Bags of Flavour

Dom's Bespoke Scotch Eggs

2011-06-05T20:12:00.008+01:00

I have only eaten low quality supermarket scotch eggs with dry sausage meat, chalky yolk and rubbery egg white. While I have always enjoyed eating these substandard eggs I always knew that a freshly made scotch egg would be far better. When Dom came round the other day I witnessed him make scotch eggs and got the chance to eat them warm and fresh.

An impressive thing about Dom's scotch eggs method is that he didn't look at any recipes and just made the whole cooking method up as he went along.

To begin with I pushed Dom to keep the egg yolk runny. Dom thought he would be running before he could walk by trying to do this but eventually he relented and went about making the eggs with the aim of keeping the egg yolk runny inside. To do this he had to soft boil the eggs, cool them in ice water and then peel then shell. It's quite difficult to peel a soft boiled egg and quite a bit of the white was lost.

The eggs were then incased in sausage meat. To simplify any sausage meat making Dom just brought some Sainsbury's taste the difference sausages and squeezed the meat out of the skins into a bowl. He soon realised after squeezing that he had accidentally purchased french style Toulouse sauages which are quite stong and garlicky and probably not what a real British scotcher would normally use.

A few people did tell Dom that it would be best to roll the sausage meat out and then incase the eggs in an even layer of meat but Dom thought it best just to roughly smash the meat on to the eggs with his hands . Good for him as this meant each egg had three sausages worth of meat on them.

The final part of the scotching process was to put the breadcrumb coating on. Dom insisted on buying the bright orange unnatural looking pre made breadcrumbs for authenticity's sake. The meaty balls were double dipped in the crumbs which was a good idea as helped them stay together when cooking later.

To cook originally Dom thought he would simply fry the eggs. Unfortunately the cheap orange breadcrumbs started burning as soon they touched the oil. Therefore Dom flash fried the eggs to seal them quickly and then put them in the oven for 20 minutes to bake.

By some fluke of luck this accidental cooking method turned out to be exactly the perfect way of cooking the scotched eggs as when they were cut the sausage meat was well cooked yet moist and magically as requested the egg yolk was still runny.

Eating a freshly cooked warm scotched egg with a runny yolk is a great experience. Much better to the cold shop bought kind. The ad hoc recipie was triumphant the only downside was that the Toulouse sausage meat did make them taste a bit more garlicky than they needed to be.

Kedgeree

2011-05-30T18:26:00.006+01:00

I love kedgeree. I think it may possibly be my favourite British breakfast. It's a funny invention which the British colonials created by fusing Indian cuisine with British smoked fish. Maybe because I am also a British Indian fusion myself is why I like it so much.

I normally make kedgeree with smoked haddock but found recently that smoked kippers are one of the cheapest fish in the supermarket so have recently been using them.

Kedgeree is quite easy to make and involves cooking most of the ingredients separately and then combining them at the end. All you need is; white rice, eggs, smoked fish, onions (red if you've got them), curry powder and as much butter as you feel comfortable using.

To begin with I steam some white basmati rice to my normal method and hard boil some eggs (two per person).

If you're using kippers all you need to do to cook them is put them in a tray and pour boiling water over them. They then need to be flaked. Try to remove as much fish skin as possible. The kipper water also needs to be kept for later.

When all this is done I then fry the onions sliced in butter adding a few teaspoons of curry powder before they're soft and translucent. The cooked rice then goes in the frying pan and needs to be coated in the onions and curry butter.

The kippers and some of the saved kipper water go in to make the kedgeree a bit moist. Now the important bit adding more butter.

The difference between a good kedgeree and a great kedgeree is the amount of butter. The more you put in the better it is. I once had kedgeree at The Wolsesley and it had so much butter it was like a savoury rice pudding. It was also the greatest kedgeree I've ever eaten.

Once the moral conflict regarding butter has been resolved it's ready to serve. I add the sliced boiled egg on top of each serving. It may be better to chuck in during the cooking but whenever I've tried the yolks fall out.

Oysters in New York

2011-05-10T21:30:00.000+01:00

Oysters are very popular in New York and much cheaper than in Britain. The culture here is to go to a bar and have some oysters while having a drink in the early evening.

Millers Tavern in Williamsburg does $1 dollar oysters every day from 4pm. We had a dozen between us.

A good drink I found to have with the Oysters in Millers was a left hand milk stout a drink which goes very well with oysters. Milk stout is a stout similar to Guinness but it has lactose sugar from milk added when brewing. Yeast cannot break down lactose sugar so it gives the stout a creamier body and a much sweeter taste. It's nice but you can't really drink more than two without feeling full.

We also went to the most famous place for oysters in New York the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station . It is a crazy busy tourist destination but worth it for the oysters and the station itself is beautiful. The prices at the oyster bar are a bit higher than other places but they do have a huge variety from all across North America.

We had the house oyster platter of eight oysters for about $20 and I also ordered two oysters from Prince Edward Island in Canada as that's where my grandfathers family is from. They cost about $3 each

We got a huge selection of condiments to go with our Grand Central oysters: Lemon, vinegar, salt, pepper, tabasco, horseradish, some cheap looking oyster crackers and tomato ketchup. The ketchup seemed a bit odd and I couldn't really work out how it would go with the oysters. I just like to put a bit of lemon juice and a splash of tabasco on mine. The oyster bar also has a full menu of meals but they are very expensive compared to the rest of the city's restaurants so I'd recommend going somewhere else for a full meal.

Katz's Deli (bit of a rip off)

2011-05-03T20:00:00.000+01:00

While in New York I visited Katz's deli. You know that famous deli that was in an awful film with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. It's become a bit of a tourist destination and not just for the movie. It's a famous old New York Jewish style deli. It's still got that old time New York look, the staff are all good old New Yorkers and they bake the bread and bagels on site. They also cure and cook all the meat in house. It's great that they've managed to keep the good old look and feel after all the fame. There is one huge elephant in the room however and that's the price. Everything in Katz's deli costs about five times what it would in any other deli in the city.

I had a pastrami sandwich which was great. The pastrami was cut straight off a freshly braised piece of meat from the cooker so was warm and tender. It did cost $16 which is a huge amount for a sandwich in New York.

I also noticed something about pickles in New York. Pickles are not picked in vinegar like we have them in the UK. They are pickled in brine so do not have the sharp vinegar taste. It's a subtler taste and probably why the Americans are able to stuff so many pickles in their sandwiches.

Mathilde had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. It was good, definitely much better than a nasty chewy old Brick Lane bagel but cost $12 which is about £8. A bagel or sandwich from a deli in New York normally costs about $5.

Lunch at Aldea

2011-04-29T09:55:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to Aldea which is in the flat iron district of Manhattan. The French tyre manufacturer had given them one of their special stars so I was expecting something good.

The three course set lunch is $24. That's about £15. You'd never be able to eat at a London Michelin starred restaurant for that price.

Aldea is what you'd expect from a Michelin starred eatery. Cosmopolitan and sophisticated but as it's American still very welcoming and not at all pompous.

For my starter I had pork and duck terrine. This came with a load of white wine meat jelly on the top. It's good to have some decent savoury meat jelly a substance which makes some odd people balk. It was a good starter.

For my main I went for the braised brisket. This was a truly amazing dish and may be one of the best things I have ever eaten. The perfectly cooked brisket was on top of a delicious carrot custard with celeriac, ground chorizo and asparagus. With all the bits shoved into my mouth it tasted like the greatest expression of a beef stew.

Mathilde had the farro rissotto which must of been good as I wasn't given a taste.

For pudding we both had the banana bread, bead pudding which was also pretty amazing.

Steak at Peter Luger

2011-04-28T10:33:00.000+01:00

Peter Luger is reputedly one of the best steak houses in the world. Zagat have rated it the best steak house in New York City 26 years in a row. Its Brooklyn restaurant has been in the same site in Williamsburg for over 100 years. In 2002 they received a star from the French tyre company. Yesterday I went there for lunch.

Walking inside it's a very different atmosphere from the rest of Williamsburg. Over the last 10 years Williamsburg has become a hipster nest much like Shoreditch in London has. Peter Luger has not been affected by such shortsighted trendyness and venturing inside is like walking into proper old school New York. There are no hipsters in here (except me and Mathilde). The restaurant is full of proper Brooklyners having proper lunches. You can feel that this place is the elemental origin of the steak house. All those crap chains like Beefeater and Harvester this is where it began. This is what they all aspire to.

The waiters are all salt of the earth proper Brooklyn geezers and their customer service style is surly and honest. They roughly throw the menus on the table and in a "wadda ya want" way but they don't come across as rude.

I saw the bacon slabs on the menu and had to order one as a starter. A bit odd that a starter can consist of solely a large bit of perfectly cooked bacon. You do gat a bowl of bread on the table but it's still a bit weird as your only getting pure grilled bacon on the plate. It was the greatest bacon though.

Normally when you get a steak at Peter Luger you get a large steak for two. Mathilde now eats fish but is still off her meat bless her so I had to go for the single steak while she had the salmon. I also ordered some creamed spinach.

When the steak comes out theres a bit of theatre from the waiter. It's sizziling on the platter, they place it on the table with a small plate on under one corner so it's raised presented to you and the meat juices collect in a handy pool. They serve two bits placed artfully on top of each other with a splash of meat juice and you're then left to eat it as you want.

I will say this is one of the best steaks I have ever eaten. Also for the small single steak it was pretty big. It was about the same size as a steak for two people I've had at London pretender Goodman's.

Each table also gets a boat of Peter Luger's own steak sauce. It's a ketchupy sauce with fresh horseradish. It goes very well with the steak and also my bacon starter.

Looking around the room the size of the steaks to be shared by two people are quite scary. The huge slabs of meat would easily feed six. A culture of doggy bags thankfully means many take about half of what they have ordered home with them.

The other diners in Peter Luger do not look like the heathlest of chaps. It was a bit of a culture shock walking in from off the hipster skinny jean wearing streets into a dining room full of elasticated waist bands. Cardiac medicine is not cheap when you don't have an NHS.

If you are planning to visit New York and would like to go to Peter Luger you'll need to book about a month in advance.

Hotel Delmano Williamsburg

2011-04-27T15:56:00.003+01:00

Hotel Delmano is not a hotel it's actually a cocktail bar. I'd actually say it's one of the best bars I've ever been to. It has the best decor I've seen in a bar. The huge antique mirrors which adorn the back of the bar show signs of age with rust stains coming through the glass. There are a load of antique rickety looking shelves which contain all the various booze bottles used to make up the drinks. To get to the higher shelves a library ladder is used.

If this bar was in London I don't think it would be as nice, as in London it would be full of pompous twats. In Williamsburg New York having an expensive cocktail is not just the preserve of the twat and quite a diverse mix of normals and hipsters can be found in the bar. That's what makes it good. You don't feel like you're out of your depth, you're made to feel welcome.

Hotel Delmano serves proper cocktails. Ones which are basically two types of neat alcohol with a drop or two of syrup and bitters. The ones that if you attempt to make at home you'll come out with perfumed nail polish. They also have a raw bar serving a variety of oysters and other cold seafood. One cool thing you can get on the menu is a tin of sardines with saltine crackers.

I went for the Williamsburg cocktail which is rye whisky based with sweet vermouth, sherry and orange bitters. Quite strong and grownup tasting. Though definitely drinkable. I also noticed that the glasses here are actually quite deceptively large. I saw the barman put at least four shots into the shaker while making and nothing was left over when poured.

Mathilde went for the hornets nest which was a rum based drink. Was very nice. Rum based cocktails are dangerously drinkable.

I also think Hotel Delmano has the greatest toilets of any bar. Look at them copper walls, antique fixtures great!

The Brooklyn Brewery

2011-04-25T22:46:00.000+01:00

The beer here in New York is exceptionally good. There has been a real resurgence in craft brewing in the U.S over the last 10 years. When I first visited New York two years ago I was expecting it to be all Budwieser and Coors. I was not expecting what I discovered. Most of the bars and restaurants offer a wide selection of U.S and European craft beers which are well kept and poured. They regrettably put British bars to shame. One of the main protagonists in the craft beer resurgence The Brooklyn Brewery is a short walk from where I am staying and yesterday I visited to go on the brewery tour.

In the UK you can only really get the standard Brooklyn lager but the brewery creates quite a large variety of beers. They do different I.P.A's, pilsners, ales stouts and seasonal brews. They've recently started doing premium beers which have extra yeast added when bottled so they age like wine. They cost about quite a lot for a bottle so I haven't tried one yet.

During the tour I did learn some interesting things but the way they make beer might not make CAMRA purists happy. Apparently most of there beers use hops which come in pellet form. A proper British beer maker would not consider using anything but real hops. Saying that I do find that British beers can taste like dish water and everything I've tasted from Brooklyn Brewery has been delicious.

Another cool fact I learnt on the tour is that the Brooklyn Brewery logo was created by Milton Glaser the same graphic designer who designed the iconic I love NY logo which appears on many T-shirts. When the Brooklyn Brewery guys were starting out they wanted a decent logo and considered Milton Glaser the best. They approached him with a small fraction of his normal fee. Fortunately Milton quite liked the idea of the brewery and offered to design the logo without taking any money. Instead he asked for free beer for the rest of his life. Apparently a legally binding contract which states this exists.

After the tour there's a massive beer hall where you can drink the beer. You get a load of normal non-hipster locals in there ordering take away pizza and playing board games on the large tables. I tried a Brooklyn Blast which is a double strength red beer. Imagine a high quality special brew. I was quite wobbly afterwards.

This is a bottle of Brooklyn's current seasonal brew the summer ale which I have been enjoying while writing this post.

The New York Eating Holiday Has Begun

2011-04-24T22:12:00.004+01:00

I'm In New York at the moment on my biannual eating holiday. New York does two things very well and that's food and drink. I'm staying in Williamsburg Brooklyn as it's a bit more laid back than Manhattan. I suppose it's the NYC version of Shoreditch/Brick Lane but with much better restaurants and bars.

One small thing which I absolutely love about New York restaurants which I think all restaurants the world over should do is provide complimentary water by default. After the waiter seats you and before you get the menu your given a glass (or an old jar is some cases) of water and normally an old wine bottle full of tap water to top up when needed. So no unnecessary ordering of soft drinks it's so very civilized.

Here's a jar of my complimentary water I had next to a jar of beer. I quite like this usage of old jars and bottles.

Bistrotheque

2011-04-18T18:09:00.002+01:00

I went to Bistrotheque in Bethnal Green for lunch at the weekend. An odd place that uses the arty Vyner Street location and the extreme cabaret it puts on to increase its trendyness. For that reason and its silly name I've alway been put off going there in the past even though it's only a short walk from my house.

Walking in to the place it's actually alright. A very functional space which has the same simple white walls and grey floors as the neighboring galleries and studios. They have a pianist on a baby grand in the centre of the restaurant and this afternoon he was playing musak versions of all of the songs on the Trainspotting soundtrack. As cool as arty places may think they are they always have a dodgy deluded taste in music.

Mathilde and I went for the £22 three course lunch menu which they have at the weekend. To start I went for the cured meat and beetroot coleslaw.

The meat was decent enough and just the right thickness.

Mathilde went for the Stichelton and chicory salad. She says the ingredients were nice enough but was bemused at the lack of a dressing.

For my main I went for the roast pork belly on caramelised chicory with jerusalem artichoke puree. It was pretty and the pork belly was excellently done. The caramelised chicory was especially nice.

Mathilde had fish and chips which was good enough but did seem to be an odd thing to find in a place like Bistrotehque which is aspiring towards fine dining. A pile of battered fish and fried chips didn't really look right opposite my intricately presented pork with well aimed jus puddles.

For dessert I had a lemon raspberry posset which was the highlight for me. Both creamy and fresh at the same time. One of the best desserts I've ever had. The freshly cooked shortbread biscuit was lovely

Mathilde had the crème brûlée which was very good she reports.

The food is good in Bistrotheque but it does feel a bit odd. The savoury meals on the menu are your typical ideas of posh food without any originality. The list of desserts however looks much more intriguing. The rhubarb and thyme crumble sounds like something to try if I ever go again.

As restaurants feeding on their art credentials via location go I'd say that Rochelle Canteen in the Arnold Circus Rochelle School studios which I ate at earlier this year does a much better job. The food there is far more honest while being interesting and original. Although you would expect it as it's part of the St John group. The atmosphere is also much freindlier and far less poncey.

Fennel and Celeriac Gratin

2011-04-16T18:14:00.001+01:00

Two of my favourite vegetables are fennel and celeraic. They've both got strong individual tastes, fennel a soothing liquorice flavour and celeriac a strong rooty taste. Both are fresh and clean tasting.

I brought three heads of fennel and a large celeriac the other week and wanted to cook them together. Looking around the internet the recipes I could find for a gratin suggested making a califlower cheese style floury sauce before baking. I didn't want to make a cheesy and stodgy sauce so came up with my own lighter and simpler recipe.

