The Greasy Spoon

Jellied Eels Revisited

I first wrote about Jellied Eels back in 2007, when we had a look at Tubby Isaac's famous East End eel stall. I still have mixed feelings about jellied eels. I want to like 'em, and indeed, I'm almost at the point of becoming an aficinado, but if the truth be told, given half the chance, I'd sooner plump for a decent oyster on the shell, or a lovely cut of smoked eel with horseradish sauce.

Back in the good old days, eels were the staple diet of the London poor. The Thames Estuary is full of the critters, and as the Thames is now so much cleaner than it was say, forty years ago, eels are coming back in force.

I suspect the best way to enjoy jellied eels is to cook them yourself.  A few months ago, I had a bowl of jellied eels as a first course (from memory, think it was at Jack's Place in Battersea); and I don't remember them being especially good (not that I want to denigrate Jack's in any way; a splendid institution and long may it thrive!).

I've trawled through several very old-fashioned Mrs Beeton type cook-books on your behalf, and come up with a definitive recipe:

First, catch some eels. Chop them into 2 inch thick pieces, and plunge them into a large pan of boiling water with a generous dash of sea salt. Take them off the boil, and let them stand for five minutes.

Next, take a pan or dish, and throw in the eels. Pour in a pint of water (so that the eels are covered), and add three tablespoons of malt vinegar, a squeeze of lemon juice, some thinly sliced onions, carrots and celery, a bayleaf, a few peppercorns, sea salt, chopped parsley, and nutmeg.

Bring to the boil, reduce and simmer for twenty minutes, until the eels are tender. Remove the cooked eels and place them in a deep serving dish or bowl.  Strain the 'liquor' over the eels, and when cool, bung it into the 'fridge.  Eels are naturally gelatinous, so the liquid should set.  If it doesn't, be prepared to add some liquid gelatine to the mix.  According to one book, the chopped parsley gives "the jelly the traditional hint of green, like the sea".  What a nice idea.

Serve the jellied eels with chili vinegar.

Image via Wikipedia

Kippers

For Saturday breakfast, I had a lonely boil-in-the-bag kipper. A few days before, The Girl had been pulled over by the Police; apparently in a sneaky scooter trap just outside Buckingham Palace, and was having to retake her scooter driving test.

The kippers were surprisingly good, and it occurred to me that this is another traditional food that has fallen in popularity.

Kippers are salted herring that have been split and then cold smoked. According to wikipedia (probably best read out in a fusty "Mr Kipling Makes Exceedingly Good Cakes" sort of voice): 

"The English philologist and ethnographer Walter William Skeat derives the word from the Old English kippian, to spawn. The origin of the word has various parallels, such as Icelandic kippa which means 'to pull, snatch', and the German word kippen which means 'to tilt, to incline'. Similarly, the English kipe denotes a basket to catch fish. Another theory traces the word kipper to the kip, or small beak, the male salmon deveop during the breeding season."

Etcetera, etcetera. I'm sure you all knew that back to front. My dear old Grandma used to make a sort of kipper butter or, I suppose, pâté, for spreading on toast at picnics. She simmered some boil in the bag kippers in water until they were cooked, and then mashed them up with creamed unsalted butter, a dash of Worcester Sauce and the juices from the bag. She then seasoned the kipper butter with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, and served them in ramekin dishes with a garnish of lemon and parsley.

Pink Gin

The Pink Gin is a forgotten cocktail, worthy of resurrection.  It was a fashionable drink in the 1930's, and the unofficial cocktail of the Royal Navy, reminiscent of smart cocktail parties, cigarette holders and the stiff upper lip.

It's a simple cocktail, and is easy to make. Swirl a few drops of Angostura Bitters around a glass. Add some crushed ice, and a slug of Plymouth Gin. Top it up with iced water, to taste. The finished cocktail has a lovely, very light pink colour. Or is that stating the obvious?

Image via Wikipedia

Devilled Kidneys

I don't think I've written about Devilled Kidneys before. Very English, very clubby; not to everyone's taste, but certainly to mine. This recipe is similar to the one in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book The River Cottage Meat Book, but frankly, as this dish is an absolute classic- it could have come from anywhere.

