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Ah lentils… Hippy food, beloved of Neil from the Young Ones. But really, really good with lemon ‘n’ cumin, ya know? Vegetable rights and peace!

Ingredients

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2 Onions
1 Tablespoon olive oil or sesame oil
1 Teaspoon of salt
1 Teaspoon of ground cumin
1 Cup of dried lentils (soaked for 1-2 hours)
5 Cups of water
3 Thin slices of lemon
1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
6 Thin slices of lemon for garnish

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1. Chop the onions into medium-sized pieces, meanwhile heat the oil on a medium heat (notice a pattern here?)
2. Sauté (that’s posh for ‘fry’) until golden.
3. Add cumin and salt – cook for 5 minutes.
4. Rinse the lentils in a sieve, then add to the pot with the water
5. Bring to the boil, add lemon slices.
6. Once boiling, reduce the heat & simmer for 25 minutes until the lentils are soft
7. Finally, add the lemon juice, and garnish with a slice of lemon.

Come to think of it, the ‘Cash‘ episode of the Young Ones has no doubt taken on masses of extra relevance now, given the straightened times we’re living through.

Just one more Young Ones Link (because I can’t resist it:) the infamous ‘mouse in a telescope’ embarrassing party scene – ah… Reminds me so much of my own student days…  “Does anyone here like the Human League?”

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Sometimes London throws things at you you never expect: who’d've thunk there’d be a chilled out, friendly, affordable and down to earth restaurant and basement wine bar just seconds from the gigantic brick and neon cowpat that is Leicester Square? Welcome to Val Taro!

Enter via the side entrance, go straight through the door at the end of the corridor, and down the stairs is the bar.

We went on a Friday night, and got a table without a problem. A great selection of Italian wines, and complementary nibbles (ah – remember the days of the complementary nibbles?) The pizza (N.Italian?) is thick and bready, though fresh, and the pasta looks pretty hearty too. The food is quite bizarre… make sure you ask for ‘al dente’ if you’re ordering pasta.

Beloved of people who work in Theatreland (ie – acting/drama types, but try not to let that put you off) Val Taro is an absolute gem, and it’s amazing somewhere like this can exist within spitting distance of the commercial hotchpotch that is the ‘Square.

It was the best of peas, it was the worst of peas – the split pea is so revered in certain cultures that they even have a National Split Pea Soup Week (no joke – 12-18 Nov – missed it, darn!) But is not to be confused with the pigeon pea, often used to make dal.

You’ll need to start by soaking the peas for about 12 hours or so – try leaving them in a bowl of water before you leave for work in the morning – this’ll cut down their cooking time considerably. Just multiply the measures of pea/water if you want to make masses of soup.

Ingredients

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1 cup of yellow split peas, soaked
3 cups of water
1 stamp-size piece of kombu (seaweed) soaked for 15 min – this is a definite optional – if you can find/afford kombu or another type of seaweed available in health food shops, it’s said to make them ‘easier to digest’ – alternatively, just go ‘commando’, seaweed-less!
1 Sliced onion
2 carrots
1 cup of pumpkin (another optional – you could replace with mushroom, or a green vegetable like pointed cabbage – in season at the moment, if it’s easier)
Pinch of salt
Barley miso (paste) to taste OR marigold/any other type of soup stock

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1. Place the peas (and seaweed, if you’re using it) in a pot with water. Simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Add chopped onion, carrots,pumpkin and salt and cook until tender.
3. Add the stock powder, or miso.
4. cook for 5 more minutes (but don’t boil – this can denature the miso.)

And that’s that. I’ve also just discovered there’s also an interesting traditional Geordie/NW English pea recipe (no, not Cheezy Peaz) called pease pudding using split peas… will have to check this out in a future London Cooking recipe!

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If nothing else, this has confirmed to me that, since I started this blog, I’ve been unhealthily obsessed with sprouts – quite a reality check.

This image was created by the excellent Wordle – try submitting your blog, menus, recipe book etc to it, and see an instant ‘word cloud’ summary of your key obsessions! Try it out…

“If I was a wild animal, I’d start eating this now. But I’m not like your momma.”

Did you know that current Celebrity Big Brother contestant (and hence current London resident) Coolio is the star of his own web TV cooking show?

You’ll probably live to wish you didn’t.

On this edition of ‘Cooking with Coolio’:

He quickly comes to regret letting possibly the most obnoxious child in New York to guest on his web TV show, as he offers up a nifty, easy to make chicken recipe. He also finds a ‘foreign object’ planted in his food (almost certainly not suitable for work…)

I think this has the makings of a great web TV format (seriously)… And who else but Coolio could get away with having ‘Sauce Girls’?

Here at LondonCooking, I like to think we run a tight ship. That’s as nothing though compared with the almighty bbcgoodfood.com, where we’ve learned that every recipe is triple tested before it goes up on the site.

Just in case you’re having trouble visualising this process (I still am), what this means is that every lemon self-saucing pudding has already been through a Rick Stein, a Gordon Ramsay and a Raymond Blanc before it can grace the site.

Some might say this is insane. But I call it robust. What do you think?

NB – bbcgoodfood.com now has videos too.

Popular flavours of soup in London include: cream of mushroom, chicken and sweetcorn and Covent Garden.

Cauliflower soup isn’t at the top of the list – and why should it be when half the metropolitan population is still traumatised by their formative school dinner experiences (yes – it’s up there with sprouts, people.)

Having seen an abundance of the cauli around this month (in season? Apparently, the ‘flower thrives in -20 conditions!) I decided to give the albino broccoli another chance.

Ingredients

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1 cauliflower (flowerets separated and stem cut to pieces).
1 onion sliced
6 cups of water
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup of rolled oats (optional!)
2 tablespoons of tahini
6 teaspoons of white Miso paste (or Marigold veg soup powder/or other stock to taste)

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1. Put the cauliflower, onion,oats,salt with the water in a pot.
2. Cook for 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender but still firm.
3. Add the white miso or powder/stock and tahini and cook for 5 min.

There you go – another terrifying childhood memory banished, thanks to Londoncooking.

… At least until you watch Little Shop of Horrors again.

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“Why are you even thinking of buying a bag of pungent, watery balls that give you wind?”

- Nigel Slater on brussel sprouts, in his book Appetite.

I have to disagree with Nige on this one – for some reason I haven’t been scarred by overcooked Xmas or school dinner sprouts over the years, and as these festive ‘watery balls’ only come out to play around this time of year, I found a good new use for them, combining udon (noodles made from rice (much nice than soba, for me), my ever-so-simple tahina/tahini recipe and, of course, the ’sproutage’.

Ingredients

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Udon noodles (about 100g per person)
Tahini
Brussel sprouts
(Optional extras: mushrooms. You can also make this dish with broccoli, instead of sprouts, if they still give you nightmares.)

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1. Wash and score the sprouts, with an ‘x’ (this speeds up cooking), then boil until softened (but not light green and watery!)
2. Fry the sprouts in olive oil (with mushrooms, as an added extra, if you like)
3. Boil the udon, drain and rinse with cold water.
4. Mix the tahini and udon, then add the vegetables.

Tip: The tahini tends to solidify when you add to the noodles, so consider making it extra-runny!

I’m sure there must be a range of other winning veg. combos for this dish – let me know if you discover any…

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