RECIPE: Lebkuchen

It’s okay to talk about Christmas now that December has begun. Here, Brixton food blogger Miss South introduces us to the delights of the German Lebkuchen

Christmas is coming! Which means you’re either running around like a headless chicken trying to do all your shopping or you’re cosied up indoors enjoying the season. Either way you’ll need a simple seasonal treat to see you through. Brixton may not have a German market (although it has every other sort) but don’t let that stop you from indulging in these traditional German biscuits or Lebkuchen.A spiced cookie similar to gingerbread, these are bursting with festive flavours and are the easiest thing in the world to make. Best of all, you can get everything you need to do so in the wonderful Nour Cash and Carry for about a third of the cost of popping to Tesco. So stock up and impress everyone this year with freshly baked biscuits in no time.

(Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food)
250g plain flour
85g ground almonds
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves, black pepper, nutmeg, mace, allspice (use all or just which ones you have)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml clear honey or 100ml honey and 100g dark brown sugar
85g butter
1 lemon , finely grated zest

FOR THE ICING

100g icing sugar
1 egg white , beaten

Preheat your oven to 200C and melt the butter, honey and sugar together on the stove. Measure your dry ingredients into a large bowl and then add the liquid when completely melted. Combine together well until a slightly fudgy dough. This should take about 5 minutes.

Pinch off walnut sized pieces of the dough, roll into a ball and then flatten out on a lined baking tray, leaving enough room to spread out slightly. The dough should yield about 30 cookies so you’ll probably only be able to bake half at one time. Cover the dough to stop it drying out in this case. You can also freeze the cookies and simply cook for a minute or two longer when needed. Just put some greaseproof paper between them when freezing.

You want to cook the biscuits until golden and still slightly soft so check after 10 minutes but don’t be surprised if they need up to 15 minutes. Leave them on the tray for about 2 minutes to firm slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool for about 15 minutes so you can ice them.

The icing is firmer with the egg white and less likely to drip, but if it’s a waste of an egg for you, just mix the icing sugar into a stiffish paste with some water and use that instead with the back of a teaspoon or a pastry brush. Allow to dry for a moment or two and then get stuck in!

These are equally good with a cup of tea as with some mulled wine. They are soft and chewy, thanks to the almonds, with a warming tingle of spice than knocks the shopbought ones into a cocked hat. Simple enough to make with the kids, they’ll impress everyone this Christmas and keep well in a tin if you happen to have any leftover. I have a feeling they’ll be a Christmas tradition in your house year after year…

Miss South blogs at North South Food

(Speedy) REVIEW: In defence of Speedy Noodle

After an outraged tweet by Vanessa G about our failure to review Speedy Noodle on Brixton Rd, we challenged her to rectify the wrong and tell us why she loves it so much

Speedy Noodle, which proudly dominates the space between Risky and HSBC on Brixton Rd, has long been serving the community with its extensive menu of far-Eastern cuisine.

Given that Brixton is now celebrated as a foodie haven, with restaurants, bars and delis revered by mainstream press and citizen journalists alike, why has Speedy Noodle, one of our original independent eateries been overlooked? Some might say it’s due to the bright lighting and clinical feel, some might be suspicious that anywhere so cheap could possibly hold any quality. Most, I suspect, are mere snobs who choose not the stray from the Village Tourist Trail. Yet, for those not yet initiated, it offers many virtues, albeit with a lack of shabby-chic bunting.

You enter into a vast area with on-trend communal bench style seating, enabling you to get close enough to listen to other diners’ arguments if you so wish, or to sneak into a far corner for a private discussion with your own lover.

The lighting is indeed bright and somewhat unflattering, but at least this clearly illuminates the menu – and what a vast menu it is.

While so many places now choose to restrict their meal choices to one or two offers, Speedy Noodle offers well over a hundred different dishes, most of which are served with either rice, or noodles (both arrive equally speedily). Vegetarians are well catered for, with a range of vegetable and soya-protein dishes. The restaurant is licensed although there is a good selection of non-alcoholic drink options available.

The portions are large and, quite frankly, delicious. Don’t start protesting with your MSG-related worries. Deep in your heart you know that if some tasty meals were served in a more fashionable location they would be well praised. The fact that, thanks to its convenient late opening times, Speedy Noodle is the perfect late-night eatery after a few pints should not be allowed to overshadow another fact – the food is yum.