I chopped peeled and chopped the celeriac, chopped the fennel and par boiled them together for five minutes. Once drained I put them in a ovenproof dish. I poured a small pot of whipping cream over. This is a trick I learned from the Ottolenghi cookbook. They use unwhipped whipping cream in their bakes as it thickens while cooking and is lighter than single or double cream. I also put a small grating of cheddar amongst the dish.

I found a stale roll which I blended into breadcrumbs and added a load of parmesan to give it a zingy cheese kick. The breadcrumbs were spread on top and the dish went in the oven for forty minutes until the fennel and celeraic were cooked and the topping had browned.

It came out pretty good and I served it with steamed kale.

My plan had succeeded and I've come up with a decent recipe for a celeraic and fennel gratin. As they are clean tasting the cream and cheese didn't feel heavy. If I make it again I will do individual portions in smaller oven dishes as I found it's best to have a bit of the topping in each mouthful with the veg.

Baked Feta and Frozen Peas = Posh Cheesy Peas!

2011-04-10T17:27:00.006+01:00

Feta is one of those food items which ten years ago was quite aspirational and sold as a luxury ponciefied item. It's now so commonly used that it's available in a value version in most supermarkets. I often buy the small supermarket slabs of cheap feta without thinking about how I will use them. After a few days in the fridge I'll normally end up making this Nigel Slater recipe I originally found by in an old paper.

I like Nigel Slater's recipes. I will admit he comes across a bit odd on the TV. His passion for food makes him seem a bit pushy rather than encouraging at times but if you can get past that he is probably the best food broadcaster and writer in the country. He makes food on his programs and in his recipe books which can be made by most people in their kitchens relativly easily while still teaching them about new flavours and ingredients. Too many cooking programs and cookbooks are made by catering industry insiders making food based on the restaurant model.

The first thing I do is make a packet for the feta out of baking foil. I then put a load of olive oil, dried mint, dried oregano and dried basil in the packet with the feta. I make sure I put some underneath and on top. You can also use fresh mint if you have it as well as the dried. I wouldn't use fresh oregano or basil though as they wilt and wont give off much flavour.

The packet is scrunched together to make a seal and put in the oven for about 25 mins.

I normally use frozen peas whenever I cook peas. I find fresh peas are an inferior product which have lost their flavour by the time they have made the journey from field to shop. Frozen peas are frozen seconds after they are picked. The harvesting machines freeze them as they pick them from the fields. They have infinitely more flavour than fresh peas because of this.

I put the peas in a saucepan with water and warm them for the shortest time possible. I get them to the temperature I want them and then drain. Any extra cooking just removes their flavour. You should never put them on to boil as they will taste of nothing. Same rules apply to frozen sweetcorn.

Once the feta's been baked I take the foil packet out of the oven, try my best to empty the contents into a bowl without making a mess, add the peas and stir a bit. This posh cheesy pea concoction can now be served as a side or a warm alternative to houmous or tzatziki.

Shooters Sandwich

2011-04-10T16:36:00.001+01:00

Fran made this great sandwich during the week and I had to put it up on here to repay the effort.

The Shooter's Sandwich was made by cooking up a decent steak, some bacon and some mushroom. A crusty loaf of bread was hollowed out and the ingredients stuffed inside while still hot. The bread was then capped and wrapped in grease proof paper and then foil. A very heavy weight was put on top of the sandwich and left overnight.

The next day the compacted sandwich was unwrapped, sliced and served with some great piccalilli from the Albion.

All the parts and flavours were squashed together to perfection. It was very pretty and tasty. The closest a savory meat sandwich has got to a slice of elegant cake. A good replacement for the pastries you get at high tea.

Aeropress Coffee

2011-04-07T17:16:00.000+01:00

My housemate Catherine got me an Aeropress coffee maker last Christmas. I've been intrigued about this device since hearing about so it was good to get one for myself. I use it almost every day to make myself pretty decent coffee.

The Aeropress works simply by pushing hot water through coffee grounds. The air vacuum in the plastic tube pushes the water a bit like a giant coffee syringe. You put a filter in, a scoop of coffee, hot water and then push it down over a cup.

Two things about the Aeropress make it great. The first is that it is really easy to use and clean so I'm able to use it when I'm rushing to leave the house for work in the morning. The second is that the coffee you get from it is really good. It's arguably the best way to make coffee at home without an expensive top end espresso machine which would cost a few hundred pounds and require a good thorough dismantle and clean after every use.

The thing I notice most about the coffee from the Aeropress is how smooth it is. When you use it you measure the amount of water you need for the amount of coffee your putting in. If you want more water in your coffee you add it to the cup not the press. Apparently the more water going through the coffee grounds the more bitter it is. Because your controlling the amount of water you don't get bitter coffee. The other non bitter flavours in the coffee are much stronger than when using other non espresso methods such as a cafetiere or a mocha,

Obviously you only get pure black coffee out of the Aeropress. There is no crema as you would get with an espresso machine and no frothy milk to make lattes etc unless you own seperate aparatus. That in some ways is a good thing as it forces you to drink grown up proper coffee and not Starbucksesque coffee milkshakes. Infact I would say the quality of Aeropress coffee is better than your bog standard Starbucks or Pret coffee although it's no where near as good as what you get from decent baristas.

It's best to use a coffee grind which is somewhere between fine espresso grind and rough caferetie grind. Luckily most store bought ground coffee for all coffee makers tends to be this jack of all trades grind.

Now coffee people are a bit silly and they like to have silly competitions to show off how good they are. I discovered that they actually have World Aeropress championships where baristas battle it out to show who can make the best cup using the Aeropress.

When I've got time in the morning which is normally at weekends I have a go at the world championship winning Aeropress method. Which does actually give a better brew. Although I'm not actually sure if I've just convinced myself it's better.

The first step in world champ method is putting a blind press through the Aeropress of just boiling water. This is to heat the apparatus up and also to rinse any paper taste out of the filter. The Aeropress is then turned upside down, the coffee added. The water needs to be at 75 to 80 degrees before also being added. That gets stirred, the cap with filter put on and the press is turned upside down and pushed gently. You must stop pushing the press as soon as it begins to make the fizzing noise. Your World Championship method Aeropress espresso is now ready to drink.

Weirdly enoght the aeropress is made by Aerobie the company that made all those expensive frisbees in the 80's.

Next Christmas I'll have one of these: http://www.creamsupplies.co.uk/aeropress-brewstation-1-cup/prod_1846.html

Now who's jealous of my whippet cup?

Posh Macaroons

2011-04-05T21:51:00.001+01:00

Macaroons are getting a lot of attention at the moment they are posher that poshway. I used to think a macaroon was a tough chewy coconut biscuit with some rice paper stuck to the bottom then about a year ago everyone started going crazy for the posh macaroon. I think it had something to do with the Paul chain of French patisseries opening up. The posh macaroon has replaced the cupcake as the desriable special sweet thing. Cupcakes are everywhere and easy to buy quality examples of in any half decent supermarket. The macaroon however appears to show real effort. The macaroon tells people you've travelled to central London to a posh shop like Laudree or Fortnum & Mason and paid hand over fist for two chews of something delicate and beautiful.

I'm always told how the skill in baking justifies the high price an how they are oh so difficult to make yourself. I decided to make my own to see just how difficult or easy macaroons can be.

A macaroon essentially is two almond meringues with some buttercream in the middle. They do come in all flavours and colours and sometimes the almonds can be substitued with pistachios and the buttercream with whatever you like. I decided to make pure and simple almond macaroons with no other flavourings or colourings apart from sugar. I had scout around the internet for recipies and found an amalgamation of two to be the best. They are this one from Timeout where they're allowed into one of Paul's kitchens and this recipe from the BBC.

Here's the meringue of ground almond, icing sugar and egg whites. I followed what one recipe suggested and sat the egg whites for a day in the fridge before whisking.

Next time I attempt this I'm going to use a piping bag. I used a sandwich bag with the corner cut off and my meringues were not perfect circles and were quite large.

In the oven they rose perfectly. It's quite tricky to get them off the grease proof paper.

And here they are. I made a really basic buttercream using butter, granulated sugar and ground almond. As I said before as it was my first time making them I wanted the basic almond flavour.

In the end I would say that they are not too difficult to make. Like all baking you follow a methodical process which actually doesn't have too much room for error as long as you stick to the ratios and timings. I definitely need to invest in a piping bag after getting in a mess shaping the wet discs.

Rice Cook It Properly with Steam

2011-04-03T14:58:00.006+01:00

Over the last decade I have come to a realisation that the majority of people in this country do not know how to cook rice. Most people cook it as if it is pasta. They chuck it in boiling water, leave it bouncing around for 20 minutes and then drain. Some poor fools even pour a kettle of boiling water on as they drain in a futile attempt to rinse off the gunk which has formed from the woefully incorrect cooking technique. Boiling rice like pasta does not bring out the quality and greatness of one the worlds finest staple cooking ingredients. Your pastafied rice will lack flavour and texture. It will be waterlogged and glued together like wallpaper paste. In this post I will explain how rice can be cooked with a basic saucepan and hob to bring out its true taste and quality.

I like the majority of people on this planet believe steaming is the best way to cook rice. When you steam rice you only put in the amount of water the rice needs. When the rice has cooked there will be no need to drain as the rice will have absorbed all of the water. It is a more gentle way to cook rice than boiling that retains the delicacy of flavour and the texture of each grain.

Now you can get many different types of rice all in different colours and flavours. In the photos I have cooked white Basmati rice. This is my preferred white rice for general use with Indian, Jamacian and Chinese food. Any long grain white rice will cook with the method below.

The correct measurement of water needed when steaming rice is two parts water to one part rice. A simple trick I learnt from a friend is that an espresso cup is enough rice for one person. You can then use two espresso cups to have the correct amount of water.

I do not wash or soak basmati rice. washing or soaking white rice removes the nutrients and more importantly the flavour. This is also what Delia believes and her word is food gospel. The rice is already washed during the milling process. However there are some varieties of glutenous rice which require soaking for 24 hours before steaming but that's for another post.

A wide saucepan with a lid is essential. I am lucky to have glass lidded pans which allows me to see exactly what is happeneing inside. You want the water to be about a centimetre above the rice so the more rice you make the wider the pan you need.

I have an unresponsive electric hob so I need to use two hobs to cook the rice on. Before I put the pan on I set one hob to the highest possible heat and one hob to the lowest possible heat. If you've got lovely gas hobs you won't need to swap.

Now once the water and rice are in the pan and before you've put it on the heat you've got to make a commitment. "I will not open the lid until it's ready!" Opening will lose valuable steam and don't even think of stirring, that's what makes rice wallpaper paste. You must trust the rice and the water to do their magic without you interfering.

Now to begin. First the pan goes onto the hob which is on the highest heat. The water is allowed to boil. Once the boil gets to it's peak the pan needs to be moved to the hob on the lowest heat. (if you've got responsive gas just turn the heat to low). I wait until the foamy bubbles get all the way to the top of the pan and make the pan jangle from the force of the steam escaping. Once I get my jangle I move the pan to the lowest hob.

Once it's on low heat it becomes a waiting game. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to cook so leave for 15 minutes before opening the lid. Only two things can go wrong. Too much water or not enough water. If the rice is uncooked after 15 mins it needs more water so just put a splash in and carry on steaming. If you've got too much water and the rice is cooked remove the pan from the heat and swap the lid for a tea towel. The excess moisture should go into the towel. If you've used the espresso cup trick you should not have either of these issues.

Once ready I always like to give the rice a good fork to fluff up before serving. If your hobs been too hot you may find a layer of hard overcooked rice on the bottom of the pan. Try not to scoop it up while serving.

Once you steam rice a few times and get the hang of it you will not have to measure the rice to water ratios as they will become second nature. You may find different vareties of rice need different amounts of water. I myself have leant that all rices can be steamed including brown, red and wild. They have different cooking times and require different amounts of water but I've learnt what to look for when cooking and can work out what they need. Please if cooking rice in the future abandon the pasta wallpaper paste method and steam rice to bring out its beautiful fragrant flavour and to keep its delicate texture intact.

I would also recommend you read Delia's guide to cooking rice as well as mine for more professional explanation and slightly different method. It's got a good bit about stirring anxiety:

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/rice-and-pasta/how-to-cook-perfect-rice.html

Pond Pudding

2011-03-29T20:46:00.002+01:00

I saw the pond pudding made by Sophie Grigson on Raymond Blanc's program a few weeks ago and since then I've been wanting to make my own. I'm not used to making desserts so rarely do but this one intrigued me because of its simplicity and cleverness. It is essentially the same as a steak and kidney pudding but instead of meat and offal it has a load of brown sugar, butter and some lemons inside it. The idea is that while it slowly steams for several hours the butter and sugar turn into a caramel which candies the lemon and the flavour and fragrance of the lemon infuse and flavour the pudding.

To make the pudding you need to have a decent sized pudding bowl and a pot big enough to fit the bowl in with the lid on. You also need to have some suet, self raising flour, milk, a load of butter, a load of light brown sugar and one large or two small unwaxed lemons. Some foil and string are also needed to tie the thing together.

I started by making some simple suet pastry by mixing 120g suet, 250g self raising flour and some milk. I used vegetarian suet as a vegetarian would eat some but the proper chefs say you should use beef suet. Once ready the pastry lined the pudding bowl which I had already greased with butter. I also made a disc of pastry for the lid which goes on later.

To make the filling I loosly mixed 200g of light brown sugar with 250g of butter. To give you an understanding of how good the pudding is for you 250g of butter is one whole packet of butter from the supermarket. The butter and sugar went into the pudding bowl. Two small lemons were pricked all over and then put on top of the butter and sugar.

The pastry lid then went on top.

The most difficult part for me was tying the foil onto the bowl. You have to put a lid of foil on top and tie it securley so no water gets into the pudding while cooking. I didn't have any string so had to go out to the local hardware shop to get some after failing to get a tight enough seal with ribbon or picture wire. I am rubbish at tying knots so got someone else to do the tying for me. I also got them to make a handle for me which is important so you can lift the pudding out of the water later without burning yourself.

When the pudding was all sealed and tied up it was lowered into a large pan of boiling water which was filled to half way. A lid was put onto the pan. The pudding was then cooked for four hours. You need to check occasionally that the water level stays the same and top up if nessesary. It should be kept at a gentle boil for the duration of cooking.

After the four hours was up I lifted to pudding out of the water, removed the string and foil and turned the pudding out onto a plate. As you can see from the photos the reason it's called Pond Pudding is because of the pond of juices that seep out of the bottom of the pudding.

The pudding was cut up and served with a little bit of double cream which is needed to dampen the sweetness. I made sure everyone got a bit of lemon which had candied on the outside and was surprisingly eatable.

The pudding was proper stodgy. I believe it was puddings made from suet pastry that the term stodge was invented for. The flavour the lemon gives to this dish cuts through a lot of the sweet stodgyness to make the consumption of such a rich sickly sweet dessert extremely enjoyable. It's not as sharp and citrusy as I imagined it would be as a lot of the flavour comes from the rind of the lemon rather that the flesh so the sauce is bit like a lemon marmalade.

Mason and Taylor

2011-03-26T23:39:00.010Z

I never got around to eating at Green and Reds before it unexpectedly closed down. Its empty premises at the Shoreditch end of Bethnal Green Road opposite the top of Brick Lane has now been filled by an interesting new place which I visited today called Mason and Taylor. It's apparently run by the people behind The Duke of Wellington which is a nice pub off Balls Pond Road.

Mason and Taylor is a craft beer bar which serves british food. The bar is in part of the same new build urban regeneration block as the Rich Mix cinema which of could seemed a bit Pizza Express but they've done well to give it a industrial brewery chic look by using a lot of concrete and a few old school chairs.

I've got to say the beer menu is the best I've seen in this country. Unlike other places which stock a vareity of dishwater flavoured stale ales or are obsessed with Belgium clones Mason and Taylor have a menu of different styles and flavours of beer on draft and in bottles from the UK, Europe and the US. They also stock well sourced ciders, sprits etc etc. I went for a pint of Camden brewery porter (they had two porters on tap!) and Mathilde went for a Brooklyn lager which was also draught and I would go as far as saying it's arguably the best pint of lager you can get in London at the moment. American lager actually tastes of something and in Brooklyn Lager you can taste the fragrant hops and the caramel of the malt.

As they serve so many different beers if you do want to try a load without getting wasted Mason and Taylor serve 1/3 pint glasses in nifty little wooden triangles.

The food in Mason and Taylor is British dishes which are in fashion now but they serve them in a meze or dimsum way. All the meals on the menu are small little plates which your suggested to order three or four of to get a proper meal. The dishes are £3 if from the starter/side bit or around £6 if from the mains bit which is actually not too bad compared to multiple small dish chains like Ping Pong and Wahacca. I went for the woodpigeon breast and some new potatoes. Mathilde went for the oysters and the smoked salmon on toast. We were only having small meals as I had a pond pudding slowly steaming at home.