First you heat up some oil in a pan.  Next you cut some lamb's kidneys into quarters, first trimming away the whitish core. Drop the kidneys into the pan, and sauté them very briefly. Add a dash of sherry, bubble it away, and add a further dash of cider vinegar.

Next, add a spoonful of redcurrant jelly, and allow it to melt. Now it's time for a generous dash of Worcestershire Sauce, a good pinch of Cayenne Pepper, a dollop of English Mustard (it's got to be Colman's), and ground Black Pepper.

Season with a pinch of sea salt, and mix in a spoonful or two of double cream. Bubble it away until the sauce is glossy. Serve on fried bread, and garnish with freshly chopped parsley.

It's important not to overcook the kidneys: you want them rare s'il vous plait.

Boiled Bacon and Cabbage with Parsley Sauce

The Greasy Spoon's Book of the Month for April is A Life With Food by Peter Langan, annotated and with a memoir by none other than Brian Sewell.  I love this book.  It's an idiosyncratic account of the life of the late, eccentric restauranteur, Peter Langan, his restaurants and his art collections.

Odin's has some fabulous Modern and Edwardian British paintings, which is not surprising as many of them were chosen by the great Mr Sewell himself. There's a terrific Laura Knight to the right of the main entrance, a fabulous Harold Gilman in the main dining room and a naughty drawing by Ron Kitaj displayed at table level. 

Here's a very Irish recipe from the book for Boiled Bacon and Cabbage with Parsley Sauce:     

"There are two dishes that are Irish to the core- this is one of them. If it is smoked gammon, soak it overnight in water, and then put it into fresh cold water and bring it to the boil. Remove, skim and simmer for 30 minutes per lb.

The old Irish way is to add the cut up cabbage to the pot for half an hour toward the end. I do not like this. I prefer to boil the cabbage separately for 3-5 minutes.  It is a crisp foil to the slowly cooked bacon.

The parsley sauce is simple. Melt 1oz of butter, add 1 oz of flour and cook until the flour is well blended. Add 1/2 pint of the cooking liquid slowly to begin with then the 1/2 pint of milk, stir, bring to the boil and simmer. Add a bunch of freshly chopped parsley- do not cook it in as most idiot restaurants do.

The bacon, crisp cabbage, and fresh parsley sauce could be the country's greatest dish. Serve it with floury boiled potatoes in their skins."

 

Finisterre: Where Have You Gone?

I seemed to have tapped into the zeitergeist: yesterday, there was another feature in, I think, The Sunday Times colour supplement, on the perfect chip.  Which made me think- what's happened to our supposed national dish, fish and chips? 

Photograph: gruntzooki

In the last few weeks, I seem to have fallen into a dangerously nostalgic, slightly reactionary mood: I was spluttering into my breakfast cuppa on Saturday morning when I read the ghastly news that Bates, the eccentric hatters of Jermyn Street, was under threat of closure. The Crown Estate has its eye on a juicy bit of property along the Haymarket end of the street, and are, apparently, keen to re-develop.  I love Bates, and often drop by to touch my forlock to Binks, the stuffed cat and original cigar smoking St James's swell- I like the way he wears his topper at a jaunty angle, and the cut of his dash. Similarly, I've never felt the same since I heard the news that 'Finisterre' was to be replaced by 'FitzRoy' in the BBC Shipping Forecast. It's just not fair. 

Back in the '80's, I lived in Notting Hill, and a regular port of call was Geale's.  This was a fabulous fish and chip restaurant of the old school- red and white checked tablecloths, Windsor chairs, pints of bitter served in jugs, a chalked up blackboard, lovely crispy lard-based batter, proper English chunky chips, and bottles of Heinz Tomato Ketchup and malt vinegar in those little bottles with the plastic spouts. This was the place where famously, Jeremy 'In The Street Where You Live' Brett, struggling with manic depression and God knows what other gremlins, ordered champagne for the whole restaurant.  Geale's is still there- sort of- but has now changed hands, and inevitably lost its original authentic London charm in an unnecessary designer make-over.

Over the next few weeks I'm going on a mission to try and find out where I can order authentic fish and chips in the old tradition. Lots of formica, grumpy proprietors, malt vinegar, fishing nets and linoleum will be the order of the day.  I like the look of the North Sea Fish Restaurant in Bloomsbury, and The Golden Hind in Marylebone Lane.

