THE BREAKFAST CLUB, HOXTON

Here's another sharp operator to add to the list of usual suspects in the line-up for brunch in E London. We've already pulled in The Book Club and The Boundary Cafe for questioning here; now it's the turn of The Breakfast Club in Hoxton.

"She took me in and made me breakfast"

On Rufus Street, between Hoxton Square and Old Street, The Breakfast Club is a light, bright, modern post-industrial space.  It is very busy, full of young fashionistas styled to match the artfully distressed walls and quirky fittings.  The slick service is as up-to-the-minute as the side-ponies that have already sashayed over from London Fashion Week.
TBC gets all the important things right, with excellent coffee, a zingy bloody mary, and an eclectic menu: mounds of pancakes drip with maple syrup, bagels bulge with smoked salmon, perfect poached eggs quiver on brown toast, huevos rancheros do battle with the Full Monty breakfast. For those who only emerge when daylight fades, there is a late breakfast menu starting at 5:00 in the evening.  But it's very popular, so get here fashionably early.

NIGHTJAR and LOUNGE BOHEMIA

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well... it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Ah the secret cocktail bar. Enter via an urban version of the rabbit hole (brown door between kebab shop and newsagent)  and you will find so many bottles with 'Drink Me' that you are guaranteed a strange shrinking feeling - a feeling enhanced, I find, after spending a good few hours here... My companion has booked the Nightjar (somewhere near Old St -  can't say more, obv) and we are name-checked at the door by an amiable sort with waistcoast, pocketwatch, twitching nose (ok, I jest - there's no waistcoat). Downstairs the scene is one of low lights, warm dark wood, chink and glint of cocktail glasses and comfortable tables and booths. There's a 1920s-30s speakeasy vibe, a pianist straight from the set of The Great Gatsby sings and plays quietly in the corner and our waitress is a dead ringer for Debbie Harry (without the gum-chewing Brooklyn 'whatchawant' attitude). We order London Sours and a variety of other stuff (don't expect me to remember) - one comes with flames issuing forth, another showered with powder that tastes of chocolate sherbert - a few more and then the Mad Hatter calls time....

Lounge Bohemia, by contrast, has a Cold War schtick going on, it is the sort of place Michael Caine in The Ipcress File ends up after an unfortunate encounter with a Soviet spymaster and hallucinatory truth drugs. The walls are bare concrete, with tables under the arched roof where you can dimly glimpse the (normal) world through the glass pavement tiles. The staff are blank-eyed, the clientele are cool (suits are prohibited) and bakelite jugs of water and trays of canapes are brought to the table. Fittingly my gin and lychee drink is served with a retro maraschino cherry while my accomplice's is tobacco-infused bourbon delivered in a cigar tube, then stirred (with a cinnamon stick) into a glass filled with candy floss.  Needless to say, after drinking this particular truth drug, she told me all her secrets ....

www.barnightjar.com

loungebohemia.com/

BOUNDARY CAFE and THE BOOK CLUB

So, I'm housesitting in Hoxton and I've realised that brunch is the thing here. Queues form early outside the most popular joints such as The Breakfast Club or The Diner; by 'early' read late morning. C'mon would you really expect any self-respecting hipster to emerge before midday? There's the the skinny jeans to ease on, the Hoxton Fin (yes, some still sport them) or Undercut to style, the eyeliner to apply (male and female) and the vintage cardi to shrug on. 

Hoxton Fin (noun) firmly styled longitudinal hair appendage favoured among the Shoreditch Set around 2000 - 2002.
I'm going to get an Hoxton Fin haircut down Shoreditch High Street.


Undercut (noun) a hairstyle in which the sides and back are shaved and long hair is grown at the top of the head.
Guy 1: Hey, Man, check out her undercut!
Guy 2: We should do it too!

At 12.30 -1pm  they arrive in droves to gaze mordantly into their coffee cups, tap a Doc Marten to a beat still lodged in their heads from last night and order a stack of buttermilk pancakes ... and who can blame them;  these breakfast places are almost faultless with well cooked food,  friendly service and a lively  ambiance, where you can nurse a hangover with a well-made Bloody Mary or Hard Shake. 