My pigeon dish did look funnily like some kind of miniaturized meal with a tiny but perfectly cooked breast and two tablespoons of mash, one celeriac and one mustard. It was very good, surprisingly so for the price. Mathilde's oysters and salmon also looked pretty good although I didn't taste any. My new potatoes oddly enough weren't a miniature portion like the rest of the dishes but I'm not going to complain about getting too much food.

One thing about the place which did bug me is that it doesn't feel as if it's found it's identity. The service was great and you get proper table service however a lot of customers were just going to the bar and ordering like a normal pub. While we were eating a large group of men came in and stood by the bar and because of it's proximity were also drifting around the diners while chatting. It seems some customers think the place is a pub and some think it's a restaurant. It may be able to be both but Mason and Taylor need to sort out their table arrangement or something as it a bit confusing. I will however say the music played over the system was actually quite good, non offensive but still interesting. So many placed in Shoreditch completely get this aspect wrong.

UPDATE MAY 2011:

I've been back to Mason and Taylor and it's got worse. The quality of the food has fallen. The small plates on the menu don't really complement each other so it's very difficult to have a decent meal. I was given a measly, tiny and quite poor tasting toad in the hole with a giant bowl of jerusalem artichokes. Jerusalem artichokes should never be served in this quantity as they are now doing somersaults in my guts.

The service system has now gone completely mental. No one in the place knows if they are having table service or if they should go to the bar. Most customers after waiting for any kind of acknowledgement from the staff end up going up to the bar to order drinks. The people that do want food as no staff approach and ask just grab a menu from the side themselves and then are surprised when a waiter appears within 5 minutes asking for an order.

Mason and Taylor here's some advice: You need to clarify what you are. If you are going to have table service you must table serve everyone. As soon as anyone comes into the premises all it takes is a member of staff to ask if they are eating or only want drinks. They then seat them appropriately, give them the relevant menus and go back to take the order etc, etc. It's the initial greeting and seating on the customers entry which is important. this is where you set the parameters for the customer to exist in while they are in your premises. At the moment it's a chaotic free for all. Please if you change this let me know I'll return. I want to like your bar so please sort it out?

Been Watching

2011-03-21T19:20:00.004Z

The food based programme I am most enjoying at the moment is Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets. Raymond is absolutely bonkers which is a good contrast against the haute cuisine style of food he makes. He spends most of the programme shouting "Adam!" repeatedly to his poor sous chef and playing silly games like a drunk uncle.I had a go at the moules marinières which were made on the seafood episode but a lot of the other things are quite difficult to make at home. For example it's quite good to see how to make cured duck ham but I doubt I'll ever find room in my fridge to hang the duck breast for 12 days.

Truffles

2011-03-20T13:22:00.005Z

Well what better or more pompous food stuff could I start the relaunch of this blog with other than truffles?

I was bought a bottle of truffle oil by some of my friends this Christmas and I have been enjoying a splash of this interesting new flavour on scrambled eggs and risotto. Recently while mentioning the truffle oil to another friend, Jake, it turned out coincidentally that Jake had just returned from living in the south of France with a number of black truffles he needed to use before they went off. Just yesterday I was treated to a lunch at Jake's house which incorporated both truffles and truffle oil.

This is the truffle we ate, it is a melanosporum truffle also known as a black diamond. These are supposed to be the best truffles available which grow around the roots of oak trees around southern France and Italy. Jake obtained this truffle by going to the truffle market in Richerenches. Jake's family have a farm in the Rhone-Alps region so luckily he can speak French and has he has lived locally for the last year he has some knowledge of truffle market etiquette . Apparently the overpriced posh stalls are to be avoided and shady deals round back alleys will get you the best truffle for your money.

Now the flavour of truffle is very interesting, complex and quite hard to describe. Truffles are fungi so are closely related to mushrooms. I would say that one part of the taste of truffles is similar to the dark earthy flavour you get in mushrooms but much deeper yet also cleaner. I also think they taste a bit like the way petrol smells but without any of the toxicity. They are musty but in a good way.

I also discovered after eating fresh truffle for the first time that there is a lot of difference between eating the truffle and using truffle infused olive oil. Truffle oil actually has much more of a heady musty truffle flavour than the actual truffles.

Jake prepared two courses for lunch the first was a celeriac salad with a dressing made from truffle oil. In this dish the dark oily must of the truffle oil worked well with the clean fresh flavoured celeriac.

The second dish was a cod and potato hash with a huge amount of fresh black truffle grated on top. even though we ere eating much more truffle in this dish the flavour was far more delicate than the oil. Using truffle oil it is possible to completely over power the dish using the actual truffles however you get a much more subtle delicate flavour which adds a different dimension of taste. In a way truffle adds interest to flavours. The meals which benifit the most from the addition of truffles are omelettes, creamy pasta, creamy potato and light risotto dishes. A grating of truffle to these kind of foods enhances and completes them. Truffles in a way are the contained essence of dark heady, oily roast meats and stews.

As a surprise at the end of the meal Jake pulled out a bottle of truffle aperitif which is one of the souvenoirs you can pick up at french truffle markets. It actually tasted quite good. It had the flavour of truffle mixed with a sweet white dessert wine. Quite odd to get you flavour head round though. It did go well with the excellent pavlova which Sarah made to finish the lunch. The pavlova was a great light finish to the truffle experience.

Canapés at Christmas

2011-02-13T19:22:00.004Z

Bags of Flavour has been out of action for some time... but plenty of food has been made and consumed. Hopefully some of it will start making it's way back on here again. To kick things off here are the canapés that we served at our Christmas party. I had absolutely no hand in preparing these but I did eat some of them...

Mini steak tartare with quails eggs, pigs in blankets, toad in the hole, curry puffs and smoked salmon blinis. I only ate the blinis as I am now eating fish but not meat. They all went down pretty well!

Bacon in a Can

2010-02-16T10:15:00.002Z

From BoingBoing

Cooking with Christopher Walken

2009-10-27T09:25:00.001Z

Found via Web Zen

Random Recipe Generator

2009-10-27T09:24:00.003Z

http://jamesoff.net/site/fun/random-recipe-generator/

Found via Web Zen

Butane Tagine

2009-09-25T16:25:00.004+01:00

As the rest of the crew at Bags of Flavour would unhestiatingly agree, al fresco dining sits at the apex of summer treats. As such, it is important to find new ways of eating in the sun as the BBQ, whilst never failing to tick every possible box, cannot be the only way of cooking and eating outside.

I recently moved house and Jennie's mum bought me a butane gas stove as a housewarming present. Wow, what a present! We recently bought Steve (ourmaninegypt) a tagine for his birthday. An unlikely combination for outside cooking but god damn were the results spectacular.

So the story goes that one sunnny Saturday at the start of September, we decided to cook in the garden with the stove and the tagine. Steve prepared the food, which was Moroccan lamb (actually it was beef but dont tell anyone) with spices, aubergines, tomatoes and apricots. We covered it up and left it to simmer on a low heat for about four hours, checking it regularly. Just before serving it up, we put a generous handful of fresh coriander in.

Naturally, Alex turned up just as we were serving and we obligingly offered him some of the food, which was delicious. The meat fell apart perfectly, the apricot had gone sickly gewy and the aubergine had made the sauce thick, rich and tasty. I could not find a single fault with the food.

The drawback was that the tagine only feeds four people. Outdoor eating should involve more people so I would suggest purchasing the largest tagine available.

Big Egg

2009-09-24T11:13:00.001+01:00

found via swiss miss

No Tears In The Rain

2009-09-21T19:03:00.003+01:00

We'll it was going to happen once. We've managed to have quite a few barbecues this summer without being caught in the rain. Even though it's early September it was still hot enough Saturday to have one last barbecue for Mathilde's Birthday party. I lit the coals and when the flames died down and the glowing embers appeared eager to cook meat the rain started to fall.

Now most people would call it a day, go inside and put the food in the oven. Here at Bags of Flavour however we understand truly the importance of charcoal on the taste of the food and a canopy was constructed, a great canopy so that we could barbecue and eat outside without the rain bothering us.

My friend Jennie must take credit for not only suggesting the idea but also leading the gang with impetuous to construct the structure. Mike had two trips to the shops for gaffer tape and dust sheets and whole packs of recycling bags and black sacks were used.

We did have a bit of a problem with smoke build up from the barbecue but after a few careful cuts a convection current was created so we could breathe.

The food was cooked to decency. Here's a selection of it. Sardines burgers and lamb chops.

Here's a picture of the canopy from the roof. Looks a bit like a shanty town from above.

When in got dark the rain got a lot heavier. We did manage to sit for a while but eventually the plastic bags gave way.

RIP Keith Floyd

2009-09-15T11:14:00.005+01:00

Always remember watching Floyd on the TV when I was little, here he is making 'The Best Fish Stew in the world'

If anybody embodies the Bags-Of-Flavour attitude to cooking, eating, drinking and enjoying life it was Keith.

And here is the brilliant theme music to his TV shows, Waltz in Black by The Stranglers, of whom he was a big fan:

Sorry about the scary clowns in that last video...

Nando's Skank

2009-09-10T17:28:00.008+01:00

New London sound 'UK Funky' exploded this Summer, the majority of it's producers used to make Grime until they decided it was less about the merking and more about the dancing so invented this fun new music. We all know how much Grime MC's love chicken so it's no surprise to find a tune in this new genre dedicated to the same thing.

Don't let this put you off this music by the way, it's great:

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=201391

Been Watching

2009-09-09T19:56:00.006+01:00

I never actually liked reggae reggae sauce. I thought it tasted weird and was essentially a spicy tomato ketchup. I much prefer this stuff. Levi Roots performance on the Dragons Den was also strange because I kinda felt that he was belittling himself a bit and playing up to the cameras. I have however been enjoying his current TV show Caribbean Food Made Easy.

The show covers the staples of Caribbean cooking by visiting parts of the Caribbean and the UK. When Levi cooks to show us how to make the food the emphasis is on getting things to feel right when cooking and this includes all elements ingredients and atmosphere. Levi's real personality shines through and he's a great ambassador for Caribbean food.

The sunshine kit which I did find tacky at first is a great gimmick. A collection of spices, herbs and ingredients with which you should be able to make anything have a Caribbean flavour. That's when you realise what's so great about Caribbean food. It's mixture of good well cooked meat which treats and respects the natural meatyness in a way the nose to tail crew would agree with. The meat goes with the freshest vegetables, fruit and squashes and the flavours are elevated with traditional things like thyme and garlic and also exotic spices including pimento and ginger and then everything is brought to life with intense heat (and flavour) from the brilliantly delicious scotch bonnet pepper. Dare I say it's kind of achieved what all those fusion idiots tried in the nineties.

The first episodes lamb with dragon stout gravy plays on mind in times of hunger and now I know how to cook a yam properly. I'd like Levi to show us how to rehydrate those funny dried salt fish next.

Tomato Tarte Tatin

2009-09-01T16:06:00.005+01:00

The Tomato Tarte Tatin is something that is beautiful, ugly and impressive all at the same time. It's a pretty but sloppy mess with a damn fine combination of flavours. I came up with my recipe from cobbling together odd bits I'd seen on the internet like this awful youtube video was one on the sources I used along with some proper bits in 90's cook books. I think Gary Rhodes made one once. Whatever the reason the tomato tarte tatin is something I like to fix up on slow afternoon to cut through the dullness and bring a sense of absurd wonder back into the world.

To start you need to make sure you've got a frying pan that can go in the oven. You cannot make the tarte tatin without one of these.

You need a load of tomatoes at least 12+ good sized ones. They should be of reasonable quality, nice and red but I've made it with skanky value ones before. Cut the tomatoes in half, brush with olive oil, season and sprinkle with rosemary. The tomatoes need to be roasted in a hot oven on a raised roasting rack so they are not touching the bottom of the roasting dish. The aim here is to cook them into beautiful roastedness flavour while also drying them. place the tomatoes so the cut side is facing up as that needs to get a bit crispy.

How long the tomatoes take is up to you and the amount of time you have. It's this part of the cooking that determines the sloppyness of the finished meal. You can roast them on a high heat quickly for 40mins but they wont lose much water and will make the tarte sloppy. If you've got more time do them at 150c for at least 2 hours or even longer if you've got the patience. You can also peel the tomatoes before roasting but I've done this with or without peeling and it doesn't really make much difference.

While the tomatoes are roasting slice up 3 large red onions, put in a pan with a bit of olive oil and sweat them down gently. You want the onions real soft and looking a bit grey.

Once the tomato and onions are done it's time to build the tarte tatin. Normal tarte tatin with apples have a caramel syrup that wouldn't really work on a savoury dish. The tomato tarte tatin has a balsamic glaze. Put your oven ok frying pan on a high heat on the hob. Put a good dash of balsamic vinegar onto the pan. The aim here is to reduce the balsamic to a less vinegary thicker and sweeter substance. I normally put a spoonful of brown cane sugar in the pan to help it along. You really don't want it to be too vinegary or it can ruin the dish so taste it as it reduces to check the flavour. Be careful not to burn yourself. Once you've got a decent glaze syrup (you don't need much) take the pan off the heat and begin to build.

The tomatoes go flat side down onto the pan. Start in the middle and work outwards so you have an even and tight spread of tomatoes.

Next spoon the red onions on. Try to get these even again working from the middle outwards.

I crumble a block of feta and sprinkle that on next. You don't have to use the highest quality a cheap kind will do.

A layer of puff pastry comes next. Roll the pastry out and place on top of the pan. Cut off the excess pastry and push the rest into the pan so that the pastry has a tight seal on the innards.

The pan then goes in the oven at a high heat until the puff pastry has cooked.

Next comes the exciting bit turning the tarte upside down. Before we start please take care not to burn yourself with the molten balsamic glaze or brand yourself with the metal handle on your skillet/frying pan. Cover your hands with oven gloves and tea clothes so you don't get burnt.

Put a plate over the top of the pan so that it's covering the whole of the pan. You may want to experiment with different plates until you find one that you feel comfortable with turning. When your ready it takes one quick simple motion to turn the dish upside down with the plate held closely against it. Every time I've ever done it as soon as I move the upturned skillet away from the plate the tarte tatin has settled onto the plate below ready to serve.

Let the tarte cool a bit before serving. It actually tastes better at room temperature than as a hot dish. It's a decent beauty of a thing if you get it right. The tangy sweetness of the tomatoes and vinegar smudge into the salty mellowness of the feta and puff pastry.

Scones they're not that hard

2009-08-25T18:41:00.004+01:00

I went a bit scone mad at the weekend. I had a craving for some warm mellow stodgyness and decided to learn how to make scones myself. I discovered that it's incredibly easy to do, much easier than making bread or pastry.

I had a look in the old dusty Delia book and also found this recipe on the BBC website. I'm not going to bother putting the full quantities and method up here so check the link for guidelines if you want to make them. I'm not a fan of long drawn out methodical recipes. That's not how I roll.

A scone essentially is butter, self raising flour, caster sugar and milk. The butter is rubbed into the flour until it looks breadcrumby then the sugar is mixed in. I also added some sultanas, salt and a teaspoon of baking powder to help the raising. Milk is added a bit at a time while mixing it in with a knife or spoon then you can then get your hands in there and give it all a good mix.

The scone mixture should be quite soft and wetter than bread dough. Have a look at this Youtube video to get an idea for the consistency but don't pay too much attention to the recipe and the cooking method as the scones the lady makes look a bit giant and gruesome. I prefer my scones a bit smaller.

Once you've got your dough it has to be cut into scones. This part of the process can affect how the scones rise. The video shows a good way to form the dough and cut the scones out. You do not want to roll the mixture it's better to form the dough with your hands before cutting. Make sure you don't push it flatter than 1 inch. To cut use a pastry cutter and push straight down with one movement. Don't twist because if you do the scones will rise with a kink. However as you're making them yourself you are bound to knock and twist them accidentally as you push them out of the cutter and it's these happy accidents that will make them rise to look all pretty and homemade.

They don't take long to cook about 10-15 minutes in a hot oven. Put them on a cooling rack but eat them as soon as they are hot enough to touch as it was while at this stage I had my scone epiphany.

When you buy scones from the shop not only are they expensive they also have to be heated to get the desired butter melting heat. You can either toast your store bought scones of stick them in the oven. Either way you are going to dry your scones out and they've already sat in a shop for a few days. When you bake your own scones however you can eat the fresh from the oven. This means their own heat melts the butter into them. They are fresh and delicious, stodgy and light all at the same time.

I had these with some cream and damson jam.

As one batch was not enough to satiate my scone fever so I made some more but this time without sugar or sultanas but with cheddar cheese.

These went perfect with my signature breakfast dish: creamy and decent scrambled eggs. That reminds me actually I better post them up soon as there's too many people in this world eating badly made scrambled eggs.

