The Greasy Spoon

It's a wild world

 

 

It's wild garlic time. We get ours from the Pimlico Road Farmer's Market on Pimlico Green. £1.50 a bunch. I like this time of the year; when the boredom and horror of steely grey Feburary suddenly turns into the promise of a raw Spring. The Boat Race...The Grand National...Easter...Daffodils...Chocolate Eggs...Hot Cross Buns. And the whiff of raw garlic in the hedgerows. A few years ago, I was driving along a lane in South Oxfordshire and suddenly, there it was- a distinctive whiff of garlic coming from the grassy verge.

I'm very keen on a simple risotto made from English wild garlic. You'll find that the taste of wild garlic is much more subtle than the standard stuff, so dismiss any worries about any overpowering garlicky tastes. By the way, the look of wild garlic is a bit different too: it comes in the form of slightly limp, green leaves (not entirely unlike spinach) and you use these chopped leaves, rather than the bulb. You'll find that the wild garlic will keep if you stick it into a vase of water. I've just posted two helpful videos on The Greasy Spoon page on Facebook: they'll tell you all about wild garlic; how to find it and how to use it.

Here's how I make a delicious wild garlic risotto: I chop up a small onion and sauté it in hot butter, before adding Carnaroli rice (allowing the rice to soak up the hot butter). Ladle in a small quantity of hot, steaming vegetable stock and stir like mad, until the rice has absorbed the stock.

Carry on ladelling in the hot stock until the Carnaroli rice is ready: this is the art of risotto making. You want the rice grains to remain firm (with a "bite") yet, at the same time, to be bound up in a creamy, starchy, slightly soupy liquid. It might take about half an hour to make it properly. I find that it always takes longer to make than recipe books suggest.

And do beat the rice like mad- as this releases the starch from the grains. I'm currently in favour of Carnaroli rice: I find that this makes a slightly creamier risotto, although of course, arborio rice would be fine too. 

 

Anyway, back to the recipe. About ten minutes from the end, I add the chopped up wild garlic. Wild garlic has a very subtle taste, so I would recommend that you add quite a bit of the stuff: the risotto can certainly take it. I was also keen on the idea of turning the risotto a green colour- this will happen if you add enough. Check the seasoning and when you reckon the risotto's ready, add a small dash of white wine. This will stop the risotto from cooking.

Finish it off with a small helping of grated Parmesan- or indeed, a British cheese. This is Anglo-Italian food at its best.

And last, and certainly not least, I have started writing for The Dabbler. Some of you may know this site- it's an excellent (and slightly quirky) Culture Blog, well worth subscribing too. I was amazed to discover that I had won a Dabbler prize- a bottle of Ten Year Old Single Malt Glengoyne Whisky...

Ham Hock

 

 

 

The new Greasy Spoon forum/page on Facebook seems to be going well, with readers beginning to post up their own stuff on it: ideas, comments and food photographs. You can join in the fun at: The Greasy Spoon on Facebook. 

I've posted up a link on the Facebook page to a delicious and gutsy sounding recipe by Helen Graves: "Ham Hock and White Bean Soup with a Green Sauce". I'm going to try it out on The Girl tomorrow evening.

Ham Hock, also known as Pork Knuckle, is the joint or shank where the Pig's leg meets the foot. Ham comes from the back part of the pig. As you might expect, there's quite a bit of tendon, fat, and skin going on down there, and the hock needs to be stewed for a long period of time to cope with it all. Despite that, if properly cooked, a flavoursome pork knuckle is a noble old thing indeed, and a worthy champion of German, East European and American Southern Cooking. It also makes a fabulous terrine.

 

 

Have a look at the two charts I've posted up. I like the slightly retro graphics; the sort of thing you see posted up in old-fashioned butcher shops. The top chart shows British cuts, the chart at the bottom, American cuts. If you look closely, you will see that they are slightly different.

 

 

Zucchini Fritters

 

 

 

I like the word "Zucchini". It rolls off the tongue. Here in England we call them "courgettes". Anyway. If you've got the time and inclination, zucchini fritters are the perfect thing to serve with drinks, and especially with a Dry Martini.

I'm currently keen on the idea of tiny fritters; the size of a small coin: slice up some baby courgettes very thinly, put the slices into a colander, and sprinkle them with sea salt. The salt will draw out enormous quantities of water. Your friends will be thrilled and amazed.

Next, beat an egg white until frothy, and dip the courgette slices into the egg white. Shake off the excess, and then dip them again into strong flour which you've previously seasoned with salt and white pepper.

