Bad Food Week

So what is bad food? What makes a meal out a disappointment, a let-down and a distaster? Is it frustrated expectation, just bad food or simply bad service? Is it a rich mixture of all three, a sort of systemic incompetence that starts front of house and goes all the way to the kitchen?

Knocked about, treated badly, fed slops and food poisoned by five star hotel buffets and brunches, you'd almost feel sorry for us all, wouldn't you? But surely we have a right to expect something, anything like care in return for that five times food cost - don't we?

This week is dedicated to our fellow sufferers - to everyone who's ever had a bad meal and cowered under the waiter's gimlet eye as they said, 'It was lovely thank you' when asked how the meal was - when they actually wanted to say, 'If that was medium to well cooked then I'm Enid Blyton, chum.'

Kicking off a week of memorably bad experiences, guest contributor EyeOnDubai reviews a triplet of terrible taste tribulations below. Later on in the week we'll be looking at, among other delighted reminiscences and ramblings, what it's like to eat in the World's Best Restaurant and quite who gets the nomination for the worst in the UAE.

To that end, we'd be fascinated by your views - what IS the worst place to eat in the Emirates? Or, indeed, what is the worst restaurant in the Universe? Answers on a postcard to The Fat Expat, please!!!

Where Not To Eat

Guest Guru Eye On Dubai reprises some of the UAE's Let Downs...

The preparation of food is a deeply personal act. At its finest, it is a gift of love from one human being to another. Food cooked with passion and skill is one of life’s greatest pleasures, something to be appreciated with every sense. You only have to watch the chefs in Lang Kwie Fong doing battle with a wok burner to appreciate their dedication.

And then there are the cynics, the kitchens run by those with an eye only on the bottom line, staffed by the inept, the untrained and the overwhelmed. These poor souls are the diner’s last hope, but theirs is a losing battle.

Truly awful restaurant experiences are fortunately almost as rare as great ones, but I do recall a few stinkers. Most often, though, it is cack-handed service that turns a pedestrian meal into a disaster, where inept or untrained staff are put in the front line, then not given the resources or responsibility they need to handle a deteriorating situation with authority. It is not often that we are presented with food so bad we’re moved to complain, but things turn pretty ugly very quickly if the server starts to argue! If something is unacceptable to me, saying “that’s the way it’s meant to be” simply stokes my ire. I don’t want a scene, I want a replacement.

So, where did it all go wrong?

First up, j’accuse Courtyard by Marriott at the Green Community. This is a perfectly functional business hotel, clean, modern and as comfortable as you would expect. Having hosted several functions there, I know that the kitchen is capable of turning out stunningly good spreads and buffets, so much so that one guest was moved to photograph the dessert display and put the picture on his blog.

So when a couple of friends suggested we dine at their ‘all you can eat buffet’ one evening I was not too perturbed. Actually, it was a very good ploy by the hotel, because nothing on display was remotely edible. Limp salads, tough chicken, messy display and burnt offerings from the barbecue, with added sand. At least the waiters had the grace to look embarrassed as they cleared away barely touched plates of dreck. They didn’t take it off the bill, though…

Another trusted name that I just don’t get is Il Rustico at Rydges Plaza. Most of the outlets in the hotel are pretty good, and Coconut Grove on the 8^th floor is genuinely excellent, consistently serving some of the best curries in the whole city. And yet, Il Rustico leaves me cold. Plenty of people have sung its praises, calling it friendly and romantic, serving traditional, authentic Italian food. I’ve had authentic Italian food, and this ain’t it. Soggy spaghetti, doughy pizza, carafes of something they call wine that would be better used to clean the stoves in the kitchen. And all served up in a sort of stygian gloom that makes the whole sorry mess impossible to see.

To see just how far from authentic Italian Il Rustico really is, try Belucci in Wafi City. Yum!

But I’ve saved the best, or worst, till last. There is in Ajman a Kempinski Hotel, rather grand and slightly old fashioned, but an excellent (if expensive) alternative. And next door is the Ajman Beach Hotel. Friends who will remain forever nameless decided to lunch in the latter “because it will be cheaper”. Ahh, the thorny debate between price and value…

It was cheap. Cheap, nasty, tacky and incompetent. The carpet was sticky like a ‘70s student union pub, and the place reeked of disinfectant, burnt oil and cigarettes. Formica topped tables and mis-matched cutlery presaged the horrors that were (eventually) plonked before us. Whatever it was, it was nasty. I drank my lunch from the bottle.

