MARIA AND THE CHICKEN - MAKING PEPIÁN

Main Street, San Miguel Escobar, Guatemala





We learn about Maria from de la gente, a co-operative project set up to help small independent coffee growers by giving them agricultural and business support. DLG is based in San Miguel Escobar, near Antigua, the former capital of Guatemala in Central America. The village is surrounded by volcanoes and the small coffee farms which stretch up their scrabbly slopes. It is also where Maria lives.

The view from Maria's kitchen: looking out to her courtyard with coffee beans
drying on the concrete floor, and up to the volcano behind

Maria's family are coffee growers. She and her daughters have a sideline in hairdressing, and they also run cookery demonstrations of the national dish, pepián. Maria expects her guests to take an active part in every stage before eating at the family's communal table.

Pepián as served at La Casa de las Sopas in Antigua, Guatemala

Pepián is an apparently simple affair, straddling the line between soup and stew. It makes the most of often scarce resources, containing everything needed for a large, family-style meal, the equivalent of our roast chicken and all-the-trimmings Sunday special. Maria takes us through the traditional methods of making pepián, from start (chicken scratching in the yard) to finish (plate on at the table).

First catch your chicken. then....

Much of the cooking takes place on a comal, the flat earthenware plate that acts as a griddle over an open fire. It dates back to ancient times, and is used for roasting all manner of ingredients, including coffee and cacao beans. Families use a range of comals of different sizes and thicknesses, depending on exactly what is being cooked. This provides a surprising range of variety and sophistication in experienced hands such as Maria's. Alongside this, there are more familiar large saucepans for boiling and stewing, and earthenware pots that simmer gently beside the cooking fire, and even some more modern accessories.

The comal is ready to cook.

The following recipe is not a absolutely accurate replication of the ways in which Maria prepared our pepián, but it should lead to a reasonably authentic result. In any case, every Guatemalteco family has its own spin on the best pepián recipe. This one assumes the chicken is bought ready prepared from a shop, rather than picked up in the yard, dispatched, plucked and gutted.

Stage one: prepare your chicken!

Ingredients:
(Approximate measures are used here, as Maria judges everything by eye and touch)

1 chicken, jointed
2 onions (quartered)
2 onions (roughly chopped)
2 tbsp salt
2 dried guaque chillies, seeds removed 
2 dried pasa chillies, seeds removed 
(Mexican specialists stock guajillo and poblano chillies, a close equivalent)
120g pumpkin seeds
100g sesame seeds
1 head of garlic
1 bunch coriander (keep a few leaves aside for garnish)
500g ripe tomatoes, around 500g
250g tomatillos (ideally fresh, but tinned will do, in which case forego the roasting stage))
1 tbsp oregano
1⁄2 cinnamon stick
1 chayote (available in most Asian shops)
3 medium potatoes, peeled.



Dry frying chillies. tomatoes and tomatillos

1   Cover the chicken with water in a large saucepan and bring it to the boil. Add salt and the two quartered onions, before reducing to a simmer for an hour.

2   Meanwhile, place a large bowl near the cooker and heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan. Prepare the remaining  ingredients as follows and put them into the bowl:

      dry-fry the dried chillies until their aromas are released, then crumble into the

      bowl; 

      dry-fry the tomatoes and tomatillos (if using fresh) and add to the bowl;

      dry-fry the pumpkin seeds until golden brown and add to the bowl;

      dry-fry the sesame seeds until golden and add to the bowl;

      dry-fry the chopped onions, coriander and garlic cloves, and add to the bowl;

      dry-fry the oregano and cinnamon stick until fragrant and add to the bowl.

3   Add 500ml water to the bowl of dry-fried ingredients and then blend until smooth. In Guatemala, the ingredients are ground down using a metate (a bit like a pestle and mortar made out of harsh volcanic stone - see picture below). Maria used an electric blender in addition to her metate to save time and give the ground mixture a finer texture (though we suspect that she might not do so for family and friends who prefer a less smooth sauce).

Grinding the dry-fried ingredients on volcanic stone

4   Cut the peeled potatoes into large chunks; peel and slice the chayote into thick segments; cut the remaining onion into chunks. These will be added to the chicken pot once chicken is mostly cooked.