In a deep-fat fryer, heat some peanut oil to about 375 F (190 C). If you don't have a fryer, use a wok. As nut oil burns at a higher temperature, it's an excellent choice for this sort of operation. Drop the courgettes into the oil, a few at a time, and fry them until they are crisp. Watch them like a hawk, and make sure they don't burn.

Incidentally, when frying, it's always best never to overcrowd the pan; if you do, you run the risk that your food may steam or boil, which, of course, is a different technique all together.

Drain the fritters on kitchen paper, and sprinkle them with more salt and pepper. Okay, this means that your fritters are going to pretty salty, but I think that in this case, it provides a perfect balance with the dry oiliness (is that a word?) of a classic Martini cocktail.

I also quite like the idea of cutting up the courgettes into wider slices, and serving them in that simple way, as a side dish. Baby yellow courgettes could be an interesting concept, too. Lots of ideas.

Avocado and Tomato Ice with Horseradish

 

 

Cordon Bleu Cookery Course, 1970

I've always had a thing about late summer. It's fun to try and pin-point the exact time summer changes into autumn. Often, it's around September 10th or so; marked by a whiff of bonfire smoke, a sudden chill in the air, or the blustery gales of the September equinox. Mind you, here in London, it feels like autumn started in June, and I'm writing this looking out onto a grey, damp and slightly foggy street.  

It's also the last chance saloon for summer food, or at least, food with summery pretensions. Here's my recipe for a delicious Tomato Ice. If you think that it reeks of 1970's dinner party food, you would be utterly correct, as I've based it on a recipe from No. 69 of the Cordon Blue Cookery Course, published by Purnell as a part-work in 1970; but with the addition of grated horseradish which I think would work well with it, and the hot flavour of horseradish can be an excellent combination with the intense, sweet taste of the tomato. It's a pretty dish, and I like the colour of the tomato ice. Canadian, apparently.

You tip two tins of plum tomatoes into a pan, and then add two teaspoons of salt, a generous pinch of white pepper, four tablespoons of golden caster sugar, the zest and juice of two lemons, and a generous helping of freshly grated horseradish, and stir until the mixture comes to the boiling point, pushing the tomato pulp against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon to help it break down. Add three sprigs of fresh mint, cover the pan and allow to simmer for five to ten minutes. Rub the contents of the pan through a sieve, making sure that you extract all the juices. Add a few drops of Tabasco to taste. You should now be looking at a bowl full of a lovely red-coloured, very thin juice.

Chill this mixture in a deep freeze, and mash it up with a fork just before it starts to set. Return to the deep freeze, and repeat the process, and again, until you have formed a smooth ice in the sorbet manner. You could, of course, acheive the same effect in an ice-cream machine.

To serve, cut an avocado in half (I like the hass variety with the knobbly green skin; slightly nutty in taste), rub the exposed flesh with lemon juice (to stop it turning brown) and fill the cavity with a generous scoop of the Tomato Ice. To make the avocado stand upright on the plate, turn over the half, and slice off a thin wedge, so that it makes a base.

The important thing to remember is to flavour the tomato ice reasonably well, as the freezing process can often kill off the stronger tastes. Some out there might garnish it with mint, but I'm currently bored of garnishes, and think simplicity is often the best way forward. I like the idea of updating these classic, unfashionable recipes to more modern tastes; simplifying them if necessary, and presenting them cleanly, discarding those outrageous garnishes of yesteryear. That, at least, is the goal.

By the way, a tip: when you're grating a fresh horseradish root, make sure you grate it across the grain (rather than downwards). We keep a horseradish root in the deep freeze, and find that it keeps for ages; providing us with "fresh" horseradish whenever the mood takes us.

 

The English Marrow

 

 

When was the last time you enjoyed a helping of marrow?  That's exactly what I'm talking about- the ever so 'umble, green-skinned English marrow, and it's currently in season. Right now. As a vegetable it's more or less disappeared from our plates; usurped by the courgette- the once trendy, now ubiquitous "zucchini" (the darling of the gastropub and aspirational bistro) and the various squashes and pumpkins of the American East Coast: the autumnal butternut squash (now beloved of the British supermarkets) immediately springs to mind.

But there's something attractively nostalgic, and unpretentious about the common marrow isn't there? The whiff of Dad's allotment, the village fete, garden potting, vintage Dandelion Wine '53, musty pigeon-racing sheds, home-made piccalilli, and crushing up the laburnum pods to get rid of the nagging missus. I'm sure my grandmother used to serve it up in an early Victorian Mason's Ironstone tureen. The marrow- you understand- not crushed laburnum. It's all so incredibly English.