Perhaps most importantly, in these budget-conscious times of austerity, Speedy Noodle is cheapcheapcheap, with mains around the £4 range. I would highly recommend a visit  to anyone looking for a cheap, filling and unpretentious meal in Brixton.

Review: Majestic Restaurant

Curried goat, plantain and beans

Guest food blogger Lucy Ferguson, who blogs at ‘tv dinners‘, reviews the Majestic Restaurant

With the ever increasing publicity and praise currently being heaped on Brixton Village, here at Brixton Blog we’ve been dining out in one of the lesser known eateries in SW9 – Majestic Restaurant on Coldharbour Lane.

Majestic is a Nigerian restaurant, there’s not much to see from the outside and you may well have walked past without really noticing. Once inside, it’s a trove of traditional Nigerian food and drink. Unperturbed by the stated half-hour preparation time for our first course, we started the meal with moimoi, a savoury steamed bean cake cooked with onions and seasonings. It was so tasty, I could eat it every day. This high protein, low fat food serves as a slimming aid – not that a slimming aid could be any use considering the sheer size of the next course!  The moimoi was served with a wickedly hot suya, spiced beef kebab meat which made us happy to have ordered the large bottles of palm wine to accompany the meal.

Moimoi

For main courses we tried three mains. The first was tilapia, a huge fish cooked in a rich sauce that barely fit the plate, served with richly flavoured jollof rice. The second main course was assorted meats, a courageous choice, which included cow’s foot – which managed to pull off the surprising combination of being both gelatinous and grisly – and tripe. The tripe looked pretty frightening but took on the spices of the sauce and melted in the mouth. Third main (see above) was a plate piled high with curried goat and plantain with rice and beans. It was outstanding, and a struggle to get even half way through, but the type of meal you wanted to carry on eating well after you were too stuffed to eat any more.

Assorted Meats

Tilapia

The staff were super friendly and enthusiastic, explaining the dishes well. As we were leaving a PA system and drums were being brought in, suggesting Friday nights in Majestic can turn into quite a party – just as long as you’re not too full to get down.

Two courses plus palm wine around £15 per person<

Majestic Restaurant<
330A Coldharbour Lane, London SW9 8QH
020 7274 6676

Brixton Recipe: Apple and Quince Cobbler

In the first our new guest food blogs, Miss South of North South Food shares her recipe for apple and quince cobbler. With Brixton ingredients of course…

Despite the last gasp of summer a few weeks ago, we have to accept autumn is with us again. It happens to be my favourite time of year with those slightly crisp sunny days, the smell of bonfires in the evenings and the abundance of harvest everywhere around us. The trees and bushes are groaning with plenty and the markets are a joy. It was no difficulty to choose a recipe where the ingredients could be bought or foraged or a mixture of both.

Nothing says autumn to me more than fruit topped with carbs, but it is possible to tire of crumble. So try a cobbler instead. Similar to a scone mixture, it gives a new fluffy dimension to fruit. I’ve used apples (from Brixton Blog’s own garden) and quinces from A&C Continental Deli on Atlantic Road, but Perry Court Farms are doing beautiful English apples at Brixton Farmers’ Market and you might know someone in Lambeth with a quince tree…

I used three Braeburn sized apples and one large quince to make enough for four people. I did measure the cobbler topping to make life easier for you. Start by peeling your quince. They have a sticky feel and are tricky to peel cleanly. Slice thinly and cover with lemon juice as they discolour instantly. Pop in the oven at 180℃ or Gas Mark 4 for about 30 minutes as they take much longer to cook than the apples.

While the quinces are filling the house with a beautiful perfumed fragrance, prep your apples. Peel and slice and cover with water. Then turn to your topping. You’ll need:

100g plain flour
50g cold butter
50g sugar
4 tablespoons milk (approx 60mls)
1 egg beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or cinnamon (your choice)
50g walnuts, hazelnuts or cobnuts, roughly chopped (optional)

It’s very simple to make and the kids can easily get involved. Add the flour and butter and rub the butter into it the flour til it resembles breadcrumbs, like you do with crumble or scones. Add in the sugar and then beat in the egg and milk (and vanilla or cinnamon) gently and quickly until just combined.

