The Greasy Spoon

The Great Pine Nut Mystery

I've just been poisoned.  By a packet of Chinese pine nuts.  Here's what happened: about three days ago, I had a sudden craving for pine nuts (as one does), and drove down to my Sainsbury's Local in the Battersea Park Road to buy a packet.

Yesterday, I suddenly developed a nasty bitter taste in the back of my mouth. Metallic, too. Very unpleasant. Anything that I eat or drink tastes revolting. Now, I'm not one to panic, but I knew something was up. In an uncharacteristic Woody Allen moment, I typed " nasty bitter taste at the back of the mouth" into my computer. And guess what came up?  Pages and pages of internet forum posts from people suffering exactly the same symptoms. A whole sub-culture of poisoned bitter-taste-in-the-mouth sufferers. It's caused by pine nuts. From China. The taste develops about two to three days after you've eaten these nuts, and can last anything from a few days to several weeks. 

The phenomenon was first identified in a paper written for the European Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2001. It's all to do with something called triglycerids, and is caused, I think, by oxidisation. In other words, China may be selling rancid pine nuts to the West. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Woody Allen via last.fm

To Be or Not to Be?

I've got mixed feelings about all this 'organic" malarkey. The Girl is far greener than I am, and has persuaded me to recycle properly- something which I had spectacularly failed to do in the past.  And one side of me knows that she's right, as you will find from my previous posts urging you to buy organic food. But there's another side of me, alas, which remains sceptical.

Recently, I saw poor old Rick Stein humiliated on television when he was asked to pick out an organic, free-range chicken at a blind tasting. He thought about it long and hard, and then chose the mass-produced, battery chicken. Now, I'm not in any way supporting battery farming- as amongst other things, I think it's unnecessarily cruel; but there was a part of me which leapt into the air with smug glee when this happened.

I've also noticed a tendency (in London at least) for Greens to be found lurking amongst the- how can I put it- richer, chattering classes. A few years ago, I was invited down to a friend's idyllic weekend retreat. We were banned from travelling in more than one car ('to save the environment'), and I think from memory, urged to share a bath. By the end of the weekend, I was having dark fantasies, not surprisingly about the shared baths, but about backing the double exhaust of a V8 engined Bristol 411 onto her organic Elizabethan herb garden.

If you live in London, you will have seen the extraordinary G-Wiz. This is one cute little deathtrap of a car, manufactured in India, and powered exclusively by electricity.  I was tempted to get one- you plug them into the mains, and you don't have to pay the Mayor's Congestion Charge. But - and it's a huge but- I am told on good authority that you have to buy a replacement battery every  few years- which costs in the region of £3000, is decidely toxic, and consequently not green at all.

It's harder to be green if you don't earn much money, have a family to look after, and are currently finding things tough. Surely, it's going to be the least of your priorities in that sort of situation, right?  But proper home-cooked food is another thing in itself, and it doesn't cost much at all to rustle up say, a healthy and delicious parsnip soup, a creamy mushroom risotto, or a rib-sticking Toad in the Hole. I'm with Jamie on this one...

Organic Vegetables Delivered

We're thinking of signing up for one of those organic food and vegetable delivery boxes. The Girl is far 'greener' than I am, and is currently on a mission to get me to recycle more.  I'm happy with that; and I know that she is right- I just need a bit of a kick up the old derrière to get me going.

I reckon that we will probably go for a small 'de-luxe' affair- I don't want the vegetables to pile up in the kitchen, unused; and I have a feeling that the more ordinary boxes are going to be carrots, carrots and yet more carrots. A good bet for a donkey, but not for The Greasy Spoon.  Abel & Co look promising.

Can anyone give us a recommendation?  Which is the best one to go for?  Is it worth the expense? I assume the box is left on your doorstop- just in time for the ravenous street urchins of Battersea to take their pick; no doubt in the name of sweet charity.

Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney

At Dotheboys Hall, I remember being fascinated by an ancient copy of Hobson Jobson which I found hidden away in the school library.  First published in 1903, Hobson was an etymological glossary of Anglo-Indian words and language. A study of words such as Pajama, Veranda, Bungalow, Tiffin, Kedgeree and of course, our very own Curry.

