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We believe that the whole experience of reading about food and cooking should be as pleasurable and inspiring as eating it, and we want to help promote the people and places doing that best.
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Eat Bike Cook – Sweet Potato Falafels & Tahini Dressing Recipe
Although you may have to make a pitstop to eat them, these falafels taken from a recipe in the up and coming Eat Bike Cook by Kitty Pemberton-Platt and Fi Buchanan are perfect for a cycling lunch, or any other kind of lunch.
This Eat Bike Cook recipe was inspired by the food diary of Sophie Edmondson (a member of the wonderful The 5th Floor Cycling Collective) while taking part in the 200km off-road race the Sussex Mystery Tour and fully illustrated by Kitty for the book.
These falafels are so satisfying without being heavy, and the lemon zest and coriander give them an enjoyable freshness. This recipe also makes more than you need for one pitta so make a batch and then freeze them.
Serves 4
Ingredients for the Eat Bike Cook sweet potato falafels:
About 2 medium sweet potatoes (500g baked flesh)
50g gram flour (chickpea flour)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp sea salt
handful of coriander, finely chopped
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
50ml olive oil
20g sesame seeds
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 C/180 C fan. Place the sweet potatoes on the top shelf of the oven and bake for approximately 50 minutes, until soft. When cool enough to handle, cut the sweet potatoes in half, scoop out the flesh and discard the skins.
Mash the cooked sweet potato in a large bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients, except for the olive oil. Using the two tablespoons, arrange 12 evenly sized balls of the mixture on a baking tray and sprinkle the sesame seeds over them. Drizzle the rest of the olive oil over the falafels and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the seeds are brown and the exterior of the falafels is crispy.
Ingredients for the tahini dressing:
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
100g tahini
pinch of salt
pinch of cumin
Method:
To make the tahini dressing, put all the ingredients in a medium bowl along with 6 tablespoons water and whisk well until combined. Serve three falafels in a warmed pitta bread or tortilla wrap, with salad leaves, tomato and cucumber slices and a drizzle of tahini dressing.
To serve:
4 pittas or wraps
4 handfuls of salad leaves
2 vine tomatoes, sliced
1/4 cucumber, sliced
Wrap tightly in greaseproof paper and/or tin foil.
Then enjoy them on the road!
Eat Bike Cook can be pre-ordered here.
Summer Of Salads – The Parlour Panzanella Recipe
The time for summer salads is here.
We at KP are looking forward to a long and glorious summer ahead with plenty more opportunities to spend time with friends and family, and of course to cook and eat together again.
For us summer means salads. Fresh, exciting and healthy options often direct from the garden or from local producers. It’s the actual taste of sunshine.
When we think of salads of course we think of Gillian Veal of The Parlour Cafe. Gillian helped define and map our journey into cookbooks way back with our first publication – The Parlour Cafe Cookbook.
Throughout the lockdowns of the last year Gillian continued to express her love of good food and fresh produce through her home delivery Mezze menus which were highly popular and universally well received.
Gillian continues to dedicate a lot of her time to the cafe she runs at Cambo Gardens in Fife, where the focus is on taking fresh, seasonal ingredients direct from the estate’s wonderful gardens and delivering it onto the plate.
We are so excited to be working with Gillian and the team at Gambo Gardens on an amazing new cookbook project about this food journey and this highly creative and organic approach to cooking.
Meanwhile, we thought we would throwback to an inspirational seasonal salad recipe from Gillian’s first book The Parlour Panzanella (Bread Salad) just to whet your appetite for the new book to come and to inspire you on your own personal journey into summer salads.
Enjoy this wonderful salad from The Parlour Cafe Cookbook and over to Gillian now to explain just how you make it.
Parlour Panzanella (Bread Salad)
There are loads of recipes out there for this Italian classic, but this is how we like it. It’s a brilliant dish for using up old bread and other leftovers – try adding some torn up buffalo mozzarella, or some sliced and cooked spicy Tuscan sausage. We roast our own peppers and use our own tomato sauce, but if you are pushed for time you can use shop bought.
Ingredients
1 ciabatta loaf (approx 270g) or any other rustic style bread
1 small red onion, finely sliced
50ml olive oil
2 tablespoons dried oregano
500g tomatoes, diced
1 bunch spring onions, sliced diagonally
2 tablespoons capers
1 red pepper, roasted, peeled and cut into strips
1 stick celery, chopped
handful of pitted olives
handful of basil, roughly chopped
handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
40ml vinegar (white or red or balsamic or sherry – whatever you fancy or have to hand)
200ml tomato sauce (see page 101)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 190ºC.