Kakori Ke Kebab

This is Delhi-style eating, a classic Northern Indian kebab that begs to be served up at a barbecue with a hot, dark chutney and even a few crispy poppadum, a tomato and onion salad to the side and a glass of very, very cold beer. You should get about eight kebabs from this recipe.

If you haven’t got any gram dal handy, use plain flour: toast it in a dry frying pan until it starts to brown. I tend to make these kebabs using bamboo skewers, but you need to take care when squeezing the mixture onto the skewer so that it doesn’t split and simply fall off: a slightly flat-bladed metal skewer does make life easier.

When you’re cooking the kebabs, give them a brush of oil before placing them on the grille of the barbecue and let them cook before turning them: if you turn them too soon they’ll definitely split and stick to the grille.

Ingredients

• 500 g lamb, minced finely
• 1 tsp ginger paste
• 1 tsp garlic paste
• 1 tsp red chilli flakes
• ½ tsp black pepper powder
• 1tsp garam masala
• 1/4 tsp clove powder
• 25 g gram dal powder, roasted
• ½ onion, chopped finely
• 1 egg, beaten
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tbsp oil for brushing

Cook the onion in a little oil and butter until it’s browned all over. Let it cool and then mix it in well with all the other ingredients. Split the mixture into balls, then squeeze these to bring it all together tightly. Roll each ball out into a sausage and then squidge it onto your skewers, rolling and squeezing to form a sausage of meat along the skewer. They’ll keep like this in the fridge for a day and more. When you’re ready to cook them, brush each skewer with oil and then fire away!

The Boardwalk

The Boardwalk
Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club
Bookings: 04 295 6000
Web: http://www.bydubaigolf.com

The Boardwalk restaurant at the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club is a popular place. Nestled between shisha joint and bar QD’s and the boutique delights of the Park Hyatt, the Boardwalk is a ‘casual dining’ outlet. On the second floor of the distinctive creek-side building that houses it, you’ll find the posher Aquarium restaurant, which features a large fish tank.

The decking means you’re literally dining on the creek (don’t drop that credit card, now) and the winter months can be an absolute delight there as you sit watching the action around the creek. That action is severely reduced these days because the Floating Bridge stops up-creek traffic before 10pm, which is a shame, but at least the bridge cured Dubai’s traffic problems!

Oh. Well. Moving on...

The Boardwalk has Dubai’s second most stupid menus, great unwieldy wooden things that are apparently supposed to be redolent of the decking that makes the restaurant such a distinctive place. The most stupid menu in Dubai award goes to the Aquarium upstairs, which has aluminium menus with a porthole cut in them.

The content of the clappy wooden things is an interesting selection: ‘casual dining’ means an international menu, salads, fish, a little curried stuff, steaks. It’s not going to set the culinary world on fire – in fact, you can see fine diners being thoroughly sniffy about it, but if you’re after a relaxing, pleasant evening and something interesting to eat, the Boardwalk seems to have it all.

The good news is that they’ve cured their service problem. A few years ago we ate there with friends and the service was so unbelievably atrocious that it was past 10pm when we got to the dessert course, having waited interminably for first the drinks, then the starter, then the main, only to be told that the kitchen had closed. Quite a lot of unpleasantness followed – and we’d only had two drinks by then because we could only actually get two drinks ordered.

The service now is very fast indeed, although having ordered the chicken tikka kebab as a starter I did end up having a run-in with the waiter who told me that chicken tikka wasn’t on the menu. I pointed to the ‘saffron chicken’, described in the menu as ‘a chicken tikka kebab’ and then he decided to educate me on how to order – that the dish was called saffron chicken, so that is what I should ask for as it wasn’t chicken tikka but, in fact, saffron chicken. I think we reached an understanding in the end, but I genuinely don’t like being unpleasant and would rather not be forced into a situation where I have little other option.