5   Add the sauce mixture to the chicken pot. Continue cooking at a rolling boil until the sauce reduces: it is typically slightly thicker than a normal soup. Then add the vegetables and cook until tender. This dish can be served in a bowl as a stand alone meal or with rice. Guatemalteco style, it would be served with rice, tortillas, a segment of lime and slices of avocado.



Maria's table is covered in Guatamalteco textiles,
and the corn tortillas are also wrapped in a bundle
to keep them warm and pliable. 

FOOD WALK - FROM HAWKSMOOR TO JOSE PIZARRO



The Shard (Bermondsey) glimpsed from Leonard Street (Shoreditch)

When you're tired of London you are .... well just tired. Jeez, there's so much going on:  new exhibitions, pop up restaurants, secret cocktail bars, concerts. You plan a maelstrom of activity, then think, "what the hell I'll just put my feet up and watch episodes of Mad Men back to back." But housesitting for a few months in East London means sucking the juice out of the time here, and one of the best ways to do this is just walk.


This easy stroll between two of London's food and fashion hotspots, Hoxton and Shoreditch to South London's Bermondsey Street takes about an hour, though the distractions at each end of the walk will add hours and ... uh quite a few calories... to the day. 


Old Street tube station is a good starting point. Beware: it would be easy to spend the whole day browsing and eating one's way through Shoreditch alone, leaving the rest for another day.


Arrive early early, as Hoxton and Shoreditch are crammed with popular brunch opportunities: The Diner, The Breakfast Club, The Boundary (Albion) Cafe and The Book Club to name but a few.

The Diner 

The Breakfast Club



The Book Club

Or shimmy on down past the BoxPark, under the crossrail and into Spitalfields for the king of carnivorous breakfasts that is Hawksmoor. 


Brunch over, mosey around Spitalfields market or have your tresses tended at Taylor, Taylor where they serve cocktails in the stylish of interiors. Now head back to the City Road and turn south, heading on to Moorgate, Prince's Street, Lombard Street and King William Street: in effect it is a straight line to London Bridge. 


On the way, there are plenty of diversions.  Shortly after the City Road / Leonard Street junction is Bunhill Fields, an ancient Anglo-Saxon cemetery ("bun-" is probably a corruption of the Saxon word for "bone") now most famous as the last resting place of William Blake, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe (his Journal of the Plague Year makes good reading for those who choose to relax in this well-tended, green space). On the opposite side of City Road are John Wesley's Chapel and house; this is still a working place of worship and there is also a museum attached. Further on, on Monument Street which runs left from King William Street, you can have a look at (and climb the 311 steps?) the London Monument, memorial to the Great Fire of 1666 (symbolised by the golden flame on top), or stroll along to the aptly named Pudding Lane where it all began, in Thomas Farriner's bakery.

London Bridge going south

Once across London Bridge, there is a choice: head right to Borough Market (on a Friday or Saturday) for some serious foodie shopping, or left (on St Thomas Street) past The Shard to Bermondsey Street. 


Bermondsey Street

 Once on Bermondsey Street, there is plenty of choice: tapas at  Jose (the best in London) or something more substantial at bigger but younger brother Pizarro; or try contemporary Italian at Zucca.  

Jose Pizarro's newer place

Zucca

Jose - great tapas, day or night

Head off Bermondsey Street on Tanner Street and you will come to the newly flourishing Maltby Street Market  (Saturdays 9:00-2:00 only at the moment, but longer hours are imminent, so check on-line) where Jose Pizarro, among many others, has a stall where you can sit, drink sherry, nibble jamon, watch the passers-by.
Bermondsey Street's recently opened White Cube Gallery, which you will pass as you move from Jose to Pizzaro, is now a major attraction staging cutting edge exhibitions.

Entry to the White Cube

Anselm Keifer at the White Cube

The return journey from London Bridge to Old Street is quick (on foot or by tube), but why not walk along the river to Tower Bridge and then meander back through the City.



FOOD WALK: THE HOLE IN THE WALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE

I don't need no hamburgers

No take-away...

No bacon steak, no strawberry milkshake...

