Just Cook It

New website

2010-07-21T10:57:00.004Z

You are hereby cordially invited to the shiny new alexrushmer.com site. The time has come to bid farewell to this fair blog and smash a bottle of cava over the bough of my brand new site. It would be great if you would care to join me there and update any bookmarks you may have as well.

You can also follow me on Twitter

5th-17th July: Cooking at The Wild Garlic

2010-07-02T17:55:00.004Z

It is amazing where slightly drunken conversations can lead. In this case the answer is Dorset. To Mat Follas’s Wild Garlic restaurant, to be more specific.

A request from the man himself to cover for a holidaying sous chef could not be passed over so I’ll be cooking there for two weeks from July 5th – a prospect that fills me with excitement given the amazing range of produce available. Knowing how much Mat values local and seasonal food, the menu will be a pleasure to cook.

What’s even more exciting is that I’ll be cooking with Terry again for the first time since what has become known as the ‘WI Debacle’. I think we’ve both improved a lot since then but it’s probably for the best that you don’t order the fishcakes.

The Wild Garlic is in Beaminster, Dorset. To book a table call 01308 861446.

Doner Kebabs

2010-07-02T10:56:00.008Z

If there is a food more maligned than the doner kebab then it remains unknown to my palate.

Long the butt of jokes and the final resort of a hungry lush as he or she stumbles back home from the pub via a neon takeaway, the poor kebab as we know it in England is far removed from its original form.

Sweaty mystery meat sculpted into the famous ‘elephant’s foot’ rotates slowly in front of orange hued heater bulbs behind the counters of less salubrious dining establishments throughout the country. Unimaginably long lengths of it are hacked off and crammed into epic flatbreads or warm pitas before being topped with a token salad of four cucumber rings, some harsh raw onion and a few wedges of watery tomato.

The whole lot is finished with a Russian roulette chilli sauce that ranges from the pathetic to nuclear hot and then eaten with gusto, delight and a side order of late onset guilt.

And it tastes great.

Admittedly the average doner diner is three or even four sheets to the wind by the time they get their laughing gear around this culinary oddity that somehow manages to pack a day’s worth of calories into a single polystyrene box. They are chowed down late at night to sate the deep hunger brought on by overindulgence of the grape and grain’s fine nectar.

I can recall many morning after conversations that have included the phrase ‘I must have been quite pissed – I even had a kebab’ and fondly remember one incident when the distinctive doner niff followed us round for an entire Sunday after a heavy Saturday night. Even a shower and a change of clothes wasn’t enough to quell the odour. It was only when my friend reached into his coat pocket for his wallet and pulled out a length of brown meat that the mystery was solved.

In short kebabs tend to be eaten in haste and regretted at leisure when noxious burps scented with onion exacerbate the hangover. They are the guiltiest of guilty pleasures and a gastronomic punchline for a joke that ceases to be funny at about 6 o’clock the following morning when the belly cramps and the head aches.

But this shouldn’t be the case. In its true form, the doner is a thing of beauty: marinated lamb meat, slow cooked into tender softness – warm with spices and rich with natural fat. Blistered flatbreads with that wonderful gentle bitterness. Heat from chillies tempered with cool salad. Hummus. Yoghurt. These are all good things. Great, wonderful tasty things. And more importantly all things you can achieve at home.

Doner Kebabs

OK – this isn’t a true doner. For that you’d need epic amounts of meat of dubious origin, a large vertical spit, six hours of turning and a hungry mob to consume it all. So we cooked a simplified version which was superior in every way.

Once a lamb shoulder had been boned out and butterflied it was covered with a spice mix containing cumin, coriander, chillies, oregano, garlic, lemon zest and olive oil before being tied up and roasted in the oven over a layer of roughly chopped onions.

Three hours at a low heat was long enough to render the meat tender and almost liquefy the onions.

Whilst it was resting we cooked up a batch of flatbreads, made some hummus and a chopped salad of cucumber, tomato, red onion and plenty of parsley.

The lamb meat was shredded with two forks and mixed in with the cooked onions and the fat and juices that had pooled in the bottom of the roasting tray. Heaped into fresh warm flatbreads and then finished off with all the necessary accoutrements it was a meal fit for the gods themselves. Or at least Bacchus.

Photography by Charlotte

Rocket and Brazil Nut Pesto

2010-06-22T14:21:00.005Z

We waited weeks for the truly good growing conditions to arrive. A late frost gave us cause for concern and we thought for a few days that we’d lost the entire crop of potatoes - not to mention numerous salads.

Thankfully the sad looking leaves survived and thrived into lush green offerings. The rows of potatoes now stand tall and proud, a thick carpet of the distinctive green leaves cover half the garden like a layer of cloud.

Two lines of lettuce look perky and happy and we’ve already devoured three or four, one with a simple roast chicken with warm bread, some runny mayonnaise and freshly chopped lemon thyme.

The rocket is looking healthy as well: too healthy in fact. We returned after a couple of days away to find it reaching skyward in a manner that would please NASA. Thinking quickly we harvested as many of the oversize leaves as we could and pounded them along with some basil into a fresh, summery pesto.

Stirred into spaghetti it made a wonderful and very quick supper: fresh, peppery, warm with garlic and zingy with lemon. Sometimes a glut is a wonderful thing.

Spaghetti with rocket and brazil nut pesto

Although usually made with pine nuts, the Brazil nuts we found in the back of the cupboard proved to be an excellent substitute. The slightly creamy texture added a slight richness to the pesto.

Two large handfuls of rocket leaves, washed and dried
One handful of basil leaves
9-10 Brazil nuts
2 cloves of garlic
One lemon, zested and juiced
Olive oil
20g Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese, grated
Salt and pepper

Chop the rocket and basil leaves enough to make them fit into a pestle and mortar. Pound the Brazil nuts into a coarse powder then add the garlic and a pinch of sea salt and pound some more. Add the lemon zest then the rocket and basil leaves and continue mashing with the pestle until it begins to look like pesto. Add the olive oil until it is a certifiable sauce then stir in the grated cheese.

Season with sea salt, black pepper and lemon juice and stir through warm spaghetti.

Photographs by @photolotte (flickr)

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Phad Thai and Cooking Like a Pro

2010-06-15T14:15:00.004Z

Professional chefs work differently to home cooks. This is a lesson you learn very early on in a restaurant kitchen.

Working a successful service relies on a number of key practices but chief amongst these is doing one’s meez before the first ticket comes in.

Meez , short for mise en place, a French term for ‘putting in place’, means getting everything ready to go so you aren’t faffing around chopping vegetables when you should really be concentrating on cooking that sea bass for table 14.

It is getting everything how you want it, where you want it so when the time comes all you have to do is cook.

Whilst this is good working practice for a professional environment, it is a lesson I’ve brought home with me as well. I approach cooking differently, first doing any peeling or butchery then moving onto chopping and the like.

Only when everything is ready to go, do I start cooking. This actually cuts down the time spent in the kitchen and means that hands on cooking is as swift and smooth as possible.

More importantly it means there isn’t a mountain of washing up to do after dinner because all the clearing up is done as you go along – another lesson you learn very quickly in professional kitchens.

A chef friend of mine put it rather more succinctly. ‘The six Ps,’ he said when we were talking about cooking for paying customers. I looked at him blankly. ‘Proper preparation prevents poor performance.’

‘That’s only five,’ I replied. ‘Five Ps.’

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I gave you the clean version. Commis chefs get the six P chat. Proper preparation prevents piss-poor performance.’

And he’s right.

One dish that really benefits from this approach is a stir-fry when you have a matter of just a few minutes to actually cook everything and Phad Thai is a real favourite. Last time I visited the family, my sister asked me the best way to cook this. I gave her a little lesson but neglected to write down the recipe so, Ellen – this one’s for you.

Ellen’s Phad Thai
The key flavourings are palm sugar (although you could sub in brown sugar) for sweetness, tamarind and lime for sourness, fish sauce and soy for saltiness and chillies for heat.

The core philosophy of Thai food is ensuring these are balanced so feel free to play with quantities as you see fit: There are no rules – it is a dish from the streets of Bangkok. It is fast, filling and very tasty indeed.

Ingredients are listed in the order they should be cooked

Per person:
Cooking oil (2-3 tablespoons)
½ carrot, sliced into thin strips
½ onion, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
Tablespoon of pickled radish or pickled turnip (you should find this in your friendly local Chinese supermarket)
Fresh red chillies, finely sliced
2 spring onions, finely sliced

10-15g palm sugar
2 tablespoons of tamarind
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce

100g rice noodles, cooked in boiling water

1 egg, beaten

Tablespoon of peanuts, roasted and roughly ground
Tablespoon of dried shrimp

To finish
Bean sprouts
Finely shredded spring onion
Finely shredded red chillies
Roasted and ground peanuts
Lime wedges

Once the first ingredient goes into the hot oil this dish is about two minutes away from the plate so you have to work quickly. Get all your ingredients ready to go and set up in order – this is your mise en place. Congratulations, you are now a chef.

Heat up a wok so it is good and scorching. Add the oil then tip in the onion, garlic, carrot, chillies and pickled radish (or turnip). Move around the wok then add the flavourings: tamarind, palm sugar, fish sauce and soy stir well then add the cooked noodles. Coat with the sauce then make a well in the centre and add the egg. Let it cook, scramble it and incorporate it into the dish.

Sprinkle in the dried shrimp and peanuts, stir one last time and spoon into bowls. Garnish with bean sprouts, spring onions, chillies and peanuts then feel free to go crazy with the seasonings to pep up the dish to your own personal tastes. Finely chopped bird’s eye chillies in fish sauce is a real favourite that always brings back the memory of Thailand.

Who needs a takeaway?

Coffee

2010-06-04T11:09:00.009Z

Confession time. I’m cheating on my beloved.

We’ve been together since 2003 so I suppose it could be the famed ‘seven year itch’. Only this is more serious. This isn’t just an illicit fumble in the stationery cupboard. This is more. This is love.

Since I began nurturing my love of coffee I’ve tried every method under the sun to attain the perfect cup of Joe. For a while the Cafetiere was enough to see me through the mornings, heaping coarsely pre-ground beans into the warmed jug. The resultant sludge was passable but there was no panache, merely the niggling shadow of 1980s dinner parties and After Eight mints.

The trusty Moka Express came next – ‘every Italian home has one’ came the re-assuring sales pitch and sure enough it proved to make a cup up from the workmanlike brew that spewed forth from the Cafetiere.

Getting the brewing time right was difficult though – too fast and the coffee scorched becoming bitter as the final drops puttered through the spout and the bottom pot boiled dry. Too slow and it took an age for the coffee to appear. It was also a pain to clean and more often than not remained sullied with wet grinds for longer than was suitable.

There was also a frustrating lack of crema – the nutty caramel coloured layer that adorns the finest of espressos, a drink that was becoming my coffee of choice whenever away from home.

For a while I gave into my Swedish heritage and enjoyed the simple delights of filter coffee. Smooth and strong without being overly bitter, it was a coffee to drink throughout the day but it lacked that specific oomph and I never got excited about it in the same way I did about a really good shot of expertly made espresso.

There was only one course of action: to admit that I was a fully-fledged coffee nerd and invest in a machine that would allow making of exquisitely crafted espresso at home.

After much research I chose the La Pavoni Europiccola machine – as much a piece of iconic design as an espresso maker. I was dazzled by its classic lines, its manual mechanics and its apparent simplicity. It was a thing of shiny beauty – curvier than Marilyn Monroe and heavy with brass fittings, I adored it from the moment I bought it.

The love affair lasted quite some time. It had quirks that made it impossible for anyone other than myself to make it work. It was high-maintenance in the extreme, needing constant tweaking. There was no temperature or pressure gauge meaning a sustained period of trial and error before the two were in sync to yield a perfect shot of dark espresso with a satisfying crema.

The boiler itself was small – once enough water had been drawn through the machine to heat all the components there was barely enough left for a couple of coffees. It would have to be re-filled – a task that only the bravest of baristas would dare to undertake.

Tea-towels had to be wrapped around hands to avoid being scalded by the burst of steam that spewed, volcano like, from the boiler as the lid was unscrewed. More waiting, more releasing the pressure from the steam wand, more failed coffees if any aspect was amiss.

Drawing the perfect espresso is a hard task – if one single element is out of kilter, it drags the whole process down with it. Freshness of beans, size of grind, temperature of water, latent heat in machine, pressure, speed of extraction. All these had to be perfect before the Europiccola would even consider emitting a good espresso.

I grew to think of my machine as a well-bred, hot blooded Italian lady: happy to comply on rare occasions but unwilling to compromise and prone to increasingly lengthy bouts of sulking where compliance was NEFC (not-even-fucking-considered).

But those rare occasions when the planets aligned, they made me forget about all those failed shots poured down the sink. Those sleepy hungover Sundays when all I wanted was a simple coffee and instead what I got was violent steaming temper tantrum from an apparently inanimate object. The time I’d spent making coffees for more than two people. The red raw hands scalded from the steam. All those went ignored when I sipped the one 1% of shots that passed muster.

Inevitably though I grew tired of the tantrums. Frustrated by La Pavoni’s increasingly erratic behaviour, I sought solace in the simple pleasures of others.

Telling myself it was just a temporary measure, that I would have my machine serviced and the love would blossom again, I dabbled and toyed and conducted electric affairs with as many coffee makers as I could, desperate to find that spark.

Everything from the Aeropress, a plunge device made by a company famed for their flying rings to futuristic handheld gadgets powered by nitrous oxide. I tried them all desperate to rekindle that spark I’d once felt for the shiny silver elephant now in the corner of the kitchen.

But each brief encounter brought a growing realisation that the relationship with my Italian diva was over. The reality was that most of the methods I was now using made better coffee than the Europiccola ever did. I was just blinded by adoration, rendered incapable by its gorgeous curves and flawless design.

Heartbroken, I resolved never to love again.

And then my brother went travelling. ‘You can babysit the Gaggia, if you want,’ he said. I agreed, thinking it would serve a purpose but nothing more.

In the month since it has been resident in the kitchen, this wonderful machine, this glorious piece of modernist design, all square edges and simple function, has become as much a part of the household as the cats.

We’ve called him Gary. Gary the Gaggia. He sits next to the grinder, taking up more than his fair share of the space in our tiny kitchen but we don’t care. He tells us when he is ready, he never overheats, his pressure is so well maintained I think he may be on statins and he steams milk to textured perfection.

Once the coffee is ground and tamped into place, a simple push of a button is enough to have glorious espresso dribbling through the portafilter. Crema is inevitable and even the GF – who never dared go near the Pavoni – is happy to make coffees now. It is a thing of perfection.

The only problem is, at some point I’m going to have to give him back. Adam – if you’re reading this I might have to look after Gary a little longer…

So – how do you get your coffee fix? Is it a matter of anything goes as long as it is fast and caffeine jacked or are you more of a perfectionist? Share your thoughts below and there may even be some sort of coffee based prize in the offing.

***
Speaking of coffee, I will be putting my expertise to good use as part of the judging panel for the World Aeropress Coffee Championships at Caffe Culture, Kensington Olympia on June 25th. Come and say hello.

Summer Food: Tagliatelle with peas and bacon

2010-05-23T17:13:00.005Z

It’s been a busy fortnight. Book pitches. Meetings. Business plans. Scouting out potential restaurant locations. Press events. Oh, and making 6000 canapés with Dhruv for a hungry City crowd.

We jokingly suggested to the producers of Masterchef that the latter of these should be a new challenge on the show. Apologies in advance to future contestants if it makes the cut.

All this is a round about way of excusing myself for neglecting the blog which itself is in the middle of an overhaul.

This weekend has seen some glorious weather. One may go so far (providing you’re not the superstitious sort) as to say that summer is upon us and with it the freshest bounty of the garden and meats grilled over hot coals.

No more braises, stews or hearty belly-fillers. The next few months are about simplicity. Fresh, zingy flavours and ingredients cooked simply and, whenever possible, enjoyed al fresco. A meal soundtracked by nature and the sounds of the open is far tastier than one taken indoors.

Although it rarely fills our bellies during the darker half of the year, come spring and summer pasta forms a larger part of our diet – its innate versatility somehow more suited to the ad hoc nature of summer meals where time spent in the kitchen detracts from time spent outside.

Consequently, now seemed a good time to invest in a book on the subject and The Geometry of Pasta appeared to fit the bill perfectly. A rather beautiful, monochrome tome it harks back to a traditional Italian approach where pasta and sauce are matched with care to capitalise on the characteristics of each. A noble concept indeed.

Although the prospect of hand-crafting some intricate orecchiette was tempting, last night’s supper was an exercise in simplicity: fresh pasta tossed with bacon, peas, a little blue cheese and cream and finished with grassy pea shoots picked from little pots in the garden.

Tagliatelle with peas and bacon

As tasty as homegrown peas are, I find growing them a thankless and arduous task that yields disappointing results. With the frozen sort as good as they are I have no qualms about using those to bulk out a meal and picking off the wonderfully fresh tasting (not to mention pretty with their winding, curling fronds) pea shoots to serve as a delicious garnish.

Ingredients:
200g pasta flour
2 eggs
OR 200g dried pasta

150g bacon, pancetta or other cured pork, diced
Olive oil
A medium sized onion, finely chopped
A splash of white wine
Two handfuls frozen peas, cooked in boiling water (or the microwave. Really)
200ml double cream
Any leftover cheese you happen to have, as long as it is of the melty variety.
Salt and plenty of black pepper

If you are the sort of person who has a pasta machine, you don’t need me to tell you how to make the stuff. Just whip up a batch in your usual fashion, it will be more than fine.

If you are the sort of person who doesn’t have a pasta machine, you don’t need me to tell you how to cook the stuff. Surely. Just go about it in your usual fashion. But not before making the sauce.

Fry the bacon until it renders off its lovely fat and begins to turn crispy. Lower the heat under the frying pan and add the diced onion. Cook it gently until it softens in the bacon fat. If it looks a little dry add a dash of olive oil (but not the good stuff). Give it 10-15 minutes so it softens and sweetens without burning and turning acrid.

Deglaze the pan with white wine - just a splash should do the job - then add the cream, peas and cheese. Season well with black pepper but go easy on the salt depending on what cheese you’ve gone for.

Cook up your pasta in a big pan with plenty of salt and as soon as it is ready, drain it (but only briefly – the cooking water adds a tasty element) and toss into the sauce. Heap into bowls, garnish with pea shoots and serve outside just as the sun is dipping beyond the trees, ocean buildings or whatever vista forms your view onto the world.

Food fotos by Charlotte (Flickr page)

The Cambridge Menu

2010-05-04T15:20:00.009Z

The brief from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire was simple: create a dish that sums up the area using the best locally sourced produce available.

Cornwall has the pasty, Bedfordshire’s got a clanger and Bury the black pudding – but Cambridge? Cambridge has…well, therein lay the problem. Our county is bereft of a classic.

The challenge to rectify this glaring omission came from our local BBC radio station. I would have a week to come up with something special and they’d then record me creating it in my own kitchen.

The obvious place to begin was looking at what local produce was available. It soon became clear that the area may be lacking in a signature dish but that isn’t for want of superb ingredients: locally reared beef, pork, lamb and game are plentiful, when in season.

In May, the Fens groan under the weight of the asparagus spears that peep through the earth. Celery and watercress also grow in plentiful abundance. The committed and enthusiastic loca-vore can even take their rod and line down to the River Cam and try to land a pike or zander. However, I didn’t think a week would be enough to organise a fishing licence (or actually learn how to fish).

Being bound to the fruits of the local land was no hardship, though and after a few days of hard research I came up with the following efforts for my Cambridgeshire Feast. Great British Menu, watch out.

Starter: Asparagus, bacon and egg

With it just sneaking into season, now is a great time to eat locally grown asparagus. The spears are sweet and tender and are yet to develop the slightly woody note that can tarnish the fern later in the year.

This isn’t a very original presentation but my goal was to keep it simple. The asparagus was steamed, brushed with butter then served with an egg (from our front garden) poached at 64˚and a couple of slices of home-cured pork jowl, uniquely preserved by the Cambridgeshire air and then fried until crispy like dry-cured streaky bacon.

Main Course: Beef cheeks, braised celery and Stilton and mustard cream

Beef and Stilton is a classic combination. Stilton and celery, likewise. Here they come together in a wonderful open pie.

Whilst most regions in Britain can lay claim to a local cheese, Cambridgeshire’s most famous dairy product can’t actually be made in the county. The PDO that proudly adorns Stilton cheese limits its production to the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire – but the town of Stilton itself lies within the boundaries of modern-day Cambridgeshire and here is where the cheese became justifiably famous.

Beef cheeks (from CamCattle, a company who locally rear cattle grazed on common land in the centre of Cambridge) were cooked slowly in red wine and stock with carrot, celery, onions and garlic until tender – then the cooking liquor reduced to a rich and sticky gravy.

The celery too, was braised by browning in a little butter then covering with a light chicken stock before being vacuum sealed and cooked for 35 minutes at 85˚ (the temperature at which pectin – the ‘glue’ that holds vegetables together –breaks down, making vegetables tender but ensuring they retain a little bite).

The celery and beef were topped with a disc of puff pastry and then a cool cream flavoured with Stilton and mustard was added to the dish, along with a some watercress for a peppery bite.

It may be a little optimistic to hope it’s a future classic, but one can always hope. It’s certainly delicious enough to warrant making again, very soon.

Dessert: Cambridge Burnt Cream with Rhubarb

Perhaps better known as crème brulee, this dessert was the closest that I came to finding a genuine heritage dish from Cambridge. Although the veracity of the origins of the dessert cannot be verified, legend has it that it was first served at Trinity College in the late 19th Century – a tale that Ian Reinhardt, head of catering at Trinity, was happy to stick to. As am I.

