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My Italian food trail – Sicily’s ricotta salata the key to Pasta alla Norma

Opera has alway been entwined with food, especially Italian. We’re not talking tour riders of the stars with Pavarotti apparently demanding a 24 hour kitchen be set up next to his room with fridges packed with pasta, tomatoes and roast chickens, enough to feed 20. It was a phobia from an impoverished childhood – the big man ate comparatively moderately.

No it’s the way great names have become attached to certain dishes – Tournedos Rossini, Spaghetti Caruso, Peach Melba, Salsa Verdi. OK, I employed artistic licence on that last one. And then there is a truly terrific dish called after an actual opera. It is also one of the simplest to prepare, provided you’ve sourced the exact ingredients.

Pasta alla Norma has become the unofficial signature dish of Sicily. Invented in Catania on the east coast about the time Vincenzo Bellini’s romantic opera Norma premiered, it is said that the pasta was created as a homage. Legend has it that Nino Martoglio, an Italian writer and poet, was so delighted when presented with this dish that he compared its splendour with that of the opera.

Alternatively, according to Ben Tish in his evocative cookbook, Sicilia (Bloomsbury, £26) – one of my Cookbooks of 2021 – “another story tells of a talented home cook who served her creation to a group of gourmands and was duly christened at the table via the classic Sicilian compliment of Chista e na vera Norma (‘this is a real Norma’). Whatever the truth, the dish became an instant classic and its fame spread around the world.”

At my last London review meal before the lockdowns I ate this iconic dish of rigatoni, aubergine, tomato, basil and ricotta salata, appropriately enough, at Norma, the restaurant Ben created in Fitzrovia for the Stafford Group, showcasing the dishes in his book, many with Moorish influences. He has recently moved on. I finally published my account of that memorable meal in June 2021.

Since when I’ve looked out for Pasta alla Norma on menus in my native north. Among the indies specifically offering the island’s cuisine you won’t find it at Sicilian NQ in Manchester or A Tavola Gastronomia Siciliana in New Mills, though Trinacria in York do serve it. Less surprisingly the more generic Rosso in Manchester or the PIccolino chain do not list it. Rivals San Carlo do, but substitute pecorino for the ricotta salata. A cardinal sin in Catania, even though these crumbly, grateable sharp cheeses have much in common.

Indeed, my home quest to replicate the perfect Norma has been hampered by the absence of ricotta salata in my life. Until recently.

So what makes the salata version separate from that mild soft whey cheese found in tubs across the land. For a start, it packs a pungent, salty punch. Hence the name. It is  is only made over winter and spring when pastures are lush and herb-filled and the cooler air is perfect for ageing. 

I located an authentic version from Bermondsey-based Italian Artisan food importers Ham and Cheese after being alerted by the folk behind new Hebden Bridge bar, Coin, who serve a range of their charcuterie.

The ricotta salata I bought online is made by the Agostino family, who sell it normally from their butchers shop in Mirto, on Sicily’s north coast, west of Messina. We must have driven past on a road trip from Etna to Cefalu (main picture) the other year.

Their version is made from full-fat, raw cow’s milk, sometimes with the addition of goat’s or sheep’s milk, and is curdled with lamb or kid rennet before being put in to moulds. After a couple of days it spends 48 hours in a brine bath and is then aged for three months. It was a wonderful component of the Tish recipe for Pasta alla Norma. My one deviation from the norm (sic)? I added salted capers. Because they go so well in that other Sicilian aubergine, classic, caponata. Below, it tasted as good as it looked…

Ingredients: 2 firm aubergines, trimmed and cut into 2cm dice; 150ml extra virgin olive oil; ½ onion, finely chopped; 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped; a good handful of basil leaves

800g quality canned chopped tomatoes or passata; 400g dried rigatoni; 200g ricotta salata cheese, grated; sea salt

Method: Put the diced aubergines in a colander in the sink and sprinkle with salt. Leave to drain for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to its highest temperature, around 250°C/230°C fan/Gas Mark 10.

Rinse the aubergine in cold water and pat dry with a kitchen towel, then toss in a bowl with half the oil. Spread out on a baking tray, place in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until caramelised, turning occasionally to make sure the pieces don’t dry out.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Sauté for a couple of minutes, then add half the basil and the tomatoes. Bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat and cook gently for 23–30 minutes or until thickened (the exact time will depend on your canned tomato brand).

When the sauce is almost ready, cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions to al dente. Add the aubergine to the sauce. Drain the pasta (reserving a little of the cooking water) and toss in the sauce. If the sauce seems too thick, add some cooking water to loosen.

Divide among the plates and sprinkle with the ricotta and remaining basil leaves, roughly torn over the top. It’s best to allow this to cool slightly before eating.

Serves four

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Around the world in 30 dishes – Engine’s operating at full throttle

Blog post “The Engineers is as unpretentious as lard and as solid as a bag of bricks” tickled me, even if this particular unsung chronicler of derelict boozers was not quite accurate about a four-square stone edifice in the middle of Sowerby Bridge.

Yet another local, its name referencing the industry which provided its customer core, left abandoned. I’m not going to insert the devastating stats of culled hostelries in recent decades. Too late to get lachrymose; the world has moved on. Yet it’s always heartening to see a pub building rescued imaginatively.

Step forward Engine Social Dining, home to a 30-strong menu of globally inspired small plates. I was the first critic to review it back in October 2018 and lauded the kind of slick all-day operation in a stripped down setting rarely found outside cities’ hipper quarters. Hospitality has been under siege for much of the time since. Engine was thankfully still there. Would it still convince? Let’s do the locomotion…

I suspect virgin olive oil gets the nod over lard in Mark Kemp’s open plan kitchen, complete with wood burning oven, just as it did when he worked up the A58 at Ripponden for Simon Shaw’s original El Gato Negro. The quiet Ulsterman rose through the ranks to be Shaw’s right hand man. Now he’s very much his own man. With a tight-knit team.

As El Gato shifted into Manchester, Kemp became head chef at Ricci’s in Halifax, where Wil Akroyd was manager. The pair hatched the Engine project, using their own money. Famously they had just  £30 left in the bank when they opened. 

Ricci’s, as the name suggests, leans heavily towards Italy; their own place ranges much more widely. Global influences must be in the air in Sowerby Bridge. Near neighbours on Wharf Street Gimbals has generated eclectic and exotic menus for decades. Post pandemic, this Good Food Guide stalwart is now just doing weekend takeaway meals of its ‘greatest hits’. Highly recommended.

Engine has its own recognition now, in the Michelin Guide, belying the stuffy image that can accompany such a mention. Repeat regulars are what sustain a small town operation and we were glad we arrived early one Wednesday lunchtime as a walk-in. Within half an hour virtually every table was taken. Which had taken aback Wil, who was the lone server.