Punk Donuts and Meerkat Pie

2009-08-23T08:49:00.004+01:00

My friend Ben travelled up this week and made some donuts for his girlfriend Ella's birthday. He made the dough and fried the donuts at the restaurant he works in and made four different fillings for them: creme anglais (posh word for custard), jam, chocolate custard and lemon curd. Ben didn't have time unfortunately to put the filling in to the donuts and that's where the punk bit comes in.

On a busy commuter train Ben managed to get a seat on one of those tables they have. He was sharing the table with three other passengers but that didn't stopping him covering the table with twenty or so donuts, four tubs of fillings, piping bags and all the other bits you need to fill donuts. His fellow passengers didn't seem to mind as they were bewildered and transfixed by the donut assemblage. Ben's biggest worry was that the train staff would kick him for making such a mess with cream, jam, greasy sugar and donut crumbs.

Ben done a brilliant job of getting the fillings into the donuts and I've never eaten donuts which such a volume of filling. The custard and chocolate custard were my favourites and Ben managed to get enough custard in that it burst and squirted out on your first bite.

I made a meerkat pie to eat before we had the donuts. It didn't actually have meerkat in it. It was the same vegetarian filling as this one. I just made the pastry look like some meerkats.

Making My Own Houmous

2009-08-22T11:47:00.000+01:00

I eat a lot of houmous these days and I think generally everybody does. You probably don't even realise how much you eat. It's a multi-purpose food stuff that can be used as a condiment or as a small meal on it's own with some suitable bread. You could easily whack some in a burger or sandwich or have it on the side of your plate with some posh olives and meat.

It's also suppose to be healthy. It's suppose to be something good you can eat loads of and not feel guilty. You can actually be a bit of a prick about it and gloat over people who snack on bacon sandwiches and sausage rolls while you stick to you houmous and pitta. The bottom line is it tastes good and you can eat loads of it without feeling sick and it tastes goes with a lot of other flavours easily.

I've been eating so much of it for so long now I thought it time to make it myself and it's actually really easy to make.

Houmous is made from chickpeas blended with tahini (sesame seed pulp) which is then flavoured with garlic and lemon juice.

I decided to choose dried chickpeas and cook them myself instead of using tinned ones. You have to soak them overnight before you cook them. I took this picture to illustrate why as they need to swell up with the water before they can be cooked. For the same price as a tin of ready cooked chickpeas you can by a bag of dried ones which will make as much as ten cans when cooked. They do take a bit of time to cooked. They have to go in a pan with plenty of water and need to be boiled rapidly first for ten minutes and then need boiling gently for about two hours until they are nice and soft . Make sure the pan does not boil dry or you will burn the chickpeas. Once cooked they need to be cooled before they can transcend into houmous.

I used a blender to process the chickpeas which wasn't ideal. Everything got caked round the edges and I had to scrape the houmous out with spoons after. When it was going a bit cloggy a added olive oil to grease it up. If you've got on of those magimix things it's going to be a lot easier to make.

I've made this a few times and I think a good ratio of houmous to tahini is when just under a third is tahini but your going to want to experiment and taste as you blend them together. I try to get the tahini/ chickpea mix right before adding anything else. Tahini can taste a bit foul and bitter on it's own but if the houmous doesn't have enough it doesn't really have any depth of flavour. I add a load of decent olive oil, three good size crushed garlic cloves and the juice of a medium sized lemon and then it's done.

The first thing I noticed about home made houmous is the consistency. It much chunkier and drier than store bought stuff. I'm sure they bulk it out with water to to make it go further. The second thing I noticed is that homemade houmous tastes much better. Most bought houmous uses powdered garlic instead of real garlic and citric acid instead of lemon juice where my homemade uses real ingredients and is proper lush.

Better BBQing through Chemistry

2009-08-21T09:36:00.007+01:00

We love barbeque's here at Bags Of Flavour as older posts will attest, here are some tips via the world of science to improve your grilling technique.

"Unfortunately, if you ask the [food] safety people they'll tell you to cremate everything," said Shirley Corriher, a food chemist and cookbook author from Atlanta. Meats should be cooked long enough to kill bacteria, she noted, but they don't need to be cooked beyond medium to be truly safe. For one thing, carcinogenic chemicals called heterocyclic amines form when creatine -- a substance found in muscle tissue -- reacts at high temperatures with amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The amount of HCAs formed in grilled meats typically triples if meats are cooked well done rather than medium well, she noted.

As someone who likes his steak and lamb chops pink and juicy and not grey and over done I'm stuck with the food safety killjoys on one side and cancer on the other :-(

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46562/title/Better_BBQ_through_chemistry

Thailand: Western Food

2009-08-13T22:33:00.005+01:00

One of the best things about going abroad is the weird appropriations of western food. Some may wish they didn't pander to the squeamish traveller unwilling to try foreign things. I however enjoy the surreal take on European favourites.

I've never eaten schnitzel as sanctioned by a proper German person or establishment. I have however eaten schnitzel in Thailand and I loved it. Thai breadcrumbs, batter and oil are fresh and the meat was quite light compared to the fabricated idea in my mind of what real German schnitzel tastes like.

AMENDMENT March 2011: I have been to Berlin now and eaten properly sanctioned German schnitzel. I have to report that my previous prediction was right and Thai schnitzel is better.

Here's a veggie burger. Look closely and you will see slices of carrots under the mayonaisse. If you can't get gerkin why not?

I did chuck the carrot out everytime I had a burger. It's wasn't that good either. Too much potato and sesame seeds were in the pattie not on the bun.

Breakfast is a good time to go exploring the oddities on the menu such as the Colombian eggs below. Now I'm not an expert of Central Amercian cuisine so correct me of I'm wrong but I'm sure Colombian eggs are not badly overcooked scrambled eggs cooked with a reduced tin of tomatoes.

The most surreal Western food I ordered was the humble sausage. Now if you've never seen a sausage before and you were use to eating decent fresh tropical fruit and seafood you would probably think a small oblong sack of mince meat was a odd thing to put in your body. So why not strategically cut it with a knife so it looks like a piece of squid?

Eggy in the Basket

2009-08-09T20:53:00.004+01:00

I watched the movie of V for Vendetta recently. Twice in the film two characters cook this dish called Eggy in the Basket for breakfast. I didn't see this when I read V for Vendetta so I've done some research.

When the Wackowski's and Joel Silver were busy rewriting Alan Moore's masterpiece of literature they couldn't be bothered to actually do some research into what people eat for breakfast in England and just got an American dish and gave it a quaint name therefore Eggy in the basket was born.

It's an odd way to cook an egg but it's alright. I cut a circle out of the bread using a pastry cutter and spread butter on both sides of the slice.

I chucked the bread in a hot frying pan and put a little bit of butter in the hole. As soon as the butter melted I broke an egg into the hole. It only takes a minute of frying until you need to flip, once flipped over the egg cooks in seconds.

It's quite a good lazy way to cook an egg half decent. I don't really like solo fried eggs as the whites are too rubbery. Frying the egg in a piece of bread means a good proportion of the white becomes eggy bread so you've got a decent ratio of delicious yolk to boring white. It ain't got nothing on scrambling, poaching, baking or boiling though.

Carnivore

2009-08-09T20:42:00.002+01:00

Saw this on the Passive Aggressive notes blog and thought it was funny.

When you go out with a vegetarian you find things like this funny.

Canadian Maple Syrup Cream Biscuits

2009-08-09T20:41:00.001+01:00

I'm a bit Canadian. My Mothers Father was Canadian and met my Nan when he was stationed in London during World War II. My Mum for the first time visited Canada a few weeks ago. She met the Canadian side of the family and also brought me and my brother everything in the souvenir shop.

I got a Canadian hat, t-shirt, pencils, socks, zip pullers(?), mug, magnetic thermometer and some maple syrup cream biscuits.

I like maple syrup it's good and strong and brilliant on bacon. The cream biscuits have a strong flavour too. However it's not really maple syrup it's more like sugary grass cuttings. Like eating a Happy Shopper custard cream with you head in the grass catcher of a Flymo Hovermover. They are revolting. No one who has tried so far can finish one. They did however bring back nostagic memories of lawnmovers and cutting the grass on a hot summers day. I rekon they could also bring on a bout of hayfever if you ate enough.

My lucky brother didn't get the biscuits. He got a collection of flavoured wood (hickory, cherry etc) to flavour meat on the barbecue. Not to be ungrateful but I would have liked some of that.

Since her journey to the Father land my Mother has also erected a flag pole with the Canadian flag outside of my parents house on the Isle of Sheppey.

Apology to Dom

2009-07-23T20:52:00.002+01:00

I have to issue an aplology to Dom for a comment I made about him on the Fortnum and Mason post.

I described his table manners to that of a pig in shit. I was wrong to say this as I am far clumsier than him when using a knife and fork.

I only said it because I was annoyed at the way the way he kept putting a sppon into my houmus when I was making it the other day.

Hajja's Helwas

2009-07-23T19:49:00.003+01:00

I've developed a Moroccan sweet tooth - sweet shai bina'ana kul yom (mint tea every day)! often with pastries (helwa) on the side.

I came home the other day planning to take a break from sugar when Hajja (the matriarch) presented us with these:

The round things are glazed lemony, scone-like treats. They're quite dry but surprisingly moreish and excellent washed down with lots of sweet tea. The triangles are like sweet samosas filled with sweet rice pudding-y stuff, deep-fried then covered in sugar and cinnamon. They're served with even more icing sugar to dip them into. Exactly as you'd imagine - very good. Although I can feel my teeth/arteries pleading with me to give them a day off.

bye bye chicken

2009-07-23T19:29:00.003+01:00

The other day Jaylan pointed out that the chickens that live on our roof sounded particularly close by and when we drew the curtain that separates our room from the main living area we saw this chicken clucking about nervously.

We soon realised why - Hajj (he's the patriarch and it's a term of respect for men who have/probably have because of their age/will soon, insh'allah do the Haj) was sharpening a big knife. So I said 'masallama d'zhezh'/'bye bye chicken', which made him laugh. The chicken didn't find it so funny.

Sadly, I forgot to take an 'after' shot of the delicious, and very fresh, chicken we had for supper that night.

Lovely Layla’s Tuesday Cookery Class Part 2

2009-07-23T12:50:00.007+01:00

Tagine with chicken and prunes (for about 12 people). This is cooking of ‘Fortress Filth’ proportions – you may need to divide accordingly.

This week it was tagine with chicken and prunes, served with salad and, of course, bread/hobz(i may turn into some hobz, or a laughing cow, while I'm here I'm eating so much of the stuff). Actually, I think the chicken was a bit more tender this time, perhaps because the chicken was cooked with the skin on. The sweet prune against the peppery, oniony chicken was absolutely lush and the juices were perfect for mopping up with the bread. For a similar bread equivalent back home, I'd say the Turkish pide bread that you can get from your local (or Dalston) TFC is the way forward.

Ingredients
For the tagine:

3 kilos skinless chicken joints skin left on about ½ of them, 2 kilos white onions finely chopped, 1 kilo red onions – finely chopped, 1 bulb garlic – peeled and crushed, 1 tomato – grated/peeled and minced, a small bunch parsley – chopped,1 ½ tablespoons ground black pepper,1 ½ tablespoons ground dried ginger, 1 teaspoon saffron, ½ cup olive oil,1 cup vegetable oil, 1 ½ tablespoons salt, 5 cups water, 4 cups prunes. 7 cups water, 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, 5 heaped tablespoons sugar, Sesame seeds

For the salad:

5 cucumbers – peeled and chopped into small chunks, 6 tomatoes – peeled and chopped into small chunks, 1 onion – very finely chopped, Handful coriander – finely chopped, 5 tablespoons olive oil, Salt & pepper to taste

Equipment:

We used a large lidded saucepan because of the numbers involved but apparently this tastes even better cooked in a tagine. You could also use a casserole.

Bung ingredients 1-13 into the casserole/pot with the chicken at the bottom, bring to the boil, stirring after 20 minutes. This now needs to be left for about an hour.

Put prunes into a saucepan with the 7 cups of water, bring to the boil and leave for 40 minutes with the lid on. (If you’re using dried apricots, this should only need 20 minutes.)

Meanwhile, start preparing the salad. This literally involves chucking the prepared cucumber, tomato and onion into a bowl and chilling in the fridge.

While this is happening, enjoy a cold Fassi beer:

Or have a nice cup of tea and a sit down:

When the prunes are done, drain most of the liquid, leaving behind around 3 tablespoons of liquid.

Put the prunes and reserved liquid back into the saucepan along with the cinnamon, sugar and about half a cup of stock from the tagine over a moderate heat and stir until it comes to the boil.

Then leave it boiling with the lid on for about 10 minutes, leaving to one side once this is done.

To finish the salad, just add the chopped coriander and olive oil and season to taste.

Place the chicken on serving plates and spoon the prunes on top, Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve with the salad and some hobz.

High Tea at Fortum and Mason

2009-07-22T19:58:00.003+01:00

For Dom's birthday a few months ago we took him for tea at Fortum and Mason. It's an odd thing to get a geezer for his birthday but believe me Dom was as happy as pig in shit. He's got a sense of duty with the right and proper way to do things. It's a shame that that sense of duty doesn't extend to way he shovels food into his mouth which is again similar to the pigs in shit then again I'm not really well placed to judge that one cos I enjoy a good shovel of food occasionally.

It's an odd place Fortnum and Mason, I always rationalise it as the place Harrods promises to be. What you imagine you'd find when your Mum tells you you are going to Harrods as a kid before you get there and realise it's an overpriced tat shop covered in gold plated Tutankhamen styled vomit. Fortnum and Mason however is proper. It sells proper stuff and it's all shiny and expensive.

We had Tea in the St James Restaurant on one of the upper floors. The Tea bit's all done up with nice sofas and tables and nice little cushions with either pictures of royal things or cats embroidered onto them. It's the model to which a high percentage of the front rooms in the country aspire to.

We all chose to have afternoon tea. We were going to get high tea originally because it sounded better but high tea is the one where you get a choice of scrambled eggs or welsh rarebit while afternoon tea is the proper one with the pretty little triangle sandwiches.

For £40 a head what you get is a a three tiered plate thing on which you have a plate of sandwiches that also has a little salmon terrine and a tiny bit of quiche. The next plate has scones, clotted cream and Jam. The third plate has two pastries from a selection that the ever obedient waiting staff bring over. You also get a pot of the most decentest tea ever chosen off of the tea menu and a glass of champagne.

The pretty triangle cut sandwiches had the crusts cut off and a uniform size and shape. You get a selection of fillings - cucumber and cream cheese, ham and mustard, egg salad and salmon paste. For the most part they were well made but the flavour was a bit dull apart from surprisingly the cucumber and cream cheese which stood out from the rest. Interestingly the cucumbers were incredibly thinly sliced.

We discovered while eating the sandwiches that they are bottomless like a Nandos soft drink and the waiting staff will continue to bring them out as long as your asking. It makes the £40 price a bit easier to bear.

The scones were as perfect as you would expect from Fortnum and Mason with the cream and jam as good as they can source.

With the pastries I chose to have a violet iced bit of sponge which tasted like a posh parma violet and a coconutty bakewell thing. The bakewell thing was not as good but still passable.

The tea I chose was a nice Assam. It's loose leaf and you get all the proper accoutrements like a tea strainer and a little silver ring to balance you tea strainer on when your not using it.

Although it's very expensive I highly recommend going and having tea at Fortnum and Mason or a similar establishment. It's a really great experience and I suppose being pampered and being somewhere elegant freshens you up somehow. If you do go please dress up smart as you don't want to ruin the experience for others. There were some US and Australian tourist when we went who hadn't made the effort and it can shatter the illusion.

Thailand: The Amazing Mocha Shake

2009-07-20T19:23:00.006+01:00

They have a funny habit in the restaurants in Thailand of turning everything into a milkshake.I think they're convinced westerners can't resist them. You can get all kinds of UK , US and Australian chocolate bars made into shakes. The Snickers shake for example sounds good but it's full of peanut grit and tastes sickly sweet and rough.

They also call what we call smoothies shakes. They have no milk in them and are blended fruits. Some of these are very good as the fruit is always going to be fresh. I drank a few of these but then was introduced to the most amazing and beautiful of shakes; the mocha shake.

Now the mocha shake doesn't actually contain any real coffee. It's not an iced mocha like one of those things that Starbucks sell in the summer. I think it's a mixture of instant coffee, chocolate milkshake syrup or powder and a load of ice and cream. I may be wrong but I don't really want to know the ingredients as mysteries can enhance some things.

The best one I had was in a restaurant called Bamboo on Haad Yuan.

Thailand No Name vegetables

2009-07-19T17:00:00.004+01:00

I went to Haad Yuan on the Island of Koh Phan Ngan in Thailand for two weeks earlier this month. Because of this I have neglected the blog and the quality has dipped without my involvement. I apologise and am going to post up some of the Thailand stuff to get the blog moving again.

I've eaten a lot of Thai food but had never been to Thailand before. One thing I've never come across outside of Thailand is No Name vegetables. They're balls of chopped vegetables battered and deep fried. They are called No Name apparently because they were made in times of poverty out of whatever scraps were around. They were never given a name because they were made out of necessity and no one expected them to appear on a menu in a restaurant.