Rhubarb seemed a natural addition – both because it can be found all over the region at this time of year and also due to its natural affinity to custard: a pairing that almost universally tends to remind us of childhood.

Deceptively simple, the secret to a perfect ‘Burnt Cream’ lies in setting the custard to a soft texture without scrambling the egg yolk. Just don’t get it too hot.

Split a vanilla pod and add the seeds to 425ml double cream and gently bring to the boil. Whisk together 110g caster sugar with four egg yolks until pale then pour the cream over the yolks and sugar. Return to the heat and bring almost (but not quite) to the boil.

Pour the custard into ramekins and cook in a low oven (or bain marie) until set. Chill then sprinkle the tops with sugar. Use a blowtorch or hot grill to caramelise the sugar then cool.

For the rhubarb, melt 25g butter and 25g sugar in a pan. Add the sliced rhubarb then cover with orange juice. Cook until the rhubarb is tender (about 7-8 minutes), remove and reduce the liquid to a glaze to spoon over the soft rhubarb.

One final flourish that Ian kindly shared with me when I went to speak to him about the origins of this tasty pudding concerned the ‘branding’ of the caramelised sugar with a metal plate adorned with the college crest. A piece of theatre indeed, but perhaps a little extravagant for the home cook – at least, until I get my own coat of arms commissioned.

So – thoughts? Feedback? Outrage that I’ve missed a truly local classic? Get in touch in the comments or on Twitter and we’ll have a chat about it.

To listen to my Cambridgeshire menu appear on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, click here (next 7 days only). It's at the 1 hour 20 ish mark. Just after Feargal Sharkey.

Pictures by @photolotte (flickr)

Two more ways with nettles

2010-04-30T09:26:00.007Z

The sheer mettle of nettles. They are taking over the garden: cropping up in the vegetable patch, dominating the borders and creating no-go zones in the middle of the lawn.

But revenge comes in many forms – all of them tasty.

Nettle soup is a well-worn classic: virtuous and brilliantly evocative of Spring but hardly exciting and there are a thousand and one recipes for it washing around the Internet. In short, it needed re-mastering.

Sweet Potato, Nettle and Chickpea Soup

This is a soup with substance; a filling bowlful of hearty satisfaction. Pepped up with the warmth of some aromatic spices it is perfect for those evenings when the sun dips a little too fast leaving the seven o’clock air with a surprising, biting chill.

Two large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
A baking potato, peeled and diced
Two white onions, peeled and sliced
As much garlic as you wish
Spices: cumin, cinnamon, coriander, cloves, star anise – take your pick
Lots of fresh nettle tops
A tin of chickpeas
Vegetable stock, about 3 pints

I’m fairly certain you know how to make a soup so forgive me if I patronise.

Fry off your chosen spices in a little oil until they in turn start to release their oils. The smell will change, just take care not to burn them else you will add a bitter note to the soup. Crush them in a pestle and mortar then add the garlic.

Fry the onion until soft then add the potato (both sweet and regular). Give it a little colour then add the spices and garlic before covering with stock. Leave to simmer until the potatoes are cooked then blend and pass through a sieve to remove and rogue crunchy spices.

Wash and pick over the nettles removing any thick stems and inevitable creepy crawlies. Cook in plenty of rapidly boiling, salted water then leave them to drain in a colander or sieve. Chop the nettles then add to the soup along with a can of drained chickpeas. Heat through and serve with bread or cheese straws anda big jumper.

Nettle Aloo

As an accompaniment to Indian food, aloo saag (potatoes and spinach) is a firm favourite. Here the spinach is replaced with blanched and chopped nettles which gives a wonderfully fresh, almost grassy flavour. It works.

A large white onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Teaspoon of mustard seeds
Two teaspoons black onion seeds
Two teaspoons methi (fenugreek seeds)
Salt and pepper
2-3 potatoes, depending on size, peeled and diced into c.2cm cubes
Nettles, lots.

Blanch the nettles in boiling water then drain in a colander. Finely chop them and set them to one side.

Boil the potatoes in salted water until just shy of being cooked. About 10 minutes should do it

Fry the spices in oil, lower the heat then add the onion and cook until it softens. Add the garlic then the potatoes. Cook until they begin to colour and are soft throughout then add the chopped nettles. Let down with a little water if necessary, season and serve with whichever curries you desire.

Photos by @photolotte (flickr)

Nettle & Yarg Risotto

2010-04-23T12:42:00.008Z

Nettles don’t immediately spring to mind when thinking of this time of year and the bounty the season offers.

Tender milk fed lamb, wild garlic or the first crisp spears of asparagus, perhaps, but nettles? They’re certainly not at the top of many people’s spring essentials lists, or the bottom, come to think of it.

Long a fixture of many a hippy’s ingredient roster, nettles are gaining a following amongst some high profile chefs keen to follow in the footsteps of visionary cooks like Rene Redzepi who places provenance at the centre, and periphery, of his food philosophy.

With good reason. They are plentiful, free, brilliantly British, wildly versatile and, moreover, delicious.

Our garden is teeming with them. They burst through the earth in wild clusters at the first hint of warmth. Picking them requires some unbroken rubber gloves and a little patience but if the sun is out and the radio is providing happy company it is a pleasure rather than a chore.

Given their aptitude for wilting, it is a good idea to pick more than you think you need. Lots more. A pan full will magically disappear leaving just a vivid green layer and the memory of its volume.

Sunday was a lazy day and we picked lots. Feeling adventurous we made a nettle tea, which tasted like it was doing us good even after it had been pepped up with honey and lime juice, a nettle soup and even some zingy nettle pesto which was great on crackers with a little cheese.

But the best recipe was for nettle risotto – a clean yet hearty bowlful of springtime.

Since cooking at Le Calandre under the tutelage of Massimiliano Alajmo (the youngest ever recipient of the culinary world’s highest accolade: three stars in the Michelin guide) I’ve changed the way I make risotto.

Whilst there not only did I taste the best dish I have ever eaten in my entire life (a risotto flavoured with rose petal and peach – hands down the most incredible taste experience ever. Ever) I also cooked one of the restaurant’s signature dishes – saffron and liquorice risotto – which shows the levels to which rice and stock can be elevated. In the hands of a 3* chef, the humble risotto isn’t quite so humble.

Whilst this effort doesn’t quite have such high aspirations, the method remains the same and a departure from the rather labour intensive approach I used to take.

Dry toasting the rice over a high heat cuts down the cooking time from a frustrating 35-40 minutes to a shade under 15 and makes for a creamier texture as the starches are quickly released allowing the grains to retain some integrity and bite. A top tip indeed

Nettle and Yarg Risotto

A note about Yarg – Yarg is a semi-hard cheese from Cornwall. It is fresh and satisfyingly creamy. It is also wrapped in nettle leaves making it a perfect partner for this risotto instead of the more usual Parmesan

Half a small white onion, finely chopped
A clove of garlic, finely minced
15g butter

A large quantity of nettle tops, washed, picked over then dropped into boiling water for a minute or so. Once cooked, shock them in iced water so that the bright green colour remains, strain well then chop and fry in a little butter.

A handful of rice, per person
White wine
Chicken stock, warmed
20g butter
25-50g Yarg cheese, finely diced.

Soften the onion and garlic with the butter over a gentle heat until the turn translucent. Remove from the pan and reserve. Dry the pan and crank up the heat. Toast the rice for 2-3 minutes taking care not to burn it. Add the onion and garlic back to the rice then pour in the wine. It will bubble like mad.

Ladle in some of the stock so that the rice is covered, stir then let it bubble away. As soon as it looks as if it is too dry, add some more. It should bubble away like an active swamp.

A good risotto should be semi-liquid. Keep tasting it and checking the texture of the rice. When it is barely cooked add another ladle full of stock and remove from the heat. It will look too wet but don’t worry – risotto has a tendency to seize up as it cools. Stir in a healthy dose of butter and the cheese then spoon into warm bowls.

This one was finished with some blanched nettles leaves, a little more cheese and some spiced salt. Fresh yet slightly warming all at once.

Photos (the good ones anyway) by @photolotte

Observer Food Monthly Awards

2010-04-21T11:23:00.005Z

Thankfully the Observer’s Food Monthly magazine received a stay of execution after the recent cull that saw the demise of its sister titles: Woman, Music, and Sport Monthly.

As a result food nerds, geeks and obsessives can still revel in the glory of unashamed nosh based writing from the likes of Jay Rayner, Rachel Cooke and Nigel Slater (amongst others).

Every year the OFM runs an awards special where readers can vote for the people and places that have rocked their food world over the previous 12 months.

Categories include ‘Best restaurant’ (my vote went to St John an admission that will surprise few) ‘Best independent local retailer (these guys, just outside of Cambridge who posted all the lovely Masterchef messages) and ‘Best cheap eats’ (oodles of noodles? Yes please)

Pootle over to the Observer website to cast your votes. There are prizes too if you need further incentive.

There’s also a ‘Best UK Based Food Blog’ category. Just saying, is all…

Two ways with Ox Heart

2010-04-20T09:12:00.011Z

[Warning - this post contains offal]

It was supposed to be three.

Three ways with heart.

A hat trick of heart-y preparations to entice the brave and convert the wary whilst trying all the while not to scare off the timid.

The third of these was to be a long, slow braise. I had visions of spoon tender meat in a rich, beefy gravy similar to the French Laundry braised beef short ribs. The reality was a little disappointing.

Most meat that needs slow cooking is a network of fibrous muscle protein and connective tissue layered with strata of fat. As the meat cooks it becomes tender (due to the break down of the collagen) and very tasty.

A braised lamb shank is the classic example – cooked properly a gentle shove with a fork should have the meat collapsing off the bone like a tower block undergoing a controlled demolition.

But heart, I came to learn, is different. The meat is lean, tightly packed and without the necessary additions of collagen and fat that make a truly rib-sticking braise. Rather than falling apart into tasty strands, the meat constricts and seizes up into dense, rubbery nuggets that taste nice enough but texturally are not pleasant.

It was with a heavy heart (arf arf) that I admitted defeat on this one and fed the chunks to some very grateful cats who I doubt appreciated the time, effort and bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that had gone into the dish.

So, two ways it is.

The first thing you notice about an ox heart is its sheer size. They are great, hulking vast rugby balls of meat. Weighing in at a shade under three kilos, even accounting for the necessary ‘trimming’, there is plenty of meat here. A similarly sized rib of beef would set you back around £45. A three-kilo piece of sirloin closer to £70.

The heart cost a tenth of the price – about £7. Even if it merely served to slake my curiosity it was still cheap.

Once the whole thing had been trimmed of anything that looked even vaguely unappetising (no mean feat considering its size), a third of the meat was thinly sliced to be marinated overnight, a third cut into chunks to braise and a third finely diced for a ragu.

The braise, being something of a failure as already discussed, is probably best not dwelled upon so we shall move swiftly onto the more successful preparations.

Ragu

The first of these was a simple ragu. Finely diced heart meat browned in oil then cooked long and slow with a soffrito of onions, celery and carrot, a little cured bacon, half a bottle of wine, some good beef stock and a tin of tomatoes.

Five hours under a cartouche in an oven barely warmer than a Swedish sauna was enough to create a tasty sauce that works well over pasta but isn’t even close to being as good as one made with cheek.

Far more successful though was the following:

Anticuchos

A South American preparation, anticuchos seems to be a fairly generic term for ‘meat on skewers’ and can be made with almost any type of meat. The most famed, though, are made with beef heart.

Marinated overnight in ground cumin, garlic, chilli and oregano mixed with olive oil and red wine vinegar, the thinly sliced heart is then concertinaed onto wooden skewers before being grilled over hot coals.

Cooked quickly like this means the meat has little opportunity to constrict and toughen up. The light charring of the barbecued meat adds a warm, deep savoury note and the marinade, pepped up with the sharpness of vinegar, really lifts the dish.

After 5-6 minutes over hot charcoal, the meat was picked off the skewer onto a hot flatbread and served with rocket, a few spoonfuls of mayonnaise and the leftover marinade cooked down with some tomato puree.

‘This is a conversion dish,’ claimed the GF, whose initial trepidation evaporated once she got a whiff of the hunger inducing scent that is created when meat is introduced to hot coals. ‘This is seriously good. Really good. Good enough to convince non-offal eaters, in fact.’

She was right. Anticuchos is the sort of food that you could easily dish up and dazzle with at a barbecue. Questions over provenance could easily be waved away with vague mutterings about ‘steak kebab’ until the hungry throng come back for seconds.

By that point they will already have undergone their Damascene moment. Oh, you are offal. But I like you

'Still got the cake' - Life after Masterchef

2010-04-11T13:17:00.006Z

It’s all over. Those weeks and months of hard work and secrets. The challenges, the travels, the interviews and (just occasionally) the cooking.

My time as a Masterchef finalist is done and I can look back with pride at what we all achieved: heaving hot boxes through the courtyard of a thousand year old castle; working alongside some of the best amateur chefs in the country and then progressing to the final and running a restaurant with two of the nicest chaps I could ever have hoped to meet; cooking Alain Ducasse’s own signature dessert and serving it to the legendary man himself (not to mention a table full of Michelin starred chefs); transforming offal and other seldom used cuts of meat into dishes fit for a prime time BBC1 cooking show. To name but a few of the once-in-a-lifetime challenges that we faced.

Except it’s not over. It’s only just beginning.

By Thursday morning my inbox was registering almost 700 unread emails that had come in since Wednesday’s final episode. Amongst them were job offers, enquiries from agents and, most lovely of all, messages from people I have never met. People who were kind enough to take the time to write and say how much they enjoyed the show and send their congratulations at my reaching the final.

Thank you to you all. I will reply, I promise - but I may be some time. In a real sense rather than an ominous Captain Oates sense.

There are a number of very exciting projects in the pipeline, amongst them a book and a restaurant - both of which, I must add, are in the very early stages of development. But as soon as there is more news, it will be announced right here on my blog.

So watch this space.

In the mean time, the chocolate and coffee pot recipe that dazzled the critics is available here, on the BBC Food website (but don’t freeze the espuma!). However, if you’re looking for something more hearty and warming, might I suggest this lamb breast recipe, which is currently slow-roasting in my oven, albeit a more spiced version. It’s amazing what you learn from cooking in India for a Maharajah.

Oh, and I’m on Twitter: please drop by and say hello.

Wicked-cool spaghetti pics by the amazing @photolotte

A little more trumpet blowing...

2010-04-04T09:42:00.002Z

For the first time in the history of Just Cook It, you can now read one of my recipes on the BBC Food website.

The roasted lamb rump with spiced date puree, glazed carrots and cinnamon cous cous that I cooked for the critics is available right here. Here’s hoping you like it as much as Jay Rayner et al did.

If you do try the recipe, don’t feel the presentation has to be fine-dining: it can easily serve as a hearty lunch or supper for a hungry mob – a big pile of cous cous topped with pink lamb and glazed carrots then smothered with a sticky lamb gravy. A nice twist on an Easter classic.

If you’ve still not had your MasterChef fill, there is also an interview with the three finalists in today’s Express.

The final starts tomorrow at 9pm on BBC1 with the most incredible on-location challenge that the show has ever featured: cooking breakfast al fresco battling 40 degree heat in a 500 year old mountain top castle. In Rajasthan, India. Oh, and we cook for some royalty, too. Don’t miss it.

Interview

2010-04-01T15:23:00.006Z

(Shameless self-promotion alert. Hey, I don’t get on TV very often so I’m making the most of it)

Ahead of tonight’s semi-final, here’s a little interview with me talking about food, cooking and John and Gregg.

If you would care to relive what has become known as the ‘WI Debacle’ then it’s available on iPlayer. If you’d prefer to sit tight and wait for the next instalment it’s on BBC1 tonight (1st April) at 8:30pm.

Oh, and have a decadent decadently long weekend x

Note: It seems that the video is too large for my little blog and is spilling over onto the sidebar. I don't know how to fix this. If you'd prefer to watch it without bits of text covering it, you can see it here instead

Celebration Steak

2010-03-24T16:43:00.007Z

As weeks go, the last seven days have been quite surreal.

There’s not much that can prepare you for making your debut on national television. It’s a little like getting onto a rollercoaster in the dark with no clue as to how the ride will pan out.

Thankfully, there have been no major hiccoughs. The heats and quarterfinals have been safely navigated and I’ve come out the other side as a MasterChef semi-finalist. It’s truly wonderful to be able to write those words.

The response has also been fantastic and genuinely heart warming. Thank you to everyone who has phoned, written, texted, emailed, tweeted or shouted across a car park. Thanks even to the person who suggested I might be Chris Martin and Stephen Merchant’s offspring (but only because you’re a Radio 1 DJ).

But my favourite response has been this:

It was quite a surprise when we pulled up in the car park at the butcher/farm shop/deli/food nerd’s nirvana that I go to and saw that sign, usually reserved for far more important matters like proclaiming the arrival of the season’s first rhubarb or new potatoes.

We were there to pick up a meal worthy of a celebration - and to my mind few things shout ‘hooray’ better than a whopping great steak. Whilst individual pieces are all well and good, practicality, economy and taste favour a shared piece of beef, especially if cooked rare and sliced tableside.

A hearty single rib (côte de boeuf if you wish to get all Gallic about it) from a Red Poll raised a mere four miles away was ideal. Aged just over four weeks the meat was dark red and looked tender enough to eat as was. Instead it was liberally seasoned, vacuum packed and submerged in a water bath to bob around merrily for a couple of hours at 52 degrees.

The logistics of the operation presented some slight problems: on realising that my largest pan was not big enough the bone had to be trimmed away and the rib-eye seared on both sides for about five minutes in order to put a tasty crust on the outside.

It was served with chips, an artery-clogging amount of béarnaise sauce and a heap of steamed broccoli as a concession to health - although once dipped into the rich buttery sauce the beneficial effects were possibly negated.

After waiting two and a half hours for a steak there was little that could have prevented us from falling on it like a pack of wolves hence the distinct lack of well composed, perfectly lit photographs.

In this case the lack of picture says a thousand words.

* * *
The MasterChef quarter final can be found here, on the BBC iPlayer and the first of the semi finals will be broadcast on BBC1 on Friday 26th March at 7:30pm.

And I'm also on Twitter.

'Is that Alex from Just Cook It on Masterchef?'

2010-03-18T11:12:00.012Z

Oh crikey. I’ve made it through to the quarter final of Masterchef UK.

If you’d like to see my television-based adventures so far (and you’re based in the UK) it is available on the rather brilliant BBC iPlayer.

Dear regulars: you have no idea how hard it’s been to keep this secret. Thank you hugely for your continued visits and your funny, insightful and inspirational comments over the past couple of years.

And for any newcomers: hello. Welcome to my little blog, Just Cook It – pull up a chair and have an explore. To give you an idea of the sort of thing I do, here’s a small selection of some of my favourite posts to get you started:

Mains
Five hour steak
Beef short ribs

Momufuku style steamed pork buns
Deep fried pig’s brain

Dessert

Lemon and chilli pepper tart
Whipped Chocolate mousse
Instant sponge pudding

Misc. tastiness

Pork Pie
Eccles Cakes
Hot Dogs
Pork Scratchings

New posts may be sporadic over the next few days but if you’re feeling starved, I can be found on twitter at @justcookit. Hope to hear from you soon.

More madness to follow shortly - the Masterchef Quarter Final is on Monday 22nd March at 8:30pm on BBC1.

Beef & Stout Pie

2010-03-15T12:32:00.004Z

The transformation of ‘stew’ to ‘pie’ by the simple addition of a pastry case or lid is a great one.

Although little more than starchy filler, hiding slow cooked meat within the confines of a flour and fat housing does wondrous things to the contents. Wondrous, magical things.

A cheap staple food with a lengthy and sometimes less than illustrious history, the pie has undergone a renaissance of late. Artisanal and gourmet offerings now jostle for space alongside mass produced efforts with less than stellar provenance. The pie is becoming a shining beacon of all that is great about British food. Hearty, wholesome and delicious. Food we should rightly be proud of.

The most satisfying of pies, though, are the ones that you nurture yourself. A tender, slow cooked meaty filling and a suet exterior that manages to be both crunchy and yielding at once. A barely audible crack as the pastry gives to the pressure of cutlery and a waft of richly scented steam as the contents spill out onto the plate.

‘Double carbing’ is a point of contention. In most cases desire trumps sensibility and a mound of buttery mash will be on hand to capture the gravy. If not then a couple of slices of bread, generously spread with butter, will be needed to mop up the overflow. Once you’ve gone for pie, you may as well ignore the guilt.

The best meat for cramming into pastry is a cut that needs slow cooking. Chuck steak, brisket, oxtail or short ribs are all ideal but shin probably tops the list.

Beef shin, onion and mushroom pie

Half a kilo of boneless shin should be enough for four people and definitely won’t break the bank. Expect to pay no more than 3 or 4 quid.

500g boneless beef shin, cut into chunks
6-8 small onions, each about the size of a ping pong ball
Half a handful of dried mixed mushrooms – porcini and shiitake are ideal
A tablespoon of tomato puree
A couple of bay leaves and two sprigs of thyme
A can of stout – Guiness or Murphy’s are both good
500ml of stock, either dark chicken or beef
As many button mushrooms as you want, cut into quarters
Salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce for seasoning

You will also need a favoured pastry recipe.

Peel and quarter the onions trying to leave the root end vaguely in tact.

