Street food for staying in

This was the week when ‘the new normal’ started to feel - well, normal - to the extent that the news that lockdown was being extended was a relief rather than anything else (although I have started to worry that when I finally can leave the house again, I’ll be too scared to actually do so – still, we’ll cross that bridge when we can).


There are still negative moments, of course. One of this week’s came when the local farmers market announced the arrival of the first asparagus and the first strawberries on the same day, and I couldn’t simply walk over there and buy some. However, as they’ve been our most reliable source of food since this started, I’m sure they can manage to deliver some to us next week.  They’re even managing to deliver flour. I have read that the problem supermarkets have with flour is that there aren’t enough small bags to pack it in, as the majority of flour goes to restaurants and bakers in huge sacks, and changing factory lines to make small bags not big ones is apparently not simple. Add that to the list of strange things we’ve never thought about until now. The farmers market got round this by simply weighing out the flour and putting it in an ordinary paper bag, as they do with other dry goods.


However, that diversion aside, I was going to talk to you about Honey & Co, and more specifically, their recipe for Arayes, which is in their most recent book, Honey & Co At Home. Honey & Co, for the uninitiated, is a restaurant on Warren Street in London, founded and run by a married couple, Sarit and Itamar. I love their books, which are not only well written in recipe terms, but funny, and I loved the restaurant when I went there earlier this year, when going to a small, crowded restaurant seemed like a perfectly lovely and reasonable thing to do. One of these days, I’m hopeful we’ll make it back there, in the meantime, I’m trying to cook my own, and watching Sarit and Itamar’s lovely cookalong’s on Instagram – which I’d recommend if you’re on there.

I didn't take any pictures while I was making this, so here's a picture of the book the recipe came from. 

But onto the Arayes. Take some minced beef (200g-ish for two), and mix with a crushed garlic clove, a grated onion (yes, grated) tomato puree, a little paprika, quite a lot of Baharat spice mix (Yes, my spice cupboard is an extensive one…I’m not sure what is in this blend, but you could probably adapt the recipe with whatever you have) and a pinch of baking powder.  This mixture should then be stuffed into a pitta – I didn’t have any, but I did have some home made flatbreads, so I used those instead and just folded it over around the filling. (The first Honey & Co cookalong was of pitta breads, which you should still be able to find if you want to give then a go -  I will try at some point, I just couldn’t be bothered when I was making these.)


Brush the outside of the bread with oil, then cook in either a frying pan or griddle, turning half way. Or, if you’re me, put them in a toasted sandwich maker (one of the panini press style ones) and cook both sides at once. Ideally, serve with a tomato salad. These things are delicious. The perfect combination of crispy, flavoursome and slightly greasy where the juice from the meat has soaked into the bread.  These are apparently a street food in the Middle East, but they are wonderful here and now, even – or perhaps because -  we’re avoiding the streets as much as possible.

The finished product!