I love marrow, its subtle watery taste and all the summery assocations that go with it. I heard Allegra McEvedy (of Leon fame) singing its praises on the radio a few days ago; and she's absolutely right. Not only is it nutritious, it's also extremely cheap, and, amazingly, still available at the dreaded Sainsbury's- although you'll find that Waitrose doesn't stock it. Far too upmarket.

 

In my last post I wrote about an excellent marrow dish I enjoyed at the Canton Arms. I went back there a day or so ago and had it yet again. This time round I've now worked out more or less exactly how it was made. I'm calling it "Gratin of English Marrow with Cannellini Beans and Rocket Pesto". An Italian take on an English classic.

First, you need to make a simple Tuscan style white bean stew. Chop up some shallots and sweat them in olive oil and butter until soft. Crush a clove of garlic and cook for a few mintues. Add the cannellini beans (I admit to using tinned) and vegetable stock, and simmer gently for an hour or so (or until the stew is reasonably thick and starchy) with a bayleaf and a few chopped up small tomatoes. If you're using uncooked beans, you'll need to soak them overnight in cold water, and then cook them for a longer time; quite possibly for up to two hours.

When the time's up remove a few spoonfuls of the beans, and purée them into a paste along with a tablespoon or so of the cooking liquid. Add this purée back into the pot: this will help to thicken up the stew. Check the seasoning and remove the bayleaf.

In the meantime, cut the marrow into large chunks, keeping the green skin on, but spooning out all the seeds and stuff you'll find in the middle bit of the vegetable. Steam the marrow until tender. 

To assemble the dish: take an oven-proof gratin dish and ladle in the cooked bean stew. Add the cooked marrow to the dish, making sure that it's well covered by the stew. Sprinkle the top with white breadcrumbs, and dot with rocket pesto. This might be a combination of rocket leaves (sans the stalks), garlic, parmesan, walnuts, olive oil, sea salt and black pepper, which you've previously whizzed up in your Magimix or food processor.

Check the seasoning and flash the gratin under a very hot grill. Serve it piping hot straight from the dish. I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but sometimes it makes an enjoyable change to ditch the meat and eat something like this. It's an excellent dish.

Wild Garlic Risotto

 

 

On Saturday I made a deliciously simple Wild Garlic Risotto. The Girl managed to track down some wild garlic (also known as Ramsons) from the Pimlico Green Farmer's Market. If you live in the country, you might be able to find some growing in woodlands. They're currently in season.

I'm very keen on "simple food done well"- it's becoming a mantra. This fitted the bill perfectly.

I chopped up a small onion and sautéed it in hot butter. Next, I added Carnaroli rice and let the rice soak up the hot butter. I ladelled in a small quantity of hot, steaming vegetable stock and stirred like mad, until the rice had absorbed the stock. Then, I carried on ladelling in the hot stock until the Carnaroli rice was "ready".

This is the art of risotto making. You want the rice grains to remain firm (with a "bite") yet, at the same time, to be bound up in a creamy, starchy, slightly soupy liquid. If you make it properly, this might take about half an hour. Beat the rice like mad- as this releases the starch from the grains. 

I'm currently in favour of Carnaroli rice: I find that this makes a slightly creamier risotto, although of course, arborio rice would be fine too. 

We're off to Venice in a few days time, and no doubt we'll bring back some proper Italian risotto rice to add to the larder. I've got a theory that the Italians keep back the best rice for themselves, and fob off the rest of Europe with lesser brands.

 

 

 

Anyway, back to the Wild Garlic Risotto. About ten minutes from the end, add the chopped up Wild Garlic. It comes in the form of slightly limp, green leaves (not entirely unlike spinach) and you use these chopped leaves, rather than the bulb. Unlike the standard variety, Wild Garlic has a very subtle taste, so I would recommend that you add quite a bit of the stuff: the risotto can certainly take it. I was also keen on the idea of turning the risotto a green colour- this will happen if you add enough. Check the seasoning and when you reckon the risotto's ready, add a small dash of white wine. This will stop the risotto from cooking.

I served the risotto with some fried shallots- for extra crunch, but The Girl pointed out that the dish didn't need it- and she was absolutely right, as I have to admit, she often is. I would recommend that you more or less leave the risotto as it is, but top it off with a small helping of grated Parmesan- or indeed, a British cheese. Why not?

 

 

 

Cauliflower

 

Recently the poor cauliflower seems to have come under quite a bit of bad press. First there was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall announcing to the world that he doesn't like the stuff; and then there's the worrying fact that recent sales of the vegetable have slumped by 35%.