The space is at it coolest after dark, when moody lighting picks out the turquoise and petrol blue upholstery. For food image daylight is infinitely preferable, I hope my iphone does justice to the parade of small plates, in order and served at decent intervals: cauliflower and Manchego croquetas (£5), red curry cod fritters (£6.50), gyozas (£6), Korean spring rolls (£6), belly pork tacos of the day (£8.50), parmesan chips (£5.50), Far Barsey beef fillet (£13), Moroccan pulled lamb (£10).

The pick of a uniformly excellent bunch? The lamb, an old favourite, the spicing spot on and the accompanying man’eesh flatbread, sprinkled with za’tar an advertisement for that wood-fired oven. New to me, the Korean spring rolls were stunning – cylinders of crisp wrapper filled with lemongrass chicken and doused in a ginger sauce. Equally stunning the unusual gyozas. Filled with sobrassada, basil and chilli, they are served with a makhani (butter chicken) sauce. It’s a fusion that ought not to work but yet again it does.

Finally, a requiem for Halifax farm shop Far Barsey, which has shut its doors. Its name will live on in Engine’s Far Barsey beef. They may no longer be the suppliers but the fillet, roasted pink, is splendid. With its pink fir apple potatoes and wild mushrooms in a pink peppercorn jus it’s as close to a Brexit-fenced True Brit dish you’ll find on this menu. The rest is a celebration of cultural diversity and all the better for it.

Engine Social Dining, 72 Wharf Street, Sowerby Bridge HX6 2AF. 01422 740123.

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A love letter to re-born Sam’s Chop House (#hashtag corned beef#)

Mothballed for nearly two years by the pandemic, Manchester’s legendary Sam’s Chop House re-opens on Valentine’s Day 2022. If corned beef hash be the food of love? 150,000 thousand dishes sold in the last five trading years, that may be the signature dish at the Pool Fold comfort zone, but my favourite has always been the steak and kidney pudding, washed down with something Burgundian and red recommended by epic sommelier George Bergier.

My most memorable lunch there some 15 years ago involved two bottles of Gevrey Chambertin in the company of one Fergus Henderson, whose ‘nose-to-tail’ proclivities were sated by devilled kidneys after a soothingly rich starter of Omelette Arnold Bennett. The Manchester Food and Drink Festival had appointed me his minder ahead of a personal appearance. I was left wishing I could carry off an ‘Old Soho’ wide pin-striped suit the way he could. And remain as sober.

In a previous Sam’s era Laurence Stephen Lowry always lunched in a suit, now immortalised by the life-sized bronze statue at the bar, inspired Instagrammable homage commissioned by current owner Roger Ward. The re-opening is testimony to Roger’s infatuation with the Manchester institution he first brought back from the dead in 2000. His then partner Steve Pilling established the retro Victorian culinary ethos we hope will continue in its renaissance under new head chef Scott Munro. He did an internship at cutting edge noma in Copenhagen, which is a bit worrying.

Still a sampling of Scott contribution to the relaunch menu, intense Guinness braised beef short rib with a Roscoff onion stuffed with tarragon, Gruyere and mushrooms (£14) convinced me it might nudge aside a Sam’s Classic or two. Looks a safe pair of hands… and maybe much more.

A fellow newcomer in this dog-friendly establishment is Mooch the American bulldog, acquired by Roger during lockdown. I’m sure he’d enjoy the ribs, but the big lad is on a diet!

As a long-time associate of the Chop Houses, I’ve seen a lot of chefs come and go. Just as I’ve never seen the interior look better now after some meticulous tlc that has restored faded decor without sacrificing the quirks. There remain gargoyles guarding the main fireplace and scrawled messages of bonhomie from Samuel Pepys still adorn cornices.

A vital fixture has agreed to return, too. Just for Thursday and Friday lunchtimes the inimitable Bergier will be on hand if you need any wine matching recommendations. The word legend gets flung about too much; in the case 75-year-old Pole/adopted Mancunian it is fully justified. Watch out for his canny bin-end recommendations on the dining room blackboards, which have helped win the Chop Houses three top awards from America’s influential Wine Spectator magazine.

It feels like I’ve known George (above) for the lion’s share of his 54 years serving the Manchester public from his halcyon days at The Midland. For a while I was ensconced in an upstairs office at stablemate Mr Thomas’s Chop House, researching a book on the group with more than a little nod to the Manchester culture that spawned the chop houses in the 19th century. 

In 1868 there were 13 of them in the city when Samuel Studd launched Mr Thomas’s and Sam’s (which has occupied three separate sites). The book, for a variety of reasons, never saw the light of day, but no hard feelings. The research was revelatory, not least about Sam’s most famous customer.

This was my take on the remarkable venue…

“A Street is not a street without people – it is dead as mutton,” Laurence Stephen Lowry once said in justification of populating his canvasses with the so-called matchstick men.

Mutton was not his dish of choice, however, when lunching, as he habitually did, in Sam’s Chop House. A soup, a sandwich, half of Wilson’s bitter, with perhaps his beloved rice pudding to follow. Such a frugal repast, at odds with the trencherman habits of other habitues, served the great artist well before he resumed his day job as a rent collector. 

Only a short walk away were the Pall Mall Property Company offices he worked out of from 1910 until his retirement in 1952. Today the Market Street site is occupied by a Tesco Metro. It was a very different Manchester centre before the ravages of World War II bombs. Born observer Lowry used to firewatch during the blitzes. Until his death in 1975 he continued to frequent his favourite Chop House.

Lowry may have enjoyed painting human beings, but he was not always happy in their company. His protege, the young Cumbrian artist Sheila Fell, described him as “a great humanist. To be a humanist, one has first to love human beings, and to be a great humanist, one has to be slightly detached from them.”

So it was, you might often find him alone in Sam’s, folk reluctant to approach him; at best they might be on nodding terms. Ian Sandiford, a young artist, was one of those. Looking back in 2011, he recalled being invited into the inner circle, the Sherry Bar, where Lowry often sat drawing. “Money came to him very late in life, and you’d never have known it from his manner or his dress. I only ever saw him in his trilby hat and his gabardine raincoat – always with a very ordinary, slightly rumpled, collar and tie. They were the clothes of the Fifties. It was a decade he never really left – much like his work stayed rooted in an even older era.” 

Lowry wasn’t universally popular with the waitresses, for he didn’t tip. Instead he would sketch their image on a napkin and leave that. In return, they would heedlessly scrunch them up. On the walls you’ll find plaques in homage to these long-serving ladies. Less obvious than the talking point Lowry at the bar, they still bear witness to a bygone era, too.

Always immaculately dressed and knowing every client’s name and culinary preference, the likes of Flo, Edna, Margaret and Barbara defined service and were duly rewarded with generous tips. On the back of them, a waitress could afford two or three weeks continental cruise holidays. In the Sixties!