Toss the beef in seasoned flour and brown in oil over a high heat, in batches if necessary so you don’t overcrowd the pan. Drain the meat on a couple of sheets of kitchen roll and brown the onions in the pan for a couple of minutes. Return the meat to the pot, add the tomato puree and cook for a couple of minutes before pouring in the stout and stock.

Poke the herbs and dried mushrooms into the liquid, cover with a cartouche and cook in a very low oven for 4-5 hours. Add the button mushrooms and cook for a further hour then remove from the oven and leave to cool whilst you make the pastry.

Line a large pie dish or a series of individual ones with the pastry, spoon as much of the beef and mushroom filling in as you can then top with more pastry. Brush with egg, poke a little hole in the top and cook for 35-40 minutes at 160-180 degrees centigrade.

Serve with peas and either mashed potato, bread and butter or both and a sticky onion gravy if you’re craving extra richness.

For more meaty chunks, follow me on Twitter

Beef Cheek Ragu

2010-03-10T15:08:00.004Z

Beef cheeks can be a little hard to find. Legislation passed in the wake of the BSE scare of the mid 1990s meant they were completely off menu for quite some time and even now a quiet word in your butcher’s ear will likely be necessary to score the bounty.

A general rule of meat cookery runs thus – the more work it does, the longer it cooks. A beef cheek is probably the natural end point of the scale. There aren’t many calories in grass so – being a ruminant – a cow has to get through an awful lot before it feels full and it’s all got to be chewed. At least twice. That’s a lot of work.

The upshot of this is a supremely tasty fist-sized nugget of meat that can be braised in red wine and stock until it’s ready to be balanced on a heap of mashed potato and covered in a rich sauce. The slightest prod with the tines of a fork should have it collapsing into tender meaty strands.

It also makes a staggeringly good and achingly rich ragu. Done this way, two cheeks should be enough for four people.

Trim any excess fat or sinew from the meat, cut into chunks, season with salt and pepper and brown in hot fat in a casserole. Deglaze the pan with white wine vinegar then sweat down some finely diced carrot, celery and onion in olive oil.

Return the meat to the pan with the vegetables, add a large glass of red wine and a carton of passata and cover with a cartouche. Braise the whole lot in a very low oven for six hours by which point the volume of liquid will have halved and the meat should be falling into the sauce.

Serve stirred into pasta and be ready to pledge not to use minced beef again.

Boiled Tongue

2010-03-05T15:43:00.006Z

As far as titles go, the above is probably about as enticing as ‘How to Par-tay the Mormon Way’ but bear with me on this one. Please.

Granted, taken in turn neither of the two words is particularly exciting and together they create some sort of force field that for many will result in the gag reflex kicking in with gusto. Admittedly even I approached this one with a small amount of trepidation.

Like a badly executed kiss, it started with a tongue. A great big flapping, fresh, wet, grey, spikey tongue. Curled up on the chopping board it resembled some sort of Mephistophelean re-imagining of an evil pet, like a prop from an early David Cronenberg film.

Its size, its weight, its appearance, its texture – everything conspired against it becoming a foodstuff were it not for the good reports I’d had regarding its utter brilliance when cooked.

Although technically offal, there is no reason why tongue should provoke such revulsion. It is muscle in the same way topside or fillet steak is muscle. However, due to the amount of work it does – daily tearing kilos of fresh grass from the earth – it needs some serious cooking. To stop it from drying out it also needs brining. I gave it 5 days but if you’re tempted to try this at home (please do) I’d let it spend at least a week in the brine bucket, possibly even ten days.

To stop it being overly salty it went into fresh water for 24 hours before being slung into the stock pot along with the usual suspects – carrot, celery, onion, garlic, peppercorns and a couple of bay leafs.

Four hours at the merest quivering simmer was enough to cook it through. I’d been reliably informed (thank you once again Fergus Henderson) that tongue is easier to peel (!) when still warm. Even so, a sharp knife was necessary and the process was more of a paring than a peeling. Although not a pleasant process by the time the tough barbed outer skin was removed what sat in front of me was recognisably meat that looked at least as good as a slab of tasty salt beef.

Which is exactly what it was.

Assuming that it would be best fresh from the cooking pot and still warm, it was thinly sliced and crammed into a bagel along with a generous slick of mayonnaise, a handful of rocket and some sliced pickles. The whole lot was topped, inevitably, with the lurid yellow mustard so reminiscent of New York’s finest culinary offerings.

By now any feelings of trepidation had long since evaporated and the first bite was an adventurously large one. It was delicious. It’s as simple as that. Perhaps made even more so by the timidity with which it approached. ‘Under promise and over deliver’ seems to be the mantra of marketing. If so, tongue is the marketer’s dream. Don’t be surprised if it joins cheeks, shanks and trotters in the ‘forgotten cuts’ section of supermarket. Now that will set tongues wagging.

(Almost) Instant Sponge Pudding

2010-03-04T13:14:00.008Z

Meals don’t feel complete without at least a morsel of sweetness to round them off. Most of the time a square of dark chocolate or scoop of ice cream is enough to satisfy but sometimes the cravings require something with a bit more substance.

Inevitably these desires are strongest when the cupboards and freezer are bereft of anything sugar based. Yes, one could turn to the fruit bowl but a pear or apple isn’t fun – it has no air of decadence or whiff of naughtiness and thus little ability to satisfy.

It was this combination of empty shelves and niggling desire for sweetness that led to the creation of insta-pud: a hearty late winter warmer that expanded the stomach, delighted the senses and induced a state of near comatose happiness soon after finishing the last mouthful.

As far as sponge puddings go, it won’t win any awards. It certainly doesn’t have the artery clogging density of a steamed suet based effort or the deft lightness of a well worked cake. But what it lacks in technique, it more than makes up for in brevity.

From raw ingredients to finished product it takes no more than five measly minutes. Just enough time to whip up some Bird’s custard, in fact. Perhaps not quite instant in the truest sense of the word but, hey, it’s all relative.

Microwaved Jam Sponge Pudding

Of course you could replicate this with countless other flavours – golden syrup, lemon, ginger, chocolate – but for a little whiff of summer, raspberries take some beating.

Size wise, this is easily large enough for two. Unless you’re feeling particularly greedy.

50g butter
50g self raising flour
50g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
Some jam (only you know how much jam you like. For me it has to run down the sides like rivers of scorching lava)

Use a spoon to mix the butter and sugar together. Add the flour then the beaten egg. Stir to combine. Spoon the jam into the bottom of a microwavable container then pour the sponge mixture over the top. Microwave on medium power for 3-4 minutes until the top of the sponge is set in the middle. Go easy, if you do it too long you’ll end up with something that bounces.

Serve with custard and an episode of Arrested Development then lapse into a carb induced coma.

On the subject of cake, you should watch this – a neat little short that documents the British love affair with afternoon tea. Suggestions and recipes for favourite cakes are encouraged, especially if they can be made in an advert break.

For more near instant gratification, why not head on over to Twitter?

Steamed Quick Duck Confit

2010-02-25T12:03:00.006Z

Confit is one of France’s finest gifts to humanity. Tough pieces of meat cooked long and slow in a thick jacuzzi of fat until it is meltingly tender and supremely tasty? Hand it over. Immediately.

Traditionally a method of preservation, the meat would sit quite happily in its fatty suspension for months on end – the surrounding lard preventing bacteria from scuttling in and spoiling the delicious meat within.

Not the most practical thing to do at home, especially in small quantities, confit duck is something I eat only rarely which is why I was intrigued by an alternative method discussed over port and candied fish.

Not only does it require a fraction of the amount of fat but reportedly yields results on a par with the traditional method. Some even go so far as to say superior. Everything that is good about confit in a neat domestic kitchen friendly method. A challenge too tempting to pass over.

Quick Duck Confit

Buy a whole duck. Seriously. Don’t bother faffing about with legs and breasts. Just buy the entire bird and get busy with a sharp knife. It’s much cheaper and you can then render your own fat from the leftover bits and bobs.

[Steamed bum-plings, anyone? Dim Bum?]

Sprinkle the legs with a little salt then put them in a steamer over a pan of water into which you’ve dropped some aromatics – cinnamon, star anise, chillies, peppercorns. Whatever takes your fancy. Bring to the boil and steam gently for 50-60 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.

Bag the legs and refrigerate them for at least 12 hours. Freeze them if necessary but they should keep for 3-4 days in the fridge.

When you’re feeling peckish liberally spread a teaspoon or so of duck fat over the legs , sprinkle with a little salt and roast for 8-10 minutes. If you want crispy skin – and I can only assume you really do – then pop them under the grill for two minutes each side.

The results? Crispy, salty skin. Sweet, juicy tender meat. The merest hint of warmth from the spices. As close to food nirvana as it is possible to get. Whatever your menu plans tonight, change them immediately and do this. You won’t regret it.

More tasty titbits can be found on Twitter

Japanese Sugar Coated Fish

2010-02-22T13:28:00.006Z

You read that right. There are no typos or Monday induced mistakes. These really are candied fish.

Despite proclivities to slam two disparate ingredients together in new and interesting ways, this was not one I dreamt up. A tart made with lemon and chilli, perhaps. Tiny shrimp, needlefish and whitebait dried then dipped in sugar syrup? Not one from my brain, nor even from this country.

Japanese through and through, these were brought over by a friend currently plying his trade in Tokyo. ‘They’re good,’ he reassured me before suffixing it with ‘if they are what I think they are.’

Three, four, five bottles of something down and drawing close to 3am, happy on port and still full of steak, the box was opened.

Expecting a dock-like stench, aching under the niff of a thousand trawler decks each with rotting nets, it was a pleasant surprise to find the odour was subtle. Faintly fishy, of course, but no more.

There were tiny pink commas of shrimp, near translucent they were so small. Next to them skewers of larger fish, threaded onto cocktail sticks in order of size. Brown and grey needlefish were piled up in the centre of the tray and another hierarchy, this time of prawns, completed the set.

Everything was glossy, shining under a neat coating of lightly caramelised sugar like Poseidon’s homage to St. Valentine. A cross-cultural melding of something possibly lost in translation.

Knowing the largest fish were the inevitable dénouement of this whole episode, itself threatening to turn into an exercise in extreme eating machismo, we began with the smallest offerings – the tiny needlefish and the small pink shrimp.

The flavour was oddly pleasant. Texturally there was a little crunch, the whole shellfish offering a bite of resistance before yielding and giving up their sweet-savoury contents.

There was an unmistakable flavour of the sea, slightly fermented with the pungent intensity that only comes from preserved specimens but it was neatly countered by the caramel exterior.

Finding our stride we went back for more gathering pace and gusto with each mouthful until we ended with the largest complete fishes clamped between chopsticks. Heads, tails and guts in they went to be chewed up and chewed over. Savoured and swallowed. Sweet, bitter, salty – was this the elusive umami flavour neatly captured in a single morsel?

We didn’t finish the entire tray. It remains in the fridge but not for reasons of disgust. On the contrary – they were very pleasant indeed and would make the ideal companion to a few chilled beers and a bowl of steaming, salty edamame beans. I’m just waiting for the right occasion.

Sourdough for Dummies

2010-02-18T14:50:00.008Z

There is an air of mystique surrounding the making of sourdough bread.

Any fool can knock together a simple loaf using bought yeast cultures but it takes a special type of fool to attempt catching and nurturing these teeny organisms then harnessing their unique power to create a loaf of bread.

Sourdough appeals due to its infinite variety: the special combination of flavours, textures and smells that results from the singular terroir of an area. As pretentious as that sounds its true – the airborne yeast cultures, the flour and the water are all unique. Sourdough bread made in Paris will be noticeably different to one made in San Francisco.

Previous efforts have invariably resulted in failure. Flat, puddle like breads that spread out over trays like an overly ripe cheese. Bitter tasting efforts with dense centres more suitable for constructing buildings than contributing to breakfast.

But, by Jove, I think I’ve cracked it.

After two days relentless study and nearly a month of stirring, waiting, mixing, kneading, waiting and baking here is a completely foolproof, day-by-day guide to making that most magical of breads.

Sourdough Bread

This is undoubtedly slow food. But it’s certainly worth the effort.

Sourdough is made in three stages: first you create a starter dough. The starter dough is then used to make a sponge and the sponge used to make a loaf with a little held back as the next starter.

Beautifully and simply cyclical.

All you need to do is remember the following ratios:
50:50
60:40
70:30

That is to say, the starter should be half flour and half water. The sponge 60% flour and 40% water and the final loaf around 70% flour to 30% water.

Other than that the only ingredient is salt.

Salt performs two functions. Firstly it adds flavour to the bread but more importantly it inhibits the growth of bacteria which can quickly spoil a starter dough.

You’ll also need a largish jar with a lid.

Day One – mix together equal parts of white bread flour and water. Stir and pour into the jar. Leave the lid off for a few hours then loosely close it. Let it stand overnight in a warm place – between 16 and 18°C

Day Two – Pour off half the mixture and discard. Stir in equal parts flour and water, a little salt, close the lid and leave in the fridge. Why? Bacteria struggle to multiply at lower temperatures whereas yeasts flourish.

Day Three – repeat as day two but add some rye flour to the mix. Rye flour is high in natural yeast cultures. The mix should be bubbling away now and giving off a slightly acidic smell. This is good. If you fancy speeding up the process, leave the jar out of the fridge for a few hours to accelerate the fermentation.

Days Four, Five and Six – Repeat as above.

Day Seven – After a week your starter dough should be nicely fermented with a healthy ‘sour’ niff. It might even smell faintly boozy. Give it a stir then tip into a mixing bowl to make the sponge. Add flour and water to a ratio of 60:40 (go for about 180g flour – a mixture of white, wheat and rye if you wish – and 120g water) and a sprinkle of salt. Stir well and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in a warm place for 12-24 hours.

Day Eight – Pour half the sponge back into your (now clean) starter jar, stir in a 50:50 mix of flour and water and pop it back into the fridge. This only needs refreshing once every few days now.

Add flour and water in a ratio of roughly 70:30 (for a large loaf or two small ones you will probably need 420g flour and 180g water) and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine and then turn out onto a floured surface. The dough should be quite wet. Knead and add more flour as necessary to create a dough that doesn’t stick to the surface but retains its lax and slouchy feel. Knead well for 15 minutes or so then return to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave to double in size. This could take anything up to three or four hours.

After the volume has doubled, turn the dough back out onto the floured surface, swiftly knock the air out of it and shape your loaf or loaves onto a baking sheet. Sprinkle the tops liberally with flour and cover with a slightly damp tea towel. Leave to rise for another hour.

Preheat the oven to full whack and put a bowl of water on the bottom shelf. Slash the top of the loaf to allow the bread to rise properly in the oven (a phenomenon known as ‘oven spring’ as the gas bubbles inside the loaf quickly expand due to heat) and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 120°C and give it another 15-20 minutes. It’s ready when it sounds hollow when tapped on the base

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Lemon and Chilli Tart

2010-02-17T15:42:00.004Z

Lemon tart is the dessert for people who don’t do desserts.

There is a neat dichotomy in the world. For some the very word ‘gateaux’ is enough to bring on excitement bordering on the erotic.

The prospect of a delicately crafted assiette complete with tuiles, spun sugar sculptures of the Sydney Opera House and eight hundred garnishes can weaken the knees and moisten the brow.

For dessert fans, the starter and main course are but palate readiers for the sweet treats to follow be they frozen, baked, chilled, fried or covered in chocolate. In many cases all of the above.

Pud-heads pay homage to the goddess of sugar, offer sacrifices to the sprits of the saccharine and prostrate themselves at the altar of pastry.

And then there are those like my dad. The dessert menu is briefly perused before being dismissed with a request to move directly to coffee. Do not pass Gü. Do not put on two hundred pounds.

Indeed, the word ‘meh’ could have been coined for this very situation.

But the one exception that proves the rule is the lemon tart. It is the non-pudding lovers’ pudding. The sweet richness of the filling is tempered by the bracing acidity of the citrus fruit and despite the vast quantities of butter, sugar and eggs needed to make most incarnations, it is a surprisingly light end to a meal.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the Cambridge Chilli Farm. Amongst their many artisanal products is the intriguing Lemon Drop Sauce made with aji lemon chillies. It was recommended as an addition to seafood or chicken but by that point the cogs of invention were chugging into place.

I’ve long been fascinated with the Thai approach to flavour balance – the careful interplay between the sour, the spicy, the sweet and the salty is a great basis for a culinary philosophy and I wondered if it would work with desserts too.

This presented the ideal opportunity to try.

After consulting innumerable sources (none of which had a recipe for lemon tart flavoured with chilli) I created the following recipe combining elements of Larousse, Stephane Renaud and the Almighty himself, Mr Thomas Keller.

It is by no means a classic lemon tart – the filling cooked over a bain marie, hollandaise style, before being poured into the prebaked tart casing. But the resultant dish is a thing of beauty. The balance between sweet and sour, so essential for a lemon tart, is there but the chilli brings something new. The heat comes late and readies the palate for the next mouthful making each bite as tasty and as satisfying as the first.

But from what I can tell it is a genuine original. Would you look at that? I think I’ve created a signature dish.

Lemon and Aji Lemon Chilli Tart

This uses a basic pâte sablée or sweet short crust for the pastry case. Feel free to pep it up with some grated lemon zest or even a smidgeon of dried chilli flakes.

250g plain flour
125g butter, at room tempterature
70g caster sugar
1 egg

Beat the butter and egg together until light and fluffy then add the sugar. Sift in the flour and use your hands to make a dough. Try to handle it as little as possible, just incorporate the flour then wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Once chilled roll out the pastry – I find it helpful to do so between two sheets of greaseproof paper – to a thickness of about half a centimetre and line a loose bottomed tart case with it. Press the pastry into the corners (corners? It’s round - you know what I mean – ridges?) of the tart case and trim off a little of the excess pastry.

Make a cartouche of baking paper and place over the pastry. Fill it with baking beans or coins and bake at 180 degrees for at least fifteen minutes until the base as well as the edges are starting to turn that delicious pale tan colour. Think healthy glow as opposed to Jodie Marsh.

Once cooked remove the baking paper along with the coins and leave to cool whilst you prepare the filling.

For the filling you will need:
Three eggs
100g caster sugar
four lemons, zested and juiced, juice sieved to remove pips and pith
80g butter cubed into neat little dice (about 2cm squared)
2 teaspoons lemon drop sauce

Add an inch or so of water to a saucepan and bring to a boil over a moderate heat. Crack the eggs into a heatproof bowl – make sure you choose one that’s slightly smaller than the pan you are using - and add the lemon zest and sugar and whisk for a couple of minutes until the colour begins to turn pale.

Place the bowl over the pan of simmering water. Make sure the base of the bowl is not touching the water so that the eggs are being cooked by the gentle heat of the steam. Continue whisking the mixture until the eggs begin to thicken then add a third of the lemon juice. The mixture will thin. Keep whisking until it begins to thicken again. Add another third of the lemon juice. Whisk until thick and repeat the process with the remaining lemon juice.

Keep the heat low and keep whisking well throughout - you don’t want scrambled eggs stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

The whole process should take 8-10 minutes. You’ll know when it’s ready. Promise.

Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk in the butter a cube at a time then add the aji lemon sauce. Taste all the way through to make sure the balance of sweet/sour/hot is right. The chilli flavour shouldn’t be immediately noticeable but creep up on you gradually.

Once you’re happy, pour the mixture into the tart case. It should set at room temperature within 15-20 minutes. Serve with any ice cream you see fit and maybe a glass of limoncello.

A Week (and a bit) of Chilli

2010-02-10T11:12:00.010Z

On Monday we were invited out to dinner.

After surviving on Chilli con carne in various guises for the previous week, it was a relief to be out of the kitchen and away from the Mexican ragu which had finally been finished off spooned over a bowl of nachos and laden with vaguely luminescent cheese.

The Le Creuset was washed down, the crusted edges scraped clean and we left it drying on the rack beside the sink as we drove the half hour towards Bedfordshire.

‘We thought about getting a curry tonight,’ he said as a cold lager was passed towards me ‘but the Indian is closed on a Monday. So we’ve cooked a chilli instead.’

The giggles were stifled until the GF and I were alone in the dining room when we simply had to embrace the irony and laugh silently and uncontrollably, resigned politely to enjoy just one more, like the erstwhile butler James in the magnificent Dinner For One.

But it was a very good chilli. Even after the following incarnations

Monday - Burritos

I won’t patronise by offering a recipe for chilli con carne. You have one. I know that much and it would be foolish to think you would change it in any way. It matters not whether it is a genuine Texan number with chuck steak or a basic ragu pepped up with kidney beans and spices.

A burrito should be aching at the seams, the contents desperate for liberation, hence the need to employ a foil girdle. The meat sauce sits atop a layer of Mexican style rice and is piled high with grated cheese, chopped salad, sour cream, guacamole, salsa and as much hot sauce as you can handle.

Tuesday – Enchiladas

The chilli was stuffed into toasted tortilla wraps, rolled and topped with a reduced passata pepped up with a little garlic and chilli pepper. The whole lot was then baked for 25 minutes until steaming hot to the core. Sliced avocado was the ideal accessory.

Wednesday – Keeping it simple…

We got drunk. Accidentally. Returning home with the munchies we ladled the sauce and leftover burrito rice into a bowl, put the microwave on high and shovelled it into our mouths in an effort to soak up excess cheap white wine. It was nigh on perfect. There is no photo.

Thursday – Chilli and Cornbread

Cornbread is one of those items that has a shiny stars and stripes mystique. A hallowed national dish from across the pond that until last week remained a mystery, like a sloppy Joes or Jambalaya or grits.