Well, I do like it. And I'm also a fan of the fascinating Romaine or Romanesco variety, as pictured above. Even if the rest of the world isn't- because it looks like a UFO, or a sinister organism from John Wyndham's "Day of The Triffids".

 

 

My dear old grandmother used to cook cauliflower in the traditional English way- and this is how I prefer to serve it:

The cauliflower is not broken up into florets, but steamed whole (for about 20 minutes, or so, until done), drained well and then served in a porcelain tureen (with a lid), and coated with a traditional white (or cheese) sauce, with a subtle seasoning of nutmeg and black pepper. I haven't seen cauliflower served like this for a long, long time.

The other, more popular way, is for the cooked cauliflower to be broken up into florets, and served in a dish, with a cheese sauce and breadcrumbs, and flashed under the grill for a minute or so, until brown.

Raw cauliflower's got a peppery, crunchy taste. It's not so great when it's over-cooked, so make sure, if anything, that you under- rather than over- cook it.

Wild Garlic

 

 

 

We've just come back from an invigorating five day trip to South Cornwall. It was warm enough to enjoy a simple lunch al fresco at the ever-wonderful Tresanton Hotel in St Mawes. The slightly Agatha Christie-ish ambience of the upper terrace (with its ocean-liner metal railings, sea views and steamship loungers) remains unchanged: fans of "Peril at End House" (first published in 1932) will know what I'm talking about.

 

 

On Monday we dropped in at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow and enjoyed an intensely flavoured bouillabaisse (Cornish style) with crutons, red pepper aioli and grated cheese; roasted Hake (served in a piping hot earthenware dish with puy lentils) and a pretty concoction of lobster and crab wrapped up in puff pastry and served with a pinkish lobster sauce.

The Seafood Restaurant at Padstow has to be one of my all-time favourite restaurants and, in my 'umble opinion Master Copperfield, remains consistently excellent. The discreet service is of the highest professional standard: raise your eyebrow and in an instant there will be a helpful waiter at your side; tables are spacious and the atmosphere is relaxed. The food is unpretentious and utterly delicious.  I can't recommend the place enough.

I've always had a thing about Cornwall- as a child, we used to spend our summer holidays at the charming sea-side town of St Mawes. It really is the most romantic destination: 

 

The mysterious St Michael's Mount.

 

Caerhays Castle: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..."

 

The Cornish lanes and hedgerows are full of wild flowers, (including violet coloured wild orchids) and at this time of the year, daffodils. A thought occured to me on our drive home over Salisbury Plain and past Stonehenge: the verges of Wiltshire's main roads are barren; and in the case of South Buckinghamshire, I regret to report, littered. Does an enlightened Cornish county council have an active policy to encourage wild flowers?  Or is it that in counties such as Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, with large-scale and mechanised farming, wild flowers are killed by the spillover from intensive crop spraying?

It's the time of year to pick and use wild garlic (Allium ursinum). It can be found in damp woodlands and hedgerows, and gives off an evocative, garlicky smell which can't be missed. I love its subtle taste. Funnily enough, unlike the standard variety in which you use the bulb, with wild garlic you eat the green leaves. In London we have to buy it from specialist shops, the superior supermarkets (such as Wholefoods) or your local farmer's market.

I'm going to make a creamy and simple risotto, flavoured with my favourite wild garlic. If I chop up the leaves small enough, I'm hoping that this will make the risotto turn a pale light green colour.

Samphire

 

 

 

May I remind you all about wonderful samphire?  At the moment, I just can't eat enough of the stuff. I love its crisp, slightly salty flavour; the way it piles up high on the plate, and the deep green colour it goes when it's been steamed for a few minutes. "Marsh" samphire is the variety you can buy in the shops, and currently, we're getting ours from the fish counter at Waitrose.

What does it taste like?  That's a difficult one. A cross between asparagus and thin green beans, perhaps?  It works beautifully with fish, and should be served with melted butter. I have to admit that I'm currently over-fond of eating it raw, and I'm becoming addicted to it's fabulous salty, juicy and buttery taste. Under-cooking it is the way to go. Why isn't it more widely available?

Hollandaise Sauce

 

 

 

I'm sure you all know how to make Hollandaise Sauce. You'll need it to make Omelette Arnold Bennett.  If you've forgotten, here's how: Melt 225g (8oz) of butter in a pan. In the meantime, liquidize two egg yolks with the juice of one lemon and season with white pepper. When the butter is hot, turn the liquidizer on full blast, and slowly pour in the butter.

That's it. Make sure it's served hot, and that it doesn't get too thick. Nothing worse than luke-warm and gloopy Hollandaise Sauce. And it's perfect, of course, with English Asparagus- not long to wait now..