Anglo-Indian food is another fascinating study, in its own right.  One of the best books on the subject is David Burton's The Raj at Table, published by Faber & Faber.

Here's a recipe for Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney.  Today, there are various brands out there using this name. Actually, Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney is something that you will find in the old Anglo-Indian cookery books and the original recipe involved leaving the chutney outside in the backyard to fester under the hot sun for a few days.  I tried to find out who the original Colonel Skinner was (sounds Irish?), but without success.

Chop up the following ingredients in your Magimix or otherwise trendy food processor: twelve ounces of dried mangoes, half a pound of  brown sugar, ginger, rasins, chillis and garlic to taste. Once they're chopped up, spoon the mixture into a large preserving pan.  Add two and half pints of vinegar and season with salt.  Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Transfer into sterlilised jars and store in a dark cupboard.

Dr Kitchener's Curry Powder

I was leafing through a paperback copy of the original 1861 edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (Oxford World's Classics) and came across her recipe for Indian Curry-Powder, founded on Dr Kitchener's Recipe.  William Kitchiner (1775?-1827) was the author of the Apicus Redivivus, The Cook's Oracle, first published in 1817.

I'm quite fond of these historic Anglo-Indian curry powders; the sort of thing we chuck into stews and then have the nerve to call "curry".  Here's my version of Dr Kitchener's curry powder, as described by Mrs Beeton.  I've slightly adapted it for the modern kitchen and added cardamom and black pepper.

Add the following ingredients to a mixing bowl: two teaspoons of powdered turmeric, two teaspoons of powdered cinammon,  two teaspoons of powdered ginger, two teaspoons of powdered fenugreek, a dash of cayenne pepper and a good grinding of black pepper.  Mix them up so they form a powder.

In a pestle and mortar, grind up the following ingredients until they form a fine powder: two teaspoons of coriander seeds, two teaspoons of mustard seeds, and a few cardamom pods. (You will have to discard the cardamom's outer shells).  I love grinding up spices: all those lovely, aromatic smells. When you reckon the ingredients are ready, mix them in with the other spices.  

Keep the finished curry powder in an air-tight container. It should keep reasonably well. Obviously, if you want to make more of the stuff, you will need to increase the quantities. Half the fun of this sort of thing is to play around with the proportions, to suit your own tastes. Secret recipes and all that.

Cardamom

Yesterday, I wrote about a white chocolate mousse flavoured with a hint of cardamom. Did you know that cardamom was a member of the ginger family?  There are two types of cadamom: green cardamom (Elettaria) and black cardamom (Amomum). The type you buy over here in little jars is more likely to be the green variety.  It's quite likely to have come from Sri Lanka too.

Cardamom has a deeply aromatic smell, which reminds me of menthol, or perhaps even mint.  The pods contain seeds, which quickly loose their flavour once the pod's broken apart.  It's also used to cure toothache, digestive disorders and skin conditions. According to Kew Gardens, it's the third most expensive spice in the world.

I like the fact you can use cardamom in both savoury and sweet dishes.  If you're cooking basmati rice, try throwing in a few cardamom pods and a squeeze of lemon juice to give it an extra lift.

Amazing Dill

As I'm interested in Eastern European food, I use quite a bit of dill in my cooking. I bought a cheap packet of dill seeds a few weeks ago, and was amazed, after sowing them in a small terracotta pot, when they started sprouting in abundance. Herbs are difficult to grow in London, usually due to the lack of clean air, sun (like others, I've got a shady garden), and all the usual problems that come with city gardening.

If you look up dill on wikipedia, you will find lots of info about this fascinating herb. Apparently, it was used to ward off witchcraft and evil spirits.

I use it with fish. It goes beautifully with salmon, and marinated haddock; and many dishes with an East European slant will benefit from its aniseedy, liquorice flavoured taste.

Capers

Thinking about what on earth I was going to write about for today's post, I opened my storecupboard to be greeted by a jar of salted capers winking up at me cheekily. It occurred to me that I didn't really know what capers were- okay, we all buy them in little tubs, or salted and in glass jars, but I bet many people out there couldn't say where they come from.

