The Greasy Spoon

Midsummer Poached Salmon

"Why candles?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

Midsummer is a fascinating time of the year. For starters, it's associated with all sorts of curious folklore, magic, and mythology; and the long summer days give opportunity for parties, and lazing around in the garden after work. Traditionally, the 24th June is St John's Day, or Midsummer Day; even though the true solstice is on June 21st. So last weekend, we drove up to Worcestershire to see two great, and important English gardens, Hidcote Manor, and Kiftsgate Court; both currently flowering in all their full glory.

On the way back, I persuaded The Girl to stop off in Oxfordshire, and pay our Midsummer respects to The Rollright Stones. This is a lesser known megalithic
stone circle, which dates back over three and half thousand years. As I expected, there were a few pagans (with flowers in their hair) milling around the circle, and soaking up the vibes. I took a quick photograph of the "Whispering Knight"- which is a large, single stone, standing about a hundred yards away from the main formation.

Anyway, back to things culinary. If you're going to have a party at this time of year, one of the most perfect dishes you can offer your guests is a classic whole poached salmon. For this, I would strongly advise that you invest in a fish kettle. This is a great bit of kit: it's just a long, rectangular, metal pan with a lid- big enough to hold a large salmon.

To poach the salmon, you need to fill the kettle up with cold water, to which you've previously added a few peppercorns , a bayleaf, and a bouquet garni. Place the gutted salmon into the water, and bring the kettle to a slow boil on top of your stove. Once the water is beginning to simmer, put the lid back on, and turn off the heat. Let the fish stand in the hot water. This is a great tip for cooking fish. It stops the flesh from falling apart, and ensures that the fish remains very slightly undercooked (you want that), and moist, too. You'll be able to tell when the fish is cooked: when the flesh begins to flake gently away, and the eyes of the fish turn opaque.

Take out the cooked salmon, and lie it on a plate. Let it rest for a bit. Try and keep the fish as whole as you can. Remove the skin, and the fins, but keep the head and tail. Next, you need to remove the backbone. Run a knife along the top of the fish, and then make a cut to remove the head. The goal is to take off the top fillet, remove all the bones, and then reassemble the fish. Don't worry too much if the fish breaks up a bit, as we're about to disguise this with cucumber.

Once you're happy that most, if not all of the bones, have been taken out, start cutting up a cucumber into thin slices. Overlap these on the top of the salmon, so that they look like scales. So to recap: you've got a de-boned poached salmon, with the head and tail still intact. The centre section (ie the pink flesh) is now covered with cucumber scales.

If you're in a really cheffy (albeit retro) mood, you can now glaze the salmon with aspic. If you can't be bothered, serve it as it is. In both cases, you'll need a nice, stiff mayonnaise to go with it, preferably made by yours truly. For variety, it could be fun to add some chopped dill, and a squeeze of lemon to the mayonnaise. Serve the finished salmon on a bed of watercress.

The Greasy Spoon's Lobster Thermidor

Last night The Girl suggested that we make Lobster Thermidor. An interesting choice, as I have to hold my hand up and admit to you that I have never made it before. So, I pulled a few trusted cookery books down off the shelf, and did some research.

There are all sorts of variations on the theme. Essentially, it's chopped lobster flesh bound in a creamy Hollandaise type sauce, put back into the shell, and then grilled with parmesan cheese. Some recipes use egg yolks, others don't; some recipes use chopped parsley, some use cayenne pepper, all seem to use mustard; you get the drift.

Here's what we came up with. It worked extremely well, and was easy to prepare. First we bought Australian lobster tails from Waitrose. We removed the side fins, and cut off the bones, which run across the top. The lobster flesh then came away easily, and was put to one side, while I made the cream sauce.

This was straightforward. I chopped up two shallots, and cooked them in butter, until soft. Next, I poured in a decent amount of dry white wine, with a dash of cognac, and bubbled it away to burn off the alcohol.