George Bergier first visited Sam’s in 1968 when he was working as a new boy at the Midland Hotel: “My customers took me there. It was like a private club. If you stood in the wrong place or sat on the wrong stool they’d move you. I couldn’t believe the number of bowler hats or the amount of port and brandy being drunk.”

Sam’s then was one of four clublike haunts for the business and law fraternity. The others were the Reform Club, St James’s Club and the Raquets Club. Unlike them, Sam’s was only open during the day, closing at 6pm when the clientele deserted the city for the suburbs and their wives. Unless, of course, they were lured to one of the other establishments for further refreshment.

Foodwise, Sam’s was a different sort of set-up. There was a bar selling fish and chips. Salt beef sandwiches were a speciality. Steaks were a big thing, too. Willoughbys Wine Merchants, part of Lees Brewery, supplied the reds to accompany. If they ran out, it was a short schlepp over to their Tib Lane cellars to replenish stocks. There’s still a portrait of Mr Willoughby in the corner of Sam’s dining room – the Chop Houses like to pay their dues.

This clannish regime was all down to one AH “Bert” Knowles. Like current Chop House owner Roger Ward, Bert came from an advertising background. The media elite of the day met at Sam’s for the First Friday Club, proof even in those days that brand and image counted. And what a brand he created when he revitalised the place after the Second World War

Sam’s already had a distinguished track record. It was established in 1872 in a basement on Market Street by Samuel Studd, brother of Thomas, who founded Mr Thomas’s at the same time. Thomas ran both in the late 19th century when Samuel returned to London. 

Bert switched it in early 1950s to the  the current premises at Back Pool Fold off Chapel Walks. The Lowry link goes back to before the Great War, when both men were at art school together. Bert Knowles died in 1988 and Sam’s changed hands until it finally closed in 1996. It lay dormant for five years until Roger Ward, energised by his stewardship of Tom’s, took on its equally striking sibling. 

It is in a basement that feels like a cosy lair, mix and match chairs and settles for the front room you come upon at the bottom of the stairs. Passing the bar, don’t forget to nod a greeting to “Mr Lowry” (that was how he was always greeted), then up a small flight to the casual tabled area at the back. You notice the classic Sefton Samuels photographs of the artist dotting the walls and the absence of music or a telly, setting it all aside from all the other pubs and bars around. Thanks to this you can’t help eavesdropping on animated conversation all around. It’s a democratic kind of place these days.

Turn left past the bookings “pulpit” and you enter the inner sanctum that is the dining room.  All booths and tiles and screens and cosy nooks and in the far corner, George Bergier’s legendary wine bin-ends blackboard. Pure cellar seduction. With your Chop House Steak And Kidney Pudding, Chunky Chips, Mushy Peas and Jug of Gravy might we suggest a Rioja Gran Reserva… and if you make it to Mr Lowry’s Rice Pudding and Mixed Berry Jam, maybe a glass of Sam’s most excellent Port.

In 1916, LS Lowry had missed his train from Pendlebury, the Salford suburb where he lived, into Manchester:

 “It would be about four o’clock and perhaps there was some peculiar condition of the atmosphere or something. But as I got to the top of the steps I saw the Acme Mill; a great square red block with the cottages running in rows right up to it – and suddenly I knew what I had to paint.”

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Great Brazilian Menu – Caroline is an amazing addition to Manchester scene

This website isn’t given to spoiler alerts. So let’s call it an informed guess that on Caroline Martins’ trio of canapés, pictured above, may feature tonight (Tuesday, February 8) in Great British Menu 2022 as the weeklong North West Heat kicks off. They’ve refreshed (ie purged) the old judges in favour of telegenic Tom Kerridge and Nisha Katona, both of whom I know and respect, so no gripes there. There’s also one Ed Gamble whose food podcast has passed me by. Whether the three of them can inject life into a hackneyed formula we shall see by the time the victorious competing chefs stumble over the finishing line in late March, having earned the right to cook at the Banquet.

The ‘North West’ chefs are a geographically confusing quartet. In the past we’ve had Mancunians Mary-Ellen McTague and Adam ‘Golden Empire Dessert’ Reid representing the region where their restaurants were (Aumbry and The French) and this year, the second running, Dave Critchley is the flag carrier for his native Liverpool, albeit as head chef at Chinese Lu Ban. In contrast 2002 also features two local lads, Stevie and Sam, plying their trade respectively in Darlington and Devon, and more exotically Caroline Martins, who hails from Barretos in deepest Brazil. I wonder if Postman Pat or Z Cars ever made it to her native country. The GBM theme this year is ‘100 Years of British Broadcasting’. 

I caught up with Caroline in deepest Ancoats at her residency at the Blossom Street Social, where those exquisitely beautiful canapés were the prelude to a parade of playful, adventurous small dishes that define her self-styled Sao Paulo Project. So colourful they almost make David Attenborough’s Green Planet look drab. Ingredient-wise cassava, papaya and açaí rub shoulders with our own native salmon, scallops and Cumbrian pork. It’s a new world away from the formulaic likes of carnivore-centric Fazenda and Bem Brasil. Skewered objects of desire don’t hold a candle to the Martin menu. Literally. For her major concession to meat somehow links to her pre-chef incarnation as a scientist. 

For a fascinating account of her globe-trotting life as a plasma physicist, who endured Brazilian Masterchef before success at the Cordon Bleu School and in Michelin kitchens, finally settling in Britain read my Manchester Confidential colleague Kelly Bishop’s in depth PROFILE.

At Blossom Street the bread course that followed those canapés wasn’t about the Calabresa sausage flavoured brioche rolls with a spread of caramelised onion butter (£7.30). No it was the innovative technique used to create a flaming, edible, rosemary- scented candle out of beef rump cap dripping. Another herb, lovage, colours the moat of melted fat to dip your rolls into.

It’s quite a statement after the delicacy of a waffle cone encasing chicken liver and açaí (palm) parfait with a gel of catuaba (apparently it’s an aphrodisiac herb infusion); a tartlet of locally smoked salmon brazil nuts and Brazilian style cream cheese, topped with `Platt Field edible petals and Exmoor caviar; and finally, demonstrating seriously high end technique, a vivid green ‘flower’ composed of Crofton cheer, heart of palm and parsley mousse, atop a pure of pickled walnut and passion fruit purée a crouton of Holy Grain bread. Gloriously different and a gift at £6.70.

All this is coming out of minuscule kitchen never purposed for full restaurant service. It will be Caroline’s home for the rest of 2022. Such has been her impact Ben Stephenson’s wine-led operation has extended what was initially meant to be a two month residency.

The chef herself, a bundle of creative energy, is impressed by her local suppliers. Not just Holy Grain. Meat from the Butchers Quarter and WH Frost and, naturally, their Chorlton neighbours, Out of The Blue, who supplied the hand-dived scallops for our next course – pure Brazilian umami on a cassava mousseline with a scattering of peppery dehydrated papaya seed (£6.50).