It’s possible that it was simply too clever for me, but the chicken tikka kebab was so subtly flavoured that I’d call it bland, as was the coriander chutney it was served with. This dish, for some reason, garnished with more coriander as well as slices of tomato, a lemon wedge and some red onion rings. I’m afraid it wasn’t inspiring or even interesting. Others ordered the nachos (huge, way too large a portion for a starter) and the bruschetta (pronounced as good by its consumer). For the mains we did for a burger, an Arabesque fricassee of lamb with cinnamon, a rib-eye steak and a Chinese style chicken curry. The burger, ordered with no cheese or coleslaw and delivered as such (I know it shouldn’t be a reason to celebrate, but ye takes yer mercies where ye can get ‘em) and was enjoyed – although I personally hate burgers that are served small and thick, half the diameter of the bun they’re served on. Call me arsy, but burger and bun, to me, should be the same diameter.

The rib-eye steak, ordered and delivered medium, was enjoyed as was the Chinese curry, although the noodle side was spicy and delicious while the main curry failed to inspire its selector. I enjoyed my lamb stew (sorry, fricassee), although it could have been more distinctively flavoured, with no real feeling that there was a cinnamon thing goin on in there or any other stand-out flavour. But the whole was a warming, generous portion with rice and red onion on the side, along with a small ramekin of yoghurt.

The best news was the whole lot, with two beers and a glass of wine, came in at under Dhs 450. We’d certainly go back – the setting alone is so very pleasant – but I’d characterise the food as lacking inspiration or even possibly direction. This is not the end of the world, but it would take very little effort to lift the food at The Boardwalk into being an experience in itself, rather than being subsidiary to the creek-side experience – casual dining doesn’t have to mean humdrum dining...

Coriander Lamb Kebabs

This is so straightforward, so lacking in anything fancy and just so, well, damn easy. And yet it’s a great way to serve good lamb, a subtle touch of orientalism that is even more delicate if you make it with ruinously expensive loin instead of sensible leg.

Ingredients

• 500g lean lamb
• 1 lemon, juice and grated zest
• ½ cup coriander, chopped
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 tsp salt
• Soaked bamboo skewers

Mix it all up, marinate for at least an hour and ideally overnight and then grill or barbecue on a lively heat, turning, for 10 minutes or so until browned, caramelised and generally done to perfection all over but pink and tender inside.

A Thing for Yoghurt

The fastest dessert I know: take two tablespoons of yoghurt per person and add two teaspoons of St Dalfour fruit spread per person. Whip it up with a balloon whisk and serve in ramekins or glasses. The cherry one is really good.

But if you want to start playing around with something different along the same lines, bomb a couple of tablespoons of a nice, rich fruit compote into a glass with yoghurt that’s had honey and vanilla whipped into it! Again, two tablespoons of yoghurt, one generous teaspoon of runny honey per person and then a few drops of vanilla essence or, if you’re feeling lavish, the seeds scraped from half a vanilla pod. Whip it up and serve it up.You can top the yoghurt with the compote, you can pour the yoghurt on top (and maybe top it all off with some toasted almond slices or some biscuit crumbs – ratafias are good!) or you can depth charge the compote in and top off with yoghurt so you have a glass of yoghurt with a fruity bit hidden inside. The possibilities are not only endless, but deeply liberating and even therapeutic!

Well, maybe not then...

All you need now is the compote – and we aim only to serve and please! Here come three fruit compotes, all simple and yet good. These will serve a generous two served in a glass, but will easily do four if you serve them with yoghurt.

Pear Compote

Apple and Apricot Compote

Apple and Mango Compote

Pear Compote

Ingredients

• 2 pears
• 1 apple
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 lemon, juiced

Peel, core and chop the fruit, flinging it into a pan along with a swizzle of lemon juice so that it doesn’t brown. Add the honey and cook it, covered, over a medium heat for ten minutes or so, with the occasional stir, until the fruit softens and squashes when you press it using a wooden spoon. Let the mixture cool a little and then whiz it.

Apple and Apricot Compote

Ingredients

• 2 apples, peeled cored and chopped
• 4 apricots, stoned and chopped
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 tbsp lime juice

Toss the apples in the lime juice as soon as you have chopped them to stop them browning. Heat all of the ingredients in a pan (with a little butter, if you like) for around 10 minutes until the apricots and apples have softened and gone ‘mushy’. Cool for a while and then whiz.