Aloo Gobi

 

 

 

I've currently got this thing about caulifower; in truth, it's developing into a bizarre craving. I'm not sure what it is exactly that I like about cauliflower. Is it the slightly peppery, mustardy flavour? Or the crunchiness of the stuff when it's slightly undercooked?

Aloo Gobi is the dish of the moment- potato is the aloo bit, and caulifower the gobi. It's a dry curry from Northern India, and easy to make; or at least, I thought it was until I tried using the recipe from Manju Malhi's otherwise excellent book, "Brit Spice".  

 

 

I think I like this book: it's well laid out using decent, clear typography, has excellent photographs, and the cover shows a wholesome looking girl (presumably the author) chopping up some coriander. The blurb on the front cover (courtesy of The Guardian) says "Manju Malhi is being billed as the Next Madhur Jaffrey".

I followed Ms Malhi's instructions to the letter: tip half a teaspoon of cumin seeds into three tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil and fry for a few seconds. So far, so good. Next, you add a chopped onion, a peeled and diced potato and a chopped and seeded green chili and fry for five minutes, before adding 200g (7oz) of caulifower florets and stir-frying for a further thirty seconds.

Turmeric, coriander and salt are stirred in, and the dish is covered and cooked on a low heat for five minutes. Chopped tomato is folded in, and the aloo gobi is cooked, covered, for a further three minutes.

And the result?  Delicious flavours, but both the potatoes and cauliflower remained severely undercooked. I realise "Brit Spice" is meant to be about modern, fast Indian cookery with a British twist: busy lives and all that; but this is taking fast food to extremes. Also, the cauliflower florets were too large, but that was my fault. I'm fine with the idea of keeping the caulifower crunchy, but undercooked potato ain't a good idea.

Sometimes I wonder if editors actually test the recipes they publish? I have a sneaky feeling that we could be looking at a typo here and the potato, onions and chili should be cooked for fifteen minutes at the start, and not five minutes, as published. The cooking time for the cauliflower could probably be increased by a further five minutes, too.

But it's an interesting question. How many recipes out there from well-known cookery writers are actually just plain wrong?  I seem to remember reading about the famous case of Robert Carrier and his Chili Con Carne, when because of some misprint, thousands of eager cooks across the land spooned in five tablespoons of hot chili powder rather than four teaspoons, or whatever it was supposed to be. And this was in 1965 (or whenever it was), a time when most Britons thought garlic was the mark of The Beast. 

Stangely, curry might now almost considered to be The National Dish.

Vichy Onions

 

 

 

If you're looking for a side dish that's slightly different, this is the perfect recipe. It's similar in style to "Vichy Carrots", which are glazed baby carrots cooked in a bit of sugar and mineral water from the Vichy area of France.

Buy or dig up some baby onions. You could also use shallots, but I think the baby onions will hold their shape better. In a small pan, saute them very slowly in butter for a minute or so.

Next, add some meat stock, salt and pepper, and two teaspoons of sugar. The idea is to braise the onions, so you want your stock to come only half-way up the onions. If you're going to add the fizzy water, now's the time to do it, but I'm not entirely convinced that anyone (unless they have super developed taste buds) is going to be able to tell the difference here between using tap water or Vichy water.  After all, there's quite of bit of other stuff going on in there, the sugar, the salty stock, not to mention the onions themselves. Dunno.

Cook gently, so that the stock combines with the sugar and butter, and forms a syrup. Make sure that the onions are well coated; and carry on cooking until the stock/syrup has been reduced. You're looking for nicely caramelised onions. If the heat is too high, they may burn, so watch out for this.

New Year's Day Chili

 

 

I think there's nothing better than tucking into a satisfying and hearty bowl of cowboy chili on a raw New Year's Day. It just seems so right. After all that Christmas over-indulgence, you want something simple, yet, if you're greedy like me, a limp bit of lettuce ain't going to pass muster. You're also probably feeling a trifle frazzled after the New Year's Eve revels.

Regrettably, Chili con carne is often nothing more than stewed mince, kidney beans and a bit of chili powder. Here's my idea for a more sophisticated version:

Sauté some chopped onions, garlic and chopped red chilis in oil and butter.  Stir in some good chili powder, oregano, cumin, and paprika. Now add the beef (or pork); or a combination of the two. You can either chop the meat into chunks, or put it through a mincer (if you've got one). Cook for a bit until the meat is sealed and coloured.