Next up we shared the obvious main, a deconstructed version of the only Brazilian dish I’d been fully aware of. Here a thinner than expected  Feijoada black bean stew was for dunking with buttered sourdough crumpets that accompany slices of pink pork fillet, substantial spirals of crackling dusted with collard green powder. As a counterpoint to all this porkiness there are salad leaves from Cinderwood, the Cheshire market garden, co-run by Higher Ground chef Joseph Otway. The leave are brought to vivid life by one of the best dressings I’ve ever tasted, made from lime and Manchester honey.

There is a seriously tempting cheese option of a baked Tunworth cheese to feed four; instead we shared a £12 British selection of Baron Bigod, Wigmore, Cumberland farmhouse and smoked Lancashire, given its ‘twist’ (what is the Portuguese for tracklement?) by partnering with mango and passion fruit chutney, spiced banana compote and a polyspore mushroom relish, the fungi sourced from a specialist grower in Altrincham. The biscuits are made from cassava starch. “Cassava is for Brazilians what potatoes are for the British,” Caroline told us.

If this is all a bit fusion, then her take on a classic Brazilian dessert, Romeu & Julieta feels as authentic as it is spectacular in its own visual homage to the Fly Agaric mushroom. The key ingredients are guava jam and Minas cheese made by a Brazilian couple, th only producers in the UK. The base is a parmesan genoise sponge, then a guava parfait and the cheese is coated in a guava jelly, then sprinkled with a crumble created from lime and  chocolate specially commissioned from the city’ bet chocolatier, Isobel at Dormouse. More edible flowers to complete the idyll on a plate. I doubted it all would work it did triumphantly. 

With the supply chain of local ingredients you’v seen employed throughout the menu and 26 regions from the fifth largest country in the world, all with their own culinary contributions there look no way the Sao Paolo Project is likely to run out of steam. It should remain among the most vital restaurant arrivals of 2022.

How did Caroline get on n the Great British Menu? Now that would be telling.

Caroline Martins’ Sao Paolo Project is at Blossom Street Social, 51 Blossom St, Ancoats, Manchester M4 6AJ.

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The Tiger rules in 2022 but why can’t we have a Year of the Octopus?

Chinatowns, I’ve done a few. From London’s Gerrard Street main drag to the more atmospheric San Francisco neighbourhood to Manchester’s own compact quarter. I’m an astrological dragon, so the Dragon Parades are for me; less so the waddling Lion Dances that come out of the woodwork during Chinese New Year.

This year’s animal is the Tiger, roaring into the limelight from February 1. In Manchester the focal point of celebration is an arty sculpture in St Ann’s Square, made from wood and recycled materials, that’s more Tiggerish than tigerish but hey we don’t want to scare the kids. For full details of the city’s Year of the Tiger schedule visit this link. (alas, due to Covid precautions, the customary parade and fireworks finale will not be taking place on the closing Sunday, February 6)

The beautiful tiger installation for St Ann’s Square, Manchester

Contrary as ever I chose Leeds, which lacks a designated Chinatown, for my advance  gustatory celebration and, to coin a phrase, the fortune cookie favours the brave. Wen’s was just splendid, earning its Tiger stripes with a flourish.

The interior is not dramatically changed from its 30 year spell as Hansa, serving Gujarati veggie food cooked by a groundbreaking female team. When inspirational founder Hansa Dhabi finally retired from the restaurant, Wen’s added their own distinctive stamp in 2019.

I could have been forgiven for thinking it was the Year of the Horse as the first thing I spotted on entering the cosy North Street restaurant was a Western saddle propped in a corner. Chao Wen, front-of-house, confessed it was a whim buy on a trip to a Manchester emporium. It signalled no equine purpose in this keen bodybuilder’s life, he assured me. Whatever, it alerted me to a distinct shift from the regular ‘go for a Chinese’ template. 

Witness the soundtrack of loungecore piano treatments of Christmas carols. Well, have you ever tackled a jellyfish salad to the tinkling strains of In The Bleak Midwinter? And who would have thought a selection of Mother Wen’s homemade fried dumplings would have brought such tidings of comfort and joy? She cooks in the basement with her husband. The two of them, both from Shandong, once ran a small restaurant in Beijing. What they certainly bring to their Leeds venture is the same no-short-cuts search for authenticity, even if the Chinese menu does roam regionally with Sichuan to the fore. Hence my Kung Po Chicken (£10.60), startlingly well balanced despite the considerable quantity of dried chillis and citrussy sharp sichuan peppercorns involved with the generous portions of marinated cubed chicken and peanuts. I’ve cooked the dish myself but never got near this quality. Thanks to Steve Nuttall of Wayward Wines and Anja Madvani of Leeds Confidential for that particular recommendation.

Wen’s was bigged up too, I discovered from a framed cutting on the wall, by Observer critic Jay Rayner in September 2020. He was rightly effusive about the house ‘dumplings in gossamer skins’. He’s aware how many Chinese restaurants buy them in. Wen’s menu offers five varieties, ranging from £5.80 to £6.90 for a half dozen – minced chicken, spicy minced beef, minced pork, king prawn and mixed seasonal greens. I had a selection (doubling up on the beef) and they were remarkably juicy inside the lightest of dough casings, their bases crisply crusted. Next time I’m heading straight for Mrs Wen’s hand-pulled noodles Dan Dan style. Think minced pork and oodles of chilli oil.

As for that marinated jellyfish with shredded Chinese leaf (£7.90) which kicked off proceedings, I chose it out of curiosity, expecting yet another Chinese riff on texture (think pig’s ears, rooster combs and chicken feet). It was a delightful surprise, dried strands rehydrated and delicately dressed in chilli oil, soy sauce, sichuan peppercorns and garlic, I suspect. Tigers are fine in their place; why can’t there be a Year of the Jellyfish?

Wen’s Chinese, 72-74 North Street, Leeds LS2 7PN. 01132444408.

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Mancs’ own L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele – just don’t expect dough balls

“Don’t worry about me. I’m not gonna be slinging pizza for the rest of my life.” Little did Julia Roberts realise in her movie breakthrough, 1988’s Mystic Pizza, that that line might come back to haunt her. Flash forward to Manchester 2022 and you’ll find the veteran Hollywood star up in lights at the city’s latest topped dough emporium, L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele. 

A bit of a mouthful to follow Zizzi – the previous Italian incarnation squatting in this palatial Edwardian bank building – but then so is the Napoletana in front of me. A huge and hugely satisfying mouthful from a springy, chewy base to an intense but measured topping of tomato, basil, Agerola fior di latte, Cetar anchovies, capers and oregano. ‘The greatest pizza in the world’ as the Da Michelebrand pushers proclaim? Up there, maybe, but it was rapidly cooling as it arrived at table from a distant oven and stone cold by half way through. That wouldn’t have been acceptable back in Naples, where the original pizzeria of this name has forged its reputation against fierce competition for over 130 years. 