It was with caution I tipped the recommended amount of baking powder into the batter mix (cornbread is more of a cake than a standard loaf) and as expected it was the overriding flavour to a deeply unpleasant degree. Such excitement, such expectation, such disappointment. Sorry, America, I remain unconvinced on this one.

Friday – Nachos

What better way to end the week than with that Brit pub/diner classic/lazy fallback of last decade, nachos?

Clearly the best part of this dish is the slew of lurid orange cheese that seeps between the crispy tortilla chips and covers the fingers with a layer of tasty grease. But the cooling elements of guacamole, salsa and sour cream and chives were a welcome addition too.

A satisfying and fun experiment in thrift. The cost of the chilli itself? No more than £4, the sundry additions another fiver. Two of us ate for a week (including lunches comprised of the previous night’s leftovers) for about ten pounds.

Now to get some bloody steak…

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There's something living in the fridge

2010-02-04T11:10:00.002Z

It’s been a week since the moment of conception. The flour and water gametes fused a full seven days ago and since then I’ve been feeding, nurturing and growing a starter dough.

It was slow to begin with. Tiny bubbles appearing on the surface and the emulsion like paste beginning to take on a faintly acidic and not unpleasant aroma.

As advised by Harold McGee (not personally) I kept it in the fridge, spooned off half the bubbly mass each day and replenished it with fresh flour and water before putting it back into the cold – a temperature where yeasts can thrive but bacteria cannot.

Only yesterday I neglected to return it to the fridge. After stirring in flour and water I left it on the side whilst I took a seat by the back door to spend a happy half hour plucking the last two game birds of the season.

That’s not a euphemism. They were partridges.

By the time I’d finished, the sourdough had seemingly gained awareness and was unhappy with the restrictive confines of the glass jar…

Bread is but a day away.

Thai Rice Pudding

2010-02-03T12:30:00.003Z

4pm must have been a magical time for my mother.

Once my brother and I arrived home from school the tranquillity of the empty house dissipated so rapidly she could be forgiven for thinking it had been mere reverie.

Gasping through the hormonal fug of both early and mid adolescence – there are four years between us – we were mostly unpleasant both to each other and, regretfully, to her, by association. I have no idea how she put up with it and am not surprised that the occasional outburst came our way.

The debilitating and damning effects of the chemical surge were exasperated by hunger (probably because lunch had gone uneaten) and on entering the house the first question was always ‘What’s for tea?’ quickly followed by ‘When?’

Whatever the answer, we would head to the cereal cupboard to sate the hunger brought on by double Chemistry last thing in the afternoon or French lessons with the formidable Mrs. Losse (thanks to whom I will never, ever forget how to conjugate etre and avoir).

Cereal was our go-to, our emergency, our stop gap.

But not always.

There were a few occasions every month, more often in the winter when the weather made us more receptive to it, when a fresh rice pudding would have been slowly cooking in the oven. The soul-fulfilling smell of rice, milk and nutmeg was a great welcome home. Piled into bowls and topped with cinnamon and brown sugar or honey.

On those days we left the fighting until at least five o’clock.

An hour’s peace in exchange for rice pudding? Sounds like a good deal.

Thai Rice Pudding

This is a Thai-rice pudding as opposed to a Thai rice-pudding. The grains are of the fragrant jasmine variety which lends an extra level or warmth to the dish. They are particularly glutinous and sticky as well making for a hearty and satisfying dish just as good last thing at night as it is for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

One part Thai rice
Three/Four parts milk depending on how runny you like your rice pudding
Butter
Brown sugar
Nutmeg

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the rice, stir the grains until they are coated with the butter then add the milk. Bring to an easy simmer, stir in as much or as little sugar as you like and a fine dusting of nutmeg (whenever I use mutmeg I always think of Anthony Bourdain’s advice, namely ‘go easy’).

Cook for 45 minutes in a pre-heated oven at about 130 degrees C by which point the rice should be cooked. Check halfway through – add more liquid if it needs it. This is an instinctive dish – you’ll know if it’s too dry.

It keeps in the fridge for about a week – great for spooning out and reheating at opportune moments to be topped with a dollop of strawberry jam or nuts and seeds if you are feeling virtuous.

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Retro Cookbooks and a week of Chilli

2010-02-01T17:14:00.006Z

T.S. Eliot was wrong. February is the cruellest month.

With the day:night ratio still brutally weighted towards darkness and the good intentions of January ending in frustration or failure there is little to cheer come month number two.

What’s more, financially imposed restraint withers the bud of any frivolous relief: one must pay for midwinter exuberance at some point and that is usually about 30 days into the year. There shall be no steaks or fine wines in February.

But it presents the enthusiastic cook with a challenge. With budgets slashed more brutally than an American teenager in a bad horror movie, the cogs of invention begin to splutter and whirr into gear in an attempt to answer the age-old question: how does one eat well – cheaply?

I found the answer in the 1980s.

When we moved in together, the GF and I inevitably meshed media collections. This explains why Destiny’s Child now cosy up to The Dears and how Badly Drawn Boy ended up in such close proximity to Band of Horses (the alphabetisation is all me, sadly).

The cookbook collection was also enriched by this collision. In addition to the Nigels and Nigellas were some fabulous items from the mid 1980s which 20-some years on have managed to recapture their appeal, if only for kitsch value.

The Austrialian Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook No.2, its cover adorned with a domed fruit jelly, whipped cream piped around the perimeter, is a particular favourite. How to Make Good Curries is another I adore, chiefly because of the modest ambitions of its title.

The good folks at the Aussie Women’s Weekly are also responsible for The Barbecue Cookbook including – I kid you not – a section on a barbecued wedding breakfast.

But our favourite discovery, and one that caused much mirth when we were going through our new collection is a small undated pamphlet issued by the British Sausage Bureau entitled A Month of Sausages.

I think that warrants some thought.

Firstly, it is both commendable and highly amusing that such an organisation existed given that it sounds like something dreamt up by Edmund Blackadder or the writers of The Thick Of It. An entire (government funded) organisation dedicated solely to the advancement of the sausage. Magnificent.

But what’s more surprising and sadly archaic is the notion that a tentacle of the government would recommend eating sausages – albeit in various guises – every day. For a month.

In an era of five-a-day, low-sodium, low-fat, no-butter, no booze, no fags, no eggs, no cream, no bacon – the very idea that a publicly funded body could recommend eating processed pork for thirty straight days like some sort of inverse Lent is anathema to modern health proclamations.

Towards the end of the booklet they seem to be getting a little short on ideas (sausage kebabs – a sausage on a stick, Welsh Sausage Supper – sausages fried with leeks) but one has to admire the sentiment even if the execution is a little suspect.

However, despite my adoration of pork, I fear that a month of sausages is a challenge beyond even my capabilities but I was tickled by the notion and it chimed with the rather timely need for thrift.

For the next week we shall be eating chilli con carne. But we won’t be eating the same meal twice. The chilli shall serve as inspiration and base but the format shall vary.

At the moment it is bubbling away slowly in the oven and has been for four hours. The total cost of the ingredients was under a fiver and I’m as yet unsure where to go beyond chilli with rice and enchiladas but we’ll get there.

It might not be a month of sausages but a week of chilli is a darn good way to start a frugal February.

Results next Monday but for more regular updates tune into my Twitter feed right here

A Wee Scottish Brekkie

2010-01-27T16:15:00.003Z

Our haggis burst.

One second merrily bobbing away in barely simmering water, the next spilling its mealy guts into the pan. The pale casing constricted, growing opaque as it exuded its contents into what was seconds before clear water.

I fished out the quarter sized haggis, sliced it down the centre, spooned out the insides and plated it up onto a pile of buttery mash and roasted carrots. Underneath was a slick of creamy chicken velouté. I’d read somewhere that a whiskey based sauce was terribly gauche. Strictly for tourists only.

The meal was delicious enough for us both to comment that we should certainly be eating haggis more regularly and rue the fact that there was considerably less on the plate than there should be.

But what of the remainder, currently swelling and clouding the water in a pan on the hob?

The water was sieved and the resultant sludge strained overnight. By morning the swollen oats had turned sticky transforming the gloop into something resembling a cake. Some was spooned into the cats’ bowls – cupboards bereft of feline food - the rest moulded into a neat patty and fried in a little oil before being crowned with a poached egg.

The breakfast of Scottish champions. Which explains an awful lot.

Szechwan Tripe

2010-01-15T11:11:00.008Z

In order to be rendered even vaguely edible, tripe must be cooked for at least three hours. And that’s only after it’s been soaked, disinfected and bleached.

Bleached.

Of course, unbleached, or green tripe, is available (most notably in France) but frankly the thought of eating something that until recently was in such close proximity to a vast quantity of cow shit is not that appealing in itself. Bring on all the bleaching agents possible, I say.

Having lost my offal training wheels some time ago (probably when I munched on brain) I felt sufficiently ready for tripe which seems to be making something of a comeback.

I’d barely finished editing the accompanying photos when I read this great piece on Word of Mouth. So now seems good time to plough this particular furrow. Or tap into the ‘tripegeist’, if you will (sorry).

Admittedly I was scared. The slab of tripe had been in the freezer for six months and I was convinced that the GF wouldn’t be able to stomach (sorry. Again) this particular adventure. Her trip to Vegas presented the perfect opportunity.

Trippa ala Romana (tripe cooked with onions, garlic and tomatoes) was initially at the top of my list but reading about Szechwan restaurant Chilli Cool convinced me otherwise.

Bird’s Eye chillies are notoriously hot and Szechwan peppercorns contain a compound called hydroxy alpha senshool which causes a numbing sensation in the mouth. Surely this heat/anasthesia combo would render the tripe so insignificant as to be at least bearable?

Wrong.

After cooking down some red onion, Thai chillies and ginger in a hot pan I added the sliced tripe and then the braising liquid of soy sauce, chicken stock and dark rice wine vinegar along with a hefty number of dried bird’s eye chillies and enough Szechwan peppercorns to mimic the effects of a stroke.

Even through all this the niff of the tripe was palpable. Damp and slightly fetid, it called to mind an old house with a leaky roof, home to a family of dogs and wet sheep. It wasn’t nausea inducing but certainly lodged itself in the nostrils.

It cooked for three hours at which point the tripe was removed and the cooking liquor strained and reduced to a syrupy consistency. I stir-fried some finely sliced ginger, garlic and onion then added the tripe to the wok before spooning over the reduced sauce and adding noodles. Just to make absolutely sure I would neither taste nor feel the tripe in went some more chillies and peppercorns.

It was finished with spring onions, roasted peanuts and even more spices then a spoonful of sugar and a squeeze of lime.

The smell had certainly subsided when eating time came around. It actually smelled and looked thoroughly appetising, especially after fortifying myself with a couple of beers.

In went an enthusiastically large mouthful.

And there it remained whilst I chewed. And chewed. And chewed. Long after the flavour had disappeared, the rubbery nugget persisted, moving from side to side and getting no more tender than a piece of cheap gum. I tried. I really did. But there was no way I was going to force this bouncy ball of cow’s stomach into my own.

Not only was the texture seemingly galvanized, the flavour of the tripe remained even through the atomic spices. Thanks to the numbing properties of the peppercorns I could happily have endured root canal surgery but there was still an underlying and noticeable taste, not quite unpleasant but certainly not nice.

The rest of the tripe was picked out and left on the side of the plate whilst the tasty noodles sated my hunger.

It wasn’t all bad. The noodle dish would be delicious with beef shin, pork belly or even chicken thighs but I’ve found my limit. Even the hardiest of holistic, nose-to-tail eaters have to draw a line somewhere and mine comes right before you need to crack open the bleach.

The mathematically perfect sandwich

2010-01-14T14:10:00.009Z

Oh dear. We’ve been naughty. Again.

As if state-sanctioned unhealthiness wasn’t bad enough, it appears even parents can’t be trusted to feed their little ones decent lunches and the great collective mother is going to have to step in again.

Of the four million children who take a packed lunch to school, just 1% of those lunches meet the government’s recommendations for nutritional content. Shock and indeed horror?

Well, no. Not in the slightest (although I doubt that will prevent some arbitrary figure regarding nutritional content being pulled from the air like gristle from a twizzler and a blanket ban on pies, crisps and artificially sweetened drinks).

As someone who was subjected to packed lunches throughout my school career (and I say subjected for reasons that will become obvious shortly), it makes perfect sense that barely a hundredth of the little tykes are bringing with them a lunchbox containing wholemeal bread (or maybe gluten free rolls?), salads, fresh fruit and some granola.

That’s not what children eat. And I should know. I was one.

Although more recent adventures may suggest otherwise, my career as a bold food adventurer has not been a lifetime in the making. I was, in no uncertain terms, a fussy little blighter when I was younger.

Every day I would open my Transformers lunchbox with trepidation, wondering what horrors lurked within, my mind already devising elaborate plans for their disposal, none of which involved ingesting them.

As my fellow diners chewed their way through sliced white bread sandwiches filled with neon pink ham, a bag of Walkers crisps (back when they were actually salty) and maybe some Iced Gems to finish, I was left pondering my homemade bread rolls or adoringly prepared salads.

Cautious nibbling of the sort that would shame a sparrow invariably left me sitting alone with just the dinner ladies for company as the sounds of playground football filtered through the windows. On occasion I would sit there for an entire lunch break, the start of afternoon lessons ending the torture with the sound of a bell.

After a number of false starts (‘accidentally’ dropping my lunch on the floor rendering it inedible or shifting chunks of sandwich to my pockets as my dad did with his own school dinner dumplings) I finally hit upon a foolproof scheme.

Wrapping my butties in paper towels and disposing of them in the toilet bin prior to lunchtime (or even after school) worked for quite some time. I could proudly show my empty box to both teacher and mother then set upon the cereal as soon as I returned home.

I was rumbled only by illness.

The day I was off school, there were no sandwiches in the bin. My teacher (the fabulously named Mrs. Spooner) put two and two together with the skill of Magnum P.I. and phoned my mother to inform her of my untruths. I almost felt as if I’d been caught in an FBI style sting. Except the powers of analogy and metaphor were beyond me at the age of six.

Trouble came my way. After an apocolyptic bollocking I was sent to school the following day with no lunch. Not that it made much difference – I rarely ate it anyway and my fellow packed lunchers took pity on me offering me nibbles of their own offerings. I sat that day quite happily enjoying a diverse picnic comprising of Space Raiders, custard cream biscuits and triangles of Dairylea.

Soon after that I moved school (not as a result of my inability to consume lunch) and left the tiny village primary behind. Huge sports pitches and exotic new friends were a joy (‘Mum, what do Jews do?’ I asked after my first day) but the real deal breaker, the pièce de résistance , was that there we no lunch monitors. No teachers of Orwellian imaging watching every morsel that passed my lips and making sure I’d eaten ‘at least half’ of everything. I could dine, or not, without impunity.

I tested my theory by asking for a school dinner one day, soon after the start of term. Request granted, I helped myself to three slices of cucumber and a scoop of pickled beetroot – a lunch that would leave even Karen Carpenter asking for seconds.

I ate about half, expecting reproach. But there was no stern face, no admonishment, no repercussions. I was no longer in lunchtime limbo.

The perfect sandwich

I don’t know what psychological barrier I put up that rendered me incapable of eating lunch within the confines of a school but it was a significant one. Things are different now. Lunch is an integral part of my day, in the same way that breakfast, mid-afternoon snack, dinner and supper are. I also make the GF a lunch each morning to unshackle her from the confines of the local café thus saving around £100 a month. I can only assume she doesn’t wrap it in paper towels before throwing it away.

Despite last minute surges from the likes of soup, sushi or salads (or as prêt so nauseatingly insist on calling them, ‘breadless sandwiches’), the sandwich remains the undefeated champ. But making a truly killer butty is a skill in itself.

Thankfully there is an equation to ensure perfect results, every time:

S(√CM+C/P) x (B2)+(M1 +M2) = The perfect sandwich.

So, ‘Sandwich’ = ‘Salad’ multiplied by root of ‘cured meat’ plus ‘cheese’ divided by pickle(s) multiplied by ‘bread’ squared plus (mustard + mayonnaise). Easy.

There are also a few basic rules. Firstly the bread should, ideally, be sourdough and of large slices. The filling should at least equal the thickness of the two slices of bread and wet items (tomatoes, pickles) should be carefully placed between moisture repelling layers to avoid the sandwich eaters worst nightmare: soggy bread syndrome.

So, there you go – a mathematical solution to those lunchtime quandaries. If only my mum had known…

Leftover Panettone

2010-01-08T16:54:00.003Z

Looked at objectively, panettone, a yeast-risen bready cake enriched with butter, egg yolks, sugar and dried fruit, is not a health food. But up against our own Christmas pud, the Italian festive offering looks like a lo-calorie Weightwatchers special.

Having said that, the sheer size of these vast, billowing, pillow like cakes does mean that there is inevitably some still floating around this side of Epiphany.

There are a number of recipes that advocate using it in place of sliced white when making a bread and butter pudding. Admittedly this does sound delicious albeit a little, shall we say, involved? Time-consuming? Elaborate?

A far better option is to dip it into an egg and sugar mix, fry it in some nicely foaming butter then finish it off with a light dusting of cinnamon. And more sugar. And maybe a little whipped cream. Health food no longer.

Honey Madeleines

2010-01-05T13:07:00.004Z

Once again, Bourdain takes the blame.

‘England’s best hope for salvation...a warrior, pioneer, philosopher and fearless proponent for what’s good, and what’s always been good, about English cooking.’

High praise indeed.

This is his summation of Fergus Henderson as it appears in the ultimate food lover’s bible, A Cook’s Tour – the one book I wish I could have written. Forget Dostoyevsky. Move along Melville. Step aside Shakespeare. Let me travel, eat then write it up in shotgun gonzo style. Yes please.

Understandably, the monochrome delight that is Nose to Tail Eating, Henderson’s manifesto/cookbook, soon found its way into my collection swiftly followed by its successor, Beyond Nose to Tail – a similar affair but with an extended section on baking.

Those books were read and re-read. Not just the recipes but the snippets of gastro-philosophy that pepper them. The words and oddly exotic lists of ingredients pored over, mused upon and eventually cooked and eaten. The exotic ceased to be so and all that remained was The Tasty.

Bourdain’s gushing made sense.

Considering my affinity for his work, it took a surprisingly long time to actually eat at Henderson’s London restaurant, St. John. A last minute reservation meant we would eat late but we would eat and I would sample those dishes whose names were familiar but flavours alien.

Cue roasted bone marrow with parsley and caper salad. Langoustines with rich mayonnaise. Smoked eel and bacon. And thick slices of beef topside with boiled carrots.

I felt like an art lover finally laying eyes on a favourite painting previously seen only in reproduction.

The desire for something sweet was tempered by achingly full bellies. There was no room for Eccles cakes or doughnuts. There was barely room for a digestif. But a request to take away some sweet treats was met with a smile. Five minutes later we left, clutching a still warm paper bag, emblazoned with the outline of a pig, containing the famed Eccles cakes as well as half a dozen Madeleines.

They were eaten for breakfast.

St. John Madeleines

The Madeleine tray I bought the GF for Christmas (‘a bowling ball for Homer’, I think she referred to it as) is the most specific item of kitchen kit we own. It has a single, solitary use. But, oh, what a use.

There may be countless Madeleine recipes out there but for a first attempt there was only one to go for. It was deliriously easy and came together with such pleasure that I doubt we will turn elsewhere. Watching the small blobs of mixture spread, rise then bulge up into such a recognisable shapes was most satisfying.

They are also near ethereally light with a slightly malted flavour that comes from the caramelised honey, almost reminiscent of Horlicks.

Makes 12

Melt 70g of unsalted butter with a generous tablespoon of runny honey then simmer until the sugars caramelise (it didn’t seem to matter that it split).

Whisk together a large egg with 55g of caster sugar and a tablespoon of soft brown sugar until a trail can be left on the surface of the mixture. Sift in 70g of self raising flour then fold in along with the butter/honey mixture. Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Grease the Madeleine moulds with butter and flour, tip out any excess then pop a spoonful of the mixture into each one. It won’t look like enough. It is. Honest.

Bake at 200 degrees C for about 10 minutes, marvel at how big they’ve got, delight at the fact they look just like Madeleines then enjoy with cups of tea. If you have any left, they still taste great the following day.

*Would you look at that – a whole piece about Madeleines and not a single mention of Proust. Oh, bollocks.

Tomato & Fennel Soup

2009-12-22T13:27:00.009Z

It was getting cold. The sea had leaked through my wholly inadequate aging leather boots and a frustrating hunger was beginning to nibble away at my belly. I was most definitely on the edge of a full-on grump.

The GF was still taking pictures, seemingly keen to fill up the entire 8 googabytes of memory that her camera was capable of.

[photo credit]

‘Can you just get a shot of me taking a picture of this limpet?’ she asked, very sweetly, it must be said. I trudged over and snapped away, well aware that we’d left the car two miles away across decidedly swampy marshland. Lunchtime had been and gone and the kipper I’d eaten for breakfast but a distant memory apart from the occasional fishy burp. Even less pleasant than it sounds.

More photos for her magazine. I poked a few of the tenacious shellfish to pass the time, making a mental note to check HFW’s Fish Book later to see if they were edible (turns out that they are).

‘All done, come on, I’ll take you for something to eat at Badgers Tea House, it’s really good.’

Nod. Ok then. Trudge, trudge, trudge. the kitbag beginning to instil a niggling and deep ache in my shoulders.

The sight of the car was enough to lift the spirits, as was the promise of sandwiches, tea and cakes. But what really blew the fug away was Alfriston itself, a small but perfectly formed village in East Sussex, home to a quirky independent bookshop, numerous eateries and a village store that could have been yanked determinedly out of Edwardian England.