I then added about a cup of fish stock, and a similar amount of double cream; turned the heat up, and reduced the sauce by about a half, to thicken it up. Next, I added a teaspoon of English mustard, salt and pepper, chopped chives, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

It was then a simple matter to warm the chopped lobster in the sauce (so that the lobster was slightly cooked), pour the mixture back into the cleaned lobster tails, sprinkle it with freshly grated parmesan, and grill in the oven.

After about five minutes under the hot grill, the slightly browned lobster mixture bubbled up nicely with the melted cheese, and the lobster shell turned an attractive deep pink colour. Overall, a resounding success...

Potted Shrimps

Hand held up high, I think that potted shrimps are, perhaps, one of the best traditonal British dishes of all time. Recently, I ordered some at the downstairs bar below Bibendum in the Fulham Road. They were completely delicious, buttery, flavoured with nutmeg, and served with simple brown bread.

By shrimps, I mean those small brownish Morecambe Bay shrimps, rather than the large Oriental variety. Melt some unsalted butter with mace, cayenne pepper, paprika, and some grated nutmeg in a small pan. Add the peeled brown shrimps, and cook them very briefly in the butter at a low heat, ideally adding any juices left over from the shrimps. Squeeze in a generous amount of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, and divide the mixture into ramekin dishes.

Let them set in the fridge, and then top them off with some unclarified butter. The butter will act as a seal. When they're ready to serve, spoon out the potted shrimps, and spread them on slices of brown bread. It's best if they're served at room temperature, so that the slightly spicy butter goes soft. Perfect for this time of year or for picnics.

Shirred Eggs with Scallops

Working as I do in the antiques and auction business, I'm often lucky enough to pick up interesting bargains. The latest acquisition to my modest cookery library is a copy of the Bestway Cookery Gift Book, circa 1938. It's a smallish, slightly stained volume, which has the added plus of having once been part of the Anton Mosimann Collection. If you see any similar books from the 1930's, I would urge you to buy them, as cook-books from this period are becoming increasingly hard to track down.

I had a look to see if there were any recipes which I could post on The Greasy Spoon. Tastes change, and I reckoned that dishes like Gooseberry Custard, and Monday Pudding, wouldn't go down that well in today's world of sun-dried tomatoes, and properly cooked squid-ink risotto.

However, I found a simple recipe for Shirred Eggs with Scallops, which I think, would make an excellent first course. I've adapted it slightly.

Take some fresh, medium-sized scallops, cut them into quarters, and flash-fry them in a pan. They will need very little cooking. Put the scallops into a ramekin dish. Next, make a white sauce in the usual way. Remember, that's butter, flour, and then milk, and a bit of nutmeg. Pour the white sauce over the scallops, and then break a fresh egg onto the top. Season with salt and pepper, and add a knob of unsalted butter. Bake in a medium oven, until the eggs are set; and then decorate with some chopped parsley. Ideally, you want the egg yolks to remain soft, and slightly runny.

Prawn Cocktail

Well, I had to write about the ubiquitous Prawn Cocktail sooner or later, didn't I? In America, this is called Shrimp Cocktail, and in any event, the American version seems to consist of prawns with a spicy, red coloured dipping sauce. In Britain, we bind the prawns in a bland pink mayonnaise, which is known as a Marie Rose sauce. Actually, I'm rather fond of it, and the secret is to get the sauce as smooth as you possibly can.

I made it yesterday, but substituted crayfish tails for the prawns. They were rather sweet, and delicious, and it worked out well. Here's how I made the Marie Rose sauce:

First, I put a dollop of French Dijon Mustard, a squeeze of lemon juice, and some salt in the Magimix. Next, I added two egg yolks, and whizzed the ingredients together. Then, I poured in some sunflower oil very slowly- in a thin stream- until the eggs and oil combined to form an emulsion. If you use a blender or processor to make mayonnaise, you will find that it can get too thick, so I'll let you into a trade secret. Add a tablespoon of boiling water. This has a miraculous effect. It lightens up the mayonnaise, making it whiter in colour, and smoother and lighter on the tongue.

Next, add several tablespoons of Heinz Tomato Ketchup, a splash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, a few drops of Tabasco, and a further squeeze of the old lemon juice. Hey Presto! You've now got a pink Marie Rose Sauce.