Apple and Mango Compote

If you don't want to use vermouth, then pick your liquid. Perhaps something as exotic as orange water...

Ingredients

• 2 apples
• 1 large mango
• 30ml vermouth
• 1 tbsp lime juice

Peel, core and chop the apple and mix it up in a pan with the lime juice. Halve the mango and chop into the pan, scraping off any flesh sticking to the skin with a spoon. Squeeze the ‘stone’ into the pan as well before throwing it away. Boil the mixture up over a medium to low heat, cover and leave it cooking (with a stir once or twice) for ten minutes or until the apple has softened. Add the vermouth and leave to cool a little and then whiz it all up.

Three's Company

Here's a threesome of drinks for lunchtimes and the warmer spring weather: the smoothie's just right for this time of year, while the passionfruit cooler and the lemonade will serve you well right through to summer.

Someone, somewhere will have the dumb idea of slipping something like vodka into the lemonade. There's nothing I can do or say that will stop you.

Blackberry Smoothie

Passionfruit, Honey and Lime Cooler

Lemonade

Blackberry Smoothie

The cherry jam adds a little sweetness and rounds the flavour. If you're going to use fresh blackberries and ice instead of the frozen stuff, I'd probably skip the jam...

Ingredients

• 100g frozen blackberries
• 2 tsp St Dalfour Cherry Jam
• 100ml orange juice
• 1 tbsp yoghurt
• 2 tbsp runny honey

Whizz it all and serve. Err... that’s it!

Passionfruit, Honey and Lime Cooler

This is pretty what it says on the label, refreshing served neat or nice with ice and slice and a smattering of decoratively inclined mint. When I say large lime, I mean a real lime not those diddy anaemic local things. If you're using diddy anaemic local things, I'd use five or six.

Ingredients

• 1 passionfruit
• 1 large lime
• 2 tsp runny honey
• Soda

Halve the passionfruit, scoop out the seeds and flesh into a tea strainer and then whizzle them around (whizzle is so a word) until the juice has collected in the glass that you have so thoughtfully put under the strainer to stop everything ending up on the floor. Halve the lime and squeeze this into the strainer so that you’re getting every last bit of juice from the passionfruit seeds and pulp. Stir in the honey to mix well and then fill the glass with soda and, if you like, ice.

Lemonade

This is how my mum used to make lemonade for me as a kid. She'd freeze it in a drinks container so that I'd go off to school with a block of ice that, by lunchtime, had defrosted into a tinglingly (yes, it IS a word) cold, deliciously lemony drinky thing. If you can't find unwaxed lemons, scrub waxed ones well under hot water.

Ingredients

• 2 lemons, grated and juiced
• 2 lemons, chopped roughly
• 500ml boiling water
• 4 tbsp sugar or to taste

Put the grated zest and juice of two of the lemons in a bowl and pour over the boiling water. Leave this mixture to stand until quite cooled, then strain into a liquidiser with the chopped lemons, the sugar and another 500ml of water. Liquidise it well, let it stand for a short while to settle and then strain into containers. Serve frozen to small children or cooled in tall glasses to adults.

Garlic Sauce

DXBluey was asking about a recipe for Lebanese garlic sauce a while ago and here is the answer – albeit belated! It’s basically an incredibly strong aioli or garlic mayonnaise and is the only accompaniment to Shish Taouk and any other variation on a Levantine marinated chicken kebab. And in case you were wondering where on earth you’d get a recipe for a Levantine marinated chicken kebab, never fear – The Fat Expat’s here!

Or serve it with barbecue burgers or French cut lamb chops given a smack on their meaty bit with a tenderising hammer and cooked to perfection over a hot barbecue with nothing done to them than a generous smattering of pepper and salt rubbed in before they’re slammed on the hot grill to crispen and then removed before they quite cook through, leaving them pinkly tender in the middle. Woof Woof!

Ingredients

• 10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 egg yolk
• 125ml olive oil
• 1 tsp salt

Whizz the garlic, lemon, salt and juice together and then add the olive oil – do this slowly, at the most a gentle string of oil should be poured constantly into the mixture as it whizzes, if you overdo the oil and it doesn’t mix in well, it’ll curdle and you’ll be left with an unrecoverable mess and you might not think everyone else will know you goofed, but they will and they’ll laugh at you as you walk down the street. Behind your back, of course.