They are quite close to Indian Bhajis without the Indian spices. In fact the ones I had didn't really have much spice at all. They were quite potatoey and served with the same sweet dip you get with spring rolls.

I didn't actually like them that much. They were ok but a bit too plain. The spring rolls were actually a better option if you wanted to snack on something a few hours before dinner time. Actually the spring rolls were particularly good. I don't normally like the ones you get in the UK because they have too many bean shoots. The ones in Thailand however had a perfect filling.

Sorry I've just realised I haven't got any photos of the spring rolls.

Tasty Tofu

2009-07-11T18:26:00.015+01:00

Yes tofu really can be tasty, I promise! Tofu has a really bad reputation as being very difficult to cook but this just isn't true, once you know what you're doing it's easy. I get my tofu from Longdan, Lewis and Dom's much proclaimed favourite supermarket, as it's super cheap at only £1.30 for an enormous slab of the stuff.

The mistake that most people make with tofu is to just fry it off lightly in a bit of oil and then marinate it. Sealing it with oil just stops the flavour of any marinade being fully taken up by the tofu and renders it slightly tasteless.

Tofu is of course pretty bland as is but it's real beauty lies in it's high absorbency - it will just suck up any flavours you soak it in. To ensure that it absorbs as much flavour as possible what you need to do is to simply fry it off lightly in it's own water.

Cut the tofu into the desired sized cubes and fry on a medium heat using a spatula to squeeze out as much of the water as possible.

Once all your tofu pieces are a light golden colour you're ready to add the marinade.

I make mine with lots of soy sauce, the juice of a lime (use only half if you don't like too sharp a flavour), some spring onion, 3 or so finely chopped garlic cloves, as much chilli as you like, fresh is best but dried chilli will do if you have nothing else, a little grate of ginger and a fair amount of soft brown sugar to sweeten it up. Leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes and simply add to your stir fry a few minutes before it comes off the heat to warm through.

And there you have it tofu that even Lewis and Dom will eat happily!

Fancy Fast Food

2009-07-09T13:42:00.005+01:00

Found this via Boing Boing.

http://www.fancyfastfood.com/

They take some fast food, McDonald's, Pizza Hut etc etc, take it to bits and then attempt to reconstruct the food into something altogether more luxurious and fancy.

It's all very clever but a burrito deconstructed and re made so it resembles tortellini is still going to taste like a burrito isn't it?

date milkshake at cafe clock

2009-07-03T21:19:00.006+01:00

kind of milky, nutty, datey and cakey all in one. my new friday night beverage of choice at my new local of choice: http://www.cafeclock.com/home.html

when joe gets back from the sahara, we're going to check out their famous camel burgers. according to conde nast traveller they're the best the world over.

Tomato and Chorizo Salad

2009-07-02T10:58:00.003+01:00

Lewis called this a man salad, it certainly has lots of bold flavours going on.

Finely chop half a red onion, half a green chilli and a handful of flat leaf parsley.

Grab a packet of cherry tomatoes and half each of them and put this, the onions, chilli and parsley in a salad bowl.

Slice a chorizo into chunks a little smaller than the halved tomatoes and fry until they have released some of their orange fat, add the chorizo and the fat into the salad bowl, the fat makes up part of the dressing, add a splash of red wine vinegar, season with salt and pepper and give the lot a stir.

This goes best with lots of crusty bread, I reckon it would be great as a kind of rough relish in a burger too!

Layla’s Tuesday Cookery Class Part 1

2009-07-01T15:16:00.011+01:00

Last night was the first of lovely Layla’s Tuesday cookery classes. For the bargain price of 40Dirhams (about £3/$5 for our American visitors) we got a step-by-step guide to making Moroccan couscous with chicken and vegetables at the ALIF villa and to eat the fruits of our (well, mostly Layla’s) labour. This is meant to be an idiot-proof guide to making it. We’ll see when I try to recreate it back home. Next week it’s tagine and after that, pastilla. Lush.

Enough for about 12 hungry people – divide quantities depending on how many you're feeding.

Ingredients

2 kilos skinless chicken joints

1 ½ kilos couscous

4 onions (halved then sliced lengthways)

2 tomatoes (quartered)

2 cups chickpeas (soaked overnight)

2 kilos potatoes

1 ½ kilos carrots

1 white cabbage

2 large green chillies (actually, I’d go for more so depending on how hot you like it – 2 was pretty mild, I reckon)

fistful each of coriander and parsley folded then tied into a bouquet garni

1 ½ tablespoons ground black pepper

2 tablespoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon saffron

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup olive oil

2 heaped tablespoons salt

Equipment

Hobtop pot/multi steamer. I reckon you could probably get away with using a large casserole and a bamboo steamer using some of the stock?

Method

1. Chuck all the ingredients (except potatoes, carrots, cabbage and chillies) into the casserole/pot with c. 2 cups of water, bring to the boil and leave for c. 25 minutes with the lid on.

2. Meanwhile, peel potatoes and cut into man-sized chunks then cover with cold water to prevent from going brown.

3. Peel carrots and halve then quarter again lengthways into c. finger-sized pieces.

4. Keep an eye on the casserole/pot – it should be braising not sauteeing so add water if necessary.

5. To begin the couscous operation (it’s not like back home where you just chuck hot liquid on for a few minutes – this takes some more time and love!) pour cous cous into giant vat.

6. Add 3 cups of cold water and leave for about 7 minutes uncovered.

7. After 7 minutes, separate couscous with hands (like making breadcrumby pastry).

8. Put couscous into steamer section of hobtop multi-steamer thingy and put this over the meat and vegetables to steam for 15 minutes with the lid off.

9. Cut cabbage into eight pieces.

10. After 15 minutes put couscous into food vat.

11. Keeping the heat high, add the carrots, potatoes, cabbage and whole chillies to the casserole/pot, add enough water to cover, replace lid. There’s about another hour to go at this stage.

12. Now add about 10-12 cups of water to the couscous and leave for 5 minutes.

13. Stir/fluff couscous.

14. Add ½ cup sunflower oil.

15. Add 1 tablespoon salt and stir well for c. 1 minute.

16. When casserole returns to the boil, put ½ the cous cous back into the steamer thingy over casserole again.

17. Careful – liquid can’t reach the couscous so ladle some out if necessary but save any stock you remove.

18. Have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

19. After about 15 minutes, swap steaming couscous for the half left over.

20. After about another 15 minutes, take couscous off the heat and mix with earlier batch.

21. Add the reserved stock to the casserole/pot, taste and season to taste if necessary then leave it to do its thing for about another 20 minutes.

22. Have another sit down while the kitchen fairy washes up and lays the table.

To serve

1. Put couscous onto large platters.

2. Serve casserole on couscous with chillies on top.

3. Ladle over some of the broth leaving some aside to serve.

4. Serve onto plates or do it the communal Moroccan way and just dig in with only your right hands if you’ve got the knack!

Eggy Crumpets

2009-06-26T11:19:00.006+01:00

I love eggy bread, it was a weekend treat that my Dad used to cook some Saturday mornings.
When I was little I loved it with golden syrup, these days it is all about the ketchup.

I was watching the Jamie Oliver at Home episode all about eggs and he made this fantastic version using crumpets.
Such a simple brilliant idea I'm amazed I haven't heard of it before, the crumpets suck up the egg even better than a slice of white.

(This isn't my photo, I found it here. When I make it it's always been gobbled before I even think of taking pictures!)

It's a doddle to make, for four crumpets you need two eggs, whisk them in a bowl, add salt and pepper and a splash of milk and put the crumpets in the eggy mixture and watch it get sucked up in to all those lovely holes.

Fry in butter.

Serve with ketchup or with bacon and maple syrup if you are throwing the boat out!

Last night for a quick supper I also added a splash of Encona chili sauce to the eggs. Encona and Eggs, it's a classic combination!

Dominic's Potato, Mushroom and Leek Filo Pie

2009-06-11T18:30:00.008+01:00

I made a nice pie last night.

I only took a picture of the uncooked pie, once cooked it was golden on top and the slices came out of the dish satisfyingly whole and pie slice like.

Having watched a number of episodes of Jamie at Home on 4OD the last few days I was inspired by his asparagus tart from the episode dedicated to the vegetable.

I arrived in Sainsbury's to find them out of asparagus so the dish diverged somewhat after I picked up a few other bits instead.

Firstly I buttered a dish and layered it with sheets of filo pastry, I used two packs. Before placing each leaf I painted what was already in the dish with butter, this helps the pastry crisp up and separate in that filo way.
I let the pastry hang about one to two inches over the edge of the dish, once the filling went in this was scrunched up to make a nice crunchy edge to the pie.

I boiled and mashed about 8 potatoes, whilst the potatoes were boiling I cooked slices of mushroom and leek in butter until they were soft.

The leek and mushroom mix was added to the mashed potato along with a small tub of cream, 100ish grams of Cheddar cheese, 100ish grams of Lancashire cheese, 1/4 of a nutmeg and a teaspoon of English mustard, season with salt and pepper to taste.

To this mixture I finally added three beaten eggs to bind it and then the whole lot was poured into the pie dish and that put in the oven for about 40 minutes until it was golden on top.

It was very nice with a crisp green salad.

Barcelona Food Market - La Boqueria

2009-06-11T15:19:00.002+01:00

Beer Butt Chicken

2009-06-05T19:01:00.009+01:00

I've heard of the Beer Butt style of cooking on numerous American blogs like this. They don't roast chicken as often as we do in the UK so in the US it's turned into a simple foolproof way to roast a chicken for the uninitiated. It's used as a way to cook chicken in a covered barbecue quite a lot but you can also do it in the oven as I did.

It's also quite a bit of a novelty standing a chicken upright like in Withnail and I. That's the main reason why I wanted to try this.

I cooked two birds and used Heineken as the beer more out of convenience than choice. The can should be half full and the chicken is shoved on top as in the photo above. I stuck a quarter of a lemon and a few cloves of garlic up the cavity before hand. It was when I shoved the chickens on the cans I remembered British beer cans are much taller than US ones. You have to be careful you don't knock them over.

I made up a basting liquid with chilli, crushed garlic and oil. I brushed this all over the chicken before sticking them in the oven.

You need a tall oven for this. We barely got our chickens in even after taking out all of the shelves and putting the roasting tin directly on the bottom of the oven.

The chickens were in the oven at 180-200 and because of the steaming from the beer cooked quicker than normally in just over an hour. Apparently the yeast also reacts with the chicken to make it more tender but I don't know if that's just the steam doing that.

When removing the birds from their perches there was still quite a bit of beer in the cans. I had to be careful not to spill it into the beautiful juices that rained off the chicken into the pan that would flavour our gravy. Next time I'm going to cut the top of the can off as I found recently was another way t get more beer steam into the chicken.

I served it with mash which was very buttery because I got to fulfil a dream of mine by chucking an entire packet of butter into it. There was a lot of potatoes I promise. There was also some greens.

Everything worked out really well. The chicken was very, very good. They were cooked incredibly well. I think it's a combination of having them suspended above the roasting tin and having the presence of steam in the oven. It keeps everything moist and makes the skin thin and crispy.Like I said before it's foolproof way to roast chicken. You only really get lagery tasting bits from the meat that was on the underside of the chickens cavity. The gravy did have a bit of a lager flavour though and even though the chicken was slightly spicy because of the chiili baste which also flavoured the gravy it really went well with buttery mash, broccoli and green beans.

When I do this again I'd like to try a different beer. Maybe a yeasty Belgium wheat beer or if you really want to get fancy what about serving individual Poussins each cooked on a can of wine?

Breakfast Club Hoxton Square

2009-06-01T20:24:00.005+01:00

I've been wanting to go to Breakfast Club for a while. I walk past the Angel branch down Camden Passage on the way to work every morning. A few weeks ago a new branch opened on Hoxton Square so I went to it.

I've been wanting a proper American breakfast consisting of decent bacon and pancakes all smothered in maple syrup for a while. I've tried The Diner which has good milkshakes but measly definitely not American style food portion sizes. They also don't do the bacon, pancake and maple syrup combo as a dish on the menu. Ok you can choose the separates to make it up your self but I wanted to go to a place that said it was normal to do this by putting it on the menu.

Alright the decor inside is trying a bit too hard with it's nostalgafantasticness but it does feel comfortable. If you ever go use the toilets as they have a glitter ball disco room in the bit outside where you wait for a free cubical. I did find the hammering output of obvious 80's hits piped through the sound system of the entire place annoying though. Those rhythms do not aid digestion.

I ordered the American breakfast which filled all the criteria of my cravings. It had bacon, pancakes, was served with maple syrup and also had sausage, eggs and hash browns.

There were some disappointments. The sausage was just odd. I don't know if it was supposed to be American or what but it had the wrong herbs inside and the texture of the meat was powdery. It was the first sausage in many years that I have attempted to eat and not finished.

The eggs which I decided to have poached were overdone. I was expecting the yolk to be runny so that I could burst the whites and spread over the breakfast but it was solid.

The hash browns were not like normal hash browns but like bubble and squeak without the cabbage. This style would have been fine if they actually tasted of anything. They weren't even greasy they were waterlogged and soggy.

The Maple syrup also wasn't real maple syrup but a maple syrup flavoured glucose syrup.

The good points include the bacon which was perfect. Exactly what I was dreaming about. Red and crispy but still juicy to the core. The pancakes were also brilliantly done. I should have opted for the simpler breakfast of bacon and pancakes and maybe I could have put up with the lacklustre maple syrup.

Although the meal was not perfect I will return to The Breakfast Club again maybe. The food my friends had seemed to be very good and I've heard the burgers are very well done. It's a far better choice than The Diner on Curtain Road or All Star Lanes on Brick Lane which I've been to recently and didn't feel the need to write about.

Soft Shell Crabs

2009-05-25T11:29:00.005+01:00

It was Dom's birthday Saturday and we had a barbecue and food thing round his house. I thought I would attempt to cook some soft shell crabs like the ones I had at Vietnamese restaurant Song Que recently.

I obtained the crabs from Longdan which is a Vietnamese owned oriental supermarket. There's one opened on Hackney Road near the Shoreditch end. I've been going there quite a lot recently to buy tofu and oriental vegetables as they are incredibly cheap compared to the same stuff in a normal shop.

When I've been in there buying that stuff I've been bothering the staff, asking about what soft shell crabs they sell. They only come frozen, for £34 you can get a giant box and for £7 you can get a box which is still very big. I went for the £7 box. They are in a solid block of Ice so if you do buy them they will take at least 12 hours out of the fridge to defrost.

I've done a bit of research as to what soft shell crabs are. They're crabs which have been killed just after they've molted their shells so the new shell they are growing is very thin and soft.

I decided to deep fry the crabs as they were when I had them in the restaurant. I dried out some cheap bread rolls and grated them to make bread crumbs. I added a decent amount of salt, pepper, paprika and chilli flakes to the bread crumbs.

I then dusted the crabs with flour, dipped them in a bowl of beaten egg and then coated them in the breadcrumbs.

The crabs were then fried two at a time in hot vegetable oil. I always test the heat of the oil by dropping a bit of the breadcrumb into it to make sure it's at frying temperature.

I fried them for about 2-5 minutes each. They give off a delicious smell when frying and the grey bluey bits go pink and red while cooking. Be careful as I've heard that they can pop and spatter although I didn't have any problems.

I wasn't successful at replicating the oriental style I was going for however the crabs had an English seaside feel to them like posh scampi. They were very good. I had them with some sweet chilli dipping sauce.

I remembered that when I had them before they were not served with the large claws as I discovered you cannot bite through these. The larger legs were also a bit difficult to eat whole and it was easier the suck out the meat. If I do them again I'll probably give them a trim of the hard bits.

Sesame Snaps

2009-05-21T18:29:00.003+01:00

I've been finding myself in a lot of organic and health food shops recently as Mathilde has been eating some of that stuff.

There's a lot of odd foods, odd people and overpriced vegetables in these types of shop but one constant that is in every health food shop that I do enjoy is the humble Sesame Snap.

I've had a go on their chocolate and coconut coated versions but nothing beats the plain and original type. You can properly get into eating loads of these and they are only 25p each.

Song Que Vietnamese Restaurant

2009-05-18T18:29:00.010+01:00

My friends Mike and Carmel for a joint birthday booked a table for seventeen of us at Song Que on Kingsland Road, just above Shoreditch. It's suppose to be a good restaurant, it gets all good reviews and whatever but if you do go prepare yourself for the rushed service.

I understand that at seventeen people we did have the biggest table at the restaurant but the feeling that they want to serve you, take your money and then get the table ready for the next customers is apparent before you've even sat down. This is because of the panic and urgency of the waiting staff which reached it's peak when one of the waiters got an angry little tantrum on when someone asked for more time before choosing their meal from the menu. The waiters calmed down once we ordered our mains and from that moment on the atmosphere was fine. We were well behaved and did actually eat, pay and leave in our allocated two hour window.