It was disconcertingly close to my own personal Elysium.

By the time we arrived at Badgers it was mid-afternoon and there was no way a sandwich would suffice. Something warm and hearty was required, stat, and the soup of the day seemed like the ideal option, despite the addition of fennel – a flavour I haven’t seen eye-to-eye with since discovering the debilitating effects of Pernod in my early teens.

Two bowls arrived, cauldron like, mine ‘garnished’ with a chunk of bread and a wedge of brie the size of a generous slice of pizza. It was delicious. A slightly jokey, but mostly serious request for the recipe was met with a frustratingly dismissive laugh and the words ‘Ooo, it’ll cost you, it’s top secret I’m afraid.’

The only disappointment of the meal (followed by tea and mince pies) was that this wasn’t mere banter. The recipe really was not forthcoming and there was no hastily scribbled list of ingredients on the back of the (very modest) bill.

But gosh darn it, I think I cracked it and I’ll be a little more open with the knowledge. Here you go. Merry Christmas.

Tomato and Fennel Soup

The fennel here is magical – it offers up none of its medicinal, aniseed qualities, merely backing up and boosting the rest of the flavours to the extent where you’d really notice if it was gone. A bit like a bass guitar. Ideal if, like me, you're not too keen on it of itself.

Makes lots.

Two small carrots, peeled and chooped
Two small onions, diced
A single rib of celery, diced
A fennel bulb, roughly chopped
Three tins of tomatoes
A litre of vegetable stock
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

In the manner of Gordon Ramsay: vegetables, olive oil: fry. Tomatoes. Stock. Simmer. 40 minutes.

Blend. Seasoning. Serve. Tomato and fennel soup with homemade bread and squidgy cheese? Done.

For more soupy secrets, follow me on Twitter

Sous Vide Christmas Lamb

2009-12-15T17:03:00.003Z

I've been playing with my immersion circulator again and came up with this festively coloured lamb dish.

The cut is rump and it was vacuum sealed along with some rosemary before being cooked to the magic 64 degrees and then quickly seared in a smoking hot pan.

Served with a sweet tomato passata, pepped up with a little chilli, spiced cous cous and baby leaf spinach it was darn near perfect.

Albums of the Decade

2009-12-10T16:40:00.009Z

Not just that time of the year but that time of the century. An arbitrary but nonetheless worthy block of time has passed. Cue lists. Top tens, top twentys, top hundreds. The best of the times, the worst of the times.

It may be lazy journalism but it is mind candy of the highest regard. So with that – and slightly off topic – here are the best records of the noughties. According to me. Huzzah!

10. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective

The trippy optical illusory cover of Animal Collective’s eighth offering provides perhaps the best visual illustration of what lies beneath. Concentrate on any aspect of the artwork and the rest of the picture swirls and shifts and pulsates agonizingly much like the aural delights within. Trying to describe the sound of AC is like trying to nail jelly to a wall – they transcend traditional genre-boundaries, sampling from the musical soundscape buffet until they have created something completely original. Beats pulsate to a seemingly brand new tempo. Synthesizers swirl sonically through the record like a confused swarm and lyrics are littered indiscernibly over the whole musical meal like wantonly applied seasoning. And yet, perhaps in spite of this approach to music making rather than because of it, it all works.

9. Silent Alarm by Bloc Party

One of many records that can be directly attributed to the influence of The Rapture, Bloc Party’s debut is a drum driven, high-octane, pulsating, breathless album. Disappointing follow-ups merely served to illustrate how good Silent Alarm actually is, as does the fact that it still sounds fresh five years down the line. Okereke’s vocals are as sublimely delivered over cleanly distorted guitars, full frontal bass and tidal drums as they on quieter offerings, the almost balladic ‘Blue Light’ and ‘So Here We Are’.

8. Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon

Their aptly titled debut ‘Youth and Young Manhood’ promised greatness and the Kings from the deep south truly delivered with the follow up. Their knowing smiles and upfront euphemism remained along with the tumescent energy but the boys Followill had also matured as songwriters, musicians and as adults without straying too far from what made them great in the first place. Subsequent offerings, whilst being increasingly populist, are still excellent albums but Aha Shake Heartbreak is a zenith that will be difficult to top.

7. Antics by Interpol

‘Turn on the Bright Lights’ may not be optimistic in its outlook but this, it’s younger brother, is richly cynical, darkly melodic, anthemic and altogether wiser than Interpol’s debut. It may be less eulogistic but that doesn’t make it any sunnier. The darkest recesses of late-era punk wash over the album like thick smog but listen beyond the grey and you’ll hear some outstanding song-writing not to mention top-notch tunes.

6. Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Ever prolific, Cave has released four albums since the turning of the millennium. Whilst not always a sign of quality (and some have been verging on the below average. Nocturama anyone?), two fully deserve all the praise that was lavished upon them. While 2001’s No More Shall We Part may be a ‘nicer’ record, sharing much in common with his masterpiece The Boatman’s Call, the truly epic AB/TLOO perhaps better illustrates the two sides of Cave: the heartbroken introspective depressive and the raging, angry antipodean hell bent on causing a ruckus. The heavy pinch of gospel could easily have bloated the record but tempered against the clever arrangements of the Bad Seeds, it is a perfectly seasoned symphony of Cave at his remarkable best.

5. Want One by Rufus Wainwright

Originally intended as a single album, Wainwright’s ‘Want’ project remains his magnum opus (despite dabbling in opera and recreating Judy Garland concerts) with the first part, ‘Want One’ being the superior work (although ‘Want Two’ certainly has its moments). Here, in almost symphonic style, Rufus finally found his voice as a songwriter, musician and composer. The album ebbs and flows masterfully, rising and falling, the faultless production slightly reigning in the lip gloss and pearls ambitions of its creator and allowing the brilliance of the work to shine without becoming overblown, a trap he fell into with the follow-up ‘Release the Stars’. Of course, there are moments of camp theatrics and orchestral swells (the opener and its sampling of Ravel’s Bolero is probably the most diva-esque moment), and it wouldn’t be a Rufus album without them, but they co-exist with some seriously pared down and haunting productions, perhaps the best being ‘Dinner at Eight’, a sucker punch in song at his oft-absent father. A beautiful, complete work from an artist at the very top of his game.

4. Gold by Ryan Adams

Heartache and longing have proved a rich vein for many a musician but none more so than Ryan Adams who must have been on the receiving end of a weighty rejection given the nature and profligacy of his output during the first half of the decade. By far the most accomplished of Adams’ efforts though is ‘Gold’ from 2001. The secret of its charm is the chameleonic nature of the album– one can almost hear the hourly shifts in its creator’s mood as the record moves from seemingly bright and breezy to quiet contemplation to all out anger and rage at the world. Resolutely and unashamedly American in nature from a time before Americana was trendy, Gold, thanks to it being recorded in the weeks prior to 9/11 could be viewed as the last great record of the 20th century, perhaps only temporally belonging in the 21st but that doesn’t alter the fact that from start to finish it is an exquisite record.

3. Everything All The Time by Band of Horses

Ryan Adams may have been something of a one-man band in 2001 but by the close of the decade, everything folksy and American was hot property be it beardy paeans to heartbreak (Bon Iver) or sultry West coastal harmonies of the like Fleet Foxes do so well. Blazing a trail under this radar though was Seattle based Band of Horses who managed to find their own sound that despite being firmly rooted in the iconography of the States – straw carpeted barns, pick up trucks and plaid. Lots and lots of plaid – spoke of something new. Everything All The Time is the soundtrack of the Platonic road trip, a voyage of discovery on empty roads across flat plains being kissed permanently by the setting sun. It conjours up images of the American Dream as realized by a cynic raised on a diet of road movies and British humour. This is the album that makes everyone who hears it want to pack it all in, grow a beard, read Kerouac and drive. Just drive. Oh, and wear plaid. Lots and lots of plaid.

2. Boxer by The National

Boxer is a great album. It really is as simple as that. Singer Matt Berninger drawls almost in homage to Tom Waits providing rich, deep and resonant vocals that are both immersive and distant. The apparent indifference of delivery belies acutely observational and downright clever lyrics layed over sublime melodies creating songs that are sometimes sneeringly dismissive – ‘you don’t mind seeing yourself in a picture as long as you look far away’ – and other times heartrendingly beautiful. ‘You know I dreamed about you for twenty nine years before I saw you’ runs the refrain in the stand-out track ‘Slow Show’. Boxer is the sound of the decade of decadence, the decade of consumption, the decade of celebrity – and it offers its withering judgment with the sort of delicate intelligence that usually only distance and retrospect can provide.

1. Funeral by Arcade Fire

Is there anything left to be said about the album that defied and defined the noughties? One could harp on about the freshness, the originality, the two fingers held rousingly up to conformity, the complexity, the near multi-sensory experience that Funeral provides not just the first time you hear it but each time there after. Indeed, it is so immersive one can almost taste it, feel it, smell it as well as hear and see it. It is synesthesia made rock and roll and real. It is youthful exuberance and cynicism at once. Both wide eyed and world weary. Finely tuned and wildly out of control. And I guarantee it will still be fucking awesome in fifty years time.

Molecular Gastronomy - New Site and Freebies

2009-12-04T12:18:00.008Z

At some point in the not too distant future I will be helping the good folks at Cream Supplies, purveyors of the finest molecular gastronomy goodies, to launch a new interactive cooking site.

The focus will be on making molecular gastronomy accessible to us mere mortals.

We will be de-mystifying the processes, equipment, ingredients and techniques used by many of the world’s finest chefs and showing you how to achieve those same results at home.

But before we can get down to the serious business of playing with our food, we need to know what you want to know.

What would you like to learn?

Perhaps you want to know how to make lighter than air foams? Or those neat little caviar pearls for cocktails? Maybe you want to make spaghetti from strawberries, vegetarian panna cotta or little spheres that burst in the mouth.

Whatever your question, we’ve got the answers. Please either email me or leave your question as a comment below.

To sweeten the deal we have five awesome kits to give away to the best questions:

What’s more, one lucky so-and-so will be sent one of these to get you started on the road to molecular greatness:

You’ll be making airs, foams, spheres and edible pearls before you can say ‘Ferran Adria’.

Recipe

To give you a little flavour of the sort of thing we’ll be getting up to, here is a lavender rice pudding with black olive caramel and a black olive foam.

Infuse 200ml of milk with a few lavender leaves and sweeten by dissolving in two tablespoons of sugar. Toast some risotto rice over a high heat and add a nob of butter and 25ml of sweet vermouth. Pour over the warmed milk, cook for 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender, stirring occasionally.

Rinse and finely chop 50g black olives. Add half the olives to 200ml milk and blend using a stick blender. Heat gently and stir in 1g soya lecithin. Blend again and allow to cool. Pass through a fine meshed sieve and leave until ready to serve.

Heat two tablespoons of caster sugar until it starts to brown. Add the remaining black olives and allow to cook for thirty seconds. Pour onto a silicon or heatproof mat and leave to cool. Break into small pieces.

Use a stick blender to agitate the olive, milk and lecithin mixture until it begins to create a foam.

Spoon the rice pudding into a warm bowl and garnish with a few lavender flowers, the black olive caramel. Spoon the olive foam over the top and serve immediately.

Notes
Lecithin is an emulsifier found in eggs and soya beans that allows you to create foams and airs from a huge range of ingredients.

Home-cured Guanciale (or 'Cheeky Pancetta')

2009-12-03T15:09:00.005Z

In the eyes of the layman (and I include myself in this category), charcuterie looks like pure magic. Admittedly slow, drawn out magic, but trickery nonetheless.

It is a true artisanal craft that, done properly, illustrates beautifully the idea that cooking can be alchemy. With just a few extra ingredients (usually salt, booze and a few herbs) it is possible to transform the mundane into something truly sublime.

There are few simpler pleasures greater than eating a thin slice of cured meat – the fat melting like butter onto the tongue, filling the palate with rich, porcine flavours. A loaf of warm bread, some good oil or butter and a plate of cold cuts can make for a very happy time indeed.

Having tried making cooked charcuterie, in the form of rillettes and pâté, I felt it important to embrace the next logical step: curing.

Preserving meat using salt has a long and noble tradition. Prosciutto, pastrami, baccala, salt beef, herrings – all are made in the same way and use the dehydrating properties of salt to help extend the life of produce.

Bacon seemed like the ideal place to start, given how easy it is supposed to be to turn a slab of belly pork into dry-cured rashers but these plans were shelved after a revelatory moment at west London Sicilian deli, Vallebona.

Guanciale is cured pork jowl. Cheeky pancetta, if you will. Given my history of trying to turn pig’s heads into tasty treats, one taste of this face bacon was all that was needed to convince me it was worth trying to re-create.

Popular in Tuscany and Umbria, it can be used in place of pancetta in a whole raft of dishes or simply thinly sliced and enjoyed with a glass of something cold and alcoholic.

But whereas pancetta tends to be on the expensive side, because guanciale utilises a cut that is often thrown away, it is incredibly cheap, not to mention surprisingly easy to make.

In short, it is everything anyone could possibly desire from an item of charcuterie.

If that has done enough to whet your appetite for dipping an adventurous toe into the dark art of meat curing, here’s how to do it.

First procure yourself one or two pig’s noggins and remove the jowls starting below the chin and, keeping as close to the jawbone as possible, working your way up until just underneath the eye socket.

[If this is too much, you could just order them ready trimmed from your friendly neighbourhood butcher]

This is a dry curing process (as opposed to making a brine) so mix together 200g of fine sea salt and 200g of dark brown sugar and add 10 crushed peppercorns, a couple of crushed cloves, a small handful of very finely chopped rosemary and a pinch of saltpetre.

Rub this mixture into both sides of the cheeks then pour a thin layer of it into a plastic container (make sure it has a lid). Pack the cheeks in and cover with a little more of the cure mix. Pop the lid on the box then put it in the fridge for 24-48 hours.

Commence thumb twiddling.

When you next come back to them, the cheeks should be swimming in a liquid that feels a lot like wet sand. This is water that has leached out of the cheeks (see, they look a bit smaller). Pour this off, repeat the salting process, replace them in the box and leave for another five days.

After a week they should be ready for drying. Remove them from the salt, rub them with a dry cloth and attach some butcher’s string to the thin end. Hang them in a cool place (no warmer than 18 degrees) for three weeks and hope to Buddha that they don’t fall prey to many of the potential pitfalls that could destroy them.

Re-commence thumb-twiddling or alternatively keep your fingers crossed so darn tight it begins to hurt.

Results to follow soon. In the mean time, how about saying 'Hi' on Twitter?

The Tastes of Autumn: Squash, Chestnut & Bacon Risotto

2009-11-24T13:37:00.004Z

When it comes to food, Autumn is the most exciting season. By the time the end of November rolls around, one hankers for rich, big, warming flavours and hearty platefuls to ease the depression of driving home in the dark and fighting through increasingly bad weather.

Large jumpers can hide expanding waistlines and the only way to achieve a healthy glow is by supping an extra glass of wine. It truly is the season for gourmands.

Those earthy flavours so reminiscent of Autumn are a delight to cook with. Their versatility offers infinite combinations, each one guaranteed to be tasty. Pick three of the following and you’re almost certain to achieve deliciousness in perfect harmony:

Pheasant. Bacon. Mushrooms. Pears. Truffles. Pumpkins. Squashes. Rabbit. Potatoes. Pigeon. Chestnuts. Garlic. Thyme. Apples.

In fact, you could probably put all of the above together and create something lip-smackingly good.

I didn’t quite go that far with this risotto but came pretty close.

First step was to roast off a small squash – sliced and cooked until tender in a hot oven, squash develops a rich sweetness that demands to be matched with something salty. In this case bacon, although some melted blue cheese with it would make a good meal on its own.

Once the bacon had been crisped up nicely in a hot pan, the fat rendered out into a tasty sizzling liquid, it was put to one side and a finely chopped red onion softened in a tablespoon of the reserved bacon fat – using the same pan to make the most of the flavours in there (and minimise washing up)

A handful of chestnuts were roasted in the oven until the insides were sweet and the skins had split open. Half were then chopped finely, the others merely split in two to act as a textural contrast.

The risotto was made in the usual way – toast rice, add onions and spoon stock in until rice is tender but still in possession of some integrity. Right at the end, along with the requisite Parmesan and butter, the bacon, roasted squash and chestnuts were stirred in.

The whole thing was topped off with thinly sliced pheasant breast that had been fried off in a little butter, chestnut halves and a little of the reserved bacon. Finally, it was seasoned with a small pinch of ground coffee to add the merest hint of bitterness.

A big, steaming, delicious bowl of Autumn.

Just One More Hit...

2009-11-23T16:15:00.003Z

Sometimes things don’t always go right in the kitchen.

There is a wonderful book called ‘Don’t Try This At Home’ where fifty highly skilled chefs share their own personal culinary horror stories. It as an affirming read: to know that such artistes as Adria, Batali and Henderson can mess up gives us mere mortals reason not to hang up the sauté pan just yet.

Last week I attempted a rather adventurous process with my ingredient of the year, a pig’s head.

After removing the jowels, they were seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon and rosemary and cooked sous vide for about 8 hours. Once cool, the meat was shredded and fat removed from the skin. The shredded meat was then spiced and packed back into the skin, the whole thing rolled up into a crude sausage.

The inspiration was a Tom Kitchin recipe I saw in Coco – crispy on the outside with a hint of teeth sticking crackling and soft within, exactly the way pork should be.

Except it didn’t quite work. As the sausage hit the hot metal of the pan it split quite enthusiastically, the skin popping and sending the filling flying out onto the hob.

The cats ate well for three days.

And I declared that I’d had my fill of porcine head – that it was fun but I’d proved my point and, what’s more, belly is far, far tastier. ‘I can’t be arsed to cook one of these again,’ I uttered as I tipped the last of the snout into the rubbish and waved it goodbye, a piggy little eye looking up at me from the depths of the bin.

Like a true junkie, 48 hours was all it took to renege on my promise.

Brawns and braises and crispy fried ears are all well and good (and sometimes not so good) but it was a tiny transparent slice of charcuterie that convinced me it was worth obtaining just one more head from my butcher.

Guanciale is the perfect halfway point between pancetta – made from belly pork – and lardo, the cured back fat of a particularly chubby variety of pig. It is the cured jowl cut, the name coming from the Italian word guancia, meaning cheek. And it is delicious.

Some say the reason behind the popularity of chocolate is that it melts at body temperature – pop a piece in your mouth and you can feel it gently spreading across the palate as it transforms slowly into a liquid.

For me, charcuterie has the same effect. The fat in top quality cured meats should be near translucent at room temperature and should slowly dissipate once in the mouth leaving just a tiny morsel of intensely flavoured meat to chew on.

Guanciale did just that. It fluttered around the mouth like a delicate angel’s wing but then settled into tasty, porky goodness of the sort I’ve only tasted with the finest and ethereally thin slices of prosciutto.

What’s more, it convinced me that now is the perfect time to attempt some proper meat preservation. It should be ready by Christmas…

Eccles Cakes

2009-11-13T12:03:00.008Z

A while ago I wrote a brief manifesto centred on making the world a better place through the introduction of mandatory elevenses.

Should I ever be appointed ‘Food Tsar’ in order to help see the successful passage of this essential legislation, the Eccles Cake would almost certainly be the official flagship treat.

The finest example of this Lancastrian delicacy can be found not in their hometown of Eccles but at Restaurant St. John close to the City of London. Tightly packed with spiced currants and served warm, with a cup of tea on the side, I can think of no better way to ward off winter ills than taking 15 minutes out of your day to have your cake and eat it.

These are loosely based on the St. John recipe and should make six decent sized cakes.

Be sure to slightly overfill each one and pack it in tightly to full appreciate the glory of these delightful wonders.

NB - If you want to make a smaller or larger quantity just use the ratio one part butter to two parts sugar to four parts currants.

Half a block of ready-made puff pastry (oh, how convenient)
250g currants
60g unsalted butter
120g golden caster sugar
Nutmeg
Allspice
One egg white
Extra caster sugar, for dusting.

Heat the sugar until it starts to melt and colour slightly then remove from the heat and add the butter. Allow to melt then add the currants. Stir well so each is coated with some of the caramel. Flavour with allspice and nutmeg – keep tasting it until it is slightly Christmassy and comfortingly warming – then leave to cool.

Roll out the pastry to about half a centimetre’s thickness then using a 9cm cutter press out as many discs as you can. Re-roll the leftover pastry and repeat until you have 12-14 discs. Top each with a spoonful of the filling and sandwich them together, making sure to press the sides together tightly.

(You can make the circles larger and fold the pastry together underneath. Either way works fine)

Turn them over and neaten them up with your palms. Flatten the top and cut three times with a sharp knife (supposedly to symbolise the holy trinity). Brush with egg white and dip into caster sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are an inviting colour and the filling is oozing out of the top.

'Easy As' Pie

2009-11-12T12:11:00.005Z

There is something slightly decadent about a pie that belies their inherent simplicity.

Well, most pies.

I’ve had many a miserable midweek football match warmed by a steaming meat and potato number at halftime and to call these a luxury would be akin to describing X Factor as a singing competition.

But pastry can work wonders. It can turn a stew from sustenance into a centrepiece or even make the most cackhanded of bakers look like a master practitioner: Crème patissiere plus puff pastry equals ‘millefeuille’ – a dessert so impressive that it is near impossible to pronounce, let alone eat.

As a result I’ve taken to keeping a slab of ready made pastry in the freezer for those occasions when potatoes, rice or pasta just won’t cut it and my Northern roots are whispering that sweetest of words down my lughole: pie. Pie. Pie.