Matt Goulding, in his fascinating exploration of Italian cuisine, Pasta, Pane, Vino, details the competitive zeal of the city’s pizzaioli and their commitment to their way of making arguably the world’s finest fast food. 

And there is an argument, as he writes: “Neapolitan pizza may be the original form of pizza  as we know it today, but for some – for those who like their pizza with textural contrast, who don’t consider pizza a knife and fork proposition – it doesn’t always deliver. Neapolitan pizza can be a violent enterprise – the high temperatures, the aggressive blistering, the miasma of cheese and sauce and rendered fat that leaves the centre of a pizza almost empty. The resulting pizza is relentlessly soft, yielding, fickle, unforgiving. It is a game of centimetres and seconds – the difference between a subpar pizza and a superlative one is a blink of an eye in the mouth of the oven.”

Julia Roberts only entered the Da Michele story just over a decade ago when she reprised her pizza schtick, starring in Eat Pray Love as globe-trotting seeker after self Elizabeth Gilbert, who falls head over heels for the modest restaurant on the Via Cesare Sersale, declaring she was “having a relationship with her pizza.” This someway explains critic Mark Kermode’s four word summary of the movie: “Eat, Pray, Love, vomit”.

On a wall of the new King Street branch a golden scrawl of the film’s title shares billing with a still of Julia scoffing a slice and there’s also further gush in pink neon: “I want someone to look at me the same way I look at pizza”, which is not up there with my fave doughy quote: “The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 4am.”

All of which diverts from the big da Michele question: Why here, now?

I saw ample evidence on a trip to Naples of how popular the original is, with its strong local fanbase bolstered by the tourist traffic generated by Gilbert’s book and the film. You have to book a slot to gain entrance to a very basic venue. Averse to queuing, I surveyed the gathering crowds from across the square as I enjoyed a Margherita in theatrically themed rival Trianon da Ciro. It was excellent, only bettered by the plate overlapping monster at De Matteo on the Via dei Tribunali. 

At all three venues you’d pay around six euros for a classic Margherita; in Manchester they charge £9.90 for this basic topping of tomato, basil and mozzarella, rising to nearly double that price for more elaborate toppings. No pizzas at Manchester’s acclaimed Rudy’s cost over a tenner, while their cocktails are each three quid cheaper that at Da Michele, where for six quid you get just the one arancino as a starter (we asked).

My Napoletana, generously topped though it was, felt steep at £12.90. Not as steep as the accompanying 250ml glass of (excellent) Badioli Chianti Riserva for £15.90, which I estimate is a 400 per cent mark-up on store prices. 

Strangely, when I sought to double check our bill the online menu didn’t run to prices. I wanted to register how much the wagyu steaks cost as well as the pastas, salads and desserts that join the 13-strong pizza roster that climaxes in a wagyu burger version. Above are dishes of tuna tartare and truffle ravioli, both pretty dishes but they scream Italian restaurant staple grafted onto the original Da Michele selling point

In the Naples restaurant they have proudly served only two types of pizza – Margherita and Marinara (the one without the cheese). 

The decision to expand the brand globally has also vastly expanded the menu. A constant among the pizzas is a predominant use of Agerola fior di latte cow’s milk mozzarella and soy bean oil over buffalo mozzarella and olive oil. Was this the formula from the start, five generations ago? The leavening and kneading nous created by Michele Condurro has surely never been tampered with. 

My research shows me that the first L’Antica Pizzeria launched over here in Stoke Newington followed the two pizzas only template but that split to trade under a new name (and presumably new ownership) when branches in Soho and Baker Street appeared. All a bit vague. Neither setting comes near the high-ceilinged grandeur of 43 King Street, much of the current style inherited from the unlamented Zizzi but with some odd tweaks.

My eyes may have deceived me, but they appear to have replaced Zizzi’s dove grey upholstery with a dusty pink version. A more strident pink decor, in many swirling shades, helps the bar dominate the front of the room. Pink is definitely the colour of the moment in the city.

It’s good (in an ironic way) to see restaurant trees are making a comeback. Zizzi scatted some gaunt saplings scattered around the dining space but they have been replaced by two ‘flourishing’ white artificial specimens, which forge a kind of glitzy symmetry with the vast dangling chandelier. It almost makes up for the inexorable deforestation of Manchester’s restaurant scene. Long gone the giant steel tree of Sakana, so too the more modest shrub inside Mr Cooper’s House and Garden in the Midland Hotel refurb. Still indelibly etched into Spinningfield’s Tattu, though, is its colourful dried cherry blossom tree. That matches its pan-Asian cuisine. Olive trees might have been a more authentic fit for Da Michele. Or maybe not. 

This brand expansion, which includes the USA, all seems a case of spreading it a bit thin once again. Remember the one true Harry Ramsden in Guiseley or The Ivy in London’s theatreland before all the cloning began? Now everywhere. Or on a less iconic level, take the original indie Real Greek launching in Hoxton in 1999. We eventually got a chain version in Manchester last year, joining its corporate stablemate Franco Manca. That does pizza, too, and they’ve got rivals seemingly on every corner. Sourdough, New York style, Detroit, Chicago deep dish, vegan and all the rest (sadly now minu our homegrown stalwart, the original Croma). You takes yer pick. Never has choice felt more homogenised. 

It all makes me yearn for the formica tables of old Napoli, where the pizzas conform and the people don’t. To quote Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend: “The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts.” 

L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, 53 King Street, Manchester M2 4LQ. 0161 204 7068.

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Hebden’s shining Coin and the stairway to fennel salami heaven

The best gifts come in pairs. In the run-up to Christmas the most perfect grazing bolthole has sprung up down the road, from which a portal has opened to a cornucopia of Italian artisan wonders. Living the edible dream as just bottled, grassy new season olive oil from the Abruzzo, Sicilian capers packing a volcanic punch and a whole Tuscan finocchiona (fennel salami) from Cinta senese pigs arrived in the post the other day. All the way from some enlightened middle men in Bermondsey.

Buon appetito then. But first back to that handily placed bolthole. It’s in Hebden Bridge in a former bank building and it’s called Coin. What’s behind the bar’s name? I suggest to co-owners Oliver Lawson and Chloe Greenwood it might be a reference to the ‘The Cragg Vale Coiners’. Up the hill in Heptonstall Shane Meadows is currently filming The Gallows Pole – a BBC adaptation of Ben Myers’ novel about real life 18th century counterfeiters in the Calder Valley. 

Already there’s a craft beer bar in nearby Mytholmroyd named Barbary’s after the alehouse the gang frequented. Or maybe Coin as the French for corner to match the site whose lofty windows look out on two streets? And, of course, in its previous incarnation as Lloyds Bank plenty of small change passed across the counter.