Take the quince out of the oven and mix in the apples, making sure it’s even. I didn’t add sugar as I prefer my fruit tart and tangy. You could if you like. Spoon the cobbler batter over the top of the fruit. It’s quite runny. Then top with the chopped nuts for extra crunch and flavour. Pop in the oven at 200℃ or Gas Mark 6 for about 20-25 minutes for individual cobblers or 40-45 minutes for a large cobbler or until golden and crunchy. Cool slightly and serve as it is or with ice cream or a large dollop of clotted cream. You can also prepare these in advance and simply reheat when needed.

The apple is tart and works perfectly with the sweet fragrant quince. The topping is light and fluffy and the cobnuts I used (also from Perry Court) added a gorgeous creamy crunch that made this feel a bit more grown up and less like nursery food than it might. Celebrate autumn in style with this perfect dessert. Perfect on a Sunday tea-time after a leisurely trip to Brixton Farmers’ Market!

Brixton Elderflowers

Rachel Manley, our resident food blogger and brunch hostess, gives a guide to finding elderflowers in Brixton – and tells us what to do with them once we’ve got them

Where to find elderflowers in Brixton

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting excited about elderflower season since about February and the unseasonably good weather has only spurred me on. After an ill-fated trip to find some on Hampstead Heath (I knew I shouldn’t have ventured north of the river), I feel like I can’t move now for spotting the fuzzy white flowers all over Brixton.

If you’re planning on knocking up a batch, here’s where I’ve spotted some prime elderflowers (NB: some of them are in people’s front gardens, so it’s only polite to knock and ask permission before plundering their trees).

Spotted

Brixton Rd, roughly opposite the petrol station

St Matthew’s Rd, Effra Rd side

Chaucer Rd, Dulwich Rd side

Brockwell Park – I spotted them at the Brixton Water Lane entrance and then behind the Lido. I’m sure there are plenty more in the park.

Wyck Gardens, off Loughborough Road (a recommendation from @northsouthfood)

Spotted more? Share the knowledge in the comments.

What to do with the elderflowers?

You’ll need about 20-30 ‘heads’ to make cordial, plenty of sugar, lemons and some citric acid (I bought mine in Nour Cash and Carry, but you can probably find it with the spices in most of the shops in Brixton Market).  Oh, and you can get muslin (to strain the cordial through) in one of the many fabric shops in Brixton for next to nothing.

I like this recipe but I leave it to steep for a good 48 hours.  The finished cordial will keep for 3-4 months in the fridge.

You can also try making elderflower champagne, but I prefer to add the cordial to cheap fizz for a yummy cocktail. It’s also deliciously refreshing mixed with sparkling water, slices of cucumber and mint, maybe with a splash of gin too?

The Go Game @ Brixton Market

Every Thursday, Spacemakers runs a themed ‘Night Market’ event in the Granville Arcade and some shops and restaurants stay open until 10pm. It’s proved good business, so much so that they are now campaigning for (and apparently likely to get) late opening on Saturdays and even daytime opening on Sundays.

This Thursday’s event was the ‘Go Game’ – a night of games and music around the Granville Arcade. I was pretty sceptical about the ‘Go Game’, a corporate company with over-enthusiastic employees who organise group games.  You link your internet phone up to a game that makes you do challenges around the market, such as “do five things you’ve never done before and take a photo of it”. Once we let ourselves go though, it wasn’t so bad after all.

Not a picture of us 'letting ourselves go', but rather of the super enthusiastic organisers, including a man dressed up as a cow. eek.

The best thing about the late night opening is that you can get fantastic meals on the cheap from restaurants usually only open during the day – the new pizza place in Granville Arcade, the Moroccan restaurant, Etta’s Seafood Kitchen, Bellantoni’s the Italian and Rosie’s Deli were all open.  We squeezed in at the end of one table at Cornercopia:

The sweetpea, potato and chickpea ‘Gateux’ was a little dry, but overall the food was inventive, fresh and incredibly reasonably priced. The pistachio and orange tart was especially good.

And so to the gaming. There were even makeshift games of Twister:

One group at the start of an impromptu game of Twister

@DJDanCook had organised a night of music too. “I found out about Spacemakers after I moved into the area and I approached them to organise something. My background is more electronic music and techno, but I thought I’d do something a bit different here. I’ve got a few mates who do MCing and poetry, so I got a load of people together to perform. I put some notices up on blogs and at universities and got quite a few taking part in the end.”