So, I did some research. The caper (Capparis spinosa L.) is a perennial spiny shrub that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and big white to pinkish-white flowers. The capers that we buy in the shops are the pickled bud of this plant. The bush is native to the Mediterranean region, growing wild on walls or in rocky coastal areas.

A classic British dish is Mutton with Caper Sauce. My dear ol' grandma used to eat mutton. It disappeared from the shops in the '70's, when lamb took off. Remember all those ads for New Zealand lamb?

But a properly cooked mutton is a noble old thing, indeed. To make caper sauce, make a white sauce in the usual way- (if you remember, a roux of butter and flour, with added milk, stock, and salt and pepper, to make a smooth sauce). Add a handful of capers, and adjust the seasoning, Make sure that the flour is cooked properly, and serve with the mutton.

Aspic

If you leaf through old cookery books from the 60's and 70's, you will find illustration after illustration of bizarre looking dishes covered in a thick layer of aspic jelly. Tastes have changed, but, now and again, I think there's still a place for using the stuff. A few years back, I was lucky enough to sample some canapes at the Hotel Crillon in Paris; they were utterly delicious; tiny crutons topped with all sorts of goodies set in a rich meaty aspic, which melted smoothly on the tongue.

Most of those retro recipes called for a packet of aspic. I've a feeling that packet aspic has either been banned in the EU, or it's just not made anymore because of a lack of demand. In any event, it's probably a better idea to make your own aspic, as the packet stuff had a similar texture to industrial rubber. If you want to make your own aspic, here's how you do it:

Make a brown stock in the usual way. Leave it to cool, and then skim off all the fat. Pour four cups of the stock into a decent sized pan, and add two tablespoons of white wine vinegar, a bouqet garni, the whites and crushed shells of two eggs, four tablespoons of white wine, and 40-50g of gelatine. (You can buy leaf gelatine in wafer-thin strips which you need to break up into small pieces.)

Bring to a near boil very slowly, whisking the whole time. (It might be a good idea to melt the gelatine in a separate pan first (ie a bain marie), as you will find that it sets very quickly). A thick crust should develop at the top of the pan. This is a good thing, and will help to clarify your stock. Stop whisking for a minute, and let the liquid rise up to the top of the pan.

Finally, strain the liquid through a muslin cloth, trying to keep the crust intact, as it will act as a filter. Strain the aspic a second time, and you should end up with a crystal clear liquid, that will set- and become- trumpet fanfare- aspic...

The Miraculous Garlic

I tend to use a lot of garlic in my cooking. It's supposed to be terribly good for you, though I'm not sure if this has been scientifically proven. For those of you with a botanical bent, garlic is a species of the onion family, Alliacae, and it's latin classificaton is Allium sativum L.

I've recently discovered smoked garlic, which you should be able to find in any decent supermarket. For some reason, I find that the raw, pungent taste of the garlic bulb is neutralised by the smoking effect, and consequently, you end up with a smoother taste.

This morning, I've decided to give you a recipe for Smoked Garlic Soup. It's not something you're going to want on a regular basis, but it's ideal if you're feeling a bit under the weather- a shot of this garlic infused soup can do wonders for the soul! This recipe will make enough soup for six to eight people.

Drop a head of smoked garlic (yes, a head- that's about sixteen or so cloves) into boiling water. Take it out after thirty seconds, and peel.

Pour three pints of water into a large pan. Add a few cloves, some chopped sage, a bayleaf, a sprig of thyme, and a slug of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and add the smoked garlic heads. Bring to the boil, and simmer slowly for about thirty minutes.

In a soup tureen, beat three egg yolks, and then add a thin stream of olive oil, so that it forms an emulsion- like making a mayonnaise. Beat in a ladle-full of the hot soup, and whisk. Once the egg yolk, olive oil, and liquid have combined, strain in the rest of the garlic liquor. You will finish up with a delicate, light, cream-coloured soup. Serve with crutons, or hot toast, and grated Parmesan cheese.

The strange thing is that when the garlic is cooked properly, it will loose it's raw, pungent flavour, and take on a more delicate twist. And yes, you do need to use a whole garlic head. Trust me on this one...