Bind the prawns (or shrimps, or crayfish tails) in the sauce, and serve in a glass with some lettuce, and a wedge of lemon.

Now for a bizarre twist on the classic Marie Rose Sauce. While trawling the internet, I found a recipe for Sauce Liberal from none other than our old mucker, The Duchess of Windsor (aka Mrs Wallis Simpson).

You make the Marie Rose sauce in the usual way- but finish it off by mixing in "liberal" slugs of neat gin. I gather that this went down rather well at the Windsors' sybaritic villa off the Bois de Bologne. This worried me. Okay, I didn't exactly have a sleepless night over it, but I reckoned that the bitter taste of the warm gin would ruin an otherwise excellent sauce.

So, as an experiment, I boiled up some gin in a pan, until all the alcoholic vapours had burnt off, then added the reduced spirit to the sauce. It worked! The juniper flavours came through, and it gave the sauce a subtle twist.

Sardines

Sardines or "Pilchards" are a small fish related to the Herring. They're oily, extremely good for you, and apparently stimulate the brain- and my god, do I need that this morning. In this country, we used to have masses of the critters down in Cornwall, but the stocks petered out in the late nineteenth century. Have a look at the paintings by the Newlyn School artists (such as Stanhope Alexander Forbes), which often depict Cornish fishermen of that period.

Nowadays, we're more used to imported sardines packed in olive oil in small tins. Back in the 1920's, gourmets thought that oil improved the sardines, so we had the interesting (and slightly bizarre) concept of vintage sardines. Oscar Wilde's son, Vyvyan Holland, who was a connoisseur of this sort of thing, even had an exclusive dining society where they met expressly to sample the different "vintages". Well, the sad news is that this was a total fantasy, but I like the idea of grown men putting on dinner jackets to eat sardines out of the tin.

Here's a simple recipe for Grilled Sardines stuffed with Onions and Capers. I've taken it from Anton Mosimann. Generally, I'm not that keen on the "celebrity chef" culture, but I think Anton Mosimann (one of the first celeb chefs in this country) was (is!) rather good. And some of his food is simpler than you might imagine.

Chop up an onion and sweat it in olive oil for a few minutes. Take the cooked onion off the heat and mix it with some chopped parsley, three tablespoons of chopped capers, a strip of finely chopped lemon peel, salt and pepper, and a pinch of cayenne.

Get hold (or catch) some fresh sardines, and make sure they are scaled and gutted (but keep the head and tails on). Stuff the sardines with the onion and capers mixture, and sprinkle some of the mixture on top of the sardines. Season the fish with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Shove them under a hot grill for about five minutes.

Anchovy Butter

I love anchovies. They're a small, silvery salt-water fish found in the mild waters of the Med, and the warmer reaches of the Atlantic. The Romans were crazy about them and used them extensively in their cooking. The anchovies we're used to in Britain are cured in salt, and then packed in olive oil- which gives them a powerful, extremely salty flavour. Last summer when I was on holiday in Positano, I sampled the unsalted local variety- arranged simply on a plate with torn basil leaves and olive oil; and my god, they were good.

So today, I've come up with an oh-so-simple recipe for anchovy butter. You can use it with fish, or just simply spread it on your toast; and if warmed up gently, it would make an excellent sauce.

In a mixing bowl mash up a pat of slightly soft unsalted butter (ie taken out of the 'fridge for a bit). It's important to use unsalted butter, otherwise the dish is going to be far too salty. Generally, I use unsalted butter anyway in my food, as it leaves you to decide how much salt to put in at the end of the cooking period.

With a fork, mash in your anchovies. When they've been combined, add a squeeze of lemon juice. The lemon juice acts as a balance, and will help to smooth out the salt. I think a dash of ground mace or cayenne pepper would be work well here too. Finally, pack the anchovy butter into small ramekin dishes and keep it in the 'fridge.

Christmas Herring Salad

A German style Christmas market has come to town. I haven't been yet, but all sorts of stalls, fairground rides, and ice-rinks have gone up in Hyde Park. And for once, it's suddenly cold and frosty here in London.