As you pour the oil, the mixture will start to stiffen, leaving you with a glistening, rich paste that packs as much garlic punch as a French garlic farmer’s breath just after he’s left the annual garlic tasting festival where he’s been officiating as a judge.

Levantine Bits and Bobs

If you want to turn a simple mezze into something altogether more special, there are a few bits and bobs you can slip onto the table that will really lift everything with minimal effort. No mezze is really complete without a dish of olives, and a salad of cos lettuce leaves, tomatoes, cucumber, chillies a pepper and lemon. Here are some other ideas::

Iced Almonds

Soak whole almonds in cold water in the fridge: ideally overnight. The skins take on a beautiful translucence and the almonds soften: serve them chilled, even with a little crushed ice.

Termos

You’ll find these fat little yellow beans, pronounced ‘termous’ lurking in vaccum packed bags the refrigerated section of ‘local’ supermarkets like Co-ops. Watch out for the sell-by date AS They don’t keep for very long fresh and, although you can get them dried, fresh is the way you want them. Give them a rinse and serve them up either as a nibble with drinks or as a dish in the mezze.

Erbs

Serve a plate of mixed leaves up with it all: dill, rocket, basil, tarragon, mint and parsley are good.

Barbecue Bliss-out

Here’s a barbecue in a box: from the drinks course to dessert. A few notes. Firstly on sausages and steak: do cook sausages slowly over a moderate part of the barbecue and DON'T PRICK THEM! Poking holes in your sausages lets the juices escape, which then drop onto the charcoal and burn, leaving your sausages black and sooty.

Steaks, on the other hand, should be rubbed with oil, seasoned, and then cooked fast and hot. Allow your cooked steaks to rest for a few minutes before serving.

Quantities are very flexible - my original event was catered to 12 people, hence a whole leg of lamb and a whole side of salmon plus chicken, sausages, steaks and so on. Marinades should be sufficient to completely cover the thing being marinated. Spices are to personal taste, but generally should be a balance rather than any one dominating. Salad ingredients again are a judgement call - use sufficient feta to balance the sweetness of the mango, and enough rocket to create an attractive visual effect on the plate. With the salmon marinade - the more ‘Scottish malt extract’ the better, in my humble opinion. Something smoky from the Western Isles, or rich and sweet from Speyside, perhaps. As always, buy and use what's freshest and best on the day, don't hesitate to substitute any flavour or ingredient you prefer, and taste, taste, taste...

Enjoy!

Marinated Butterflied Leg of Lamb

Tikka Marinated Grilled Chicken

Cous-Cous with Cucumber and grapes

Fruit and Marshmallow Kebabs


Stuffed Chocolate Bananas

Hawaiian Sunset

These recipes come to us from Fat Expat Guest Barbecue Guru: EyeOnDubai

Marinated Butterflied Leg of Lamb

This recipe can be made with springbok or even, if you can get it, venison. Whether you use these or lamb, you’re looking at a cut around 3-4 kilos.

Ingredients

• 1 leg or forequarter of lamb

Marinade

• 200m date honey
• 100ml balsamic vinegar
• 100ml olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed

Bone out the leg or forequarter (or get your butcher to do it for you) so you have a large, flat 'butterfly' shape, not too thick as this will help it cook evenly.

Blend all the marinade ingredients, place in a bag or non-reactive dish with the lamb, and leave for as long as you can - 2 -to 4 hours is ok, overnight is great. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Roast, covered on a VERY SLOW Cobb barbecue for up to 4 hours until cooked through and very tender.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Maple Hot-Smoked Darne of Scottish Salmon

I have discovered that you get an even better result if you make a foil 'saucer' for the fish, instead of placing it directly on the grill - prevents the skin side from burning and lets the smoke cook the fish more evenly.

Ingredients

• 1 side of fresh Scottish salmon, skin on
• Salt, for brining (sufficient to completely cover salmon)
• Maple wood chips, soaked in water

Marinade

• Maple syrup
• Scottish (single) malt whisky

First, remove the 'pin bones', that row that runs along the lateral line of the fish. This is easily done with your best needle-nose pliers, or if your partner is the sort to use your good razor to shave her legs, her nice new eyebrow tweezers would work equally well.