This little creation is light enough not to raise the blood pressure but also satisfying, cheap and downright delicious.

Cheese, onion and ham pie

Serves four, or two with enough left over for an enviable lunch the following day.

Half a slab of ready-made puff pastry (save the other half for Eccles cakes – coming soon)
6-8 white onions, depending on their size
3-4 slices cured ham (prosciutto, Serrano – anything of that ilk)
two or three handfuls of young leaf spinach
Pesto
Any cheese that melts and as much of it as you like
An egg, beaten

Chop/slice/dice the onions any which way you wish but be sure to leave them in fairly big pieces. Cook them slowly in olive oil until they begin to brown. This should take 20-30 minutes, don’t rush it or they will go from crunchy to burnt in a matter of minutes without passing through that delicious sweet stage. Stir them occasionally.

Whilst the onions are cooking, cut the pastry into two squares (so two quarters of the original block) and roll them out to two equal sized rectangles – about 8 x 12 inches. Put one on a suitably sized baking sheet and layer on the ham, making sure to leave a border of about a finger’s width round the outside. Top with a few dollops of pesto.

Once the onions are cooked, stir in the spinach to wilt it down and spoon the whole lot over the ham. Grate or slice the cheese and sprinkle over the onions. Brush the border with beaten egg, lay the second pastry sheet over the top and press it into place round the edges. Brush the top with more egg and cook for 25-30 minutes. Eat as soon as it comes out of the oven. Mouth burns are inevitable.

For more pastry bites, follow me on Twitter

The Ultimate Comfort Food: Gnocchi

2009-11-09T17:14:00.007Z

If it’s comfort food you are after, there are few better options than gnocchi.

These little pillows of deliciousness deliver satisfaction in ways that a mound of pasta could only dream of. They have a dense chewiness and a slightly sticky texture that holds onto whatever sauce they are coated in making each one a ferocious nugget of flavour.

They almost invite you into the bowl like tiny carbohydrate Sirens, their sweet song beckoning you further and further to the bottom of the pile until you inevitably collapse in a misty fug as the last one makes its way down your throat.

Cue belly rubbing, sighs of satisfaction and the inability to move as 90% of your body’s blood rushes to your stomach as it begins fighting its way through the wheat/potato onslaught that has just descended.

The only option is to sit very still, sip the final inch of red wine that was sitting innocently in the bottle – a chianti would suit nicely – and fall into a merry doze on the sofa as mindless brain candy plays its way across your television screen. Happiness descends. Winter isn’t that bad after all.

Potato Gnocchi with tomato, chilli and oregano

Like bread baking, the secret to successful gnocchi is instinctive. Play around with the dough and I guarantee you will just ‘know’ when it’s ready. Not too sticky, not too dense and easy to roll. Make the sauce whilst the gnocchi are resting in the fridge.

Precise measurements rarely work for this type of cooking, it’s better to think in terms of ratios and various flours and potatoes behave very differently. As such there is no recipe here, merely a rough method.

Bake a large potato for an hour or so until the insides are light, steaming and fluffier than Paris Hilton’s bedspread. Scoop out the innards and let it cool in a bowl.

Weigh out how much potato you have and add 20% by weight of plain flour (example, for the dunces, if you have 200g potato, use 40g plain flour). Keep some aside for dusting and rolling.

Add an egg (roughly one egg per two potatoes)) and some salt. Mix well with your hands and knead into a pliable dough. If it’s too sticky just work more flour into it but go easy.

For rolling out the gnocchi, I find the easiest way is to divide the dough in two and roll until it becomes unmanageably long. Divide again and continue rolling, repeating the process until your dough sausage is about as thick as a plumber’s forefinger. Split into half inch sized pieces and place on a floured tray. Cover with a damp towel and refrigerate.

For the sauce, heat a generous sluice of olive oil in a frying pan, add a clove of garlic, gently biffed with the side of a knife (leave it whole so you can fish it out later) and a finely chopped chilli, heat dependent on your preference. Allow the two to flavour the oil then pour in some passata. Season with salt, pepper and oregano and allow to bubble away for 15 minutes.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and drop in the gnocchi. Rather helpfully they will rise to the surface when cooked so you can easily fish them out with a slotted spoon straight into the waiting sauce. Stir, serve, eat and sleep.

Oh, and keep those potato skins…(recipe to follow).

Five hour steak

2009-10-28T13:53:00.008Z

The perfectly cooked steak is the holy grail of many chefs and home cooks.

For me a steak is a treat, a rare (no pun intended) but glorious treat. As a result if I cut into one that is overdone the disappointment can easily ruin the entire meal and the next thirty minutes will be spent in a deep sulk that only time and some well-cooked chips can offset.

The happy inverse of that is slicing through a piece of beef that is cooked to the ideal doneness – a quivering pink throughout with a crisp, charred and heavily seasoned exterior. Oh, the sheer delight.

I can think of few other gustatory pleasures that can measure up to a perfectly cooked steak.

Fillet, for so long the posterboy of the steak world, doesn’t quite measure up for me.

It may be tender but its leanness is also its Achilles’ heel. For the fat is where the flavour is and a muscle that has done no work (its position in the anatomy of the cow ensures this is the case) hasn’t enough depth for the truly discerning steak lover.

Instead I prefer a muscle that has worked, one that has led a life of hardship and built up a rich marbling and intense flavour as a result. Give me an onglet or bavette to work my teeth into over a chateaubriand any day of the week.

The problem with these cuts is they can be a little too tough. Served beyond rare they turn into slabs of meat that could resole a rudeboy’s Doc Martens. Even cooked momentarily, with a brief kiss of a searingly hot frying pan, the presence of connective tissue and sinew can offer a mandible workout of intense proportions.

Enter the water bath – a way of cooking meat to perfection. Every. Single. Time.

High end restaurants have long known about the benefits of cooking sous vide. Four or five years ago I ate a piece of lamb at Midsummer House, a two-star restaurant in Cambridge. It was delightfully tender and so flavourful I can still recall it now. I couldn’t quite believe it when I was told it had cooked for six hours. How was it still so pink inside? And uniformly so?

Thomas Keller is such a convert that he has written an entire book about the method. More top shelf gastro porn from the author of The French Laundry Cookbook and Bouchon.

I’d looked into buying the kit (called immersion circulators) to achieve the results at home but they were bulky and astronomically expensive – designed for commercial kitchens rather than the shoebox I have at home.

But then a couple of weeks ago I was sent one aimed at home cooks from these guys. It’s small, easy to use and delivers results you would expect in top restaurants.

And as someone who delights in the science of cooking and the potential of gastronomic experimentation, it is fast becoming my new favourite toy.

For beef junkies, skirt steak is the ideal cut. It’s incredibly tasty and bargain basement cheap. Cooked right it’s a joy to eat but its window of deliciousness is small. In other words, the perfect guinea pig for my first forays into sous vide.

Each piece was well seasoned with black pepper and sea salt then placed into a plastic zip-lock bag. Apparently sous-vide means ‘under vacuum’ so enter the vacuum cleaner. I sucked out as much air as I could then quickly sealed the top before dropping the whole lot into a stockpot full of water at 52 degrees.

Why 52? 50-60 degrees is the temperature window at which the meat proteins co-agulate, or cook. Pick a point between these two magic numbers and your steak will be between rare and medium rare and gloriously juicy.

And there it remained for five hours, bobbing up and down and gradually turning an unappetising shade of grey-brown before being removed and shocked in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

A frying pan was heated to ‘scorching’ and a small drizzle of cooking oil – enough to cover the bottom – was poured in. Whilst it was coming up to temperature, the steak was seasoned again then cooked on either side for about a minute until a generously dark colour covered each side.

After a five minute rest on a warmed plate it was time to cut and see if experiment one had worked:

What surprised me most was the uniformity of the cooking. The meat was at the rarer end of medium rare all the way through. There was no gradation towards a pinker centre but the same colour throughout, aside from the dark brown crunch of the exterior.

The flavour was assuredly beefy, intense and unmistakably steak like. The outside crisp, rich and earthy and the interior almost sweetly bovine and wonderfully soft. Whilst the meat could have been slightly tenderer – which could be achieved over a longer cooking period – it offered enough resistance to be satisfyingly chewy.

It was, easily, one of the best pieces of meat I’ve ever tasted. From now on, for me, there is only one way to cook steak. Now, I wonder if pork belly will work…?

Ten minute Tartiflette

2009-10-02T11:32:00.004Z

Everyone loves leftovers.

From a rare beef sandwich that brings memories of yesterday’s roast flooding back to a slice of cold pizza, picked out of the box amidst the empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays, leftovers can be a culinary experience worth savouring. Not to mention a winning hangover cure.

As a result, most nights I try and cook a little too much for dinner. Lunch often consists of a bowl of reheated pasta, liberally dosed with ketchup and extra cheese or a steaming plate of freshly microwaved noodles.

But, for me, it is potatoes that top the leftover tree. That hit of carbohydrate is just what I need as a late, second, breakfast or early lunch. Boil, roast or mash a few extra and your midday meal the following day is sorted: sautéed with a fried egg, dipped into pungent aioli or even squashed into cakes and fried, they are darn near perfect.

The absolute best way to use up leftover spuds, however, is to make a speedy tartiflette. Potatoes, bacon and cheese? That’s three boxes ticked and a guarantor of a very happy lunchtime indeed.

Dice a few rashers of bacon and fry in a little oil. Meanwhile, finely chop a couple of shallots or a small onion. Once the bacon has started to crisp up, turn down the heat and add the onion. Fry a few more minutes until it’s softened.

Add a handful of cooked potatoes to the pan and allow to heat through. If you get a few crisp edges then all the better. Top with a generous amount of soft cheese – camembert, brie, reblochon – and grill until the top of the cheese starts to bubble and the underneath has melted into a gooey sauce, slathering the bacon and potatoes in its cheesy goodness.

Eat immediately. And feel no shame if you squirt some ketchup on the side, it’s not like anyone’s looking.

For more sundry leftovers, why not follow me on Twitter?

Where food comes from...

2009-09-16T08:47:00.004Z

Recently this food related story caught my eye.

In order to teach children about the realities of food production (carrots come covered in earth, potatoes don’t grow chip shaped on trees – that sort of thing), a school in Kent set up a smallholding complete with vegetable patch and livestock.

Meat production is something that has become so sanitised and the end product so far removed from the realities of raising and killing an animal that I applaud the efforts of the head teacher in her attempts to make her pupils aware of where meat actually comes from.

It was made clear from the very beginning of the project that Marcus the sheep would be slaughtered and the meat sold off to pay for some piglets (not only are the kids learning about husbandry but also rudimentary economics. Brilliant).

As the slaughter date grew closer, a group of parents decided to launch a campaign to save Marcus. Despite support from tabloid fave Paul O’Grady, they were (rightly) unsuccessful in their attempts and the sheep met his inevitable fate a couple of days ago.

Cue outrage. The headmistress has been labelled a murderer and one parent, whose daughter, in the most delicious of ironies is called Liberty (Liberty?! Armando Ianucci couldn’t come up with a better tale), is threatening to sue the local education authority for alleged distress suffered by her daughter.

It is a sad, sad state of affairs when we have become so far removed from the realities of eating meat that some people, despite being willing to consume it, are in denial about the consequences of it.

If you eat meat then something has to have its throat cut, that is just the way it is. Well done to the headteacher for implementing this and I can only hope that more schools follow her lead. And that the only form of compensation offered is a rosemary studded leg of lamb.

What to do with courgettes...

2009-08-20T19:54:00.013Z

Glut is such a wonderful word. Glut.

Its harsh consonants give it the feel of one of the more abrasive swear words but it also has an inherent softness that makes it warm and cosy – a small cuddle of a word that presents ample opportunity for elaboration.

Glut. Glutton. Gluttony. Gluttonous. Gluttonously.

Words that speak of the decadently indecent.

The garden is, finally, offering up its bounty. Potatoes were dug up a fortnight ago, the maize stems are starting to bulge at the halfway point suggesting that sweetcorn is not far off. The tomatoes are barely threatening to turn from acidic green to sweet red and the courgettes?

The courgettes are taking over.

For each that we pick, two more seem to grow in their place overnight. They are like the mythical Hydra and I am failing in my Herculean task.

As a result we have them lined up in the kitchen, a rag tag bunch of all shapes and sizes. The Usual Suspects as re-imagined by a vegan pacifist.

They’ve made their way into most things. Last night’s lasagne had a layer of them, thinly sliced, in between the ragu, pasta and béchamel. Diced and fried with a little garlic added at the last minute, they make an excellent addition to pasta.

Those that hid deftly under the expansive leaves and transformed into marrows have their insides scooped out and replaced with a tasty filling before being roasted.

I’m well aware that I am not alone. Courgettes seem to be as ubiquitous as Simon Cowell this summer so here is a ten point plan for what to do with them. You might guess that by the end, I was struggling. But that might be because I used up all the good ideas above…

One – Courgette Fries

I first had these crispy little bites of wonder at Italian restaurant l’Anima. Finely sliced and dipped in a light batter, deep fried courgettes are a joy and the perfect vehicle for some rich aioli.

Two – Courgette Bread

Grated and added to a sweetened bread mix in place of – or in addition to – banana, courgette adds a welcome moisture to this cake.

Three – Baked Courgette and Tomato

Layer thinly sliced courgette into a roasting dish, season and cover with a rich tomato sauce. Add another layer of courgette, more sauce and then cover liberally with cheese. Bake for 25 minutes and eat straight from the dish. Plates not necessary.

Four – Chutney

Ah, the forgotten art of preserving. Courgettes are perfect chutney fodder and take on a remarkable range of flavours beautifully, especially warming spices. We have a solitary jar of last year’s ‘Glutney’ left and it’s disappearing fast. most delicious with cheese and cold cuts. There are plenty of recipes out there but this one from HFW is a real winner.

Five – Roasted courgette with pine nuts

Simple, quick and very good with pasta. Slice or dice, dribble with oil, season, throw in a handful of pine nuts and bake. Top with Parmesan and commence nom.

Six – Barbecued Courgettes

Chargrilling courgettes really brings out a depth of flavour that is often lost when they are boiled or steamed (eurgh). Make sure your griddle or barbie is searingly hot so you get those tasty black tiger stripes on thin slices of courgette and serve with a sweet/sour yoghurty dressing.

Seven – Courgette Wine

I have no idea if this is possible but it must be worth a go? Anyone? Hello?

Eight – Doorstep Courgettes

Wait until nightfall. Take one, two or three of your largest courgettes and leave them on the doorsteps of your neighbours. Run. Go to bed happy in the knowledge that you’ve successfully ridded yourself of that particular problem. Until tomorrow and you discover that your neighbours had exactly the same idea.

Nine – Stuffed Courgette Flowers

OK, so this doesn’t really help you with eating your way through the courgette mountain taking over the kitchen but they are tasty. Stuff the flowers with well seasoned ricotta, dip in batter and deep fry. I cannot recommend these highly enough.

Ten – Courgette Portraits

Take pictures of your courgettes in various different poses and use them to illustrate a piece on what to do with a courgette glut. Realise that you still have nineteen to eat and a further seven peeping through the vegetable patch. Give up and promise not to plant so many next year.

Required Reading: In Defence of Food

2009-08-14T14:58:00.003Z

The holiday to Umbria wasn’t entirely about stopping and smelling the rosemary. I did some work too. Sort of.

In between dips in the pool, singeing my hair in a pizza oven and trips to hilltop towns, I read In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan.

It’s a book about food. Really, really about food. Proper food. More an extended essay than a fully-fledged tome, it is the most intelligent, impassioned treatise on the subject I’ve ever read.

With so much extraneous information bombarding us everyday, seeing the topic of food stripped down to its bare essentials is both refreshing and important. Crucial even.

Pollan writes about food with a sense of unhurried urgency and seemingly effortless intelligence. He is a man who, if you’ll excuse the pun, knows his onions. And shallots. And garlic and all other members of the allium genus. He knows what is wrong with the food industry and, more importantly, he knows how to fix it.

One of the criticisms levelled at many polemicists is that they are happy to point out problems and often less able to talk of solutions. Michael Moore, take note. Pollan does both with equal skill.

In Defence of Food is the sort of book that comes along so rarely it makes you want to buy copies for everyone you know, thrust it into their grease-flecked fingers and sit watching to make sure they consume it. And consume it they will.

It is, without a shadow of a doubt and no degree of hyperbole, the best book about food I have ever read. Ever. Now, go and get a copy, sit ye down and read it.

And follow me on Twitter. But only if you really want to.

Pork Pie

2009-08-10T16:49:00.009Z

Full many a glorious morning I have seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye.
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gliding pale streams with heavenly pork pie

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 33

We are a nation of pie lovers. That is undeniable.

From steaming hot meat and potato pies that grace chip suppers across the north to the crescent shaped Cornish pasty of the south, if it’s a scorching filling wrapped in artery clogging pastry, we adore it.

Legislative affirmation of this fact came just last month when the legendary Melton Mowbray pork pie was finally granted Protected Geographical indication by the EU.

It now stands proudly alongside such luminaries as Parmesan Cheese and Champagne. Only pork pies from Melton Mowbray can be labelled as such. Anything else is a mere pretender.

But pretenders aren’t necessarily a bad thing when they originate in your own kitchen.

Recent dispatches from New York saw me trying to re-create some of the tasty food that was consumed there. It was great fun, making pizzas and bagels and hot dogs and cheeseburgers.

So much so that it got me thinking – why not try it more often, with things that originate closer to home. Why not try to create in the home kitchen those foodie treats we know and love: doner kebabs, pink wafer biscuits, custard creams, marshmallows.

By using excellent ingredients and leaving out all the unnecessary bits and bobs it should be possible to cook versions of these treats to rival anything that can be found on the shelves. Artifice by more natural means.

Before I get started on the big things, I wanted to start small. Keep it simple.

If my girlfriend and I are ever out and attacked by hunger pangs it inevitably falls not to a chocolate bar to quell the cravings but to a pork pie.

There is something so satisfying about the combination of heavily seasoned meat housed in a crunchy yet melting pastry that just makes us smile. It is a rare treat, but a treat nonetheless.

We’ve been hunting for the perfect pie for a while. One whose meat:pastry ratio is spot on and where the jelly doesn’t overwhelm you with its strangely appealing yet vaguely disgusting texture. It’s a fine pie tight rope to tread and some get it right.

Others fail miserably. Hopefully now that the pork pie has some certification it will mark an end to any disappointments.

Recipe: Pork Pie

This isn’t a traditional pie. This is me freestyling, throwing caution to the wind and rolling easy. The result? A perfect picnic item, great served with homemade chutney, just erring on the side of sweetness.

For the filling you’re going to need some pork. Don’t scrimp here. Toddle over to your friend the butcher and ask him for some fatty shoulder or hand meat. While you’re at it inquire politely about acquiring some bacon offcuts. They shall be your new best friend and work out about a quarter of the price of regular bacon.

[I cannot believe I just shared my best culinary secret with you.]

Oh, and ask him to throw in a couple of pig’s trotters too, you’re going to need them later.

Once you’ve got hold of your meat, head home, turn on the stereo and get cooking.

800g pork hand (or shoulder) meat
300g cooking bacon (smoked or unsmoked, dependent on your preference)
Two trotters
A couple of onions
1 litre or so of chicken stock
Thyme, finely chopped
Sage, finely chopped
Cayenne Pepper
Ground ginger
Allspice
Nutmeg
Salt and pepper

For the pastry (taken from HFW’s Meat Book):
100g lard
100g butter
200ml water
Two eggs
550g plain flour

Your first job is to make the jelly. Split the trotters down the vertical and them to the stock and the onions in a pan, bring to the boil and let it simmer gently for about three hours.

Next up, make the pastry. Melt the lard and butter into the water over a gentle heat. Don’t boil it. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, crack in the eggs and stir them in. Gently pour the water/butter/lard mix into a glass, take a big sip and pour the rest over the flour and egg. Mix together until a dough forms, knead for a couple of minutes. It may need more flour. When you have a verifiable dough cover it with cling film and get it into the fridge.

Finally, you’re going to need to dice the meat. Finely. And that means small. You could cheat and mince it but who wants a pie filled with sausage meat? Sharpen your favourite knife, crank up the music and get chopping.

Once you’ve transformed your great hulks of meat into delicately fine dice, it will need seasoning. When cold, food can taste bland – as such be generous with the seasoning, especially the salt. I’d go for a teaspoon of sea salt as well as a pinch of everything else and a good grind of pepper.

To check the seasoning, fry a little of the mixture off like a mini-burger and taste it (it’s a hard job but someone has to do it). Adjust as required.

By now your pastry should be cool and far more workable than it was before when it was all warm. Take a cricket ball sized handful (or a baseball if that’s your thing) and roll it into a vaguely spherical shape.

Squidge the bottom of a jam jar into the dough-ball and start working it up the edges:

Don’t be too precious – this is a pie, not something to grace the plate of a three star Parisian temple to haute cuisine. Once you have a rough outline, ease the jar free and pile in the filling. When you think it’s full, add another spoonful and ease the pastry around it.

Cut off a piece of dough about the size of a ping-pong ball (gawd bless sporting analogies), roll into a disc and top your pie. Crimp the edges together, brush the top with beaten egg, poke a hole in the lid and place into a roasting tray.

Repeat until out of dough or filling or both.

Bake at 180 degrees C for thirty minutes then turn the oven down to 150 degrees and bake for another twenty minutes.

Leave to cool on a wire rack and tend to your jelly. Trotters, being jam packed with gelatin, make an excellent jelly after simmering away gently for a couple of hours.

