamite broth" I'd made and shoved in the fridge, we went from a standing start to soupy noodles for two in about seven minutes.

I had been hoping to begin experimenting with the book's light, summery meals but as you might have noticed it's grey, cold and dank out there. Probably my fault too, I bought two pairs of summer trousers at the weekend and it's pretty much been hoying it down ever since.

[*] I have improved. Due to an unexpected raffle win, my parents also furnished us with a Quality Street chocolate egg this year, and ChrisC and I had tidied it away nicely by the end of Easter Monday.

[**] Should have been brown; didn't have any. Red rice filled the gap.

Comments

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I confess to being both curious and doubtful about sparkling sake, too. I've not only never tried any, I wasn't even aware it existed untli this post, so you have added to my knowledge of that. And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

[venta.livejournal.com]

One stripey kudo to you, sir.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I can only assume that for some reason no-one had read LJ in the intervening hours, since I refuse to accept that either of us knows anyone unfamiliar with the song :)

[lnr]

I have indeed been not here. But am enjoying the earworm.

I hear you on the vegetably food - more food should have more veg!

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Anyone not familiar with Tom Lehrer? Your choc eggs always came from the Godmother, I think this year's from us was a first and, as you say, we won it in a raffle.

[shermarama]

That sounds a lot like my favourite approach to food; heavy on the veg, with integrating flavours/starchy staple/meat added as seems suitable. I've been trying out more Vietnamese food recently as seeming to fit well with this approach, but I do know what you mean about the trouble with so many ingredients. I have found that the more I make this chicken satay recipe though, the quicker and quicker I find I get at it, to the point where I find myself scanning up and down the list thinking I must have missed something out to be done that quickly.

(Though right now I'm going home to cook a big dish of cheese and bacon pasta myself. Cold, tired and fed up of being made to drive in rush hour traffic = carbonara o'clock.)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Looks very edible; also I like red rice in dishes. I've never tried Itsu, it sounds like I should.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Fancy lunch, then? There's one just around the corner :)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a plan!

[ceb.livejournal.com]

That looks massively tasty.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

I totally share your frustration with lack of Actual Vegetables in anything you get served eating out, veggie or otherwise; (and your love of Tom Lehrer, obvs)