Next, add some stock, beer (the Mexican beer, Corona, is excellent), and a splash of Tabasco. Let the chili simmer slowly at a low heat, until the meat is cooked. You want the sauce to be reasonably thick. When the meat is nearly done, add some tomato purée, or even better, sun-dried tomato paste, and grate in some bitter chocolate- the sort of quality chocolate (high in cocoa solids) you can buy in delis and specialist shops. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, stir in some cooked beans (Kidney, Haricot, or Black Beans are fine, I'm not really that fussed). Serve with some grated cheese on top, sour cream, and saltine crackers.

To all the readers of The Greasy Spoon: A Very Happy New Year!

Roast Potatoes

 

 

Many of you will know that I have a love-hate affair with the potato. Mashed potato, as far as I am concerned, is the Mark of The Beast; this, I've finally worked out, is a relic of my early days at Dotheboy's Hall. Here, their idea of fun was: soggy fishfingers (courtesy of The Good Cap'n Birds Eye); powdered mashed potato ("Mash Get Smash", that's the stuff the Martians eat), and watery tinned peas. The horror of it!

The kitchen was staffed by two Irish septuagenarian hags in dark blue polyester housecoats; fags dangling from their pursed lips. I'm sure Lord Woolton Pie was on the menu, an economical wartime relic, which survived until the early 70's. The boys did the washing up. This was a voluntary affair, a "volunteers please step forward, sort of thing", and if you were lucky you were promoted to foreman. These plongeurs were paid ½ p a day. The foreman got a penny. That's why I don't like mashed potato.

But roast potatoes, cooked properly, could be a good plan. The other day I found a discarded copy of the London Evening Standard (a rare event, as since it's gone "free" you can't get hold of a copy anywhere), and there was an excellent article about that bald wunderkind Heston Blumenthal, including a recipe for his "perfect roast poatoes".

Now, I'm a huge fan of Heston's, admiring his enquiring historical mind, his sense of the miraculous, and his lack of histrionics; all a refreshing antidote to the current crop of pock-marked prima donnas, otherwise known as "celebrity chefs". So, here's how to make perfect roast potatoes, courtesy of Heston Blumenthal:

The variety of potato is important. Maris Piper or the Scottish varieties, Golden Wonder and Arran Victory are all suitable.

Cut them up so that there are plenty of corners and edges, then cook them in well salted, simmering water until they are just about to fall apart. The trick is to cook them until they're fluffy, but at the same time you do want to keep them in one piece; so you'll need to watch them like a hawk.

Strain the potatoes off, and let them steam-dry. Put them into a pan with either olive oil or beef dripping. You will need a centimetre or so of oil at the bottom of the pan. Cook them in the oven at about 180°C or 190°C. Start turning after half an hour. They'll take between 60 and 90 minutes. Just before they're done, sprinkle with chopped rosemary and sea salt.

 

 

Thousand Island Dressing

 

 

I suppose there's something a bit tacky about the ubiquitous Thousand Island Dressing. It's that thick, slightly synthetic pink stuff which comes in jars, served alongside burgers and dubious salads. But like other classic foods, it's got an interesting history. There are various theories. Here's one of them:

A certain George LaLonde Jr., fisherman of Clayton, Upstate New York, hosted guided fishing parties, which included a group "shore" lunch as part of the day's attraction. It was at one of these fishing lunches, that the actress and cookery writer, Miss May Irwin, first tasted the "unusual" (then un-named) dressing, made to Mrs LaLonde's own special recipe.

May Irwin liked it so much that she asked for the recipe, named it "Thousand Island Dressing", and passed it on to the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, George C. Boldt, who in turn, instructed his famous maitre d', Oscar Tschirky to serve it in his restaurant.

Have you noticed how Oscar Tschirky seems to crop up every time I write about American food history?  Tschirky sounds like a bit of a live-wire, and seems to have been credited with not only the creation of the Veal Oscar, but also the Waldorf Salad and Eggs Benedict. Either that, or he was a brilliant self-publicist. Anyway.

I've trawled the net for the original recipe- and of course, as with so many "classic" dishes, there are many different versions. Here's my reasonably authentic take on it. If any readers (especially from the Thousand Islands area of Upstate New York) want to give us their own "proper" recipe, please hit that comment button now.

Make a good mayonnaise, preferably using grapeseed oil and a touch of olive oil. Mix in a generous spoonful of tomato ketchup, a dash of Worcestershire Sauce, a teaspoon of white sugar, a dash of white vinegar, a pinch of ground cloves, a dollop of sweet pickle or relish, chopped black olives, a small diced red bell pepper, some chopped chives, and a sprinkling of chopped hard-boiled egg white. Season to taste with sea salt and white pepper.