The food was mostly good here is some of it.

I got the Soft Shell Crabs for my starter and they were pretty fucking decent. They are battered and fried with a burning hit of chilli. I've had the same thing at Ping Pong but their crabs are small, expensive and tame. You only get two sets of legs at Ping Pong at Song Que however you get a decent portion size that contains all the whole bodies of a few crabs chopped and put in a much spicier batter. You can tell from the texture if you've got a chewy set of legs or a squishy centered, seaside flavoured bit of body. If you were wondering yes you eat the shell cos it's soft, hence the name.

Here's some vegetable spring rolls that Mathilde had. They were good, not too much bean shoot but I will say the batter was a bit KFC.

For my main I got Fresh Water Eels. They were battered and fried with lemongrass, loads of chilli, and some funnily chopped large chunks of onion. If you look at the photo above you can see the battered things are the bits of eel.

They were good. I've never had eel before but they had loads of tiny soft bones and the meat was like white fish but denser with a more oily flavour. I think the onion was a bit undercooked and there was so much of it I think it was being used as a filler.

Birthday boy Mike had this Beef and Tripe Noodle Soup. I didn't taste any but he tells me it was good. Apparently that's the meal all the reviewers like.

There was also a nice selection of condiments on the table. I'm a fan of the condiment. You've got chilli flakes in oil, soy sauce, chilli sauce, hoisin sauce and a fish sauce which was similar to Thai nam pla except you could actually sniff and taste a bit of it without vomiting.

To go with my meal I had a few bottles of imported Vietnamese beer Halida and it was good to see that the other more well known Asian beers they sell are also the real thing, imported from Asia and not brewed under license in the midlands.

All in all it was a good meal and pretty cheap too. We all paid £21 each, almost all of us had a starter, two drinks and that included a decent tip.

Dom chose exactly the same meal as me so here's a picture of him stuffing a chunk of battered crab down his throat.

Ellie King's amazing barbecued leg of lamb

2009-05-18T10:52:00.007+01:00

This Sunday, to celebrate Steph's birthday, we headed over to Ellie and Mike's house for a special lunch.

The weather was a bit blustery so despite the food all being cooked on the BBQ we ate indoors around the table.

Ellie was following a recipe from 'At Home With Jamie', I think you can find it here if you don't want to buy the whole book although a cursory glance suggests it's a worth a look, on the Telegraph web page look for the recipe entitled 'Best barbecued meat and homemade barbecue sauce'.

A leg of lamb was marinaded in all sorts of herbs, spices and lubrication's and roasted in the oven until the meat was still pink in the middle. The fat and juices from the meat and the marinade had coagulated into an amazing glaze, this glaze was key for the next stage.

Once the BBQ was at cooking temperature onions, with some butter and rosemary in the middle, and sweet potatoes, dusted with chili and salt, were wrapped in foil and put amongst the embers whilst the leg of lamb was put on the bars above the coals.

The meat was brushed with the remainder of the glaze and turned every few minutes so it could develop a nice sticky crust. Once the meat was nearly ready some foil parcels containing greens with lemon and olive oil were put above the coals to steam for a few minutes.

It was some of the best lamb I have eaten in a long time, the BBQ had given it an amazing smokey flavour, within their skins the sweet potato had collapsed down to almost a mash like consistency perfect for sopping up the juices and the green veggies were fresh and zingy tasting.

As if all this wasn't enough we then had homemade rice pudding with big dollups of jam, I was in hog heaven!

Happy Birthday Steph!

Cheese Round Wedding Cake

2009-05-16T11:14:00.007+01:00

I was invited to my friends Garry and Nicola's wedding reception last weekend. They said they didn't like normal fruit cake which wedding cake is normally made of so went for something else, a cake made from rounds of cheese.

I've got no pictures of the rounds assembled into the wedding cake as I missed the unveiling I must have been distracted by the free bar or something.

The cheeses included a stilton, a smoked cheddar, a mature cheddar, two small rounds of goats cheese, a soft cheese which was like a posh port salut and a large round of hardish cheese which I couldn't work out what it was. It's on the left side of this picture next to the bride and groom figurines.

My favourite was the goats cheese rounds. They were covered in a thick crust of blue mouldy rind but were silky and delicious underneath that.

Chicken Shop Grime

2009-05-11T10:48:00.003+01:00

In which grime crew 'Red Hot Entertainment' spit bars about the different special meal deals available at chicken shops in and around Canning Town.

Fish Balls

2009-05-09T17:40:00.005+01:00

I found these in the Kosher section of Sainsburys. They looked interesting and Dom brought them cos he said he'd had them before and they were nice.

They're made with minced white fish, potato, onions and matzo meal. It says on the packaging you can eat them hot or cold. I tried them cold and it it tasted weird. They are potatoey just like fish cakes are but they have a tangy sweetness to them. After 15 minutes in the oven they were far more edible but there still is something odd and cheap about them. The insides are a bit rigid and stodgy.

I much prefer your standard fish cake from a reputable fish and chip shop. Faulkners on Kingsland Road does the best I've ever had although I have never done any extensive research into high quality fish cakes.

Ben's Decent Three Course Meal With Squirrel

2009-05-07T18:39:00.012+01:00

My friend Ben took the plunge a few months ago, he's always wanted to work in a kitchen so he left London and moved to Dorset as he got the chance to work and train in a professional restaurant. It's a proper posh resturant with one of those Josper charcoal ovens and they do that sous vide slow cooking water bath thing that Heston Blumenthal does on the TV all the time.

Ben came back to London for a day to perform this special meal cooking for us. You could tell he'd been planning it and with some help from Ella, his girlfriend, we were treated to some proper well decent food.

The starter was quail. One bird per person was rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper and then put in the hot oven for about 20mins to roast.

When they had roasted they were simply and brilliantly put on our plates and we ate them with our hands occasionally dipping them in garlic mayonnaise. "The perfect starter portion sized bird" Ben mentioned as we ripped them apart and threw them down our necks.

The squirrel came next as the main course. Ben had kept it a mystery to all as to what the meat was only hinting what it could be by showing us the hazelnut stuffing he was going to serve it with as a pun.

The Squirrel was braised for four hours by Ben during the day and he brought them round to mine in a tupperware box. The stock for the braising was a mixture of home made chicken stock and trotter gear, a pigs trotter based stock that St John chef Fergus Henderson invented.

To finish the meal the stock was reduced a bit, then the squirrels were added with some fried pancetta. I've added a picture of the pancetta being diced so you can see Ben's badass black ceramic knife that looks like some mythical demon blade.

Squirrel was served with Jersey Royals and savoy cabbage along with the puntastic hazelnut stuffing.

Squirrel smells like a game bird such as pheasant when cooking. Ben added star anise when braising and this kind of extended but also cleaned that smell making it more fragrant. We were only eating the legs and saddles so at first we all thought it was some small bird or frogs legs. The taste like the smell is similar to pheasant but stronger and darker. The texture of the meat to the eye looks like bird but it's a far denser meat which is closer to the taste and texture of rabbit meat.

That was not the end, more suprises were to come. The pudding was on it's way.

Ella made an incredibly decently sharp rhubarb jelly and put them in some cat moulds.

The Jelly was served with brown bread ice cream which was fucking sublime. All the decentness of a bread and butter pudding distilled into one substance. I ate fuck loads of it not willing to give in to the dark stomach pains of over consumption.

It was a truly amazing selection of things to eat.

Easy Jerk Prawns

2009-05-05T11:59:00.006+01:00

Longdan opened a store opposite my house towards the end of last summer, they sell all sorts of Asian produce at bargain prices.

On the way to the BBQ this Saturday I dropped in and found them selling frozen raw shell-on freshwater king prawns at £5 a bag - bargain!

Once they were defrosted I added a good three table spoons of Walkerswood Jerk seasoning paste - none of that 'Reggae Reggae Sauce' nonsense here. This is proper stuff and is potent with the smell of scotch bonnet chilli's, onion, nutmeg and allspice.

This was left to marinade for as long as possible, the prawns were then put on the BBQ until they turned pink and the shells charred a bit here and there.

They were seriously hot and initially I was worried that I had added too much of the paste. However they were also seriously delicious, aside from the heat the paste had given them a delicious tangy flavour and the prawnyness was still there underneath all this.

After the fourth or fifth I realised that as well as being tasty they were also very addictive. The heat had given way to a sort of light headed giddiness as the endorphins kicked in. I've enjoyed chilli's all my life and despite reading about it I've never had such a druggy experience from them as I did last Saturday!

Tandoori Style Paneer Kebabs

2009-05-05T11:35:00.006+01:00

Continuing the BBQ theme, a couple of months ago, when at a curry house, Thilde opted for a Tandoori Paneer wrap as a vegetarian option. Unfortunately the Paneer had neither been marinated nor cooked in a Tandoor so it amounted to warm cheese in a nan with some salad and onion and mint sauce - very disappointing!

I was determined to do this recipe justice. Firstly because, as a meat substitute, Paneer is one of the best and secondly to even up the vegetarian to carnivore ratio of dishes at our BBQs. I was certain that if done right, with the cheese properly marinaded and cooked so that it had those delicious charred bits, it would be amazing.

I bought three packets of Paneer, it's not hard to find, it's in the cheese section of the supermarket near the Halloumi, It's a bit like Halloumi actually but far lest salty and with a more satisfying meaty texture.

I cubed the Paneer, a top tip is to not make the cubes too small otherwise when you try and skewer them the cubes break in to pieces rather than stay on the stick.

In a bowl I added half a tub of plain yoghurt and three generous table spoons of tandoori paste, if you are making this on a whim other curry paste in your fridge will do, a Korma curry paste is probably not strongly flavoured enough though and don't think you can use one of those curry cook-in sauces, the raw ground spices are key here. Of course you could make your own tandoori paste if you wanted to go all-out, I was lazy and used some Patak's paste.

You should now have a bowl full of brown spicy smelling yoghurt, add the Paneer and marinade for as long as you can, meanwhile soak some wooden skewers in water so they wont burn when they go on the BBQ.

Whilst the Paneer was marinading I mixed some more yoghurt with dried mint, garam massala a pinch of salt and strips of cucumber to make a raita – chilli fanatics might add some finely chopped fresh chilli here.

When you are ready, skewer the Paneer, making sure that the cubes keep their coating of marinade. Cook on the BBQ until they are nicely charred in places and serve with some Indian flat bread, you can warm this on the side of the BBQ if you like, the raita and some salad.

Fran's Vegetable Kebabs and Barbecued Asparagus

2009-05-04T18:40:00.008+01:00

Fran's contribution to the barbecues we've been having recently was to pander to the vegetarians.

Vegetable kebabs - we've all seen them before but these ones were different. Normally I find grilled vegetables a bit tasteless and therefore pointless. Roasting to me has always been a better way to get the best out of them. This time however the vegetable kebabs turned out pretty special.

Fran chose her vegetables well pepper, mushrooms, aubergine, tomatoes and courgette. These are all good kebabing ingredients used often by the top kebabing nations. They provided a good solid base but the thing which really elevated them above normal vegetable kebabs was the delicious honey and mustard sauce that was basted on the the kebabs before and during cooking.

The basting sauce was made by mixing olive oil with honey and whole grain mustard. It added a nice sweet and warm coating that because of the sugar also encased the vegetables in a sticky caramelish covering sealing in some of the flavoursome juices.

We also basted the mixture onto some asparagus as we grilled them also on the barbecue. They were fucking decent. Barbecue is a good way to cook asparagus, makes them look really good and photogenic as well.

And remember if you want to pander to the vegetarians properly cook their food on the barbecue first when the grill is clear of charred flesh and the smoke untainted by delicious meat juices.

Lamb and Beef Kebabs for the Barbecue

2009-05-03T16:06:00.005+01:00

I got a pack of lamb mince and a pack of beef mince and decided to make some kebabs with them which would be fit for grilling on the barbecue.

With the lamb mince I mixed some finely diced onion, oregano, dried mint and chilli flakes. I was going for a Turkish kofte style with this one.

The beef mince had some different flavouring than the lamb. It had onion, a load of cumin and paprika and a very healthy dose of Encona sauce added to it. I don't know what style I was going for with this one but I think I was inspired by the flavour of extra hot Pepperamis.

Both meats were then kneaded together with their respective ingredients until they appeared to be thoroughly blended. The meat was then put onto wooden skewers. The slightly red ones are the beef kebabs and the paler kebabs are the lamb ones.

The kebabs were then put on the barbecue to grill. You can have the barbecue nice and hot while you do these as a bit of meat charring only adds to the flavour just remember to turn them occasionally. You'll want to cook them so there nice and flamed on the out side but still giving and moist on the inside.

Both types of kebabs turned out good cooking wise. I thought I put a lot of spice in both but after tasting them I think I could of got away with bit more. The beef was moderately spicy hot but I think they could have been a bit more extreme. The lamb kebabs were very fragrant and nice but again a little more chilli would have sorted them out a treat but still they went very well with a yogurt dressing in a flat bread.

One thing I will say though is I should have soaked the wooden skewers in water before using as a few of them caught fire while cooking. Even better though would be a set of metal skewers.

English Lumpwood Eco Charcoal

2009-05-03T15:27:00.005+01:00

The blogs going to go a bit Barbecue style for a bit. We've had barbecues round mine for the last two weekends and got some decent food in us from them both.

One important thing I've learned while barbecuing recently is you've got to do it to use the coal cooking method for its benefits and not because it's cool to play with fire. Most of my life with family barbecues I attended as a youngster the fire was a fad and the food cooked was just frozen burgers and sausages which apart from being a bit more blackened than if they were cooked in the oven they didn't really exploit the power of the coals.

To start with I think you need some decent charcoal. Dom found us two bags of this stuff. Lump wood charcoal is far more superior than briquettes.

It was made up of really nice chunks of blackened wood. It was also very quick to light only needing four small firelighter blocks underneath.

SFC Crispy Dippers

2009-04-29T18:51:00.005+01:00

I haven't been to a chicken shop for quite a while. I was partial to a bit of KFC every now and again in my youth and I would also try out some of the more ropey spin offs when the smell tempted me. It was probably a good thing I grew out of eating dodgy chicken shop chicken but I still hanker after it. There is some thing delicious about the crispy spiced batter and the tenderness of the chicken inside when the chicken shop gets it right.

I found these SFC Crispy Dippers in the frozen section of Sainsburys. I though it was a brilliant idea, selling frozen dodgy chicken shop chicken in the supermarket, genius.

I opened the box and the first disappointment was that there was no sauce pot like the one photographed on the box. Secondly the chicken looked like it was coated with dead grey sand. The box said cook at 180 for 8-10 mins and at this point I still had some hope of it coming out looking all crispy and chicken shop like as it is pictured on the box.

8-10 minutes in the oven and there was no change to the batter so I left it for 10 minutes more. Still no change after 20 minutes so I left it for another 15 minutes and got fed up of waiting and took the chicken out to eat.

If you look at the photo I've taken you can see that there is a hit of golden goodness on the very edges of only one dipper. That's the only bit that was crispy the rest of the dippers were still grey and Plasticine like. The meat inside the dipper smelt of dogs breath. It wasn't proper breast fillet either. It was a dark stomach inducing reconstituted rubbery chicken foam and to think I had such high hopes for this snack.

What even more scary is that when purchasing I almost bought the larger Family Feast box. It's £4.99 and you get as much chicken as in a KFC feast. I avoided the dark stomach on the small box by sharing the few dippers with Dom. Just imagine the dark stomach I would have if I ate a whole family feast.

Ottolenghi Style Baked Eggs

2009-04-26T21:58:00.005+01:00

Mathilde asked me to cook these Turkish style baked eggs that she saw in Yotam Ottolenghi's New Vegetarian Guardian column. I like a baked egg normally and this looked interesting so I made it.

Mathilde asked for the dish to be served on Saturday morning. There was no rocket in the local Co-op and I have no Turkish shops near me so getting the kirmizi biber (a Turkish spice) was out of the question. I substituted the rocket with spinach and I used paprika, cumin and chilli flakes instead of the kirmizi biber (that's ok though cos Yotam says you can use those spices instead)

What I did was cook the spinach in olive oil in a pan. That was then put in a oven dish with four eggs broken over it. The eggs and the spinach were then put in the oven until the eggs cooked (180 for about 10-15 mins). While that was in the oven I mixed one crushed garlic clove with a decent amount of Greek yogurt and added some salt.

For the spice sauce I melted some butter and added the spices. I just kept it warm but not frying hot.

When the eggs had cooked you simply spoon over the yoghurt and pour over the sauce.

I served it with mini pitta breads from the corner shop.

I've got to say this was one of the best breakfasts I've had in a while. The eggs were delicious with yolks that were set on the surface but still gooey inside. The yoghurt made the dish seem light and the spice laced sauce consolidated what could have been a sloppy mess into a whole of proper decent fragrant flavours.