Oliver, poker-faced, agrees it might be any or all of those. He’s more forthcoming about the origins of the charcuterie board we’ve ordered along with a £10 trio of Lindisfarne oysters  and schooners of Garage IPA from Barcelona. 

The imports he’s most proud of are the finely sliced finocchiona, mortadella, coppa and prosciutto di San Daniele that circle a wedge of the bar’s home-made pâté de campagne on our platter. Having worked for the likes of Mana in Manchester and (along with Chloe) the Moorcock at Norland he has a fair handle on quality ingredients and that’s even more important when kitchen facilities are limited.

It’s a similar scenario at Flawd at New Islington Marina, Manchester. As part of their small plate offering Flawd source their cured meats from Curing Rebels in Brighton. It would have been easy for Coin to rely on local stars  Porcus in the hills above Todmorden, but ‘Slow Food Movement’ explorations in Italy left them smitten with the quality they found. 

“We wanted to do something different to anything else in the area,” Oliver tells us as he adds a house pickle accompaniment to the table. “The charcuterie prices are pretty much the same that we would pay for their British equivalent.”

The 100g meat plate is £13.95, a plate of five cheeses (two French, one Swiss, a Cheddar and Todmorden’s very own Devil’s Rock Blue) a tenner, while simple small plates range from £5.50 to £9.50. Our meal eventually costs me an extra £90 on top. Why? Because I was so enamoured of the charcuterie we were served that back home I placed my own order with the UK suppliers and friends of Oliver and Chloe, The Ham and Cheese Company. Formed on a Borough Market stall 15 years ago, they now work out of wholesale maturing rooms in a Victorian railway arch in Bermondsey. All they sell is from a network of small, ultra-sustainable, independent producers from across Italy (plus there’s a small Basque presence also).

The operation has a huge fan base among top London chefs specialising in Italian cuisine – Theo Randall, Joe Trivelli of the River Cafe and Murano’s Angela Hartnett, who says: “What I love about Elliott and Alison is their ability to source the most incredible salumi straight from the producer. The best I have tasted – plus my mother (with Italian roots) agrees!”

What really sold Ham and Cheese Co to me was a blog by Alison on the website entitled The Ethical Abbatoir. Its mission statement is immediate: “The first thing we ask a potential new producer is the number of pigs they slaughter a week. We know that this will often tell us more about the producer, their philosophy, and the quality of their product, than any other question.” This blog piece features their San Daniele provider, Prolongo, a family business that is so wedded to tradition (natural drying and ageing, salting, massaging and larding) that they only produce 7,000 hams a year).

It’s harder to work this way in the UK because the tradition of small-scale animal slaughter that these Italian producers sustain has all but disappeared. 

Not feeling able to run to a 2.3kg whole rare breed Mora Romagnoli mortadella from Aldo Zivieri, I had settled on a more modest finocchiona from Carlo Pieri, who has a small shop in the Tuscan village of Sant Angelo Scalo near Montalcino. He works just four pigs a week and uses a local abattoir he invested in to save it. His octogenarian mum picks all the wild fennel seeds and fennel pollen that season Carlo’s salumi. Check out my paean to fennel pollen.

As it turns out I end up accepting a substitute. Elliott tries to ring me, then texts the news that the next delivery from Tuscany is a week away; I can wait or try, at the same price, a new producer’s fennel salami, 50g smaller but normally more expensive, made from Cinta Senese, the queen of Italian pigs (above), so I’m actually getting a better deal. 

And so it proved. A perfect blend of creamy fat and sweetly cured flesh, the one from the Rosati family’s Azienda Agricola Fontanelle was remarkably even better than the Pieri we first tasted at Coin. We paired it with buffalo mozzarella and doused them in that ‘green’ olive oil I mentioned.

A final word, especially relevant as no shows proliferate across hospitality, by all means do as I did, and work your way through the producer pen pictures on the Ham and Cheese website, revealing a glorious food culture. Maybe even place an order. But do support a small indie like Coin, launching at the most difficult of times. 

I’m going back as soon as I can to road-test the rest of the menu and a whole raft of natural wines. As usual I’ll be making my own Negronis this Christmas, yet I also intend to try one of Oliver and Chloe’s. Before tackling another charcuterie platter, naturally.

Coin, Albert Street, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7 8AH. 01422 847707.

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Have yourself a merry little Habas, new darling of the Michelin men

A Christmas pudding with custard is an unlikely adjunct to a Sunday lunch at a restaurant trumpeting its allegiance to ‘Modern Middle Eastern-influenced dining and bar culture’, but then a main of plain roast lamb hardly counts as a shawarma either. 

Yet who the hell cares about sticking exactly to the brief when both dishes taste so good? Michelin has been swift to recognise the talent of head chef Craig Rutherford and his Habas team, manifesting the long-term vision of Simon Shaw (below) to expand eastwards from his Iberian-inspired El Gato Negro and Canto.

The orangey, spicy pud was a seasonal special on a menu significantly short on turkey and sprouts, though the warm, exotically cluttered 200-cover basement would be ideal for a festive gathering without all the predictable trimmings.

Let’s call the Christmas pudding an honorary Levantine treat. After all, when the dish originated in the 14th century it was made with hulled wheat, boiled in milk, seasoned with cinnamon and coloured with saffron. Familiar spices from the Middle East to the fore and what started as a plain dish was soon augmented with mutton, raisins, currants, prunes, figs, ground almonds and further spices – savoury and sweet touches that feel decidedly Middle Eastern.

Lamb, not mutton, represents Habas’ Sabbath roast of choice for £17. Across the table it arrives as generous slices of seared half shoulder, tender and pink. The regional remit kicks in with the accompaniments. Labneh (creamy strained Greek yoghurt) brings a delicacy to cauliflower cheese, there’s a sticky oomph to the carrots thanks to sumac and orange honey, while the solid roasted spuds are lifted by black garlic and mint. Oh yes and thankfully not a Yorkshire pudding in sight.

Roasted squash and sautéed kale understandably replace cauli cheese as sides for my vegan alternative – harissa roasted cauliflower (£15). Sumac? Harissa? For those of you unfamiliar with the output of one Yotam Ottolenghi there’s a glossary prefix to the menu. Even I, a devotee of Persian dried black limes, barberries and golpar, have to double check what zhug is.

My daughter and I had kicked off with a £10.50 mezze platter that really did showcase the quest for authenticity that drove chef patron Simon Shaw’s recces in Lebanon and the cuisine-in-exile cafes of London. The hummus is as good as it gets with the  baba ganoush and whipped labneh not far behind. The breads were less impressive, the toasted lavosh brittle, the tiny pittas and the flatbread hosting crumbled halloumi and za’atar (a separate dish for £4) lacking a certain fluffiness.

Maybe Habas suffers in comparison with London big hitters in the field such as Palomar or Barbary but it has settled into the groove it promised. Likewise stablemate Canto in Ancoats, whose initial promise was Portuguese cuisine but which had to swiftly recalibrate as ‘Mediterranean tapas’. I loved my return recently. There is no such miscomprehension, I feel, about this latest Shaw project in the old Panama Hatty’s site. 