Minestrone Soup

 

Strangely, I don't think I've written about Minestrone Soup before. I'm not going to patronise you with a description; this is a dish we've all had time and time again, and of course you know how to make your own version at a drop of a hat.

I happen to think that the number one all-time recipe for Minestrone Soup comes from Arrigo Cipriani's The Harry's Bar Cookbook. His slightly refined version includes asparagus, and leaves out the pasta. When I'm cooking it, I like to dice up the vegetables into small pieces; I think it improves the look of the finished dish.

Here's how to make it, courtesy of Mr Arrigo Cipriani. (It will serve six people):

Heat up two tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy pan, and melt in a tablespoon of butter. Add a diced medium sized onion, and sauté over a medium heat until well browned. 

Now it's time to add the vegetables: a diced celery rib (peeled), two thinly sliced leeks (white part only), a large tomato (cored and diced), two small diced zucchini, a small wedge of Savoy cabbage (shredded and chopped), a medium potato (peeled and cut into small dice), a medium sized carrot (peeled and diced), and six asparagus spears (cut into slices). Throw in a bayleaf, and season with sea salt and black pepper. Cook on a medium heat and stir for about fifteen minutes.

Add two litres of stock (chicken or vegetable, I'll leave that one up to you), and ⅓ cup of tomato sauce. If you don't want to make your own, you could always use tomato purée. Bring the soup to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for fifteen minutes.

Remove the bayleaf, stir in a tablespoon of butter, and check the seasoning. Serve very hot with grated parmesan cheese.

The Official Greasy Spoon Christmas Pudding

 

 

Each year, Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier. The lights have gone up in Oxford Street (do you remember that dreadful "Birds Eye" affair?), and our television set has suddenly erupted into full Christmas mode. Teflon snowflakes are having a field day. I suspect sales of Charles Dickens are on the increase.  And yet, autumn leaves remain: it's still November. The world's gone barmy.

Having said that, right now is the time to start making your Christmas Pudding; and if anything it may even be a bit on the late side. Traditionally, the Christmas Pudding was made on "Stir-Up Sunday", which was the last Sunday before Advent, (about four to five weeks before Christmas Day), but in our family we used to make it as early as late October.

I love Christmas Pudding. The way your spoon plunges into the moist (you hope!), rich, fruity mass; and the contrast with the smooth, rich, alchohol infused brandy butter.

This is the way I make The Official Greasy Spoon Christmas Pudding:

First, you need to stir up all the following ingredients in a pudding basin: 350g mixed fruit and peel (this means crystallised peel, dried apricots, currants, saltanas, raisins, grated lemon rind, and grated orange rind); 50g chopped glace cherries, 25g flaked almonds, 50g dried suet (you can't get the proper stuff anymore- the EU has made it illegal), 35g white breadcrumbs, 35g plain flour, 70g moist dark brown sugar, 50g grated apple, and a dash of mixed spice and grated nutmeg. Some weirdos add carrot- but very sensibly, I leave this one out.

Once you've stirred all the ingredients together well, mix in two beaten eggs, the juice of half a lemon and half an orange, pour in two tablespoons of a dark stout (ie Guinness), a tablespoon of black treacle, and a dash of decent Scotch Whisky. Most recipes will tell you to add brandy, but being a contrarian, I've decided that Scotch works better. Stir it like mad.

Now's the time to add the mixture to a basin. Recently, I've had this thing about those old-fashioned ball-shaped puddings- the ones you see in the illustrations of "Phiz" and in Walt Disney. A few years ago, I managed to track down a ball-shaped pudding mould from Divertimenti in the Fulham Road, and used that- but a traditional ceramic pudding basin will be just dandy. Smear the inside of the basin with butter. This will stop the pudding sticking to the side. Pour in the mixture. Top off with a piece of buttered greaseproof paper, ideally cut down to fit. Finally, place a cloth over the basin, and tie it off at the top with a bit of string.

Steam it for five to six hours. This means getting hold of a large pan, filling it about a quarter full with water and bringing it to the boil. Place the pudding in the middle of the pan, and put the lid on. The steam will rise up within the pan, and cook the pudding. Once it's cooked, leave it in a cool place with a piece of tin foil on top. It will mature in the run-up to Christmas. On the great day itself, you will need to steam it for a further three hours.

Caesar Salad

 

Caesar Salad is one of those classic dishes that has been over-tweaked, bastardised, and generally ruined by self-indulgent chefs over the years. The best Caesar Salad is the original Caesar Salad.

