Eating out in Machynlleth: The Quarry Cafe

I used to work here, so it’s always a bit strange coming back as a customer. The Quarry Café is responsible for quite a lot of my cooking style, and I find their food very comforting. Some things have been the same since it started in the 70’s, like the thick wholewheat pizza covered in so much cheese your heart almost stops just looking at it. The very best thing in my opinion are the baked potatoes – they go in the oven around 9am, and so come lunch time they have been cooking in their own skins for a good few hours so the flesh is sweet and soft and the skin is soft and starting to fall away. Perfect.

This one was served with humus – made on site to an age old recipe –unchanged since hippy began, and yet different every time. Just one of the café’s charms! This one was roughly blended and extremely garlicky. Once when I was washing up in the kitchen, my colleague who was serving out front came in with a bewildered look on his face and said “a woman just made a complaint because she found a chickpea in her hummus.” Erm…

But if you think that’s dim witted, how about the time when a tourist excitedly told me about the ‘vegetarian butchers’ a few doors down - there’s a sign in the window which reads:

“All the meat in this shop is vegetarian. The animals eat the green green grass and we just speed up the process.”

Somehow this woman had failed to see the carcasses on show, or grasp that the meat was still made from animals, and wanted to tell me what a great town it was where even meat is actually vegetarian. Although I’ve never really understood the logic of this notice, I do admire the philosophy behind the statement. If the majority of the meat trade were like this enterprise, then the world would be a much better place. It’s a family run business, with its own abbatoir which only sources from local farms. They pride themselves on traceability, and you can ask for the contact details of the farmer who reared the pig who was made into your herb chipolata. Check it: http://www.wil-lloyd.co.uk/philosophy.htm

So, back to the meat-free lunch… my potato was complimented by an interesting salad of roast butternut squash, tangerine, dry roast cashews and desiccated coconut. It was delicious, and really good to have an experimental salad. Peeking out from behind the potato there is a bit of red onion coleslaw, made with homemade vegan mayonnaise. The whole thing was pretty damn tasty, in fact, the only thing that made it better was eating the skin with my fingers.

Dara's Houmous

Is it houmous or hummus? Or Hummus or Hamas? Whatever you call it, it sure is tasty, and it's pretty easy to make as well. I shall guide you now in making Dara's Houmous. Here are the main ingredients:

Chickpeas

Garlic

Olive/ Veg oil

Lemon Juice
Light Tahini
Frank's Red Hot Sauce

First, soak some chickpeas in the fridge over night. Barely half-fill the containers (I just use washed out jars) with chickpeas, then fill them up the rest of the way with water and put the lid on. They'll expand overnight. Alternatively, you can just use pre-soaked, tinned chickpeas, but soaking your own is normally cheaper. The next day, boil them up in some fresh water until they're nice and tender. It may take a while, maybe half an hour or more, or nothing at all for tinned chickpeas. But do make sure they are nice and tender, as Gwen tells me under-cooked chickpeas (and other pulses) make you fart. Personally, I don't know what she's talking about. But... do watch out for that

So, when they're nice and tender, strain them off. Add them to a bowl along with lots of crushed garlic (the amount is up to you - I'm a fiend), a small bit of tahini (not too much - it's bitter), and a dash of oil and a bit of water to start.  Blend them up if you have a blender - it will make things much smoother - or if not just mash them up. You can gradually add more oil and water to the mixture (more oil is better, depending on how healthy you want to be) and continue mixing until you're happy with the consistency. Don't throw the liquids all in at once, as your houmous may end up too watery or oily (if it does though, don't despair - oily houmous makes a good base for a curry). Now, squeeze in some lemon juice to your taste. As well as giving it a zesty twist, the citric acid also helps preserve the houmous, or so Gwen tells me. Then add salt and pepper to taste. And, the secret ingredient of Dara's houmous, a secret no longer - add lashings of Frank's Red Hot Sauce! Oh yeah.  Mix it all up and you're done! Good work!

You generally get a jar of houmous per jar of soaked chickpeas used, so you can just store your houmous in those jars in the fridge for a few days (4 - 5, maybe more) till it goes stinky. Not that I need to tell you how to serve your delicious houmous, but serve your delicious houmous on some bread, in a sandwich, or with some crisps. Sometimes I just eat it from the jar. That's completely normal, too.

Try also: caramelised onion houmous. Same recipe, but with onions fried in oil with sugar.

- Dara