The final performers of the night - two hip hop MCs

As you can see, Granville Arcade wasn’t exactly heaving with excited punters, but for those who were there, it was a good thing to do of a balmy summer’s evening. We even ended up winning a free meal for two at Etta’s Seafood Kitchen … although I later found out that we only got 90 points to the overall winners’ 570.

Look here for next week’s Night Market event: a US-style block Party

Brixton lunch: Etta’s Seafood Kitchen

The windows steam up in Etta’s Seafood Kitchen when the cafe is full. Somehow that sums up what Etta and her daughter provide in their food  – simple, gutsy and warming dishes. Fish soup, fish curry, coriander and garlic prawns, or just steamed fish, all with a Caribbean twist and sourced from Brixton Market. Not much can go wrong there. They also do wonderful fresh juices, such as ‘Etta’s Energizer’ with beetroot, carrot and ginger.  The curry could have been spicier, or more ‘curryish’ in the words of my companion, and there isn’t a huge amount of difference in flavour between each dish, but it’s all pretty damn satisfying for a Saturday lunch. And cheap too.

Prawns with rice and peas

Fish Curry

Etta’s Seafood Kitchen, 85/86 Granville Arcade, Brixton

Brixton Village pop-up shop project

Dougald Hine in Brixton Village outside a pop-up sweet shop

On a freezing day in Brixton earlier this month, four women could be found performing an absurdist dance inside a market shop to bemused passers-by. The dance was charming. They made themselves look stupid, squashing their faces against the smudged window and then jumping back with their hands up to their chests in scared-bunny-rabbit impressions. One of them could barely keep a straight face.

They were a performance act at the Space Station gallery, part of a pop-up shop project in Brixton Village.  The Granville Arcade is going through troubled times, but its empty shops are now occupied by pop-up projects designed to breathe new life into the market. In October 2009, a group called the Spacemakers Agency reached an agreement with Lambeth Council and the owners of the market, the London & Associated Properties PLC (LAP), for the rent-free occupancy of twenty shops in Brixton Village for three months. The Spacemakers Agency put out a call for creative and community-friendly proposals for the first wave of projects in December. Now the second wave has brought new events, shops, galleries and performances.

Okido, the Brixton-based children’s comic, have set up their own space. Next door is Herd, a design space set up by a young architect, and the nearby Sweet Tooth is selling old-fashioned sweets.  The artinivan art collective created a life-size ‘Camera Obscurer’ in the opening week – it was a fun diversion, although pretty obscure in itself. Even the acclaimed supper club, the Underground Restaurant, came down from Kilburn on Saturday 16th to cook for 80 people in an old fabric shop. Ms Marmite Lover, the Underground Restaurant founder, said, “I think the idea of pop-up shops is fantastic. Why have an empty space, when you can use it temporarily for exciting projects?”

Well, a fun diversion is all very well, but will Spacemakers’ project actually bring long-term positive change to Brixton Village?The pop-up shops are imaginative, but we should also be worrying that the poorest residents in Brixton aren’t benefiting from this ‘regeneration’ and that those who espouse the virtues of  ‘community-initiatives’ come from, and draw to them, the young middle classes, not the whole community.

I am impressed, however, by Dougald Hine, the founder of Spacemakers who puts forward some genuinly convincing arguments about the long-term effects of the short-term shops. “We want to make this a place where people want to rent shops, because the LAP were struggling to find tenants.”  Several temporary tenants, such as Cornercopia, are actually looking to become permanent residents of the market. “At the same time, we’re finding that other people  have been attracted by fact that there’s now a real sense of energy here and are starting to go to the owners wanting to rent”. A vintage clothes shop, Rejuvenation (pictured below), opened yesterday as a permanent tenant.

The market traders haven’t been directly involved in the project, but they could benefit from more visitors and a supply chain that remains within the market.  Cornercopia sell chutneys made from market ingredients. Hine is keen for it not to “become an us and them thing”.Relations between LAP and market traders have been tricky of late, but the Spacemaker involvement has, says Hine, opened up new avenues for discussion. One trader, Tirence Randall of the Los Andes Butchers, was optimistic. “It’s something different that brightens the market up. I hope it does catch on and bring a lot more people down.” Like the Brixton pound, this is a bit of a ‘wait-and-see’ moment, but I’m erring on the positive side. As long as it doesn’t mean an invasion of East London trendies…

The appropriately named Rejuvenation, one of the new permanent shops in the market.