Strain your stock through a fine meshed sieve, return to the heat and reduce by about a third. To see if it is ready, spoon off a little of the stock in a small cup and refrigerate. If it sets, it’s ready. If not, carry on cooking.

Once the pies have cooled down you’ll need to get the liquid jelly into them, a procedure that those of you unskilled in veterinarian sciences might find tricky. I improvised with a syringe. I’ll leave it to you to find the best way (pouring is not, repeat not, the best way).

Try and resist the temptation to bite into your pies before they’ve been refrigerated overnight. They are best eaten outdoors with a picnic blanket under your arse and a bottle of something cold and beery in your hand.

For more high fat delights, follow me on Twitter.

Slow Cooked Lamb (Video post)

2009-08-06T16:07:00.005Z

It’s only so much time that can be spent in a state of blissful relaxation before the mind turns to food.

On holiday breakfast tends to be a mere distraction – a hastily gobbled croissant, piece of fruit or biscotti washed down with a short, sharp coffee. Lunch provides a brief respite from the heat of the day, usually some bread and cheese with a couple of tomatoes on the side.

But dinner is where the magic happens. This is the real centrepiece of the day where effort truly pays off and the gentle preparation can be done whilst gradually slipping into a state of happy inebriation.

As such, the majority of my days were spent thinking about what to cook that evening.

Being in possession of a pizza oven, we, naturally, cooked pizza. But the giant domed edifice was still warm come the following morning: the perfect conditions to slow cook some local lamb.

After adding some more fuel we went in search of the meat and returned with two whole shoulders – almost a quarter of the beast – ready to be browned off, sat atop some freshly picked rosemary and crushed garlic and shoved into the waiting furnace, cooking slowly in a winey bath until it emerged lovingly tender and achingly delicious.

It also seemed a good time to indulge in my first ever video post so please be kind. I’m still learning.

And, yes, I really did come that close to setting my head on fire. Look carefully and you will see the innocent, yet telltale, wisp of smoke rising from my reddening forehead.

Slow cooked Lamb

Leg of lamb is fine, and if that’s your sort of thing then I’m happy for you. But shoulder is the business end, where the real flavour is. It does a bit more work, and as such should be cooked longer and slower, but the effort is worthwhile.

It’s also slightly fattier which will baste the meat from the inside keeping it juicy, rich, tasty and tender.

Serves 8-10

Two lamb shoulders, complete with neck
Two bulbs of garlic, squashed lightly under the flat of a knife
Half a lemon
Two handfuls (think bricklayer’s size rather than manicurist) of rosemary
Salt and pepper
Half a bottle of red wine

Season the lamb with salt and pepper all over and brown in a large frying pan. Layer half the rosemary and garlic in a casserole dish big enough to hold everything comfortably. Nestle the lamb on top and then deglaze the frying pan with red wine.

Put the rest of the rosemary and garlic on top of the lamb, squeeze over the lemon then pour over the wine.

Cook in a 200 year old wood burning oven for about four hours, turning and basting halfway through. Temperature? Pretty hot.

NB – Make sure you don’t get too close to the oven and singe your fringe.

If you are only in possession of a regular oven go for about 120 degrees. Serve with potatoes and maybe a token salad. Maybe.

For more slow cooked and half baked musings, follow me on Twitter

Aperitivo

2009-08-06T09:11:00.003Z

‘A bicyclette, that’s what we’ll drink,’ I said with unreserved confidence.
‘A what?’ asked my brother.
‘A bicyclette,’ I repeated with similar bravado.

Memory can be a strange thing. I’d called to mind a simple cocktail from Fergus Henderson’s ‘Nose to Tail Eating’. It had Fernet Branca, an Italian bitter of some alcoholic fortitude, as its main constituent.

Sitting in the courtyard of an Umbrian farmhouse and gazing out over the patchwork hills, it seemed the perfect opportunity to try this potent little number.

‘Are you sure that’s the right recipe?’ said my brother as he watched me splash equal parts of medicinally coloured Fernet Branca and lurid Campari over ice.
‘Yup, positive,’ I replied.

Although I didn’t have the book with me, I was sure this was how to make a bicyclette.

The drink is so-called because after two or three you are unable to ride home in a straight line on your bicycle. When the mixer weighs in at a hefty 20% alcohol you know you are dicing with forces more powerful than your average aperitivo. This was no regular stomach-readier.

The first sip offered surprise: a distinct alcoholic bitterness. But a cooling sweetness swiftly followed by the Campari. It was dangerously drinkable and over the following week it led to a number of dinners being eaten considerably later than planned.

When we returned home I consulted the book to check I’d got the recipe right.

I hadn’t. What I had done was combine the only two drink recipes in Henderson’s two books: Campari and white wine (the famed bicyclette) and Fernet Branca and Crème de Menthe (a Dr Henderson)

What could have emerged was a terrifying hybrid monster. Thankfully it didn’t and the slightly skewed memory served only to create something new, something tasty, something to ready yourself for a night of gastronomic indulgence.

I shall name it a Centaur – it approaches like a gentleman but has the kick of a stallion.

Centaur – an aperitif for the brave

One part Fernet Branca
One Part Campari
Sugar syrup, to taste
Lemon juice, to taste

Pour the booze over ice, stir. Have a little sip. If the taste make you pull a face like a baby eating marmite, it’s probably a little bitter. Add sugar syrup and lemon juice until you reach a pleasant combination.

Two of these will give you the appetite of a king but render you unable to cook at your best. Take precautions.

Back home...

2009-07-27T15:31:00.003Z

Phew. Amazing week in Umbria and somehow managed to strike the perfect balance between adventure and inaction each, naturally, involving much food.

Plenty to write about including making pizza in a furnace and probably a video post too so you poor, poor people get to see and hear me as well as read my culinary ramblings.

Fairly busy week coming up so it may be a few days before I get the chance to start the write ups but you are so wonderfully patient, I’m pretty sure you won’t mind.

And Ryanair is a sorry excuse for an airline. Just had to get that off my chest.

Back Soon...

2009-07-16T09:49:00.005Z

Off to Italy. I'll be spending the next seven days here:

Normal service will be resumed forthwith. Until then, 'arrivederci!'

Eating New York - Cheeseburger & Fries

2009-07-13T09:46:00.006Z

If there is a meal that sums up New York better than this, I didn’t find it.

While much of the food available in the city reflects the diverse nature of the population – noodle bars next to falafal huts and pizza parlours – this is the all-American meal.

While they may not be able to lay claim to creating the individual components - the burger from Germany and the fries from Belgium - here is where the two were thrust together in a happy and enduring marriage.

There are a number of elements necessary to create the perfect cheeseburger and each must be just right before you can consider the possibility of creating something significantly greater than the sum of its parts. All good burgers are greater than the sum of its parts.

The bun should be soft and yielding and of an absorbent nature to suck up those delicious rich and beefy juices from the patties. The cheese has to be sufficiently melted with a distinct but subtle flavour of its own that doesn’t overpower the taste of the beef. As a result, blue cheese is a no-no for me.

Thinly sliced tomatoes should cut through the whole thing with a sweet freshness and a slick of mayonnaise and a dribble of ketchup must complete the ensemble, ready to squirt out at any moment over a clean shirt. Lettuce is window-dressing.

Whilst a good cheeseburger, when presented, must tower in an intimidating fashion, the first bite should compress the whole thing together into a manageable thickness so that all the components can be taken with every mouthful.

The side order, whilst not as important as the burger itself, needs also to be frighteningly oversized but the individual fries should be no thicker than a plumber’s finger.

And they must not, under any circumstances, be stacked in the manner of a virginal game of Jenga, merely tossed happily into a warm bowl. Melted cheese is optional but highly recommeneded.

According to trusted reports, the ultimate burger experience is to be enjoyed at Shake Shack, a veritable institution at Madison Square Park, within spitting distance of the wonderful Flatiron Building.

It’s not unusual for the queue to snake through the park and out towards Broadway as hungry residents wait patiently for upwards of an hour for a little taste of the city.

We didn’t wait quite that long but the lack of breakfast made the fifteen minutes pass achingly slowly.

But, oh, was it worth it. A truly excellent burger recreated in all its magnificent glory below.

Cheeseburger & Fries

Inside sources have revealed that Shake Shack use a combination of beef cuts (with a ratio of 80:20 meat to fat) in order to create their tasty patties. Budget and practicalities prevented me from taking this Heston Blumenthalian approach to burger making but beef skirt is a great alternative. Tasty, juicy and cheap enough to not feel guilty about forcing it through a mincer.

To make two thick or four thin burgers:

300g beef skirt - Good beef, please (goes without saying, no?)
Salt and pepper.
That’s it. No, really. That’s it. Don’t mess around with egg or breadcrumbs or onions. Leave it pure and let it sing over your tastebuds.

Slice the meat into 2cm pieces and salt generously. Leave, covered, in the fridge for a couple of hours. Rinse the meat under cold water and mince finely. Season with salt and pepper and shape into burgers. Let them come up to room temperature before you fry them.

The buns were made with the exact same recipe as the hot dog buns, just shaped differently and brushed with a little beaten egg before baking. They freeze just fine.

Tip: I used a cutter when making these little fellas but they would have risen better if shaped by hand. As a result instead of slicing one bun in half, I just used two for each burger.

Other items:
Cheddar cheese
Thinly sliced tomato
Lettuce
Mayonnaise
Ketchup
A little butter

Get everything ready before you go, that way there is no waiting around and you can assemble and attack as soon as possible.

Get a frying pan nice and hot, dribble in a little cooking oil, season each side of the burgers and fry for about four minutes. Flip them over – the underside should be browned nicely – place a couple of slices of cheese on the cooked side and leave to cook for a further two minutes.

Remove the burgers from the pan and put them on a warm plate to rest. Add a small nugget of butter to the pan, return to the heat and fry the cut side of the buns so they mop up all that lovely beef juice.

Smother one half of the bun with ketchup, the other with mayo and layer up.

Serve with cheesy fries and a hearty appetite.

Mutton Vindaloo

2009-07-09T11:15:00.004Z

Thanks in part to the coarsely named ‘Fat Les’ football anthem of the late 90s, vindaloo became near synonymous with lad culture and the various negative connotations involved therein.

Going for a curry became an exercise in machismo and vindaloo, somewhat unfairly, was labelled as the number one challenge in the heat tolerance stakes. With such a tag, much of the subtlety was inevitably lost amidst an ever-increasing barrage of heat.

Wrong on two levels. Vindaloo, although hot, should also encompass a subtle blend of spices creating a warming dish with a delicious sourness from the vinegar that creates much of the ‘gravy’, as it is called in India.

And as any true curry aficionado knows, the vindaloo isn’t the true challenge on the menu. That mantel has always, and will always, remain with the phaal – an eye-wateringly hot dish that could fell Brian Blessed at ten paces.

The great thing about making curries from scratch is that you can blend the spices to your desired taste, and I guarantee that no two will be the same. All part of the fun.

Although I usually use lamb neck or chicken thighs when cooking Indian dishes – the bone adds a depth of flavour and richness that you just can’t achieve with boneless meat – mutton is something that I’ve wanted to get on the menu for a while.

Despite the best efforts of the Prince of Wales, mutton has remained a meat that exists on the periphery of most people’s radar. As a result a special order with your butcher or a trip to a Middle Eastern supermarket might be in order. A kilo, bone in, will make a good-sized curry. Easily enough for four along with rice, bhajis and other necessary additions.

Mutton Vindaloo recipe

This recipe is an amalgamation (and a bit of freestyle) from Simon Majumdar of Dos Hermanos and Hub UK. I know the addition of tomatoes will probably see me ostracised by a great many traditionalists but I’m prepared to live with that.

Spices
Chillis are the foundation of this Portuguese inspired dish. Go for at least five or six dried chillis and take it from there depending on your taste and tolerance for heat. For those that prefer a milder curry experience, the heat can be tempered with yoghurt. Feel free to play around with the ratios.

5-6 (or more) dried chillis
An inch of dried cinnamon
5-6 cloves
Half a teaspoon of black pepper corns
A teaspoon of coriander seeds
A teaspoon of cumin seeds
Four cardamom pods, seeds removed
¼ nutmeg, grated
Two large garlic cloves
A thumb of ginger, peeled

Mash the spices together in a pestle and mortar, or grind them in a spice or coffee grinder until you have something resembling a rough powder. Add the garlic and ginger and pound into a paste, adding a little water where necessary.

Other ingredients:

1kg mutton neck, on the bone and cubed into inch pieces
Three large onions
Four garlic cloves
Two tins of tomatoes, drained and blitzed.
150-200ml white wine vinegar
Dark brown sugar, to taste
Two tablespoons of oil or ghee

Finely chop, or blend the onions and garlic. Fry in the oil or ghee in a heavy bottomed pan or casserole over a low heat until they start to brown, crank up the heat and add the vindaloo paste. Fry for two or three minutes and tip into a spare bowl.
Season the meat with salt and brown over a high heat in the same dish.

Lower the heat, add the onion, garlic and curry paste and stir. Pour in the vinegar and tomatoes and leave to cook either in a low oven or on the hob for at least an hour, preferably two or three. It should bubble gently, barely a quivering simmer – necessary to break down the tough bits of meat.

Once cooked, taste and add the sugar to temper the astringency of the vinegar.

Serve with rice, naan bread and bottles of lager, all in memory of lad culture, the grandest of oxymorons.

Ancient Pringles

2009-07-08T10:02:00.003Z

My parents are moving house. They're in the process of selling the home I, along with my two siblings, grew up in. It's a strange feeling.

Being a helpful (as well as emotionally attached) soul, I offered to come up and aid them with the inevitable clear-out. 'I'm not moving junk from one house to another,' said my Dad.

He's right. There are two decades of accumulated rubbish hiding in the darkest corners of the house. 'Useful' items once cherished have been stowed in the attic and forgotten about. Toys. Old school work. Clothes. All now smell old. Unloved.

The process takes three times longer than it needs to: the contents of each box, instead of being thrust into a waiting black bin liner, are examined. Memories come thick and fast and the occasional tear teases at dampening eyes. Childhood concurrently feels long ago and within recent memory.

But it's fun too. In one box we found this:

a tube of Pringles that had been opened and unfinished about ten years ago.

The lid was opened with trepidation. I feared a colony of mould that had somehow developed intelligence or sentience of some sort.

What was inside was far more disturbing.

Ten years and the Pringles looked almost fresh. I have no idea what they put into these things that has managed to slow the aging process to such a painfully unnatural degree but I'm sure Joan Rivers might well be interested.

For more dubious snacks, follow me on Twitter

With Compliments...? Thoughts on Freebies

2009-07-07T09:19:00.006Z

The Twittering classes are working themselves into a frothy hubbub. Journos are striking low blows. Battles lines are being drawn and codes of ethics are being drafted quicker than an emergency UN resolution.

It’s all about the freebies.

It seems that the issue is coming to a head and is rapidly gaining some serious press attention: Is it right for bloggers to accept freebies (anything from sample packets to slap-up meals) in return for write ups? If so, what provisos should be laid down? And if it’s not, why not?

For all the attention the issue has been getting, one could be forgiven for thinking that the food blogosphere is awash with cleverly disguised puff pieces masquerading as restaurant reviews and greedy amateur food writers hounding PRs for anything, so long as it’s free.

Not that I can see. The suggestion that your average food blogger would pen a sycophantic review in return for some gratis nom and half a bottle of wine is deeply denigrating. Full disclosure seems to be the consensus with very little, if any, dissent.

Honesty and transparency are crucial for a writer to maintain their integrity. The second your word becomes suspect or is revealed to have been bought, that integrity disappears and, in the words of Bill Hicks ‘every word you say is like a turd falling…into my drink’.

Perhaps a little harsh, but it would be foolish not to quote the man on this issue seen as he spoke so vociferously about it.

Sometimes the lure of pound or dollar signs becomes too great, or is a necessity (Exhibit A: Marco Pierre White with one divorce too many). Others have no such scruples about whoring out their name (call to the stand Gordon Ramsay and the arch worshipper of Mamon, Anthony Worral Thompson).

But from what I can see food bloggers are an honest bunch. We resemble the beloved Saint Delia in this respect – a woman of strict moral standing who has refused to endorse any product for monetary re-imbursement.

Our word is important. It is all we have. When it becomes suspect we lose any respect and with it any power it carries.

So where is the clamour coming from?

It’s coming from the one place that is set to lose out: print media.

The insinuation is that accepting a tidy little freebie in return for a positive report is something new, something that brings with it a new set of moral codes.

It isn’t.

The press and PR have been strolling hand in hand for decades, scratching backs and trading favours since Gutenberg first lifted the cloth on his invention. So why the furore?

It’s about access.

Before the Internet, before email, before Twitter, before blogs there was journalism. It was a closed shop on a pedestal high, high above the world in which we mere mortals lived. A notoriously hard industry to break into and one that had a monopoly on the written word. Food writing, but a miniscule part of the trade, was even more of a hidden avenue.

But things have changed. The Internet and, more specifically, Web 2.0 with its user generated and led content has brought with it a democratisation of the written word. Print journalism has finally woken up to this.

It’s not so much about their place on the pedestal being taken over, it’s about the pedestal rapidly crashing to the ground.

This isn’t necessarily new. Both Harden’s and Zagat guides have been utilising user-generated content for years to compile more democratic, balanced and realistic restaurant reviews (whether or not they can fell Michelin remains to be seen, but I suspect we are witnessing the final throes of that revered institution).

What the Internet has done, though, is give a voice to all those who want it. Naturally, there are good and bad blogs. Good and bad food writers. And the web is awash with dull lists of what people cooked for their friends, Hank and Maureen, last weekend.

But this is a product of the fledgling nature of the phenomenon. Some will fall by the wayside, others will flourish – it’s not unusual for the top food blogs to get over a million visits a month, the sort of hit rate some magazine editors would eat their own children for.

This wheat/chaff sorting is happening already and as the word on the screen becomes as respected and as powerful as the word on the page, it will happen more rapidly.

Last year I did an internship (perhaps stage is the more appropriate word as we talking in culinary terms) at a well-known food magazine. Two weeks, unpaid. Even my expenses went unpaid, the ‘economic downturn’ given as an excuse only weeks after I submitted my claim.

I’d held this form of magazine journalism in high regard, put it on a pedestal. Magazine offices were places where exciting things happen everyday, where people who love food get giddy about all the things I get giddy about. As a result I was struck, rabbit-headlight like, for much of my time there. Slightly shy and in awe of those around me. Those who were doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Except they weren’t. The daily grind was dull. The reality was that I was already doing what I wanted to do by writing off my own back, finding my own stories, working freelance and publishing online. I just didn’t realise it at the time.

On my final day the editor took time to talk to me about what I wanted to do and how to achieve it. ‘Something’s not really been published unless it’s in print,’ they said.

At the time, I agreed. Having had a couple of pieces published, there really was a thrill in seeing one’s name in a by-line. It was a buzz. But the reality is very different, and I’m only just coming to realise this.

There is a freedom on the Internet and successful writers here can be seen by hundreds, thousands, more people than those in print. Many journalists – the good ones at least – know this and are embracing the medium.

What the debate about freebies really comes down to is part of a larger discussion about the future, nature and value of print journalism.

Don’t get me wrong. I love print. Newspapers are an integral, and deeply enjoyable, part of my life. Likewise magazines. The very nature of print journalism is a near guarantor of its quality – providing you look in the right places, of course. There is something wonderful, tangible about print. Sunday papers are one of my favourite things in the world.

But to assume that just because someone only publishes online they can’t be as good as a print counterpart is just wrong. And to assume that just because someone has been offered a free meal they will happily shelve their own opinions and scruples is not just wrong, it’s also deeply patronising.

Freebies and the media go together, and always have done, like children and chocolate. Only now, food bloggers are getting a share of the chocolate and the old guard don’t like it.

The Virtue of Tranquility

2009-07-06T10:08:00.003Z

There is a school of thought that suggests if a chef is stressed, or angry, you can taste it in his or her food.

Perhaps it makes sense. If the mind is focussed on something other than the plate, the food is likely to suffer. Heavy-handedness, tension and lack of attention to detail are all by-products of anger.

Thomas Keller’s kitchens at Per Se and The French Laundry are famously calm and quiet: a far cry from the frenetic, angry, shouty affairs we have come to expect from high end kitchens (The Ramsay Effect, perhaps?)

Maybe if Gordon’s fire and brimstone moments were less frequent, his food could be even better and the future of Ramsay Holdings would be a little more secure.

It would appear the same goes for writers.

Last week was a stressful affair, for various reasons. I didn’t even realise it until Friday. ‘You’re stressed, aren’t you?’ said the GF, ‘I can see it in your writing.’

She was right. Of course. The first draft of my hot dog post was clumsy, overly verbose and distinctly without point. After sharing a bottle of wine it was summarily and judiciously edited. For the best.

There is a moral here. For me, at any rate. When you are bubbling under the surface, it’s best not to cook or write. Things will go wrong and it will make the general mood an awful lot worse. The problem is self-exacerbating.

***

In other news: it was with giddying excitement that I found out on Saturday that this little labour of love had been name checked by BBC’s Olive Magazine as one of their favourite blogs this month.

A real honour to be featured alongside such luminaries as the (multi)-award winning Cannelle et Vanille and the staggeringly good (Guild of Food Writers nominee) World Foodie Guide. Excellent company indeed.

And finally, what can you expect this week? Vindaloo, High tea. The penultimate part of Eating New York (cheeseburgers and fries) and maybe even some tripe for this week's Nose To Tail exploit. Erm, yum?