Once de-boned, place the fish in a glass dish, and cover with salt. After 1 hour, remove from salt, wash off any excess, pat dry with paper towels and place in marinade for up to 4 hours. The salt will have drawn off some of the moisture, and this will be replaced by your marinade, intensifying the finished flavour.

To hot-smoke, use a Cobb or kettle-type barbecue. Light a small quantity of charcoal and wait until it goes white, then cover with well soaked maple chips to produce smoke. Place fish on grill and cook covered for around 30 minutes or until cooked through – the fish will be firm and take on a rich colour.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Tikka Marinated Grilled Chicken

This is a traditional Indian recipe for grilling chicken - the richness of the marinade gives chicken a lovely depth of flavour, and the yoghurt helps to keep it moist and tender. There are two ways of cooking the chicken, depending on which part you're using. Grill cubes of breast meat on skewers hot and fast and you'll have tender, juicy kebabs. If you're doing joints or legs on the bone, grill them much more slowly to ensure that the chicken is fully cooked without being burnt on the outside.

Ingredients

• 4 breasts/legs good quality organic or free-range chicken
• 500ml yoghurt
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp cayenne or chili pepper
• Pinch ground ginger
• 1 tsp salt

Prepare your chicken - cut breasts into equal size cubes, score larger pieces. Season.

Mix everything together - yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne or chilli (if using) and ginger - you should have a fairly thick paste, stiff enough to stick to your chicken.

Add chicken and stir to ensure everything is well coated, then cover and let it marinate in the fridge for about 3 hours.

Light your barbecue, and let the charcoal burn down to white in colour.

Grill larger pieces of chicken slowly on a moderate part of your barbecue. When nearly cooked, grill the kebabs over a higher heat to ensure everything is ready at the same time.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Cous Cous with Cucumber and Grapes

Ingredients

• 1 packet organic cous cous
• Local cucumber
• Small, seedless grapes
• Fresh mint, coriander & parsley
• Olive oil

Place cous cous in a large bowl and cover with boiling water as instructions on packet. Add a glug of olive oil, stir with a fork and leave to cool slightly.

Dice cucumber to same size as grapes (some of the smallest and sweetest come from Iran in September and October), then stir through prepared cous cous. Finely chop and add a good handful of mint, coriander and parsley. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Fruit and Marshmallow Kebabs

Ingredients

• Firm, chunky fruit - pineapple, mango, strawberries etc
• Marshmallows
• Garam massala powder
• Date honey
• Freshly squeezed orange juice

Cut fruit into bite-sized chunks, combine marinade ingredients, mix everything together and leave covered in a cool place for an hour or two to let the flavours marry. Thread fruit and marshmallows onto soaked bamboo skewers

Grill over a medium to hot barbecue, and serve with copious amounts of spray-on cream.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Stuffed Chocolate Bananas

Ingredients

• Firm (barely ripe) bananas

• Good quality dark chocolate

Cut a small slit in the top surface of each banana, insert two or three squares of good quality dark chocolate, then wrap each banana in tinfoil. Bake on a medium grill for 20 minutes until the banana is hot and the chocolate melted.

Adults may add a teaspoon of Caribbean island liqueur (if liked), best eaten with fingers and too much spray-can cream!

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Hawaiian Sunset

Ingredients
Good quality Hawaiian rum
Blue curacao
Grenadine
Coconut milk

Combine rum, curacao and coconut milk in a shaker with ice, then strain into a tall glass. Slowly add grenadine and wait till it sinks to the bottom of the glass. Garnish with pineapple slice and an ironic umbrella.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Chicken Sticks

Hassle-free cookery at its best or a neat addition to the HMHB inspired week of BBQ... the imaginatively named 'chicken sticks' combines the flavour (and not the heat) of chili with the softness of a mildly spiced yoghurt mixture and tarragon - the perfect herb for chicken. The result is very good indeed and really easy to fling together. Serve it up with basmati rice, a salad and a nicely chilled chardonnay and you've got a perfect light weekday dinner for two in a jiffy!