One guarantee at any of the restaurants: octopus will be done well. At Habas it was a toss-up for an ‘intermezzo’ between a long-standing fave, filo ‘cigars’ stuffed with feta cheese, wilted spinach and sunblush tomato, and the chargrilled octopus (£12), curled up inside a bed of smoked aubergine and tomato. Utterly gorgeous, it’s the kind of small plate, along with spot-on service, that must have impressed the Michelin inspectors inside five months of the restaurant (and its bolthole of a bar) opening. We’ll have to wait and see whether it will be garlanded with a Bib Gourmand like El Gato or a Plate like Canto. I suspect the latter.

It being lunchtime we snubbed the inviting bar and its cocktail list (Middle Eastern inspired naturally) in favour of a light red. Well, that was the plan. Our Ribas del Cúa Joven 2018 (£27) from Northern Spain offered a juicy riot of red and black fruits on nose and palate as you’d expect from the Mencia grape. As a Joven I anticipated it would be on the light side. Not so. 14.5 per cent, yet it didn’t feel a bruiser. Main supplier is the estimable Miles Corish of Milestone and all wines on the list are available by the glass in various sizes – apart from the show-off fizzes and the 1998 Chateau Musar, legendary red from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley (one of the staging points on Simon Shaw’s journey towards Habas, as it happens. 

£110 and the Musar is yours. Alternatively for Sunday lunch you may bring your own wine for just £5 corkage on all bottles. Another big plus from this obvious labour of love in difficult times. Fi sihtuk! (cheers in Arabic)

Habas, 43a Brown Street, Manchester M2 2JJJ. 0161 470 9375. Monday-Sunday 12pm-late; food service until 10pm.

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I finally land on Mars (the brewery) in a fresh, fruitful mission to Sheffield

It has been an epic journey across time and space and I’m understandably nervous when I encounter a scribbled sign at the picket gate into the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert. Private function today? Shut by Covid scare?

Phew. ‘Please don’t let Grimbold the dog out’ with a silhouette of the jet black bundle of fun I get to pat once I step across the ‘Welcome To Mars’ threshold. Fun is a good word, indeed, for everything that greets me inside this colourful cottage of a taproom. My benchmate, who budges up for me, recommends the ‘SMODFEST’ Festbier for its soft maltiness, continental hop character and absence of excess carbonation that can bedevil a lager. 

OK, I’ve made him more eloquent than he was. Yet it is a great introduction to SMOD, who specialise in “hoppy koelship beers, foeder-soured stingos, rustic lagers, deep malty dark beers and Benelux-inspired creations”, according to their website. Koelship? Pronounced cool ship, it’s a long, slender, open top stainless steel vessel akin to those traditional Flemish/Dutch koelschips, originally made of wood, whose high surface-to-mass ratio allows for more efficient cooling of the wort in the brewing process. Won’t go into more detail – this is a nerd-free zone.

It’s the centrepiece of a modest scale brewing operation behind the taproom, where SMOD co-owners Dann Paquette and Martha Simpson-Holley, plus apprentice Scarlet, produce some splendidly niche and nuanced beers in the old industrial district of Attercliffe, surrounded by ranks of contemporary factories/depots.

Not the easiest place to get to, hence my ‘epic journey’ lead-off. On my last adventure in Sheffield my last port of call was meant to be here but my phone charge went dead and no local could guide me, even though I was within a couple of hundred metres. Even this this time, on a trek from a tram halt, I feel rudderless.

Once I arrive, then, I am in no hurry to leave, sampling in turn Clamp Koelship IPA, hazy and hoppy yet like all the beers very clean, Koel It! Jingly Bells, all my Christmases come early with oodles of hops married to a festive fruitiness and, finally, The Battle of Frogs and Mice, Dann and Martha’s ‘tribute to the original craft brewers of Belgium’. Artisan or what?

At 8 per cent, Frogs, a dark special brune, outmuscles the 6.3 per cent Mice, a Flanders golden bitter, but it is also smoother, fruitier and more complex. According to the SMOD beer menu it is “brewed with a recreation of the water profile of West Flanders”. Now that is an attention to detail.

Bizarrely, when the globally influential RateBeer site announced its 10 Best New Breweries in the World 2020, two of the three British breweries named had this Belgian resonance (SMOD and, understandably, Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire) and two had American founders/brewers (SMOD and Suffolk’s Duration, incidentally many of whose ales are farmhouse and saison, too).

Bostonian Dann met North Yorkshire lass Martha across the Pond and the pair ran the acclaimed Pretty Things brewery for eight years before embarking on peripatetic journeys across Asia and Europe. Along the way they fell in love with a smallholding near a village called Saint-Mars-du-Désert in France’s Pays de la Loire region, named after an eighth century hermit. 

Maybe but for the prospect of Brexit they might have set up there; after considering Leeds and Manchester they went for Sheffield and took the monastic moniker with them. After all it was monks who first consolidated the brewing industry.

The pair’s fascinating story is recounted in a Pellicle online magazine piece by Matt Curtis,  ‘Everything in its right place’ and SMOD is a featured brewery in his recently published Modern British Beer (CAMRA Books, £15.99). Read my review here.

It’s not just about the beer, though. The taproom faithful are a civilised lot, Dann and Martha host it all with real warmth and Grimbold is irrepressible.

St Mars had been on my radar since its inception in 2018. My yearning to visit has since become a catalyst for discovering a Sheffield beyond my Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker affiliations. This time around I was smitten by the diversity and raw vitality of The Moor Market and found Cutlery Works the most relaxing street food hall I’ve ever visited.

THE MOOR MARKET

Chicken livers, gizzards and hearts are all the same price – 90p a pound. The adjacent pig’s feet are priceless (in a nose to tail photoshoot way). Across the aisle a specialist Persian food stall offers ingredients I’ve only ever read about in Sabrina Ghayour or Yasmin Khan. On one fish stall I encounter a sturdy carp, not seen on most slabs. There is tripe and various intestinal siblings, feathered, ungutted game birds and a whole, skinned rabbit still defrosting I enquire about, to be told “it’s French, farmed, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for the English, wild, fresh.” I loved all this from the moment I walked into find a fine bottle shop, Beer Central, to welcome me.

The building is less than a decade old, cost £18m and includes 200 market stalls and eight shops. Situated off a pedestrian precinct rammed with every high street name you can think of, what a relief to discover this haven of independent traders, offering an affordable, browsable, diverse alternative to control freak supermarkets. 