And with that delightful thought, I must bid you adieu. The train awaits and when I next login I will be back up north. Probably covered in soot and eating pie in the welcoming bosom of the family.

Eating New York: Hot Dogs

2009-07-03T10:18:00.012Z

Confession time.

I’ve always said that my last supper would consist of hot dogs. As much as I’ve tried to develop the outward appearance of a sophisticated foodie, I can’t shift this love of cheap sausages simmered in cloudy water and slung into a fluffy white bun.

Until now, I wasn’t fussy. I wouldn’t have specified brand names or quantities. Simply 'lots. With everything.' That would be my last request.

I’ve changed my mind. My final meal on earth would be these hot dogs. Homemade buns. Homemade relish. Ketchup. Mustard. Fried onions. And beef sausages.

Throughout Europe hot dogs are almost invariably made of pork. But with a historically large Jewish, and increasingly Muslim, population in New York, sausages here tend to be all-beef. It’s hard to find a kosher or Halal pig.

Your nearest Middle Eastern supermarket will be the best place to pick up beef hot dogs.

NB Recipe inspired by and modified from one in Gourmet magazine.

To make 16-20 hot dogs (more, even, than I could manage), you will need:

16-20 beef hot dogs (no kidding, Alex, get on with it)

Relish:

A medium sized cucumber cut into little tiny pieces
A small onion, also cut into teeny tiny pieces
150ml white wine vinegar
50g caster sugar
Thickener (I used xantham gum, my new favourite multi-purpose ingredient but cornflour works fine)

Mix all these together. That’s it.

Buns (can also be used to make burger buns – more on that later)

350ml full fat or semi-skimmed milk
150ml double cream
200ml warm water
800g plain flour
7g packet dried yeast
75g sugar
two teaspoons of salt

To make the buns, bring the milk and cream to a gentle simmer and leave to cool. Add the yeast to the warm water and leave for five minutes until it starts to foam like a rabid dog.

Mix the sugar and salt into the flour, pour in the foaming yeast mixture and then the cooled milk and cream (if it’s too hot you will kill the yeast, in the manner of a cruel Eastern European dictator wiping out a persecuted ethnic minority).

If you have a mixer, use the paddle to mix the wet doughy mass for about six minutes. If the dough is too wet, incorporate more flour until the dough just comes together.

If, like me, your mixer has exploded in a cloud of acrid black smoke and you are too scared to turn it on, you will be doing this by hand. Once the dough has been stirred together, turn out onto a floured surface and knead vigorously for about ten minutes. Add more flour whenever necessary – this is a wet dough.

Once you have a ball of dough and not a seeping puddle, tip it into an oiled bowl. Bear in mind that it will at least double in size. Let it prove for a couple of hours, covered with a damp tea towel

Turn it back out onto a floured surface and knock it back down by kneading it for another couple of minutes. Divide the dough into 16-20 equal sized pieces, roll them into a vague sausage shape (about six inches) and then place them evenly spaced on a baking sheet.

Leave a couple of centimetres between each one and let them prove, again covered with a damp tea-towel. About 45 minutes should do it.

Once your buns are touching and have near doubled in size, bake them in a pre-heated oven (about 175 degrees C) for 15-20 minutes, moving them from the top of the oven to the bottom about half way through. This will brown the tops whilst making sure they are cooked all the way through.

Remove them from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes before putting them on a cooling rack.

To complete

Slice the bun down the middle, fill with fried onions (you don’t need a recipe for those, do you?), pop in a sausage that has been simmering away in murky water for six hours (if you want the really authentic NYC experience) and top with relish, ketchup and mustard.

This is without a shadow of a doubt the best hot dog I’ve ever had. The buns are light, soft and delicious but don’t have that cloudy, fluffy texture of bought buns. The relish is sharp, cool and sweet, the perfect counterpoint to the rest of the flavours and textures.

And the sausage? It’s a hot dog. You know not to expect artisanal spiced cuts of premium Saddleback pork. But that doesn’t make it any less tasty. Here’s to the guiltiest and most pleasurable of guilty pleasures. Perfect for July 4th.

For more cleverly disguised assorted MRM, follow me on Twitter

When it all goes wrong...

2009-07-02T16:06:00.002Z

[Details of competition after the fold]

My last piece (the one about lamb breast) was my 250th. By means of celebration here is one about when things go wrong. More fun than any self-congratulatory nonsense.

One of the great things about being a food writer is that you can maintain an air of smugness buoyed by the impression given off through writing.

You can bask constantly in the warm glow of success, or at least give the impression that you bask in the warm glow of success as you eat meal after meal of perfectly focussed, well-lit, delicious food.

Whether it is a plate of faultless and delicate macaroons or the glorious, greasy simplicity of a full English breakfast, readers can be left with the impression that each and every mouthful is one that skirts close to that idealised standard we call ‘perfection.’

If only that were the case.

The reality is very different. Oh, the joys of selective writing.

Witness exhibit (a): dried peach crisps:

Barely recognisable as peach, they were certainly dried. And crisp? They looked as if they’d been through a Hindu funerary rite of passage.

This is by no means a unique occurrence. One of my best tricks is leaving things in the oven overnight to cool, coming down bleary eyed in the morning and immediately turning on the grill. A man needs toast.

Only the faintly acrid smell of burning is enough to jolt me into action and extract whatever it was that now has a swiftly blackening crust.

There have been others.

Barely a month ago I managed to block our entire drainage system whilst experimenting with spherification. On cool quiet nights I can still hear my girlfriend’s faintly indignant (tinged with faint humour) tone ringing in my ears with the words ‘You’ve blocked our drains with molecular gastronomy!’

Only two days ago did I read the words ‘Caution: dispose the sodium alginate preparation in the bin, and not in the sink.’ Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But my culinary bête noire remains Christmas cake – still the subject of more cooking related disasters than I would care to remember.

Last Christmas I sliced off an entire nail chopping dried fruit. On eventually completing the cake it was cooked too long and emerged from the oven dried and blackened. Only generous sousing with booze and careful removal of the outer layer rendered it edible.

Until a hungry mouse decided to gorge itself whilst we were away for three days.

The year before I snapped a wooden spoon whilst stirring the thick cake mixture, a painful splinter piercing my hand. And on lifting the cake into the oven the tin slipped from my hands and splurged its thick contents all over the floor.

As a final ‘up yours’ that cake, too, ended up burnt after my father decided it wasn’t cooking quickly enough at the designated temperature.

There are more, but here is where I hand over to you. What have been your biggest and most comical culinary failures, faults and fuck ups?

The best will be immortalised in a personalised short story. Typed out (on a typewriter, no less) by me and then published right here.

Comment below, email or tweet me your tales.

Nose to Tail Tuesday (N3T) - Lamb Breast

2009-07-01T10:54:00.005Z

Where last week’s jaunt into the culinary underbelly was nothing short of cerebral, this edition sees us travelling to, well, the underbelly.

Breast of lamb, a cut near identical to pork or beef short ribs, is criminally underused and as a result is almost giveaway cheap. It has featured on these pages before (paired with lamb’s kidneys) but it really is delicious enough to stand-alone.

For the gastronomically minded, it can be used to make lamb ‘bacon’ and it is a cut gaining in popularity amongst top-end chefs - Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 features breast of lamb on his menu.

Whilst I’m not averse to tinkering with high end cooking: dishes that take days, rather than hours, to plate up and consist of a dizzying combination of foams, airs, purées, spheres, mousses, geleés, crisps and other such assorted tom-foolery, sometimes what you really want is hearty and basic.

Lamb and beans is a classic combination throughout France and North Africa. Slow cooked shanks with flageolet beans. Lamb stew with white beans and fresh coriander. Rack of lamb with a bean cassoulet.

Whatever the combination there is something hearty, warming and satisfying about the taste of the meat – now beginning to develop some flavour (I find spring lamb over-rated and lacking in flavour) – and the fulfilling nature of the beans.

Breast of Lamb roasted with onion and spiced chick peas (garbanzo beans)

Although there isn’t an awful lot of meat on this particular cut, it is fatty and the inherent richness should leave you feeling sated without being overly full. As the lamb roasts it will release its moisture into the bed of chickpeas waiting expectantly below. The result is some of the tastiest pulses you will ever chow down.

A single piece of lamb breast should easily serve three-four people, depending on how long it has been since they last ate and whether or not they are the sort of friends happy to be fobbed off with extra pulses and veg instead of meat. Thought not. The recipe below is for two.

Lamb breast, about 500g in weight.
An unwaxed lemon
Oregano (dried or fresh, finely chopped – as much as you want)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Zest the lemon and juice half of it into a bowl. Add the same amount of olive oil, the oregano and season with salt and pepper. Slash the top of the lamb and rub the mixture into it.

For the chickpeas

One tin of chick peas, drained and rinsed
One large white onion, finely diced
One large red onion, roughly chopped
Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped
A teaspoon of smoked paprika
Salt and Pepper
Four or five sprigs of fresh oregano
A splash of olive oil

Mix all the above together and tip into a roasting tray (large enough to hold the lamb).

Get a ridged griddle pan screamingly hot (leave it on there for five minutes before you even think of cooking on it. Seriously. These things take an age to get hot).

Sear the lamb for four-five minutes until it has some good colour on one side. Flip and cook for another couple of minutes. Place the lamb on top of the chickpeas and roast in a moderately hot oven (c. 150 degrees C) for about an hour and a half. Give the tray a shake a couple of times during cooking.

Lift the lamb onto a cutting board and leave it to rest whilst you are plating up. Pile a heap of baby spinach leaves into the middle of a plate, top with the roasted chickpeas and hunks of meat that you have delicately carved/hacked mercilessly from the bones.

Ideally, serve in front of episodes of the West Wing with a crisp white wine for company.

Feel free to gnaw away at the meat still clinging to the ribs. I did. ‘You are such a shameless carnivore,’ said the GF. If I had been in a position to answer, I wouldn’t have been able to deny it.

For more assorted off-cuts, follow me on Twitter

What's in a name?

2009-06-29T10:17:00.002Z

Prepare to be confused.

Confusion isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I remember vividly the first time I watched a David Lynch movie. Trying to unravel that particular puzzle noir was a complicated but ultimately rewarding experience.

But food and drink labelling is a different beast entirely.

Much hoo-hah has been made of the provenance of so-called British pork pies, with the Conservative party dedicating an entire viral campaign around the misleading labelling (pork from the continent assembled into pie form on these fair shores) of this particular snack.

These little culinary wolves in sheep’s clothing seem to be in other places too, hiding out waiting to pounce on the unwitting consumer at less than a moment’s notice. Even in wine bottles.

It was in such a state of blissful ignorance that we bought three bottles of Three Mills – one red, one white, one rose – from the supermarket.

At two quid a bottle it seemed silly not to take the chance. Having spent three years at university imbibing wine of dubious origin and questionable quality, it seemed logical to think that the contents would at least be drinkable. And if not then there was always the option of cooking with it.

What really swung it for us, though, was the proud wording on the label: British Wine. Six pounds to help the fledging wine industry of Great Britain? Well worth the money.

How wrong we were. On all counts.

The wine itself was undrinkable. Cloying. Sweet and with all the depth of a dried up puddle. It sat limply in the glass and at a mere 8% alcohol wasn’t even worth drinking with the sole purpose of getting merry.

To cook with it would be a crime against food. I shuddered at the prospect of ruining a glorious free range chicken or beef short rib by sluicing it with this vile concoction. It went some way to proving the maxim that one shouldn’t cook with wine one isn’t prepared to drink. In fact, it went all the way, proving beyond all reasonable doubt that if you wouldn’t put it in a glass, don’t put it in the pot.

But at least it was British. Right? Wrong. It transpired that we had been the victim of a cruel marketing sleight of hand.

British wine is a very different beast to English wine which is made with grapes actually grown in this country by people who actually know what they are doing and who actually take pride in what they do.

We had been fooled into buying three bottles made with imported grape juice somehow turned into something that resembled wine in the same way Frankenstein’s Monster resembled a fully functioning human being.

It had been made with the sort of contempt that a nefarious character from Grimms’ Fairy Tales might show an innocent stepchild standing in the way of a vast inheritance.

To call Three Mills ‘wine’ is questionable, at best. To call it ‘British’ is downright duplicitous. Even at two pounds a bottle we were left feeling conned, and without wine. Not a combination leading to satisfactory happiness.

For more on this visit english-wine.com And don't forget to follow me on Twitter. But only if you want to.

Assiette de Tete de Porc or ‘How to turn a hog’s head into a delicate trio of starters’

2009-06-26T11:00:00.010Z

[Scroll down for recipes]

Carnivorous detachment is something many of us are guilty of.

By that I mean there is a deliberate and tangible epistemic distance between product and animal. It’s one that we gloss over. Choose to ignore, and prefer to exist in a state of happy ignorance about where meat comes from.

Of course, when it really comes down to it we know that something, some thing, died so that we can consume the animal protein on our plate but there is a vast chasm between the casual awareness of this and the genuine hands on reality.

A few weeks back I went to a slaughterhouse. It was clean and quiet and had been shut down for the day. But the pervading atmosphere was one of death.

It was discernable not only in the smell, but in the walls, the floors, the shape of the pens and the grim actuality of the chains, hooks and instruments required to turn a cow (or in this case a water buffalo) into something the consumer is happy to eat.

There was no slaughter that day. But it wasn’t necessary to see it in order to have beliefs affirmed: that, for me, eating meat comes with a responsibility to appreciate the reality of husbandry, slaughter and butchery.

I’m not here to proselytise. Merely explain the position I’ve chosen to take and hopefully use that as a springboard for what follows.

Naturally there was a culinary dimension to cooking a pig’s head. It’s a challenge. A gastronomic gauntlet. A badge of honour, almost. But it also represents the face-to-face dimension of being a carnivore. Literally.

Where one can cook a steak with little thought to animal from which it came, a head doesn’t offer this luxury. It is clearly an animal, and one that we are familiar with. Looking at the apparent smile that seems to spread across the face of a dead pig one can’t help but think it is in a state of blissful ignorance as to its fate: the dinner plate.

I’d set myself the task of cooking a rather ambitious menu and then serving it up to brave diners who had kindly volunteered to accompany me on this little culinary journey. As a perfectionist, though, this wasn’t going to happen without a practice run.

The brain dish wasn’t a winner and certainly not worth the effort of cleaving open the head – a task which took close to three quarters of an hour. But the rest had potential.

So, here it is. A first draft anyway. Complete with recipes

Trio of Pig’s Head

[NB – The only element of this I had help with was asking the butcher to remove the eyes. I have a funny thing with eyes. I was 21 before I could consider the possibility of getting contact lenses.]

For this you will need one pig’s head. Remove the eyes and discard. Remove the ears close to the head and wash well. Use a boning knife to remove as much of the cheek meat as possible, cut into inch long pieces and set aside.

Cut off about an inch and a half to two inches of the snout and discard (a large saw is probably the best piece of equipment for this).

Place the head and ears into a large stockpot with a crude mirepoix of carrots, onion, celery, leeks and garlic. Cover the whole lot with water and bring it to a gentle boil. Let it simmer for half an hour, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface. After thirty minutes reduce the heat and let it bubble away very gently for three hours.

To confit the cheeks, finely chop some rosemary and bay leaf. Salt the cheeks and sprinkle over the herbs. Put the whole lot into a roasting tray and add enough duck or goose fat to come halfway up the cheek pieces. Cook in a cool oven – about 125 degrees C – for three hours. Turn the pieces every half hour or so. Once cooked leave to cool.

Remove the ears and head from the stock pot and let them cool. Strain the stock through a sieve and then a muslin cloth, bring it back to the boil and reduce it by about half. Remove about 250ml from the pot and add it to another saucepan. Reduce that by half. This will make the setting jelly for the brawn pâté. The rest of the stock can be used to make soup.

Once the head is cool enough to handle strip it of its meat, of which there should be plenty – about 300-400g. Set to one side and discard the bones.

Take a deep breath. You’re almost there.

Confit of pig’s cheek

Remove the meat from the duck or goose fat and slice off the skin (which can be used to make pork scratchings – bake ina moderate oven for about 20 minutes). Use two forks to shred it roughly, a little like making rillettes. Heat the leftover fat and strain through a sieve.

Season the meat with salt and black pepper then stuff it tightly into a sterilised jar. Pour over the liquid fat, screw on the lid and let it cool. This should keep for weeks and is great served with cornichons and fresh, crusty bread.

Brawn pâté

Brawn is a rough and ready item of charcuterie usually made with the entire head with chunks of meat set into jelly. This is a more delicate, refined version, much more similar to a pâté or rough sausage. The jelly is almost indiscernible and is used predominantly as a binding agent.

Finely chop the meat. Season it with salt and pepper then add some chopped sage, about six or seven leaves. In a mixing bowl add about 50ml of the reduced stock to the meat until it starts to come together then turn out onto a square of cling film or tin foil.

Roll the meat into a tight sausage and leave in the fridge overnight. Once set, slice the meat into circles, fry in a little olive oil for thirty seconds each side and serve with salad leaves.

Crispy fried pig’s ears

These are delicious. Not just passable or ‘OK. For an ear’, but really tasty. A little like calamari but slightly tougher.

Thinly slice the ear and coat in seasoned flour. Make up a batter (I used the ginger beer batter again – it works really well) and deep fry the battered ears for about two minutes. Drain on kitchen paper and serve with sea salt, a little lemon juice and some mayonnaise or sweet chilli sauce.

Nose to Tail Tuesday (N3T) - Brains

2009-06-23T14:59:00.005Z

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single foodstuff in possession of good batter can be rendered not just palatable, but delicious through the simple action of deep-frying.

So said Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice.

I think. Or something along those lines anyway.

But it is a fair argument. Golden batter can hide a multitude of sins, provide a satisfying crunch to an otherwise flabby ingredient and even impart its own magical flavours.

It’s a culinary sleight of hand used the world over from the feather-light tempura of Japan to the more, ahem, heavyweight Scottish offerings (deep-fried kebab meat pizza, anyone? And is it wrong that I find that slightly alluring?).

My old boss once told me of a dinner he enjoyed after a long day’s trek through a mountainous region of the States. In the mood for seafood, he ordered a large plate of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

They arrived not on the half shell as expected, but a steaming mound of golden brown delights, fresh from the deep fat fryer, just the right size to pop into the mouth.

It was only after eating half the portion that his colleague informed him they were not the salty molluscs he thought, but rather the inevitable leftovers of the messy business of cattle castration.

‘Quite tasty,’ he relayed to me, almost romantically.

It was this approach I thought best when contemplating the prospect of eating, for the first time, brain.

The menu tete de porc is gradually taking shape. It needs some work, some gentle refining before it is unleashed upon intrepid diners but it is mostly good.

One course, however, will not make it onto the final bill of fayre.

Removing the brain from the head of a pig is a chore of such magnitude that the final result would have to be rapturously delicious and close to orgasmic in order to make the task worthwhile. It is far from being either of these things. About as far away as it is possible to be.

After stripping the head of the cheeks, ears and snout you are left with something that resembles a science project. What then follows is an hour of finely tuned sawing, cleaving, chipping and brute force in order to remove its contents.

Which are surprisingly small. A disappointing fact at first sight but one that I grew grateful of very quickly when eating time came around.

A pig’s brain is about the size of a large duck egg. Before eating it must be soaked in water for at least 24 hours and then gently poached for about ten minutes. You can use plain old water with a splash of vinegar but we used chicken stock.

What emerges is something that looks like, well, it looks like a brain. There is no getting away from that fact: those familiar little lobes with the swirling labyrinthine pattern twisting across their pale surface.

Each hemisphere was sliced into three, dipped into batter (made with plain flour and ginger beer seasoned with salt, pepper and cayenne) and then deep fried in sunflower oil and suet for about two minutes.

They looked great. Appetising little nibbles whose true origins had been thoroughly and carefully disguised.

My dining partner on this occasion was a chef, also in possession of an adventurous and willing palate. ‘Batter looks good,’ he mused in an attempt to distract us both from its contents.

The small portion was taken outside along with some homemade mayonnaise, plenty of water and a pinch of bravado.

Sitting opposite each other in unintentional gladiatorial style, we each picked up a piece of battered brain and took a bite.

It is not necessary for something to taste actively bad in order to be unpleasant. Texture plays a major role in how we enjoy food. Few westerners enjoy the sticky, glutinous quality of many Asian delicacies such as Natto, made from fermented soybeans.

In that respect brain is unpleasant. Deeply so. What little flavour there is, is not nice. Faintly eggy but not strong enough in of itself to warrant being labelled disgusting.

But the texture of brain is what made us wince. Hard to pin down we tried to find a foodstuff with which to compare it to. The uncooked top of an inadequately fried egg. The slight ickiness of a cloying curdled milk product. Yoghurt that has gone flying far, far beyond its best before date.

It’s somewhere ethereal beyond liquid but stopping short of being solid and it disappeared in the mouth in an alarming fashion, almost flooding the palate with its bizarre nature. The brief respite of the batter only accentuated the downright unpleasantness of what was inside.

We ate another, with slightly more mayonnaise and slightly less gusto in order to galvanise our findings hoping that having removed the shock and awe factor, our second taste wouldn’t be clouded with prejudice. But prejudice merely gave way to knowledge and expectation. I’m not sure if it was better or worse. There was certainly no pride.

The remaining two nuggets were dissected and picked apart in order to pin down what the texture was like but we were still left without an adequate comparison.

A truth universally acknowledged? There is an exception that proves every rule and brain is the one.

Verdict? Brain has made the list. The. List. The list of foods I will happily go a lifetime without tasting again. It has happy company along with tinned tuna and hundred year egg. Don’t try this at home.