Cooking & Tours

Marinated Monkfish Liver – A Recipe

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On a recent stroll around Borough Market I visited my usual fish monger, Furness, who have never disappointed me so far. Sometimes the guys behind the counter recognise my face and shave a few squid off the price. And there they were sitting: two giant monkfish livers, each about 500g. I had never seen one before, but was immediately fascinated. They were unusually white for a liver, very firm judging by the look, and without any spots or other imperfections. At £6.80 per kg it seemed outrageously good value. I took out my phone and started googling monkfish liver recipes. After a few minutes I had made up my mind: I was going to buy one of those two beauties, marinate and sear it as a starter.   INGREDIENTS (2 persons)   1 large monkfish liver (or 2 or 3 smaller ones, roughly 500g in total)   For the marinade: […]

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Cooking & Tours

Rabbit Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Mushrooms – A Recipe

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I’ve recently tried my hand at rabbit stew. The outcome was so good I thought, heck, why not share the recipe. It’s pretty standard with no added chocolate, goat cheese, samphire, parsnip ice cream, or other weird stuff. On a few occasions in the past I’ve been told that I’m a decent cook. Compared with most passably passionate amateur cooks, who usually have a ton more talent, I’m pretty rubbish. One of the reasons I post recipes here on Berkeley Square Barbarian, is to get some ideas out there. You’ve never cooked rabbit stew? Well, now might be as good as any time to get started. This was my first time.   By all means, do shop around, google other recipes. I’ve achieved all I wanted to achieve if a few of you readers out there get thinking about trying out new stuff.   INGREDIENTS (2 persons)   Whole, skinned, […]

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Cooking & Tours

Sierra Leone Potato Leaves Plasa

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Today I tried my hand at Sierra Leone potato leaves seafood plasa for the first time. One of the companies I’m involved with in my day job is a money remittance firm with a focus on Sierra Leone, hence the connection. Plasa means stew or soup, by the way, and refers to a dish with a lot of rice on which some seafood and/or meat, vegetables and sauce are added. It is perhaps the most typical Sierra Leonean dish. Another very common variety of plasa is made with cassava leaves instead of sweet potato leaves. I believe this recipe to be reasonably traditional in terms of the preparation process. I watched dozens of youtube videos and read plenty of cooking blog posts. It is also traditional in that it uses a ton of Maggi, just like most people in Sierra Leone seem to. On the other hand I use readily-available […]

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Cooking & Tours

Garfield would kill for this Lasagna Recipe

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This recipe is for 4 persons. It involves 20 minutes of work and 40 minutes of baking, 60 minutes from start to finish. It requires only very basic skills, so everyone can do it. In Germany, where I grew up, most people make lasagna at home on a very regular basis. As a matter of fact, most German cooking books I’ve seen contain one or more lasagna recipes, just like they contain recipes for Viennese schnitzel, Hungarian goulash, or three dozen French dishes. While all Germans are aware of the foreign origin of these dishes, they consider them to be German dishes nonetheless. Perhaps a bit like us here in the UK (I’m a dual British-German citizen), when we consider chicken curry, Beef Wellington, or Mulligatawny soup to be British dishes.   Photos for illustrative purposes only. Ratios and amounts of ingredients are different from recipe. The following recipe is […]

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Cooking & Tours

Conger Steaks and Spicy Prawns with Sweet Potato and Spinach

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Ever since I went on a deep sea conger fishing trip from Brighton about a year ago, I got my mind set to cooking some of those lovely eels. Back then, none of our group were able to catch a single conger eel, but luckily enough there is Borough Market. You don’t find conger on offer very often, but during my last visit they had a whole big conger resting there on the ice in the display tray, untouched yet by anyone. I ordered three 1.5-inch thick steaks, and the guy behind the counter started chopping away like a young Bruce Lee. I also purchased some prawns, herbs, spices, sweet potatoes and normal potatoes The rest of the ingredients I already had at home.   Conger has a proud history as a food fish in Europe. The 12th Century Norman Taxation Pipe Roll mentions two establishments for the drying of […]

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