Ingredients

• 500g chicken, cut into 2cm cubes
• 3 tbsp yoghurt
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1 tbsp dried tarragon
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp curry powder

Mix everything together in a bowl, adding the chicken last to marinade for at least an hour. Thread onto bamboo skewers before grilling: about 5-7 minutes then turning for another 5 -7 minutes until both sides have started to colour and brown off.

It's BBQ Time!

Well it is that time of year here in Dubai where the weather is just about as good as you could hope for, lovely warm days and staying warm in the evening. Last night the BBQ got dusted down and fired up for the first time in a while. I've missed it.

I cooked chicken breasts marinated in my Thai-style sauce (which you can find here ), rib-eye steaks in teriyaki sauce and minty lamb kebabs (shop bought from Spinneys – they are pretty good though).

My wife has been pleading with me to change the dishes I serve alongside the carnivore platter as I do seem to have stuck to the same three or four rather a lot recently. As I ALWAYS do as my Lovely Wife instructs (just in case she is reading this) I prepared some new recipes for her delectation. And they were:

Grilled Aubergines with Tahini Sauce

Chickpea and Chorizo Salad

Two Potato Salad with Mustard Dressing


and because we are just such smashing guys we are sharing the recipes with you free, gratis and for nothing.

Grilled Aubergine with Tahini Sauce

Tahini paste is made from ground roasted sesame seeds and is easily available all over Dubai.

Ingredients:

2 medium sized local aubergines.
2 tbsp tahini (sesame) paste
Juice from half a lemon
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp crème fraiche (or natural yoghurt)
50 ml double cream
Pine nuts
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley


In the oven or in a dry frying pan toast a small handful of pine nuts. Set to one side.

Slice the aubergine lengthwise into four slices, they should be at least 1cm thick, any less they will fall apart. Brush both sides with olive oil which has had a clove of garlic crushed into it.

Place the slices of the aubergine onto the hot grill and cook for about two minutes each side. Remove and place on a long shallow dish.

In a bowl combine the tahini paste and the lemon juice. It will turn all stiff and sticky, don’t worry! Add the mayonnaise and the crème fraiche and give it a really good stir. Then add the double cream, keep stirring and adding cream until you have quite a runny consistency for the sauce.

Pour the sauce over the grilled aubergine, sprinkle the pine nuts on the top and then garnish with the chopped parsley.

Chickpea & Chorizo Salad

This was a bit of an invention and I think it worked quite well.

Ingredients:

400g tin of chickpeas, washed and drained
1 red pepper
100g chorizo
1 spring onion chopped fine
5 or 6 little cherry tomatoes chopped into little pieces
Chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
3 tbsp EV olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
½ tsp caster sugar

Chop the chorizo into little pieces and in a little bit of olive oil gently fry it until it is crispy. You can add a drop of sherry to the pan if you like which does add a wonderful flavour.

Under a hot grill or over a flame roast the red pepper until the skin is slightly blackened. Wrap in foil and leave to cool. Remove the skin and the seeds inside, give it a very quick wash and slice into thin ribbons.

In a bowl put the drained chickpeas, the chopped tomatoes, the chorizo, the roasted pepper and the spring onions. Add seasoning.

You could also add some chopped black olives should you so be inclined.

Combine the oil, the vinegar and the sugar, stir to mix well and pour into the bowl. Give it all a good stir to cook and tip out onto a shallow platter. Sprinkle the parsley over the salad and serve.

Two Potato Salad

This salad makes a really nice change from the usual mayonnaise covered potatoes that you can find everywhere.

Ingredients:

1 large potato
1 large sweet potato
Small handful of chopped fresh mint
3 tbsp EV olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp grainy mustard


Peel both potatoes and cut them into bite sized pieces. Place the potatoes into two different saucepans because the sweet potato cooks much, much faster than the normal potato.

Make the dressing by mixing the oil, vinegar and the mustard.

Boil the white potato in salted water for about 10 minutes or so until the pieces are a little soft. Boil the sweet potato in salted water for only about 5 mins. Test the ‘doneness’ with the tip of a small sharp knife.

Drain the potatoes and put into a large bowl. Whist still warm pour on the dressing, sprinkle the mint and add some salt & pepper.

Optional extras include finely chopped gherkins and / or some chopped spring onions.

Give it a gentle stir and tip out onto a dish. Serve whilst still warm if possible.