Its main northern rival, Leeds Market, benefits from its Victorian monumentality and better dining-in opportunities, but Sheffield’s really is hard to beat. Obviously not in comparison with the great markets of Spain, Barcelona’s Boqueria or Valencia’s Modernista-style Mercado Central. They reflect a whole different food culture. It has been interesting, though, to tick off across the Iberian peninsula the rise of markets morphing into food halls – in Bilbao, Madrid, Seville and notably Lisbon’s waterfront Time Out Market.

CUTLERY WORKS

That Lisbon operation is a showcase for the city’s Michelin-starred chefs. Sheffield’s stand-out food hall is an altogether more modest affair despite its claims to be the North’s largest. Set in a converted cutlery factory, in the post-industrial corridor that stretches out from Kelham Island, Cutlery Works offers 13 different vendors across two floors, ranging from China Red’s Szechuan sizzlers to chocolate counter Bullion and coffee roasters Foundry, taking in Thai, pizza, fried chicken, burgers, sushi and Mexican along the way.

Foundry provide bottomless batch coffee for freelancers taking advantage between 9am and 5pm of designated co-working spaces with plug sockets and 10 per cent food discounts. All very cool and relaxing in my mid-afternoon slot, it lacked the buzz of Manchester’s Mackie Mayor, which I still love – despite my general weariness with the whole food hall experience. 

The Guardian restaurant critic Grace Dent summed it up nicely: “I need to ask a very honest question here: are food halls ever a truly satisfying dining experience? I’ve no doubt they seem so on paper and in the marketing meetings, they’re fantastic for filling old, unloved but historically important spaces and they’re good news for downward-spiralling city centres. Yet in reality they’re noisy, unrelaxing and the food is often patchy, with the occasional gem hidden among the colossal choice of menus.”

That was in last month’s review of the GPO in Liverpool, as the name suggests, a post office repurposed into a food hall. She was unimpressed by Nama, a Japanese small fish plates counter, created by Luke French and Stacey Sherwood-French of Sheffield big hitter Jöro (my restaurant review here), who have also transferred their other new venture Konjö.

The original of this Korean-influenced, fire-based “Robatayaki” Kitchen was my choice at Cutlery Works. It’s the first vendor on the left as you reach the first floor – preferable to the ground floor if only because it boasts the proper craft beer bar, Boozehound.

I spent £30 at Konjö, mainly because I over-ordered in my eagerness (and a desire for ballast ahead of my beer destination). Don’t expect a spin-off from Jöro down the road. There’s no comparable finesse. And yet my combo was hugely enjoyable. A duck bao was basically a take on the old Peking/hoisin sauce stalwart while chilli beef was sticky and punchy. Sides of subtle kimchi and refreshing sesame greens provided perfect balance ahead of my journey  to Mars.

Brewery of Saint Mars of the Desert, 90 Stevenson Rd, Sheffield S9 3XG. The taproom is normally open Fridays and Saturdays 2pm-8pm.

Cutlery Work, 73-101 Neepsend Lane, Neepsend, Sheffield S3 8AT. Open Sunday-Thursday, 10am-10pm; Friday-Saturday 10am-11pm.

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Brussels to San Diego – now cool sprouts sparkle at festive Bundobust

It’s that time of the year again when Bundobust is dangling its festive baubles, otherwise known as Sprout Bhajis. It’s a world away from all the crass foodie gimmicks of Christmas – pigs in blankets pizza toppings and the like, but then this burgeoning brand yoking Gujarati veggie street snacks to craft beer always does things with style.

So what do you get for your £4.75? Deep-fried bundles of Brussels sprouts, broccoli, onion, fennel and chilli, served with a dollop of cranberry chutney. Chuck in an extra £1.25 and it comes in a soft vegan brioche bun. Proof all their venues are a Scrooge-free zone, a quid from each Sprout Bhaji Butty goes to a local charity.

My Bundo destination of choice to snaffle a bhaji has to be their latest project – the Bundobust Brewery on Oxford Street in Manchester, where head brewer Dan Hocking is knocking out a splendid range of beers tailored towards the spice-driven food menu.

I was disappointed on a recent visit that my favourite of his beers wasn’t on. West is West is a piney and resinous, dank and bitter (in a good way) West Coast IPA. A perfect match for the setting, surrounded by the gleaming vessels of a working brewery, it reminded me of many of the taprooms I’ve visited along the US western seaboard. In San Diego, say.

Which brings me back, by a roundabout route, to Brussel sprouts. The tiny green cannonballs are definitely love or loathe over here with major consumption confined to Christmas. Our Brussels Sprouts Appreciation Society Facebook Group numbers under 700 members after five years in existence.

Vivid green healthy ammunition, but they are culinary anathema to many folk

Contrast this with California, where the foggy, coastal area south of San Francisco grows 95 cent of the American crop, and they are mega cool. A big help is they are not over-cooked to bland mushiness. Food websites in the States are packed with innovative ways to treat your Brussels, which are neck and neck with kale to be top green on menus. Apparently they are a good source of dietary fibre, folic acid, manganese, and vitamins A, C, and K. Sprouts date back to Roman times but were first grown in large quantities in Belgium – hence the Brussels tag – and French settlers brought them to Louisiana in the 18th century.

Flying kites for the much-maligned Brussels sprout in glorious San Diego

Yes, there are roasted sprout gumbos out there, but I’ve never tackled one. I vividly remember  tempura sprouts accompanying  shrimp tacos in one downtown San Diego taproom, their natural hint of bitterness in harmony with the hop. Bizarrely research has shown that genetically two thirds of folk may be wired against the bitter chemical PTC found in sprouts, broccoli, dark chocolate, coffee and even beer. 

Definitely count me out of that pool.

My top Brussels sprout dish is also Indian…from my favourite new generation cookery writer, Meera Sodha. This quick Keralan stir-fry is in Fresh India, her follow-up to debut Made In India (both are £20 from Penguin Fig Tree). Like so many of her recipes, it fuses her Asian culinary sensibility with the raw materials she inherited when her family made their home in rural Lincolnshire.

Shredded Brussels Sprout Thoran (Choti gobhi thoran)

Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut oil; 1 tsp mustard seeds; 12 curry leaves; one large red onion, thinly sliced;  2 cloves garlic, crushed; 1 red chilli, finely sliced; 50g coconut, grated (fresh, creamed, or desiccated); 600g Brussels sprouts, washed and shredded; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 lemon, juiced.

Method

Heat the oil in a large pan or wok. Once hot, add the mustard seeds and curry leaves and cook for a minute or two until they start to pop. Add the red onion. Cook until soft and starting to caramelise, about 10-15 minutes. Add the garlic, chilli and coconut and stir fry for a couple more minutes.

Turn the heat up. Add the sprouts, mix thoroughly, and stir fry for a few more minutes. Add the salt and lemon juice, stir, and then adjust the seasoning to taste. The lemon juice counters any bitterness from the greens, so add more if you’ve used quite large sprouts.

Bundobust has three other bar/restaurants besides the Brewery – the original in Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool. They are all taking Christmas bookings now.

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