Avocado Stone is a place for us to share our experiences in food, drink and travel. We urge you to feast. carouse. gallivant.
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Kumpir is a popular street food in Istanbul and one we had to try. It is a baked potato that’s split down the middle and pureed with kasar cheese, which is then garnished with a myriad of toppings of your choice. We went with the following: frankfurter sausage, spiced couscous, mixed pickles, green olives and a fresh garlic yogurt. Possibly the finest spud we’ve ever sampled.
Culinary highlights of traveling are often associated with experiencing the ethnic foods of the place visited. But these days, we’ve taken a liking to see how different cultures interpret international foods. Take Juno in Istanbul for example. Here’s an eatery that feels as accessible as one of our city’s cool bistros, serving fresh salads and thin crust pizzas alongside homemade pasta and juicy burgers. But in case you forget where you are, the pizza is sprinkled with Turkish cottage cheese and the salad has grains you can only get in this region.
Our favourite meal in Istanbul was here, not the traditional Turkish restaurants we went to. Juno is effortlessly hip and well designed, with an airy indoor space with floor-to-ceiling windows as well as a spacious, wood-paneled al fresco dining area. We decided to sit outside on the balmy spring evening we went and devoured our meal. We loved the vegetarian parpadelle most with the Turkish cottage cheese and spinach pizza coming in at a close second. The owner of the restaurant even gave us a dessert on the house - she said they were testing a new lemon cheesecake and wanted us to give her feedback - it was awesome.
The best part of it all was that we were the only out-of-towners at the restaurant that night - according to the owner - so major cookie points for getting down with the local scene.
Whilst out in Intanbul, we stumbled across this great Turkish burger chain - Dukkan. These photos are from the one in Bebek. We got the classic Dukkan burger with a side of fries.
Café by day and restaurant by night (starting next week), this quirky Bath canteen is a venture from England and British Lions Rugby stars Lee Mears and Matt Stevens. And even though it is ideally situated at the top of Milsom Street to absorb shoppers’ overflow and supply them with java that comes with both fantastic latte art and cake, the dimly lit, wood-paneled space has been forging a cosy, internationally-accented foodie identity of its own (explaining its foray into night time bites).
Its lunch time weigh bar - which changes daily - is a godsend when trying to decide what to eat, ravenous at 1pm. Locals, like us, often congregate at tables over items like spiced pork tenderloin and spinach and mushroom tart with sides of sweet potato wedges and Jika mixed salads. Or if too busy for a sit down, we simply take it to go. Coworkers are always envious when there’s a jika jika weigh bar in a nearby cubicle.
On the menu, the breakfast burrito is king. It is, hands down, the best burrito we’ve had to date in the city of Bath. We’ll let you know if and when that changes. We also love simple but fresh dishes like avocado on sourdough and california style bagel, which comes with roast red peppers, hummus and feta.
As for the coffee, Jika Jika’s barista was the UK Latte Art Champion of 2011 and the cafe was South West’s Barista Championship Winner in 2010. Enough said. Have we convinced you yet that this is a place worth a visit (or ten)? Hope so. Let us know what you think. It’s one of our favourite Bath haunts.
Both pesto and hummus make regular appearances in our meals. There is something very comforting in slathering on a thick layer of hummus to a hot pita or mixing a vibrant green pesto into a bowl of warm pasta. They fall into the category of fail proof recipes that you can rely on, like a best friend.
To jazz things up a bit for Easter, we decided to give these two little updates. We made a beetroot hummus - the gorgeous colouring alone made the experience worthwhile - and a pistachio pesto. We ate both on granary toast fingers and Swedish crisp breads, and shamelessly emptied the bowls within minutes.
See below for the recipes.
BEETROOT HUMMUS
ingredients:
400g chickpeas in tin, drained
2-4 fresh beetroot, peeled & boiled until soft
2-4 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
90ml lavender olive oil (our addition)
1 teaspoon fine cumin
1/4 cup tahini
method:
Serves: 1 tub
Place all ingredients into a blender and process till smooth
If it is too thick, gently drizzle a little water into the mixture until just right
PISTACHIO PESTO
ingredients:
½ a clove of garlic, chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 good handfuls of fresh basil, leaves picked and chopped
a handful of pine nuts, very lightly toasted
a handful of pistachios (our addition)
a good handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil
a small squeeze of lemon juice
method:
Pound the garlic with a little pinch of salt and the basil leaves in a pestle and mortar, or pulse in a food processor. Add the pine nuts and pistachios to the mixture and pound again. Turn out into a bowl and add half the Parmesan. Stir gently and add olive oil – you need just enough to bind the sauce and get it to an oozy consistency. Season to taste, then add most of the remaining cheese. Pour in some more oil and taste again. Keep adding a bit more cheese or oil until you are happy with the taste and consistency. You may like to add a squeeze of lemon juice at the end to give it a little twang.
(Thank you Nigella and Jamie for providing us with the beetroot and pesto recipes to remix to our own accord!)
We love honey. We put it in our tea, we put it on toast and on ryvitas, we dip our rice cakes into it, we snack on cheese with it, make salad dressings out of it, and we even put it on our lips when they are super chapped during the winter (it works like a miracle). Perhaps we can attribute our fondness of “hunny” to our childhood love of Winnie the Pooh.
Sometimes we wonder if honey is an underrated ingredient. People seem to prefer sugar over honey, syrup over honey…agave over honey. But not us.
So when we discovered this “Honey for Cheese Matching Collection” from J. Friend & Co.- made up of Wild Thyme, Blue Borage and Kamahi - we were over the moon. Wild Thyme is a strong, pungent honey that is rare and extremely high in antioxidants, Blue Borage is a sweet and delicate flavour and the Kamahi is smooth and creamy. Each one pairs nicely with cheese and on this occasion, we matched the honeys with British goats cheese and walnuts on Swedish crisp breads. It was a fun guessing game while eating, trying to figure out which one had which honey.
We were tempted to find a wooden spoon and eat the honey straight from the jar…
Last but not least, here’s a quote about honey from Pooh himself:
”The only reason for being a bee is to make honey. And the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it.”
For our Easter Sunday lunch, we decided to cook up a light Mediterranean meal.
We prepared roast bell peppers stuffed with garlic, pine nuts and halloumi cheese, which we then drizzled with a parsley vinaigrette before serving. We also made our own beetroot hummus (with lavender olive oil!) and pistachio pesto. For something sweet, we put together Swedish crisp breads with goats cheese, walnut and artisan honey from J Friend & Co. (but more on that later).
Everything was delicious. The pistachio pesto was easily our favourite - we must try it with pasta next time. We will talk more in depth about each component of the meal and how to make it in upcoming posts! Watch this space…
Happy Easter!
Look at this wonderful Pandora Bell Easter egg - it’s a real egg shell filled with praline chocolate.
The Thoughtful Bread Company - an eco-artisan Bath-based bakery that specialises in making handcrafted bread from local and seasonal ingredients - produces these adorable egg boxes filled with a selection of mini breads. They are perfect for dipping into sauces and dunking into soups and make bread eating so much more fun.
We decided that for this Easter, we’d make these “breggs” our official Easter eggs. We couldn’t resist taking a couple of snaps since they are too cute not to!
Happy (thoughtful) Easter!
A simple short on the two condiments we use most - oil and vinegar. It’s Avocado Stone’s first foray into the genre of film…more (and better) to come!
Soundtrack: Marie-Pierre Arthur: Déposer les armes