Every Christmas I make a German or Scandanavian style Herring Salad. I was given the recipe by my great uncle whose family originally came from Cologne. He treated the enterprise as a work of art, and "built" up the salad over three or four days; however I recently ran into a Swedish girl at a cocktail party who insisted that it needed to be made quickly- and then finished off immediately. I'm going to go with my great-uncle on this one, as the vinegars in the salad should act as a preservative. Want to make it? This is how you do it:

You need a large mixing bowl. Chop up some herring. You are supposed to use salted herring, but I use Scottish roll-mops- which are herring marinated in vinegar and spices. Add some diced cooked potatoes, peeled diced apples, diced gherkin, chopped celery, chopped anchovies, and ham- chopped up into small pieces. Mix it all around. Throw in a handful of capers, and some diced cooked beetroot.

The beetroot will make the salad go an interesting bright pink colour. Next, mix up a vinaigrette. That's just a small dollop of mustard mixed with sugar, and wine vinegar to form an emulsion, with oil added slowly. I suggest you use a light oil, such as sunflower oil, rather than olive oil for this one. Olive oil is too Mediterranean in style and flavour.

Finish off the salad with lots of chopped dill, and chopped egg white. It's delicious.

Marinated Haddock with Prawns and Dill

This recipe comes from Nathalie Hambro's Simple Fare (1986), one of the more interesting cook books in my collection. As well as being a fashion designer, and all-round style guru, Nathalie Hambro is one of the most innovative and inspiring cookery writers out there, and if you are looking for fresh ideas, I whole-heartedly recommend her books. Most of them, I think, are out of print, but can be bought easily from amazon.co.uk, or abebooks.co.uk.

I like this recipe for its Baltic, or Nordic, overtones, and it's very easily made with the simplest of ingredients. Here's how you do it:

Line a dish with tin foil. Spread some dill over the foil, and season with sugar, Maldon salt, and black pepper. Next, place a fresh smoked haddock fillet over the dill. Normally I would use undyed haddock, but for this recipe I've found that the dyed yellow haddock works better. The Haddock needs to be as fresh as you can get it. Cover the fish with more dill, sugar, salt and pepper. It's best to use more sugar than salt, and to go easy with the pepper. Sprinkle some large peeled prawns on top. Wrap the whole thing up tightly with the tin foil, and stick it into the 'fridge, with a weight on top, for at least 24 hours- preferably longer.

When it's ready, slice the haddock into long, thin pieces. It's slightly like Japanese sushumi. Arrange it in a serving dish, with the prawns. Take some spring onions, and cut them in four lengthways. Soak them in a bowl of ice-cold water- after a few minutes the green tops with start to curl-up- which looks impressive, for virtually zero effort. Take them out, drain them; and stick them in with the marinated haddock and the rest of the prawns.

Oysters

One of my all-time favourite restaurants is the incongrous Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York, situated directly beneath the Railroad Station Terminal in Midtown Manhatten. Grand Central was built between 1903-1913 in the Beaux-Arts style, and the Oyster Bar ("Below Sea-Level") is a sprawling labyrinth of Byzantine influenced vaults decorated with glittering mosaics.

I like the huge choice of oysters chalked up on the menu there. The agonising decision you have to make between say, Martha's Vinyard oysters on the one hand, or Chesapeake Bay molluscs on the other. I've no truck with those poor souls who insist on cooking their oysters using bizarre recipes involving breadcrumbs and grills. For me, oysters should always be eaten raw, on ice, straight from the shell, perhaps with a dash of our old friend, Tabasco, or a squeeze of lemon juice.

There are three types of oyster. The Pacific, Olympia, and Atlantic. Pacific oysters are the most prolific, and tend to have a creamier taste. The Olympia is found again, in the Pacific Ocean, but limited to Washington Sound. They're a small oyster with a full taste. Atlantic oysters (as served at Grand Central), have a saltier flavour. I'm currently into the Atlantic type, preferring the ozoney, minerally, salty taste of the sea that hits the back of your throat as soon as you've tipped one of the critters (they're alive!) down there.