The Albion is a slightly up market venue for this sort of thing. A Conran cafe and shop attached to The Boundary Restaurant favoured by well-heeled young families and designer clad couples. 

It is a light inviting space and we while away a couple of hours reading the paper and eating bacon and egg rolls and drinking coffee. 

The shop also has a nice range of vegetables (organic of course), pastries, cakes and bread.

The Book Club in Leonard St, weirdly, is located on the site of the publishing company where I used to work. 

We sit at a table where my desk used to be, eat smoked haddock and poached eggs, watch  a couple of guys play table tennis and I wonder where the bloody hell does time go - it seems yesterday I was sitting in the same spot worrying about deadlines.  

Tempus Fugit or, as they say in Shoreditch, WTF.

Links:

http://www.albioncaff.co.uk

http://www.wearetbc.com/food-and-drink/breakfast

PANETTONE ISN'T JUST FOR CHRISTMAS...

Buon Natale. The traditional Italian sweet bread panettone is taking over: temptingly colourful boxes and tins pile up in stores for the pre-Christmas rush, and not just in the Italian delis like Limoncello or Carluccio's; its distinctive aromas (a blend of citrus, spice, eggs, vanilla, peel) conjure up the holiday mood, especially if the bread is still warm.  
So, sliding some remaining panettone slices into the toaster early this raw mid-January day brings memories of morning lie-ins and Christmas brunches wafting back. And it will continue to do so over the coming months as we bake and eat this "festive" bread outside its proper season.

It has a reputation for being difficult to make: the dough is so rich and heavy that it sometimes fails to rise fully - and a dry, airy crumb is the essence of a successful panettone. So I cheat.  I order a couple "extras" from the Bakery Bits website. Firstly waxed paper moulds of various sizes, specially designed for panettone, solve the problem of finding the right baking container. Secondly, fiori di sicilia essence is suffused with all the spicy flavours and flowery scents of panettone - a couple of drops transforms the loaves; and it lightens the dough, so helping the rise. I also add some dried yeast to my sourdough starter to help get that lift.

Stage One (start the night before you wish to bake)
240g    dried fruit and peel
160ml  brandy 
Mix fruit, peel and brandy in a bowl and soak overnight.  Choose the mix of fruit that suits your taste (I use dried apricots, golden raisins and mixed peel for the flavour and golden colour I want). However, it is important to dice the fruit to match the size of the pieces of peel.


Stage Two
100g   plain white flour
100g   sourdough starter (I use a 50% water 50% starter)
7g       dried yeast 
a pinch of sugar
Mix the ingredients together and leave in a warm place to develop for about an hour.


Stage Three
125g    butter 
50g      sugar  
1 tsp    vanilla essence (or seeds from half a vanilla pod)
4 drops fiori di sicilia
2          large eggs
4          egg yolks
1/2 tsp salt
Blend together the butter and sugar until smooth.  Add the rest of the ingredients and continue to blend until smooth and well mixed.


Stage Four
500g   plain white flour
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, the eggy mix from stage three, the yeast mixture from stage two and the fruit (drained) from stage one. Once mixed, turn out onto a floured surface, and knead for fifteen minutes, until the dough is less sticky. Place the dough in an oiled bowl and put in a warm place for three hours to rise.

Stage Five
Divide the dough in half.  Knead briefly and place each half in a 154m / 750g panettone mould. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise.  This may take some time (approx 3 hours) but the dough should double in size. Give it more time if the rise is slow, as this is critical to the outcome. The dough will still be some way from the top of the mould, but will rise further when in the oven.  

An hour before you wish to bake the panettone, heat the oven to 200C degrees. Bake for 20 mins, then place circles of greaseproof paper on top of the loaves and bake for a further 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Remove the loaves and brush the surface with molten butter or a sugar/water glaze.Place the loaves on a rack to cool - keep in the moulds.

Once cold, wrap the loaves in plastic bags to keep fresh.