The Perfect Chip

There was an excellent article by Christopher Hirst in The Independent yesterday, about how to make the perfect chips, sorry, America- "freedom fries". After much experimentation and angst he came up with a method loosely based on Heston Blumenthal's:

500g Arran Victory (Waitrose Heritage Potato) or Maris Piper potatoes.

1) Peel and chip 400/500g potatoes, and then wash them thoroughly.

2) Boil a pan of large salted water.  Add  the chips and return to the boil, and then reduce to a gentle simmering for ten minutes.

3) Remove the chips from the water, and leave to cool on a cake rack. When cool, chill in the 'fridge.

4) In a heavy bottomed saucepan, heat 1.5 litres of groundnut oil to 130C.  Using a wire mesh basket, fry the chips for nine minutes.

5) Remove the basket, and shake off the oil.  Cool the chips on a cake rack, and then chill in the 'fridge for the second time.

6) Heat the oil to 190c.  Fry the chips in a mesh basket for 2-3 minutes, until they are golden.  Drain the chips, then spread them on a double layer of kitchen paper. Serve immediately.

Image via Wikipedia

Gaswork Memories

Hands up who remembers The Gasworks?  Twenty odd years ago, I started my glamorous career in the so-called Art World- as a porter at a well-known auctioneers to be found in the grotty fag-end of The King's Road, London; humping antique brown furniture from lorry to saleroom, and stacking shabby Victorian paintings against the brick walls of the warehouse. A favourite after-work refuge was The Gasworks restaurant (a last gasp of the myth that was Swinging London), in that no man's land between Chelsea and Fulham- a former haunt of Princess Margaret, the Rolling Stones and, if the internet is to be believed, Noel Gallagher.

Where on earth do I begin?  This was a London institution, where eccentricity became a creed. Outside, it looked a bit like a private house, with its green painted stucco, latticed windows of stained glass, garish window boxes, and niches filled with ponderous busts and Neo-Classical statues. The proprietors were- how can I put this politely?- different. Shells (Cheryl?) of Wagnerian proportion, fag in mouth and forthright opinion, ruled over her kitchen, offering a choice of rack of lamb (some lover-ly lamb, dearie?) or duck 'all orange'.  Jacks, her husband, was a thin, dapper man with a trimmed grey beard and silk stockings. Rumour had it that he had previously held some sort of vague career in the antiques business. He liked to join you for an after dinner cigar- this had more than a whiff of Reggie and Ronnie about it.

The dining room was reminiscent of an Edward Gorey illustration or a Pinewood set from that early 70's meisterwerk, The Legend of Hell House. Here was the perfect place to lie on a chaise longue, sip a gin and tonic and admire the Victorian bric-a brac: pornographic chess sets, oil paintings of dubious antiquity and provenance, heavy gilt frames, doubtful portraits in the manner of Greuze, and wall-mounted taxidermy; all set off by a long, polished mahogany dining table, high-back 'Jacobethan' chairs and a massive chandelier.

Choice was not a word in The Gasworks' vocabulary: champignons en croute (a nice bit of tinned mushroom poised daintily on a slice of toasted Sunblest) or avocado pear; rack ('racked' being the operative word) of lamb or assassinated duck; some sort of gateaux horror topped with UHT cream from a spray-on aerosol. Indeed, The Gasworks seemed to be almost obsessed with the trend setting avocado: their seemingly endless supply was stacked up high in the corridor which led to the bogs, which, in turn were lined to the ceiling with amusing nineteenth century erotica.

I held my 30th birthday party there  (I was less interested in food, then), and as that night finished in the wee wee hours (Jack locked the front door at midnight) and the alcohol flowed, my memory is decidedly hazy. Pearl, the long-suffering waiter, rather sweetly made me a little chocolate cake with the word 'Love' piped on the top in very shaky handwriting. 

If they approved of you for some reason (as a wannabe auctioneer, I was in 'the biz', Guv), everything was just dandy. If they didn't (and this could change on a daily basis, as when my brother in law had a bit of mutton bone pointed directly at him, and told that he was 'evil'), you couldn't even get past the oak studded door. An earnest European couple in immaculate Loden coats, no doubt enticed by the cosy Englishness of the bow windowed exterior and the enchanting prospect of avocado vinaigrette, had the door slammed in their faces and were told to 'get lorst, and don't even think of comin' back!'.