Tear up the loaf into bite-sized pieces and put on a baking tray with the sliced onion. Toss with the olive oil and oregano and bake for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, put the diced tomatoes, spring onion, capers, pepper, celery, olives, basil and flat leaf parsley in a large serving bowl. Get in there with your hands and mush it all together to get the flavours going and add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Take the toasted bread out of the oven and immediately sprinkle on the vinegar – you should hear it sizzle. Tip the contents of the baking tray into the tomato sauce, and then mix through all the other ingredients.
This is good served with either some simply dressed rocket alongside or with rocket mixed through it.
And for those keen to make their own tomato sauce Parlour style. Here’s how to do just that.
Tomato Sauce
This is very useful: you can use it as a simple sauce for pasta, in a vegetarian lasagne, to stuff vegetables, to add to soup or as a pizza sauce. I like to dip good bread in it. It keeps so well in the fridge (about a week) or the freezer (indefinitely) that you may as well make a big batch – it doubles or even triples up really easily. This amount makes about twice what you need for our Aubergine Parmigiana, so you could have that one night and keep the rest for an easy pasta dinner for two some other time. If you have some string, tie the thyme and bay leaves neatly together before putting into the pan, and it will be easier to remove them at the end. And if you like your tomato sauces really garlicky, separate and peel all the garlic cloves before adding them and blend along with everything else at the end.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
1 large carrot, diced
handful of fresh thyme
a few bay leaves
1 whole head of garlic
800g chopped tomatoes (2 x 400g tins)
1 tablespoon Worcester sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1½ – 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Once it’s hot, put in the onions, carrot, thyme, bay leaves and the whole head of garlic and give a good stir, then fry until everything starts to take on a nice golden brown hue. Add the tomatoes, Worcester sauce and half of the sugar and bring to the boil, stirring regularly.
Turn down the heat to low, half cover and simmer for 1 to 2 hours – the longer the better. Stir every so often to ensure the sauce does not catch and burn. Once most of the liquid has evaporated, the vegetables are absolutely soft and the sauce has deepened in colour and amalgamated nicely, stir in 1½ tablespoons of the red wine vinegar and season with salt. Simmer for a few more minutes and taste, adjusting with more vinegar, sugar or salt if necessary. Leave to cool, then pick out the whole garlic head, thyme and bay leaves before blending the sauce in a food processor or with a hand blender.
And enjoy your summer of salads!
Kitchen Quiz Episode 5
Kitchen Quiz: With Dina Begum (Brick Lane Cookbook)
Food writer and chef Dina Begum, author of Brick Lane Cookbook, is a woman who lives and breathes what she cooks and writes about.
As a child she would visit the Brick Lane market with her Dad and purchase lamb kofta rolls at the Sweet & Spicy Cafe.
She was absolutely the perfect person to author Brick Lane Cookbook, her debut book which paid tribute to the multicultural essence of the East of London.
Brick Lane has served a role for many, many years now as a hub for newly established immigrant communities – Huguenot, Bangladeshi, Jewish – arriving in the capital city making their home there, establishing communities and businesses, while expressing themselves and their cultural traditions via food.
An area packed full of city boys, art students, curry house touts, models and tourists, the story of Brick Lane is truly a snapshot of London at its authentic, multi-cultural best.
We caught up with Dina recently in London for our latest episode of Kitchen Quiz.
Q: Hi Dina, we hope you are doing fine. So tell us was there a cookbook that really inspired you?
A: Cookbooks that have inspired me are classic ones, such as books by Siddika Kabir – Bangladeshi author, television personality and nutritionist. My favourite cookbook of hers is the Bangladeshi Curry Cookbook, which focuses on traditional recipes and home cooking. I also love Delia Smith’s writing and recipes – especially her baking books.
Q: What is your favourite item in your kitchen that you simply couldn’t do without?
A: I can’t live without my kitchen scales. I’m an avid baker and this is essential for baking cakes, pastries etc.
Q: Do you have a favourite song, type of music or podcast you like to cook to?
I usually listen to Nina Simone, The Eagles, Paolo Nutini or Classical music – both Eastern and Western.
Q: If you could cook anywhere in the world in any location then where would you choose?
A: I would love the adventure element of cooking in the Sundarbans – the mangrove forest which lies in the Bay of Bengal – across Bangladesh and West Bengal. Perhaps on a boat with freshly caught fish!
Q: If you had to give one single piece of advice about cooking to someone then what would that be?
A: I would say cook what you love to eat and try and cook by instinct instead of focusing on recipes by the letter. This is great when you’re baking – as precision is required but general cooking should be joyful. It’s the best (and tastiest) life skill.
Massive thanks to Dina for sharing her thoughts with us.
And if you haven’t done so already, then don’t forget to check out her cookbook for an amazing snapshot of multi-cultural East London at its finest and tastiest.
You can order the book direct from us right here.