When you own a restaurant, the day always begins in pretty much the same way, but you never know wha...

1. Honey and Co: A twist of hake | Cook residency | Life and
style
When you own a restaurant, the day always begins in pretty much the same way, but you never
know what it will bring and how it will end. That's our experience at Honey and Co, anyway. Day in,
day out, we are faced with unexpected problems that need solving quickly. And that's all part of the
fun.
My wife, Sarit Packer, and I always start our day checking out the fruit stand outside Warren Street
Tube station, which we pass on the short walk up to our tiny restaurant. If they are sweet, perfectly
ripe and at a good price, we might buy their entire supply of strawberries (depriving all the
commuters of strawberries for that day), or, as we have done most days over the summer, we'll pick
up a few of the flat white peaches and shove them in our bag to take home for dinner. The walk to
the restaurant may be short, but it is tinged with -what will happen today? A restaurant is a machine
with many moving parts - some mechanical, some human, all prone to accidents and glitches.
Honey and Co - Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer - make a quick hake in matbuha sauce
After more than two years of running Honey and Co, we know that our job is not only to solve all
these problems, but to do it in good cheer and with seeming ease. One day recently, we walked into
the kitchen to see our head chef, Yulka, shouting down the phone. She was yelling at our fish
delivery guy, who had mixed up our order with that of another restaurant. Instead of delivering 30
little sardines, he'd dropped off two enormous hakes. Their silvery eyes stared out at us from their
massive heads, mouths hanging open in vicious smiles, purple tongues resting on rows of pointy
teeth. Having sent Yulka's menu into disarray at the 11th hour, their nightmarish expressions
seemed apt. Despite how they look, however, hake is in fact a beautiful, firm-fleshed fish that makes
for a lovely, fresh main course - and these were prime specimens. Sarit and I exchanged a knowing
nod. "Let's keep them," we said to a still-angry Yulka, "we can have them on special, and it's a good
opportunity to teach Juice [one of our young chefs] how to fillet."
So I decided to cook a matbuha - a north African sauce (which means "cooked salad" in Arabic) made
with peppers and tomatoes, garlic and spice, all cooked down to a sticky, sweet and sour jam. On the
other side of the kitchen the fish were laid on a blue board, waiting for Juice to get to work. Two fish
quickly became four long fillets, which were then cut into portions. Only the tail ends were kept
aside - too thin and sinewy to serve to our customers, I decided they would make a wonderful dinner
for Sarit and I at home later on ("a perfect precursor to those white peaches," I thought).
As the matbuha bubbled away on the stove, its homely aroma filled the kitchen. It is a wonderful
condiment, and every time I make it I try to make much more than I need. Its flavour improves over
time, the spice, citrus and garlic merging and maturing. On this occasion, I had my heart set on
having some with the fish tails I'd set aside, but no such luck. Our impromptu matbuha hake sold out
just 30 minutes into the lunch service.
Meanwhile, the everyday bustle typical of our tiny restaurant continued. We busily picked leaves
from boxed mint plants; we tended to a boiling batch of freekeh (cracked wheat) on the hob; a
booking went missing and we suddenly had to find space for four extra heads; we ran out of tahini;
Juice cut himself filleting hake (clearly, the lesson was not succesful); I received an alarming energy

2. bill; a regular popped in to tell us that, having taken our book with her to Karachi, she had
successfully cooked a meal for herself from it each day during Ramadan; table 6 sent their
compliments on the hake; an experimental dessert turned out brilliantly ...
The day, like every day, was full of peaks and troughs. By the time we got home we were exhausted.
In our bag, we had the morning's white peaches and the accidental hake tails ... but none of that
matbuha sauce I'd been craving all along. Were we hungry? Yes! Did we feel like cooking? Not
really! So we worked up this cheat's matbuha sauce with the basics we had in our cupboard: a few
spices, a tin of beans, some tomato puree, a bit of lemon and garlic and a pinch of chilli.
It takes only five minutes from scratch and has all those same homely flavours that made it fly out of
the kitchen at lunchtime in the restaurant. It's the ultimate easy, cosy home-cooked dinner after a
long day at work.
Matbuha (which means "cooked
salad" in Arabic) is a north African sauce made with peppers and tomatoes, garlic and spice, all
cooked down to a sticky, sweet and sour jam. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/Guardian
Matbuha can catch in a second - so make sure you stir it constantly. We always use borlotti beans in
this version, but any will work - use your favourite kind or whatever you happen to have to hand.
Tinned chickpeas work very well too, drained of their liquid and rinsed.
Serves 2
5 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground caraway
1 cinnamon stick

3. A pinch of dried chilli
60g tomato puree
250ml water
1 small (250g) tin of borlotti beans
3 very thin slices of lemon, skin and all (you can squeeze the rest of the lemon on the finished dish)
300-400g fresh hake fillet, cut in half
1 Put the garlic, oil and spices in a frying pan, and place over a low heat, stirring occasionally.
2 When the garlic is cooked and a heady, spicy scent is filling your kitchen add the tomato puree, the
water, the lemon slices and the beans, stir and bring to a gentle boil.
3 Taste for seasoning - it should be spicy and sour, and just sweet enough. Add salt, and if you need
to, a pinch of sugar.
4 Season the fish pieces with salt, then carefully lay them in the bubbling sauce, skin side up. Cover
the pan and leave it on a low heat for 5-6 mins, until the fish is just cooked through. You can check
by inserting a knife or prodding it with the back of a spoon - the fish should have a little bounce, but
also flake when you apply more pressure.
5 If you are using eggs instead, just break them into the bubbling sauce and cook until the whites
are set, but the yolk is still runny.
6 Serve with soft, crusty bread.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/29/cook-residency-honey-and-co-restaurant-hake-in-
matbuha-sauce-recipe-itamar-srulovic