Ottelenghi's style of cooking really does seem to go with the sunshine. It was the first breakfast of the year eaten in the garden. It seemed to make me appear to be a much better chef than I actually am. Mathilde and also Dom want me to make the baked eggs again next week but this time I'll get some rocket in advance.

Jamie Oliver's Posh Bread Spread

2009-04-26T18:07:00.004+01:00

What's a posh bread spread then?

Well according to Jamie Oliver it's a shit version of a tapenade.

It was the sun dried tomato and black olive type that I tried. It ruined some very good bread. There was too much sun dried tomato and not enough black olive. It was also missing anchovy that a proper tapenade should have but seeing as it was a posh bread spread and not a real tapenade Jamie sidesteps that omission with a technicality.

I wonder who this product is aimed at. The mythical underclass which Jamie patronises for the entertainment of food snobs in his television campaigns? He probably thinks their too blinkered to eat anchovies so that's why it's a posh bread spread and not a tapenade.

Anyway back to the taste. It tastes far too much of sun dried tomatoes. It's almost like a paste of sour Haribo sweets.

We stopped eating the spread and just ate the good bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Catherines Meat Monday on Wednesday

2009-04-24T18:54:00.016+01:00

Catherine broke the rules by moving her turn at Meat Monday to Wednesday. I'll let her off though as it was a bit more spectacular than usual.

She had invited some French geezer round and wanted to show him that English food is edible.

Classic roast chicken was the meat and it was joined by roast potatoes, sausages wrapped in bacon and some veg.

Catherine roasted two birds to cater to a few more meat Monday guests than normal. She rubbed a mixture of garlic, lemon zest, herbs (sage, rosemary and thyme) and butter under the skin of the chickens making sure that she didn't break it. The chickens cavities were also stuffed with half a onion and lemon each.

They turned out good. A good roasting does impress a lot. The herby butter under the skin really does add to the flavour and improves the quality of the skin making it crispy in parts and flavoursome all over.

Catherine made the sausages wrapped in bacon herself using decent chipolatas and good quality streaky bacon. They were good. Before this I had only eaten the ready made frozen kind.

The potatoes were also another first for me as they were cooked in goose fat.

This is something I have always wanted to try but never actually got round to. They were roasted the standard way. Maris Piper variety par-boiled before being put into a roasting dish with the hot fat.

The goose fat makes the potatoes surprisingly light or at least a bit lighter than using vegetable oil. They also crisped up beautifully with lovely fluffy centres.

The veg was courgettes which were slowly sweated in garlic and butter until they became soft and tasty. We also had some steamed green beans.

Meat Cards

2009-04-24T09:27:00.007+01:00

Found this via BoingBoing this morning:

http://www.meatcards.com/

We start with 100% beef jerky, and SEAR your contact information into it with a 150 WATT CO2 LASER.

Screw die-cutting. Forget about foil, popups, or UV spot lamination. THESE business cards have two ingredients:
MEAT AND LASERS.

Unlike other business cards, MEAT CARDS will retain value after the econopocalypse. Hoard and barter your calorie-rich, life-sustaining cards.

I'm secretly a fan of jerky and biltong but I have only ever eaten the nasty stuff they sometimes sell in Sainsbury's. To make it at home you would normally need an expensive dehydrator or, if you live in the wild west, the hot dessert sun.

However I have found some instructions that suggest you can use your oven on very low:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Beef-Jerky

This recipe goes into some more detail on marinade:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Old-West-Beef-Jerky/

If you are really keen there are even some guides on how to build your own food dehydrator.
This one looks quite involved:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Inexpensive_Food_Dehydrator_with_Recycled_Parts/

And this is the more amateur option:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Box-Fan-Jerky/

Finally, this guy has made a jerky oven out of an old monitor:
http://biltongbell.blogspot.com/

Hestons's Feasts

2009-04-22T14:57:00.012+01:00

Fran and I have been working our way through these on 40D catch up for the past few evenings.

Firstly Heston needs to go back to the BBC, the production qualities on this program are atrocious, maybe it's because I have been watching two episodes at a time but the reuse of footage is appalling.
Every episode has exactly the same shot of him browsing in the same library and don't get me started on the post advert recaps, is it really necessary to recap everything that happened in the last section when it was only 2 minutes ago?
I understand they might be trying to lure in viewers who missed the first part and joined during the adverts but as there are two advert breaks is gets repetitive very quickly.

Despite this, and despite the fact that Heston isn't a TV natural with none of the charisma of Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver, this is a great show.

The series is broken down into 4 parts, each part focusing on a particular era that Heston takes as his inspiration for a feast: Roman, Medieval, Tudor and Victorian

Initially the episode focuses on the research and development that has gone in to the dishes that make up the meal:
He travels to America to meet a Turtle fisherman in order find out about Victorian favourite Turtle Soup - finding that Turtle isn't the tastiest of beasts he makes a Mock Turtle Soup.
We see some funny experiments with Jelly and Vibrators in Hoxton based ladies only sex shop Shh!
A trip to a the oldest pub in the UK where Heston cooks up a medieval recipe for Butterbeer to try out on the locals.

This is all very contrived but entertaining and interesting nonetheless.

Highlight dishes have been:
A bowl of fruit that is, in fact, made of meat.
An ejaculating pudding: A mousse with a small cavity in the top containing dry ice. When the diner pours a jug of sauce in to the hole it erupts.
An entirely edible garden, earth, rocks, vegetables, insects and all..
The aforementioned incredible and trippy, Alice in Wonderland inspired, 'Mock Turtle Soup'.
A five flavour 'drink me' drink.
Sausage and mash, complete with 'peas' and 'onion' gravy, as a pudding.

After we see the beginnings of the dish it is cooked up and served for a group of celebrities to oooh and ahhh over.

What carries this program is Heston's enthusiasm and inventiveness sometimes in the face of quite unforgiving ingredients (fermented fish gut sauce anyone?)

It has one day left on 40D catch up so get involved.

Mike's Pizza Masterclass

2009-04-19T12:02:00.008+01:00

One of my crew Mike came over on Saturday and we decided to make Pizzas together. This is significant as when Mike was doing his first degree and for about a year and a half after he graduated, he was slogging his guts out working for Pizza Express and their upmarket spin off Gourmet Pizza. Now Mike works for a law firm during the day and in the evenings is doing a second degree to become a barrister himself. This seems to be the normal way to do things as I really don't understand the idiots who go on Masterchef who have good careers as Barristers, Designers, Architects etc but want to give up their social lives and work in a kitchen for tuppence.

Now the significant thing about all this is that Mike has rarely made pizzas since he stopped working for the chains and yesterday was one the few times he has actually showed off his virtuoso skill with the dough ball and the oven since I have known him.

I made the dough using my normal method and I was happy to learn from Mike that what I've been doing with dough was good enough for him.

I mixed and kneaded the dough and once it had proved it was ready for Mike to take over. Now when I make pizzas I just go in all cack handed with a rolling pin. Mike however uses his innate pizza skills and works the proven dough around the shape it wants to be. He managed to make some sympathetic cuts in the dough and worked it into four equal balls. Mike then worked the dough with his hands into the shape of the bases. He did this proper Italian style working in on the work surface first before throwing it around his hands.

Four pizzas were made with two different toppings. The first one was the most exciting.

First a little olive oil was spread over the base. Then a loosely chopped tomato and a load of shaved parmesan was put on top. Then the pizza was put in the oven to cook.

As soon as the pizza came out of the oven a mozzarella ball was torn and thrown over it with a decent amount of fresh basil.

This pizza was fucking amazing, one of the finest I have ever eaten. The way Mike worked the dough meant it was perfectly cooked (or as close to perfect you can get without a proper pizza oven). The topping was rich from the parmesan but light from the fresh mozzarella and the aromatic basil.

The second pizza topping was more conventional with a tomato sauce topped with mozzarella and black olives. The type of mozzarella was however different. On the pizza above we used the type that comes in balls packaged in brine which is soft, fresh and typically to be used in salads and eaten uncooked. On the pizza below we used the harder, denser mozzarella which comes in a block. It's melts much better than the mozzarella balls which is far too watery to go in the oven.

One of the old Pizza Express tricks did come into play with cutting the cheese into cubes so that it melted evenly.

As before this pizza cooked beautifully and it was good to have a bit of the traditional alongside the other pizza.

Here's some pizza on plates.

Here's Dom the other Bags of Flavour contributor stuffing his face

I went out after the pizzas were eaten but when I came back a bit drunk I made this pikey pizza using the left over toppings and a bit of brown bread.

I got a new digital SLR yesterday so I've got a bit carried away with the pictures.

Quiche it's not that hard

2009-04-16T19:22:00.007+01:00

Quiche, the questions the odd word brings with it, such as how can I make one?

I can't, you think, I'll just buy a boring factory quiche from the bit next to the pork pies in the supermarket.

It's actually really easy to make a quiche. Essentially it's an omelet in a pastry base.

When I made this one I made some shortcrust pasty with self raising flour which made it a bit lighter than usual. You can buy your own pastry, and I normally do, but I couldn't find any on the way home.

I stuck the pastry in a ceramic quiche tray thing I found in the cupboard. You have to blind bake the pastry bit which means cook it with no filling, just on it's own for about fifteen minutes so it's par cooked. Five minutes before the blind baking was done I brushed some beaten egg on it ( that's a Delia tip there). That was the only effort in making a quiche.

While I was mucking around with pastry I was slowing sweating off some chopped courgettes and onions with butter in a pan. That would become the filling which you can change as you wish, just remember it's an eggy omlettey tasting thing and fillings should therefore stay within those flavour guide lines.

For the eggy stuff I beat three eggs with a decent amount of single cream and milk. You do want to make it a bit more creamy and or milky than you would an omelet mixture. I grated a little bit of cheddar over the filling and then poured in the egg and cream mixture until it covered everything. Here's another Delia tip; Don't pour all of the egg mixture in at once, pour half in and then move the quiche to the oven shelf and then pour the other half in. This way you wont spill any of it. Actually I poured it all in at once before I put the quiche in the oven and didn't spill anything but I'm bad ass.

It takes 30-40 minutes to cook at 180.

Bad Choices at the Albion

2009-04-14T20:33:00.004+01:00

The Albion's a nice place. It's Terence Conran's take on the British Caff. It looks proper grown up and expensive but it's menu is surprisingly very well priced with good value food. I'm the one to blame for my bad choices there.

I could have just gone for an easy chicken pie with a side of broccoli or one of the other comforting combinations on the menu. Instead I went for three miss matching novelty pots that included a plate of pork crackling, a giant bowl of deep fried white bait and a portion of beef fat fried chips.

Now the crackling was cracking with pigs hair on top and bits of greasy soft flesh attached to the bottom. The white bait was perfect and the chips were some of the best I've ever had. My body however could not translate the food it saw before it into a meal. So after a bit of picking from each plate my once welcoming, once hungry stomach was reduced to a cement mixer that instead of mixing cement was mixing the sharp bits of greasy food, grease, salt and pain.

Double Drop

2009-04-14T12:47:00.007+01:00

A quick post, I have been slack recently through a combination of laziness and work.

Ale seems to have been my alcoholic drink of choice recently.
I have been a bitter drinker since I started drinking really, back then it was due to cheapness, Younger's Scotch bitter was 89p a pint in my local.
These days if I want a good pint of beer I am always going to go for an ale over lager, much more satisfying. There are just more flavours to get your teeth into and so many different types that you can always find a drink to match your mood.

It was no different when we dropped in to an offie on the way to a BBQ on the Saturday of the Easter weekend and found this amusing bottle on sale. They should replace the current graphics with a big smiley and market this in the clubs and raves :-P

As I recall it was a nice light ale in the IPA style, a good quaffing beer as my Dad would say.

It is also worth noting the bottle in the background, Pitfield brewery 1792 Imperial Stout. Never drink it, at 9.5% it tastes like carnival favourite Dragon Stout with all the fun removed, extra headache added and left to go flat for 24 hours.

Double Yolk Eggs

2009-04-10T12:32:00.005+01:00

A new Waitrose has opened near where I work in Angel and I was hoping to do a post on the large goose eggs that they sell. However when I went in there last night they had sold out. I got a pack of double yolkers instead.

I've not seen these eggs since I was a teenager working part time in a Sainsburys in the late nineties. I thought they done away with foods that were a bit Dr Moreau in the early 2000's anti GM scaremonger period but it seems that Waitrose can get away with selling these mutant eggs as they've got the good reputation and they're free range. I don't really think they're mutant as they shine a light through eggs when checking for chicken foetuses and I'm sure they can also spot a double yolker and put it aside for these packs.

I've cracked four open already and what I've discovered is that you either have an egg that has two smallish yolks that together make up the same amount of yolk as a single egg or if your lucky you'll have a cholesterol boosting egg that actually has two full size yolks and less of the boring white.

I fried these so you can see the double yolks.

Billingtons Natural Molasses Sugar

2009-04-09T19:32:00.006+01:00

This stuff is good. Recommended by my friend Ben as something to put in my porridge.

It's Molasses sugar that's not refined. Most brown sugars are actually refined white sugar which has had an amount of colouring and molasses added to make it appear to be more primitive than it actually is. When you taste Billiningtons you can taste how strong the flavour of molasses should be. It's amazing it only has a mellow sugary sweetness but it's strong molasses flavour is very dark with a good tinge of liquorice.

It is actually quite tempting to eat it raw out the box and it goes very well with porridge. I'd actually go so far as to say as it's the best possible sugar to put in a porridge or a rice pudding.

Feaster's Microwaveable Burgers

2009-04-07T18:44:00.004+01:00

I made a promise to myself a few months ago that I would only eat decent responsibly sourced meat. Before that decision were darker times. This is one of them.

The Feaster is a cheaper alternative to a Rustler the popular brand of microwavable burger. Where Rustlers taste like they're made with carpet Feasters taste like they are made with bitumen.

Never eat one they are vile things whose very smell can bring on a bout of dark stomach.

Heinz Salad Cream

2009-04-06T13:36:00.012+01:00

Salad Cream is a delicious condiment made by the Heinz company, it is similar to, although not a replacement for, mayonnaise and consists of boiled egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, sugar and cream.

A recipe for Salad Cream appeared in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and it has been a classic of the British dining table since the 18th century but it was only in 1914 that the Heinz company brought their recipe to market.

I am constantly derided for my love of this classic British condiment, people say that it is 'chav' mayonnaise, I couldn't disagree more:

I love mayonnaise and I love Salad Cream and they both have their place and carry out quite different jobs where they are used.

Salad Cream has a sharper vinegar flavour and is therefore ideal when you want that acidity to really cut through.

Mayonnaise in a fish finger sandwich merely adds some lubrication but with Salad Cream you get a sharp counterpoint to the bland soothing flavour of the cod.

I would never make a potato salad with just Salad Cream, it has too strong a flavour, however make the same salad with just mayonnaise and it is far too bland and rich. A dollop of Salad Cream with a majority of mayonnaise means you get the creamy texture and eggy, olive oil flavour of the mayonnaise whilst the Salad cream cuts through some of the richness adding a much needed tartness to the dish.

Heinz used to market the sauce with the tag line "Everything tastes supreme with Heinz Salad Cream".
Each advert presented a different situation with the common theme being an un-savory meal of some kind. Cue a typical student digs, empty takeaway boxes everywhere and a two week old slice of pizza. Cue a little girl turning her nose up at the grey unappetizing meals her Granny serves her whilst she is staying for the weekend.

This does Salad Cream a disservice in my opinion linking it to cheap and nasty food in the consumers mind.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup can be found on the tables of the lowliest caff to the loftiest Michelin starred restaurant, it's criminal to serve chips with anything else. It is time for Salad Cream to step out from the shadows and take it's place next to it's more popular brother.

Lentils

2009-03-31T19:57:00.003+01:00

Ok My girlfriend Mathilde is a vegetarian. That's why I've learnt to cook a lot of non meat meals.

Lentils I think have a bad name because of them being the food of the character Neil in the popular 80's comedy serial The Young Ones. Lentils I think have been portrayed as a tasteless gruel for vegans and hippies when they are in fact quite tasty. They're also a lot easier to cook than you think.

I've used red and green lentils and they both have their uses. The green ones are a bit heavier and meatier though.

I normally fry some diced onion with whatever vegetables I have to hand. Pepper, mushroom and courgette this time. Then add the lentils (give them a rinsewash first). Then I add a tin or two of tomatoes and cover everything with stock. If you then simmer it all everything should cook in under 35 minutes.

I normally add bay leaves, garlic and oregano and eat it with rice but if you add a little bit of mint to the mixture it's perfect as the filling for a vegetarian mousaka.

Cosy Cafe in Leysdown on The Isle of Sheppey

2009-03-30T19:42:00.007+01:00

I was visiting my family last weekend who have moved recently to the Isle of Sheppey. Not a pretty island its main industries are prisons and trailer parks. Fortunately my parents do live in a house.