If you've tended to avoid oysters in the past, may I persuade you to change your mind? Because you're missing out on one of the greatest pleasures in life. It's true. Trust me!

Fish and Chips

Hallelujah! I've been converted to the Mushy Pea cause. Like my bizarre loathing for mashed potato, until a few days ago, I didn't like them- or thought I didn't like them. But now all that has changed. Okay, I tucked into an upmarket version, probably petis-pois, half-mashed, and cooked in butter, stock and a bit of mint. But they were good- immensely good.

The best fish and chips I've ever had was at some sort of ramshackled greasy spoon on the windswept coast of Whitby, in the North East of England. Whitby is an interesting place. First, there's this remarkable Gothic ruin of an Abbey, and then it's the place where Count Dracula first arrives from Transylvania in Bram Stoker's creepy novella.

The secret of Fish and Chips is the batter. A traditional English batter is suprisingly simple. It's just sieved self-raising flour mixed with beer, and a pinch of salt. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. The batter has to be extremely thick, mixed almost to a gluey consistancy. The fish (say, Haddock, or Cod), is then coated in the thick batter, and deep-fried in beef dripping or lard. The batter souffles, and the fish steams within the batter.

Traditionally, English chips are cut into thick chunks, and that's the way many people in this country like them; though I have to admit that I prefer the French way of doing things, where the potatoes are sliced into thin strips and then double fried, but for genuine authenticity, thick-cut is the way you do it.

Serve the whole shooting match with mushy peas, tartare sauce, malt vinegar and salt. Tartare Sauce is made from a combination of mayonnaise, chopped capers, gherkins, garlic, parsley, and shallots. In a later post, I'm going to get my thinking cap on and come up with the definitive version of this versatile sauce.

Mexican Prawn Ceviche

The 1st and 2nd of November are celebrated in Mexico as the Festival of the Day of the Dead. It does, of course, co-incide with our Hallowe'en, but the emphasis is on joy and celebration, rather than the macabre. The Mexicans believe that death is not the end, but instead the beginning of a new stage of life, and celebrate the lives of former loved ones with colourful parades, papier-mache skeletons, bright pink sugar skulls and anarchic carnival. I haven't been yet, but one day I would love to fly over there and join in the fun.

Well, it had to be a Mexican recipe today, didn't it? As it's The Greasy Spoon, I've adapted a Mexican version of Prawn Cocktail, although I think it originally came from Peru. It's called Ceviche. The raw prawns are "cooked" in lime juice. It's delicious. For my American readers, we say "prawn", you say "shrimp". So let's call the whole thing off.

In a mixing bowl combine fresh prawns, lime juice, salt and pepper. Your prawns will need to be extremely fresh.  Mix it all together. Cover and stick in the 'fridge for twelve hours. The acid in the lime juice will "cook" the protein in the fish. You will know when the mixture is ready, when the prawns have turned pink. In case you were wondering, they start off a grey colour in their natural state. Now it's time to add the other ingredients.

In the meantime, you've cut up red peppers, red onions, plum tomatoes, and yellow peppers into julienne (which is a cheffy term for thin strips). Add these to the bowl. Next add a finely chopped jalapeno chili, a teaspoon of sugar, and a dash of wine vinegar. Finish the whole thing off, by garnishing with a thinly sliced or diced avocado, and roughly chopped coriander. You could get away with serving this as a first course in a wine glass, though in the photograph above, it's presented on a serving plate. Very retro, and slightly different. I like it.

Jellied Eels

Gor Blimey, for years now, I've tried to like jellied eels- I really have; and this is from someone who will quite happily tuck into a juicy plate of Tete de Veau when he's living it up in Paris.  Trust me, I want to like jellied eels, but somehow the miraculous conversion on the Road to Damascus hasn't quite happened yet.  But I'm getting there- slowly.

The photograph shows Tubby Isaac's famous seafood stall in Aldgate, London, which has been feeding "the poor man's delicacy" to hungry East Enders since 1919.

