What does home taste like?
This week, I create a different kind of shopping basket at the China Market in Béziers and share a recipe for sesame chicken with green rice.
Last week I was chatting with my friend Thane on WhatsApp and she asked me the name of that really good Turkish restaurant on Green Lanes, not far from where she lives in London, not far from where I used to live.
Just that simple question set off the longing. I loved walking down Stoke Newington High Street inhaling the smell of grilling lamb, garlic, chilli and coriander. (And obviously car fumes too – it is, after all, the A10 – but for the purpose of this reverie, I’ve allowed my nose to forget that.) The Turkish restaurants of my old neighbourhood were the smell of home to me. After long trips, a lamb shish or adana kofte at Testi - made on the open grill by men who looked like pirates served with pillows of warm flat bread and grilled onion salad – was as much a part of the coming home ritual as unpacking my suitcase. When I wasn’t feeling well, I’d send Séan out to pick up cartons of lentil soup or lamb casserole from Devran and imagine briefly that I had a Turkish grandmother.
I Googled ‘Turkish restaurants Béziers’. Surely there must be something? Up came a lot of kebab shops, the sort of places you’d fall into at one in the morning, grateful they were still open, but they didn’t look like they might be staffed by pirates or grandmothers. I broadened out the search: ‘Restaurants Béziers Moroccan Algerian Tunisian’. This was more promising, despite the controversial mayor, Robert Ménard, (you know the tired old trajectory, a communist in his youth, now extremely right wing) doing his best to thwart my köfte dreams. In 2015, he tried to ban more kebab shops from opening in the city because he thought they did not fit the Judeo-Christian culture of France. The headline in Le Monde read ‘Robert Ménard et “le grand remplacement culinaire” à Béziers’ for, yes, he is a Great Replacement Theory fan boy. He also tried, illegally, to record the religions of children in the city’s schools, is pro death penalty and anti equal marriage. I saw him in the street one Friday evening last winter, just going about his business. He looked very small.
I had the name of a Moroccan restaurant that sounded promising, La Baraka on the avenue Saint-Saëns, the wide road that leads up to the city’s main boulevard and its statue of Béziers’ favourite son, Pierre-Paul Riquet, the engineer responsible for the Canal du Midi. My longing for food deep and rich with spices would not be denied another day. And also, I thought, why not seize the chance to visit the China Market, one of the many large retail warehouses that proliferate on the outskirts of all French towns?
The China Market has aisles and aisles of the sorts of ingredients and cookware I used to shop for in Gerrard Street when I lived in London, but more than that, it’s well stocked with products from Japan, Thailand, Korea and the French West Indies, too. The chiller cabinet is filled with lemongrass, different kinds of chillies and citrus, long beans, Chinese lettuce, the freezers with bags of gyoza, spicy Thai sausages and mochi ice cream.
Of course, I bought far more than I intended. I think that’s the law. I had to buy another bag at the counter because I hadn’t brought enough with me. A good half of my bags for life entered my life because of exuberant over shopping. And as the sun set on the China Market, we drove to La Baraka and ordered tagines that smelled of garlic, cumin and coriander. You can’t always be eating within the tight confines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Monsieur Rénard. Live a little, love more, turn up the heat.
And PS the name of the really good Turkish restaurant in Green Lanes is Gökyüzü.
Sesame chicken with green rice
Sometimes I make a double batch of this and freeze the chicken in its marinade, or you can simply make the marinade and freeze that. It’s good with pork too. I use a green pepper in my green rice and I know some of you don’t love them because of the bitterness, so just swap it for a red or yellow pepper if you prefer.
Serves 6
1 chicken, about 1.5kg, jointed, or the equivalent in chicken pieces (bone in, skin on)
4-5 tbsp sesame seeds
For the marinade
A large thumb of ginger, about 60g, no need to peel it
6 garlic cloves
2 green chillis, seeds and all, just trim off the stem end
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt
For the rice
Some butter or a splash of olive oil or sesame oil
500g long grain rice
750ml chicken or vegetable stock, hot
1 large green pepper, about 300g, cored and cut into 5mm strips
4 spring onions, trimmed and chopped
130g frozen petits pois
1 large bunch of coriander, roughly chopped, leaves and fine stalks only, about 20g
Juice of a small lime
To finish
Lime wedges and coriander leaves
First make the marinade. I do this by simply bunging all the ingredients in my mini chopper and blending them until smooth – it’s honestly one of my most used pieces of kitchen equipment and I use it most days, it’s a mini food processor and perfect for making a few tablespoons of breadcrumbs, or a quick sauce or marinade. If you don’t have one, simply chop or grate the garlic and ginger into a fine paste and then whisk with everything else. Put the chicken in a bowl or into a large Ziplock bag and cover with the marinade, making sure every piece is well coated. Cover or seal and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, and up to 24 hours, turning the chicken over a couple of times if you can. Remove it from the fridge 40 minutes before you want to cook it.
Heat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Line a roasting tin or oven tray with sides with foil and place a rack on top.
Place the chicken pieces skin-side up on the rack. Brush with the marinade and sprinkle on the sesame seeds. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the chicken is crisp and golden.
While the chicken is cooking, make the rice. Everyone has their own way of making rice and this is mine. Warm a splash of oil or butter in a saucepan, add the rice and turn it over to coat. Pour in the stock – add some more salt if your stock isn’t very salty – stir and cover. Lower the temperature and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the lid and cover the pan with a clean tea towel folded over a couple of times, and replace the lid. Leave the rice to absorb the liquid for 5 minutes or so. You should then simply be able to fluff it up with a fork.
In a separate pan, warm a little butter or oil and sauté the peppers and spring onions until just wilted. Add the peas and cook just enough to un-freeze them. Add the rice, coriander and lime juice and give everything a good stir.
Serve the chicken with the rice, with some more coriander leaves scattered over the top and some lemon wedges to squeeze over the top.
China Market haul, February 2 2024
This week, I had appointments on Tuesday morning and I had to miss Marseillan market, so I’m sharing with you my China Market haul instead. It comprises: soba noodles, MSG, crab shells stuffed with pork and crab, a small spider/skimmer, red chillies, dried shiitaké mushrooms, shrimp salt, sesame oil, fish sauce, seaweed, rice paper wraps, tom yum paste, Thai sausages, bag of cinnamon sticks, frozen gyoza, beautiful spring onions, more seaweed, more noodles, panko breadcrumbs, tiny dried prawns, lovely fat ginger, Niora chilli flakes, chili powder, black pepper corns
What a beautiful piece. Your visit to the China Market sounds delightful. I made this chicken dish for my husband, a lover of spice. The two green chilies I used were serranos—maybe a chili with less spice was intended—but he adored it!!
Ahhh Debora, we share a love of Testi (also one of the hugest things I miss about living in Stokey) and green pepper in things. I miss the onion salad and dipped bread so much. We are lucky that there’s a very decent, proper ocakbasi Turkish here right by the sea front, but good as it is, it’s not a patch on Testi, which is so bloody hard to beat. It’s just the best.