There's a small seasidy strech of road near one of the pebbly coasts on the Island named Leysdown. Leysdown is commonly known as the worst seaside town in Britain and it's there I had the good fortune of having my breakfast on Sunday morning in the Cozy Cafe.

The interior resembled your standard British greasy spoon cafe with one notable difference it was a lot cleaner. There's no priceier alternative in Leysdown and as a result the Cafe functions as it should do as a place to eat. It's not a budget consolation prize when you can't afford a decent cafe like a greasy spoons in London can feel like so as well as the cleanliness the food is cooked with a bit more thought and a lot less grease.

I had egg, sausage chips and beans. The chips were slighty undercooked which is a shame because if they were cooked for just a minute more they would have been perfect. The beans were standard sub Heinz and the sausage was one of those nasty things you get in these sort of cafs. The egg tasted extremly fresh and was well cooked. I did notice a box of fresh eggs next to the counter that had been delivered recently from a local farm.

My Brother had ham, egg and chips and it was a nice bit of tender gamon which was cooked well.

The ketchup was watered down with vinegar though.

My Pizza

2009-03-26T20:56:00.005Z

I've learnt to make pizza by hand now. It's surprisingly easy especially when you get the hang of making the dough. I can actually knock one up as quickly as it takes to make a pasta sauce and that's including rising time for the dough.

I can make the dough without measurement now. I think making bread has a lot to do with getting a feel for it. It's a nice feeling when you learn that you can alter the written quantities on baking recipes yourself to improve the quality of the bread.

I used brown flour this time but I've used various different kinds in the past. Make sure you use strong bread flour whatever the variety. This time I used approximately 200g flour, 3/4 tbsp of instant yeast, a tbsp of caster sugar, a little salt, a few splashes of olive oil and then added around 150-200ml of water. The water has to be quite warm but not so hot that it kills the yeast. A bit colder than the perfect bath temperature for me seems to do.

Mix it all together until the dough starts to take shape. If it's too wet and sticky add more flour, too dry then add water.

Once it resembles dough you can transfer to a large flat floured surface where the kneading begins. I've got unnaturally warm hands which as I mentioned in my previous post on pie can ruin pastry. For kneading bread however my heated hands are perfect. To knead I kind of pull out and stretch the dough and then fold it back in on itself. I do this for about ten minutes and stop when the dough feels spongy and elasticy.

The dough is then put in a bowl with a damp table cloth covering the bowl (not touching the dough) in a warm place in the kitchen so it can rise. It normally takes the best part of an hour. Once the dough is double the size it is ready to be beaten down and rolled into a base. If you've got time you can let it rise again, beat it down and then let it rise again. I've never bothered to do this, laws of diminishing returns and all that.

Now that may sound like a long process but with a bit of practice it becomes second nature. Besides I have this belief that making bread is an important skill that everyone should learn. If you make your pizza sauce and cut your toppings and cheese while the dough is rising you will find that everything is ready to go onto the pizza around the same time the dough has risen.

On this pizza I made tomato sauce with onions and topped with mushrooms, feta, tomato and basil. I normally use mozzarella and when I do I buy the cheaper heavy mozzarella that comes in a block as it melts much better than the delicate watery mozzarella you get in balls.

Homemade beef Burgers

2009-03-24T20:37:00.005Z

You cannot beat the homemade burger. As a youngun I use to dread my parents crap attempts to replicate the McDonalds I was nagging them for but with age I have realised the homemade burger is an infinitly better thing to eat.

I make mine with finely chopped onions, salt, pepper, paprika and a tiny bit of Encona sauce just enough to add a hint of heat. I mix that all up with the beef mince and some bread crumbs and an egg for binding.

I've melted some cheese on top of some of these. Decent cheddar mind none of that Kraft plastic shit.

I stuck them in some buns to eat like you're supposed to. With salad and condiments.

I cooked them in the oven but I think it's better to grill or if you've got one a barbecue is best.

I also roasted some sweet potato wedges in olive oil and garlic which goes well with most meaty things. Also had bog standard oven chips which are always fun

Hot Stuff

2009-03-24T10:02:00.006Z

I love chilies, my Mum tells me that whilst pregnant with me she liked to munch on pickled chilies. When I was young, no matter what the meal, she would always get out the the cayenne pepper to add a bit of zing. So it's not surprising that I take after her in my love for hot food of all kinds!

I love the slow building burn of an Indian curry that only really hits you after you have made it through half a plate.
I adore the fresh hit of chilies in Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese food, a different burn that dissipates after a swig of beer or mouthful of rice.
I can't get enough of the proper chili chocolate that Montezuma make, hot enough that more than two pieces is too much.
Encona sauce with scrambled eggs and a very generous shake of Tabasco in a Bloody Mary is my perfect hangover cure!

If you like the chili like I do you might enjoy this fascinating article, found via BoingBoing, about why it should be that chilies evolved to contain capsaicin, the compound in the plant that causes the sensation of heat.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Whats-So-Hot-About-Chili-Peppers.html

World's Longest Sausage

2009-03-19T09:59:00.005Z

The annual sausage festival of Serbian village Turija was held this week. The festival is known as Kobasicijada and culminates in the village butchers creating the worlds longest sausage, this monster is 6,643-feet (2,025-meters) long!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/photogalleries/week-in-news-pictures-120/

In praise of fat

2009-03-12T12:15:00.006Z

My old school mate Dave passed me this article, there is not not much I can add other than Amen!

"I love fat. Whether it's a slice of foie gras terrine, its layer of yellow fat melting at the edges; rich, soft marrow scooped hot from the bone; French butter from Normandy, redolent of herbs, flowers, and cream; hot bacon fat, spiked with vinegar, wilting a plate of pungent greens into submission"

Fat is back: Rediscover the delights of lard, dripping and suet

Here is the cook book mentioned in the article.

On the same topic, Mathilde brought Lewis back some rillettes from a recent trip to Paris, amazing on toast!

Occasional Butternut Squash and Red Onion Pie

2009-03-10T20:25:00.005Z

I'm crap at making pastry. I've got abnormally warm hands that melt the butter as I rub it into the flour which is exactly what Delia says you should avoid. My pastry makes the pie look like a bucket full of dried cement.

This is the pie I make occasionally and I made it up the entire idea of it.

Things may change but I always roast butternut squash, soften a good amount of red onions then combine them in a pie dish with a few tomatoes and a medium size goats cheese round cut into small pieces then it's all covered with a thick layer of shortcrust pastry.

In this pie I've made my own pastry and not bought any ready made stuff. I used wholemeal flour as I prefer the flavour and mine has a lot more butter than shop bought stuff. I also roasted some large tomatoes and a large courgette with the butternut squash. I have before just chucked a pack of cherry tomatoes into the mixture in the pie dish before roofing with the pastry.

A sprig of rosemary with the roasting contents adds some herbyness to the flavour.

Is there any food Dominc does not enjoy? #2 in an occasional series. The Century Egg.

2009-03-09T10:46:00.006Z

I have been reading about this Chinese delicacy and am fairly confident that no matter how far my 'I'll eat anything' attitude stretches it will never stretch as far as this.

I will try most things once but even I draw the line at "a Chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice straw for several weeks to several months [...] the yolk becomes a dark green, cream-like substance with a strong odor of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, transparent jelly with little flavour or taste."

Especially as the end product looks like this:

Read more, if you can stomach it, here

Omelette

2009-03-09T10:36:00.004Z

We made a nice omelette this weekend.

Onions and peppers were fried until soft, added some par boiled potatoes to the mixture and fried for a few minutes more.

The eggs were seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika and added to the fried mixture, the heat was reduced and the omelette was cooked for about 15 minutes before being put under a grill to finish off the top. I added some grated cheese and then grilled it some more until it was bubbling.

Next time I will add some chorzio to the onions so that all the smoky flavour seeps out of the sausage, dies everything orange and makes the omelette even more tasty!

Scanwiches

2009-03-06T14:31:00.009Z

I think the London Review of Breakfasts has been toppled as my favorite food blog.

Scanwiches.com
"Scans of sandwiches for education and delight."

Is it wrong to want one of these as a high rez print to put on my wall?

Encona Hot Pepper Sauce

2009-03-04T20:04:00.004Z

I love this Scotch Bonnet sauce. Unlike other hot sauces it actually has flavour as well as heat. It's great on everything especially scrambled eggs but obviously it goes best with chicken and rice. It's almost if the molecular make up of the sauce bonds with plain white rice molecules to create something amazing. I prefer it to Tabasco sauce and Asian chilli based sauces.

I'm not normally into very spicy food but even though the scotch bonnet is hotter than other chillis I do find that the heat wears off quicker and doesn't leave that chemical burn in your mouth and on your lips like other chillis can.

Bubble and Squeak in a tin

2009-03-02T21:59:00.010Z

This looked novel so I had to buy it. Bubble and Squeak in a tin. Diced potatoes, onion, savoy cabbage and spinach it proudly announces on the tin.

Uncooked be prepared for the smell. It's a bit like decomposing armpits. Also admire the thin layer of fat that make the potatoes look like little amber jewels if amber was a bit more opaque.

While cooking: The instructions say to fry on a high heat for 3 to 5 minutes and them fry on medium for 10 minutes or when the potatoes brown. I fried it as hot as I could in the hope that the potatoes got that crunchy skin on them. And after a good 15 minutes I'm pleased to say they did. I thought it best to convert that oily plastic sheen into something fried and crunchy so I could pretend it didn't start life in a tin.

Eating: It's actually alright. If you cook it long enough it does resemble fried two day old roast potatoes. There's not enough cabbage or spinach to really give it that bubble and squeak flavour though. The main flavour is grease but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Grease is a flavour after all as much as we pretend we don't like it and say it's bad for us it's the second best flavour after salt.

Is there any food Dominc does not enjoy? #1 in an occasional series. Brussels Sprouts

2009-03-02T14:50:00.005Z

Is there any food that I don't enjoy on some level? The odds look slim. This occasional series will document my search for foods that I don't like. I reckon the resulting list will be a short one.

I thought I didn't like Brussels sprouts.

It's not very often that they appear on my dinner plate. Christmas time was the only time at my parents table and as I child I remember thinking they were far to bitter so I would leave them till last then gulp one down to placate my Dad.

I ate them again last Friday (see my earlier post about the Hoxton Apprentice) they were very nice, like mini cabbages.

I do like Brussels Sprouts then.

Next.....

Hoxton Apprentice Review

2009-03-02T11:13:00.004Z

A quick review of The Hoxton Apprentice to which I took Fran this last Friday.

It's similar to the the nearby Jamie Oliver restaurant '15' in that it is a "training restaurant which provides skills and training for homeless and long-term unemployed".

Apparently '15' is more geared towards helping people to become chefs whereas the Hoxton Apprentice tries to equip people with vocational skills for any work environment as well as training for chefs, front of house, bar, waiters and management roles.

You can find it in Hoxton Square on the same corner as Zigfrid's in a grade 2 listed building that used to be a Victorian primary school.

I had a bit of trouble booking the table as they didn't answer the phone for the whole of Wednesday, as it turned out they were using the restaurant for filming and it was closed, in the end I just booked using top table - even easier!

I ordered Gravlax salmon for a starter and a steak for my main course, Fran had a chicken terrine as her starter and Fish Cakes as a main course.

The waiter recommended a nice bottle of Italian white wine the name of which I can't remember, the wine list was reasonably priced though!

The salmon was tasty, a much less strong flavour to smoked salmon it came served with strips of pickled cucumber. I would say there was probably a little too much cucumber and not enough salmon other than that it was a light and fresh start to the meal.

The terrine was served with prune pickle, it didn't come with any bread, which we ordered separately, I'm not sure you would want to eat it on it's own. I didn't try it but Fran said it was delicious.

I ordered my steak rare, it was probably not as rare as I like but the meat was very tender and delicious, it came with some great chips and a salad. We ordered green vegetables on the side, broccoli, sugar snap peas and Brussels sprouts. I normally don't eat Brussels sprouts as I find them too bitter but these were great, just the right cabbagey flavour.

Fran's fish cakes were very nice just the right ratio of fish to potato to crunchy outside.

We had an enjoyable meal here, the atmosphere of the restaurant was relaxed, the service was good and the bill wasn't steep. However I probably wouldn't go back but that is not necessarily a criticism. There are so many places to eat springing up around this part of the world that it's only very rarely that I find somewhere that I go back to again and again, I always think it's much more fun to try somewhere new!

Choco Leibniz

2009-03-01T17:07:00.010Z

It's a biscuit that has been part of my life for a long time but only in the last year have I been buying them or been getting them bought for me on a regular basis.

I remember first seeing them in west London corner shops when I used to work in Notting Hill a few years ago. That's where I first bought and ate them. West London corner shops try to cater to a posher client and tend to sell imported snack foods you just can't get anywhere else. Now however packs of Choco Leibniz biscuits have become a regular buy one get one free in most supermarkets. My local Co-op in Stepney Green has had them on offer on and off every few weeks for the last two years.

I've done some research and the German biscuits are made by using a mould where the chocolate is poured in and then the biscuit part is laid on top of it before the chocolate has set. The effect is that the biscuit is the back plate to a rather well detailed chocolate relief. One of the only bits of English on the cover of the box states 'more chocolate than a biscuit' and this is absolutely true. It's kind of like a posh Jacobs Club with high quality chocolate and a nice crunchy biscuit the flavour of which reminds me of the biscuit sticks in a KP Chocolate dip.

Choco Leibniz come with the chocolate part in a few different flavours: milk chocolate, plain chocolate and orange milk chocolate. I also believe an orange plain chocolate is available but I've never seen it. One thing you will discover when you want to buy them is that they only seem to be on sale when they are on offer and they only ever have one flavour in stock when they are being sold. Maybe one on reasons why I like them so much is that you cannot plan their availability in the shops and your never certain of the flavour that will be in. It's a sales method that worked pretty well as I buy them every time I see them on the promo end.

Getting back to the taste they are a very good biscuit that is definitely a cut above any of you childhood favourite chocolate biscuits. The chocolate and the biscuit are of a high quality that European snack foods just seem to have. It's almost as if they design junk food biscuits to be a plausible alternative to a posh dessert. My favourite flavour is the milk chocolate topped variety as it lets the lovely taste of the biscuit come through the best and it's the most ongoingly eatable meaning that when you've bought two boxes of Choco Leibniz on a BOGOF offer you can actually sit down and scoff them all yourself without your stomach feeling too dark afterwards. If you've got to share go for the plain chocolate ones as the richness means you'll want to stop eating them quicker therefore less jealousy incurs.

They are also one of the only junk foods I can buy and bring into the house without my girlfriend looking at me like I'm a delinquent child.

The Flea Pit

2009-02-26T19:14:00.029Z

The Flea Pit is one of my favourite places. It's on Columbia road right next to the little bit of park near where the flower market starts. I'm not sure if it is classed as a bar or a cafe. Anyway it's called the Flea Pit as it has a tiny cinema in the back room. It's normally hired out for private screenings and sometime has musical events. I have never been to any of these events and I've never been in to the back cinema. I've only walked by the doorway on the way to the toilet.

What I love about the Flea Pit is the front bar/cafe. It's nicely decorated with simple white paint and simple furniture and light fittings from the 60's and 70's. It looks expensive but I've been informed by the staff that most of the stuff was bought for bargain prices on eBay about 10 years ago.

The bar tends to be quite calm given the area it's in and you can most of the time get a seat even on a Friday or a Saturday night when the place is at it's busiest.

Now the thing which really makes the Flea Pit a gem and keeps me coming back is the amazing selection of beers. The only thing on tap however is Freedom Organic larger although I have never tried this. The rest of the beers are (the more interesting ones) are bottled.

I've been to the Rake in Borough Market and the Dove in Broadway Market but I feel you get bombarded with a huge choice of bottles which are mostly indistinguishable Belgium beers. What is great about the Flea Pit is the selection although smaller is more concise and the drinks on offer are variations of English brews. This does not however mean they are all brewed in the UK as is evident from a South American porter called Porto. Although a lot of beers stocked are brewed in British micro breweries with some even inside the M25.

A helpful menu guides a good description of what to expect but what even better is just asking the staff what they recommend. I go to the Flea Pit a few times a month and it feels nice that I am remembered and recommended new drinks that the staff think I will like every time I'm in.

Porters and stouts seem to be the drinks that I have been drinking mostly and two drinks in particular have become my favourites.

The Flea Pit also serves proper coffee and has a limited menu of organic food.

First is the Power Station Porter from the Battersea Brewery. It's a very nice mellow Porter which has a subtle depth to the darkness of the flavour. A reassuring drink that's very easy to drink all night. This drink unfortunately hasn't been available for about six months now and I've been informed by the Flea Pit that orders have been placed but the brewery has not supplied them.

Secondly is O Hanlons Port Stout which as the name suggests is a stout enriched with Port. . It's a far more indulgent drink than the Porter and feels more like a treat. It's rich, deep and sweet and feels just like the kind of thing to drink during winter.