What exactly are jellied eels?  Well, the eel is caught- or used to be caught- in the muddy and murky waters of the dear old Thames Estuary.  Long, slippery, slimey things.  Then they're sliced up and boiled in water with herbs, spices and a bit of gelatine to make a sort of fish stock or jelly.  Afficinados like to sprinkle chili vinegar on them, and stress that you need to suck at the bones to get out the full flavour.

I'm fascinated by the traditional Eel, Pie and Mash shops of London.  There are not that many left now.  I need to get my camera out and go and photograph them for a later post.  If anyone out there can point me in the right direction with a particular favourite, please do.  I know Manze's in Peckham and F. Cooke in Dalston- although I have a sneaky suspicion that the last one might have closed down.

cockney London History Thames

Cod

I was out on the town last night, so there was no post. As I've just about recovered from yesterday's revels, I'm going to write today about that King of the Fishes, the noble cod. Cod was once the staple diet of the everyday household. Not anymore. Over-fishing has become a problem, and this once ubiquitous fish can now be found on the menus of the swankiest restaurants. If you live in Britain or the East Coast of the United States, the chances are that your cod was caught in the North Atlantic. If you're in the mood for a bit of bed-time reading you can find out more in Mark Kulansky's excellent book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, available from all good bookshops. Now for the recipe bit. Here's my take on Cod with Parsley Sauce. It's a very simple dish; Nursery Food at its best.

Take two or so fillets of cod and steam them. I'm a big fan of steaming. It's easy, quick and healthy, and because of all the moisture floating around, your food won't dry out. You can buy steamers cheaply from your local kitchen shop, or if you are lucky enough to have a Chinatown nearby, bamboo steamers are excellent. While your fish is cooking, make the sauce.

In your favourite pan, melt two or three knobs of unsalted butter. Now add two or three tablespoons of flour. You're about to make a roux. Stir like mad. It's very important at this stage to get rid of any lumps, so keep stirring until you get a smooth, golden paste. Cook this for a few minutes. Again, it's important to make sure that you have cooked the flour properly. Now's the time to start adding milk in small batches. The plan is to make a veloute. As the flour cooks in the milk, you're sauce will get thicker and thicker. Throw in a bayleaf, and some nutmeg. As you stir, keep adding the milk, until you get a smooth, silky and thickish sauce. When you're happy with the result, let the sauce bubble for a bit, to make sure everything's cooked properly. Add some torn parsley leaves (I prefer the flat leaved variety), season the cod with salt and pepper to taste, remove the bayleaf, and you're done.

An unpretentious but delicious dish. Excellent with some new potatoes, a wedge of lemon, and a decent bottle of Chablis.

Kedgeree

I've had arguments with a friend of mine about what makes up a proper kedgeree. A breakfast relic of the British Raj, in its purest form it's essentially rice, smoked fish and eggs (the original dish, khichdi, included lentils); and Great Aunt Agatha, in a naughtier moment, might have stirred in a smidgin or two of curry powder. This is my improved creamier version. And there's wild rice for extra crunch.

First, cook a cup or two of wild rice for about 25 minutes. Next, saute some chopped onions in oil and butter. Next stir in some rice. (I prefer Uncle Ben's Long Grain- which has had the starch removed, and will stop the kedgeree becoming one big mess). Add a few teaspoons of curry paste and some nutmeg., and then add the partially cooked wild rice. Cook for a few minutes, so that the rice becomes translucent and soaks up the spices.

Meanwhile, cook some smoked haddock fillets (preferably undyed) in a mixture of milk and water, with a few peppercorns. Bring to a simmer, and then turn off the heat, and let the fish sit in the hot milk and water (with a lid on), until cooked. This is the best way to poach smoked haddock. Set the cooked fish aside, and tip the resulting milky fish stock over the rice. Simmer this on a low heat until the rice is cooked. In effect, you are making a pilaf. You may need to add some more water and stock. When the liquid has been absorbed, flake up the haddock into large pieces and fold into the mixture with a dollop of single cream.

Slice up some softly boiled eggs, and serve with chopped parsely, lemon juice, and a bit of Cayenne Pepper. For some reason this dish works extremely well with Mango Chutney.