Cut into wedges and sprinkle with icing sugar before eating. The flavour is enhanced if the bread is slightly warmed. Or slice and toast.
And it's not just for Christmas! A toasted slice is so warming on a cold January morning; or February, or March....

SCOTCH EGGS with BLACK PUDDING and CHORIZO

Our Christmas canapes aim for something more delicate than the traditional scotch egg, more Jonathan Ames than James M Cain, but hard-boiled nonetheless.  We wrap quails' eggs in black pudding, the dark colouring extended by black, waxy whole-rye breadcrumbs. They sit equally comfortably with pints of Guinness or flutes of champagne. 

It's new ways in modern times for the scotch egg: a (pickled) Manchester egg receives rave reviews (and soaring sales to match); competitions search for the best "new" scotch egg; one of the stars of the 2011 Masterchef Professionals' Final is a fish-based scotch egg. Responding to a challenge to national honour in far flung fields, Tom and Jen select the scotch egg to represent the best of UK food, as blogged by slightly startled Seoul foodies. 


Method
1   Hardboil 12 quails' eggs (about 6 minutes); cool and peel.
2   Mix together 200g black pudding, 75g cooking chorizo and 75g sausage meat.
3   Break off a lump of black pudding mix slightly larger than a golf ball, and flatten it out. Place a peeled quail's egg in the middle, wrapping the mixture round to create a smooth, unbroken surface. Repeat for each egg,

4   Put plain white flour for dredging in a flat bowl.
5   Beat a whole (hen's) egg in another flat bowl. 
6   Blend 75g of waxy whole-rye bread (Vollkombrot) with 25 g of white bread (ideally sourdough) to create breadcrumbs. Place in yet another flat bowl.
7   Arrange the bowls in a convenient row for dredging and rolling.

8   Dredge the first black pudding ball in flour, then coat in egg and breadcrumbs.  Put to one side and then repeat.
9   Deep fry the breadcrumbed balls in batches of three or four for approximately 4 minutes a batch. Drain on kitchen towel.

The scotch eggs have a better texture if they are left to cool briefly and then baked in a hot oven for 10 minutes.


They are especially good with home-made hot chilli sauce.

CARROT HALVA

The Love The Garden blog has recently launched its Christmas Competition, a celebration of the carrot; the competition is to be judged by Niamh Shields of Eat Like a Girl fame.  Click on the LtG link above for more details.

In the frosty gloom of an English winter, carrots are often heaped unceremoniously in dull-brown piles on market stalls and greengrocers' shelves, almost unnoticeable in their muddy mediocrity. The mundane, meat-and-two-veg image of the carrot belies its exotic colour and sweetness, qualities recognised and treasured more perhaps in the middle east and around the Mediterranean than here.   
Scrubbed up, though, this everyday root vegetable vegetable can be transformed into a orange-blossom scented, softly chewy sweetmeat which glows with colour and flavour.  
And it only takes about 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

30g       creamed coconut

125g     unsalted butter

150g     semolina

50g       ground almonds

300g     carrots, ground to coarse sand texture

250ml   water

125g     sugar

2tsp      orange blossom water

1tsp      all spice

1tbs      honey

50g       pistachios, crushed to small chunks
             yoghurt

             zest of one orange

            dry roast pistachios, crushed.
Method:

Melt butter and coconut, then add semolina; stir and then cook over a gentle heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, bring water to boil in a separate pan, and then add sugar and orange blossom water; continue to heat until sugar melts.

To the semolina, add the ground almonds and ground carrots, and stir together. Add the all spice, honey and pistachios, and stir together.

Pour the water/sugar mixture over the semolina mixture and stir vigorously.  Continue to cook over a medium heat, stirring frequently, for 4 or 5 minutes, by which time the halva should be coming together and leaving the sides of the pan clean.

Turn out into a lightly buttered dish and leave to cool. Then refrigerate until firm. Cut into small squares to serve.

Serve by itself, with strong coffee.
Or serve with cream or yoghurt into which orange zest has been mixed; scatter roasted, crushed pistachios on top. And sip a glass of mint tea.

CAMBRIDGE WINTER FAIR, MILL ROAD December 2011