I'm sick of seeing signs to eat walking down these city streets -

Wild, go wild, go wild in the country

Where snakes in the grass are absolutely free

(Bow Wow Wow and Malcolm Mclaren)

Now that The Hole on the Wall has reopened, headed up by Masterchef finalist Alex Rushmer, there is even more reason to do this pretty circular walk from the village of Fulbourn.  The 10km can be strolled in two to two-and-a-half hours, but it takes us about six, with a very leisurely lunch thrown in half way round.You can find directions at the go4awalk website here.

It is a fairly gentle ramble, with clear pathways leading through some picturesque Cambridgeshire landscape.  The leafy outskirts of Fulbourn soon give way to broad fields and huge skies, which you follow through to the village of Little Wilbraham - and the pub.

The Hole in the Wall aspires to something finer than pub grub and, now open for a month or so, is beginning to hit its stride. Of our starters, the Mushrooms on Sourdough Toast is especially good; some of the other dishes lack a little finesse as yet.

The meal ends well: three of us share an exceptional desert, Victoria Plum Clafoutis with Strawberry Ice-cream, which is light, sweet with just the right tang of fruit.  With coffee come freshly made petit fours in an old cigarette tin; the marshmallow is almost impossibly delicate.

After lunch, the walk leads through a pleasing combination of wide open spaces, villages of thatched houses and cricket pitches, and wooded, sheltered lanes. There is also the chance to walk up onto Fleam Dyke, the Anglo Saxon earthwork barrier, to enjoy the view.

We return to Fulborn through the nature reserve.  And yes, we did see a snake in the grass....

ON THE SOURDOUGH TRAIL, PARIS

Springtime in Paris. The warm sunshine is perfect for aimless strolling, serendipity taking us past (and into) shoe shops, fromageries, and so on. The Ladurée shops are beguiling but  crowded with more than a hint of Disney - after all they are just macaroons laced with food colouring. We leave toute suite.

On rue du Cherche-Midi a chance discovery launches us on a mini-pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of American Daniel Leader, as described in his book "Local Breads".  Poilane is the boulangerie established in the 1930s by Pierre Poilane, which produces the most famous sourdough bread in Paris - indeed you can now buy Poilane bread in London.  This, though, is the original bakery, the starting point for the brand now run by Pierre's sons Max and Lionel. Poilane started the renaissance in Paris of the old style, country bread raised by a sourdough culture: pain au levain.

We join a noisy throng of shoppers inside, getting in the way of busy Parisiennes who are keen to snap up the evening's bread on their way home after work.  After browsing, dithering, breathing in the nutty, yeasty smell, we leave clutching flour and bread, but not a branded cushion fashioned into loaves, hilarious as they are. The chewy, crusty loaf doesn't last long; we sit by the Seine, pulling the bread apart, watching the sunset slip down towards the Eiffel Tower as runners jog and romantic couples stroll past along the river bank. A lone trumpeter plays jazz under one of the bridges, the notes echoing out across the water.

The next morning finds us at Eric Kayser's, also in the Latin Quarter, one of Daniel Leader's gurus when he was researching the skills and techniques in the 1980s that would inform his own baking practice in America.

Although one of the pioneers of the new wave of sourdough bread-makers, an "artisan boulanger", the Kayser shops are modern, as are the bread-making techniques he uses. It is Kayser who developed the use of a liquid levain, easier to control than the traditional "stiff" sourdough starter. The bread is light, crusty and has a slightly more pronounced sourness.

If Kayser's is modern in approach and appearance, Le Moulin de la Vierge (rue Vercingetorix) is the opposite. Basil Kamir had been a rock promoter, whose office was in an old bakery in a run-down area in the south of Paris.  The area was scheduled for re-development and the bulldozers had moved in; the only way to save the building was to return the bakery to its original use.  Basil transformed himself from promoter to baker, drawing a traditional baker, Jean LeFleur, out of retirement to teach him.

We travel to Pernety on the Metro, arriving in a rather soulless, modern neighbourhood.  The bakery is tucked away in a quiet street of featureless, concrete blocks of flats next to a busy railway.  To go inside is to step into the past.

Foxed mirrors are topped by extravagant cornices and the ceiling is a tiled rural scene.  Basil Kamir's bread is traditional, made in the old way and baked in a wood fired oven that is over 150 years old. The baguette we buy and eat (with some powerful cheese from a maitre fromager on the high street) is dense, chewy and delicious. We scan the real estate windows; perhaps we should move to Pernety so that we can feast on this bread every day.