But a few months ago I did go back. From the outside, everything looked the same: Jack's black Rolls-Royce corniche (fitted with darkened glass and vanity numberplates) was still parked opposite, and the house looked immaculate. But most ominously, the menu had been taken down. We threw gravel at the upstairs windows, but the net curtains remained firmly closed, and we didn't even get a twitch. Sadly, it looks like Jacks and Shells are no longer plying their trade. I do hope they haven't gone to the great gasworks in the sky, and are enjoying their retirement. That fast changing corner of SW6 won't be the same without them. Even without the duck.

The Gasworks, 87 Waterford Road, Fulham, London, SW6 2ET (020 7736 3830)

Soufflé Heaven

I'm amused by soufflés. There's just something terribly camp about them, isn't there?  I'm not exactly sure what it is: the acute accent on the e? Or the high drama of 'The Rise", perhaps? The fact that the Table has to wait for the Soufflé, rather than the Soufflé having to wait for the Table- giving you the chance to fuss dramatically around the kitchen, and then to have queeny hysterics when your soufflé collapses. 

Control Freaks love them, too. There's all that stuff about the right temperature, the correct way to beat the egg whites, the proper way to do this, the proper way to do that. So I was quite happy to leave this one to The Girl, who came up with a fabulous aromatic soufflé, flavoured with tarragon.

I will go as far as saying that I think her soufflé was the best one I've ever had.  Tarragon, as you will remember, has an intense aniseedy, licoriquey, Pernod-y taste, and is considered by le gratin to go extremely well with poultry. It worked well with the cheese in the soufflé, and gave the dish a punchy, herbal flavour. If you like tarragon, you're going to love it. Not that I want to patronise you in any way; I am aware that most subscribers to The Greasy Spoon have probably made more soufflés, than I've had hot dinners:

First you need to turn on you oven. It's really important that you get your oven really hot (200C) as this sudden heat is what makes ths soufflé rise. Get hold of a soufflé dish, and smear the inside with the greasy bit of a butter wrapper. 

Next, it's time to make a roux. You'll remember how to do this. Flour cooked in a large knob of butter, stirred until smooth, and then turned into a sloppy kind of sauce with the addition of milk. Keep the pan on a gentle heat and stir or whisk like crazy, until all the lumps have been removed.

Remove from the heat, and let the white sauce cool down a bit (you don't want the eggs to cook as yet). Whisk in three egg yolks, add a dollop of mustard, grate in some Gruyère cheese, and throw in a good handful of tarragon leaves. Season with salt, pepper and lots of grated nutmeg.

Whisk up three egg whites until they're stiff. It's very important not to get any fat in the mixing bowl (ie egg yolk) as this will prevent the egg whites thickening up. The mixing bowl needs to be extremely clean. Finally, mix the egg white into the cheesy, herby, white sauce, using gentle hand movements. Use a metal spoon.

That's about it. The soufflé mixture, not surprisingly, goes into the soufflé dish, and the dish goes into the hot oven. Half an hour later it should be ready. If it hasn't risen properly, you can blame me, this blog, the cat's mother, and the world in general. Nothing like throwing a tantrum to clear the air, is there?

Stone's Chop House Pancakes

With Shrove Tuesday looming (it's on the 24th February), here's a genuine pancake recipe from Stone's Chop House. Stone's was a famous old restaurant in Panton Street, near Piccadilly Circus, London. I fear it went out of business many moons ago. Here's the recipe (taken word-for-illiterate-word) from "The Best of British Cooking" published as a "book cassette" in the very early 1970's:

For 4

6 eggs

6oz caster sugar

2 tbsp double cream

2 sliced cooking apples

2 oz raisins

2oz butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp rum

Separate eggs and mix yolks with cream. Whip whites with sugar then fold into mixture. Pour into small frying pan (4 in for 1 pancake) heated and buttered. Place in oven for about 5 minutes at 400F (Mark 6). Remove and tip out pancake and fill with filling made by putting apple, raisins, butter and cinnamon in a pan and heating and adding rum at the end. Fold and serve, sprinkling with icing sugar.