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EAT DRINK TALK NEWSLETTER: YUM - November 10, 2006 Highlights: EDT featured in article on London's Top Cookery Courses! Featured Ingredient: Vanilla Pods Recipe: Salad of Red Grapes, Feta, Rosemary and Pumpkin Seeds Recipe: Grapefruit and Thai Basil Bellinis Salone del Gusto: Meeting with Musa Dagdeviren Phyllo Pastry Revival EDT restaurant reviews for London Eating EDT featured in article on London's Top Cookery Courses! We've been featured in an article in Time Out this week on London's Best Cookery Courses. If you haven't come to one of our classes yet, sign up for one of our November or December classes for what many of our students have called 'a fun and enjoyable evening with great food'. Just some of the new classes we are offering include: Cooking with Seafood,
Singapore Chili Crab, and The Art of a Cheese Course.
Featured Ingredient: Vanilla Pods 
I recently received a care package from my best friend who is currently traveling across Africa containing 50 vanilla pods from Zanzibar. The main difference between Africa vanilla pods and those produced in Central America is that those produced in Africa are steamed and left to ferment for a period, giving them their characteristic, bourbon aroma. What to do with such a surplus of vanilla pods? These are my own suggestions but I'd love to receive further ideas by email! -Put a vanilla pod into a bottle of vodka and leave in a cool, dry place for about 3 weeks. The vanilla flavour will infuse into the vodka and give you a delicious base for cocktails. This makes for a great Caipiroska! -Place a vanilla pod in a carton of eggs that you plan to use for something sweet. The porous eggs shells will allow the vanilla scent to permeate the eggs giving you a delicate vanilla flavour in the eggs. This is great for a custard or meringues. This technique also works with fresh truffles! -Scrape the vanilla seeds into a mixture of 3 parts water to sugar and create a light sugar syrup to poach fruit in. This works great with quinces, mangoes, plums and fresh berries. -Saute some shallots in butter, add some heavy cream, white wine and the seeds of a vanilla pod to make a delicate but delicious sauce for lobster, scallops or monkfish. -Gently warm up some olive oil and add the seeds of a vanilla pod to make a really interesting base for a salad dressing. Just add a splash of aged balsamic vinegar and toss with some baby greens,
parma ham and avocado slices.
Recipe: Salad of Red Grapes, Feta, Rosemary and Pumpkin Seeds This is a really delicious way to make the most of the abundance of grapes available at the moment. The combination of the sweet grapes, the salty feta and the rosemary might seem unusual but it really should be tried. Its especially delicious if the pumpkin seeds are still warm when you assemble the salads. Makes enough for 4 starters Salad: Dressing:
Instructions
Wash the grapes well and dry on paper towels. Slice the grapes in half and divide them on 4 plates.
Toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan over medium-low heat for 4-5 minutes or until they smell toasty and fragrant.
Crumble the feta on top of each plate of grapes and scatter with the rosemary.
Make the dressing by whisking the oil and balsamic together and drizzle over each plate. Scatter the pumpkin seeds over top and finish with a few gratings of black pepper.
Recipe: Grapefruit and Thai Basil Bellinis This is a delicious and elegant cocktail that is sure to impress your guests at your next dinner party. Once made, the sugar syrup will keep for several weeks in the fridge enabling you to get an easy after-work cocktail fix with minimal effort!
Ingredients: Grapefruit-Basil Syrup:
Instructions
To make the grapefruit-basil syrup, place the sugar in a sauce pan and add the basil and grapefruit juice.
Bring the juice-sugar mixture to the boil and then simmer gently for 20 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool.
In a champagne glass, pour a good drizzle of the syrup into the bottom of the glass and fill with the prosecco. Give a gentle stir and serve.
Salone del Gusto: Meeting with Musa Dagdeviren 
I attended the Slow Food Salone del Gusto conference in Turin at the end of October and the highlight of my trip was meeting Turkish chef Musa Dagdeviren. He patiently explained the recipe for the classic Ottoman dessert of Burnt Milk Pudding with Chicken Breasts to me, while I furiously scribbled notes. (Apparently the secret lies in using a young, virgin hen which hasn't laid any eggs yet.) Places are still available on our upcoming 'Contemporary Turkish Cuisine' class for anyone interested in learning more about Turkish food. Musa is renowned in Turkey as a 'culinary anthropologist' due to his extensive work in travelling across small villages in Turkey and eating with families and recording their recipes. His restaurant Ciya in Istanbul is full of jars of homemade pickled walnuts, chunks of pumpkin and quince in syrup and serves rural Turkish home cooking including many of the 'forgotten dishes' which he is actively resurrecting through his work and travels. It is a must for anyone visiting Istanbul. Ciya Phyllo Pastry Revival! 
Our students been making lots of pastries and strudels using homemade phyllo pastry in our classes recently and everyone seems to just love the experience of working with it. I'd really encourage anyone to try out our recipe for phyllo pastry and make it yourself at home. Its unbelievably simple and a great way to get friends involved in helping to make dinner. Don't Miss: EDT restaurant reviews for London Eating We've been asked to do write some restaurant reviews for the popular London restaurant website: London Eating. Keep an eye out for our reviews of the latest and greatest eating spots to open across the capital. Contact Me Questions or comments about anything in this newsletter? Email me at: jennifer@eatdrinktalk.co.uk with any suggestions, thoughts or questions. Deliciously, Jennifer Klinec |
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