It was invented by Caesar Cardini in 1924. Cardini was a chef working at the Hotel Comerical in Tijuana- the Mexican town a few miles from the Californian border. During Prohibition, large parties of Americans used to cross the border in search of booze. The story goes that Cardini created the salad when a large party of hungry Americans turned up for the Fourth of July celebrations. He had run out of food, so made do with what he had left over.

Julia Child, the great food writer, apparently telephoned Cardini's daughter to get the authentic recipe- and came up with this. And who are we to argue with either of them?

First, you need two small heads of Romaine lettuce, preferably organic. Tear the lettuce into large shreds. Add two coddled eggs. Coddling is a technique where you only boil the eggs in their shell for one minute, so that you end up with a runny yolk. Add half a teaspoon of sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper; the juice of two lemons, ten drops of Lea & Perrins' Worcestershire Sauce, half a cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese, and half a cup of garlic oil. Garlic oil is just a good quality Virgin or Extra Virgin olive oil, infused by some garlic cloves for a day or so.

Toss the salad, so that the ingredients combine with the runny egg yolk, and lettuce leaves are well coated. Finish off the dish with some freshly prepared croutons. This is just deep-fried bread- cut into cubes. For some reason, slightly stale bread makes better croutons. You've probably noticed that I haven't added anchovies to my Caesar Salad. I have a strong hunch that the original recipe didn't include them, and I've tried to keep it authentic.

 

Abel & Cole Free Range Chicken

 

 

One of the perks of being a food blogger is that you get unsolicited emails from companies desperate for you to sample their various wares. A week or so ago, I had an email from a coffee importer asking me if I would like to try an "unground quality coffee of my choice".  'Yes, please", I said. "Send me some Blue Mountain".

As you know, Blue Mountain is a fiendishly expensive coffee, as recommended by Ian Fleming and Mister Bond, the harvesting of which involves natives scaling rocky cliff faces at so many thousand feet above sea level. Well, the coffee has yet to arrive.

More promising was the email I had from some PR girl representing the organic food delivery company, Abel & Cole.

I'm already a fan of Abel & Cole, and the future Mrs Aitch and I have the "de-luxe organic vegetable box for two" delivered in the raw hours of each Friday morning. They sent us a complimentary free-range chicken, which was excellent. It's quite hard to write about chicken. It tasted- well, like a chicken, and it did have a noticeably crackly skin, which was good, and I suspect was probably better than the free range chicken we had the other day which came from Sainsbury's.

I then had a rather pushy email from the PR Girl instructing me to write at least two posts about the chicken, which was vaguely annoying, as I had never agreed to do this in the first place- a deal's a deal, right? and frankly, it's pretty difficult to wax lyrical about the difference between a free range bird and a supermarket bird isn't it?

By the way- a small apology to my readership. You will have noticed that my posts have in the last few weeks dried up. Wedding preparations, Stag Nights, Choirmasters, Trumpeters, Chauffeurs, Tailors, Florists, Estate Agents, Surveyors, Lawyers, Energy Efficiency (HIP) Inspectors: all these have taken their toll. I'm sure things will get back to normal, when The Girl and I return from our honeymoon in Sunny Marrakesh.

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...

Savoy Cabbage and Bacon Gratin

 

Here in London, it's been freezing cold for the last few days. This afternoon we had a flurry of gobby, wet snowflakes, and grey skies. With weather like this, I'm keen on gutsy winter food; nothing too elaborate or refined.  Savoy Cabbage and Bacon Gratin is ideal: it's a classic supper dish which is easy to make, and inexpensive too, which is no bad idea in this current financial climate.

Blanche a Savoy Cabbage.  'Blanching' is simple. It just means placing the cabbage into a pan of water, and bringing the pan to boiling point (having previously removed the tough, outer leaves). Once this has happened, remove the cabbage and shred it up. Fry some chopped bacon in a pan, and add a sliced onion, some crushed garlic and a teaspoon of caraway seeds. When the onion and the bacon have cooked, toss in the cabbage.

Transfer everything to a gratin dish, pour over some double cream, and top with breadcrumbs and some grated cheese. Bake in the oven, until the 'crust' has turned a nice golden brown.

Brussels Sprouts

 

 

Brussels Sprouts are part of the traditional British Christmas. The problem is that no-one likes them. They need careful cooking, otherwise they become soggy, grey in colour, sulphuric, and generally pretty nasty.

One of the best books on Christmas food, if not the best book, is Paul Levy's The Feast of Christmas. Its also got lots of fascinating stuff about the history and mythology of Christmas too. I found a recipe in it which solves the Brussels Sprout problem:

First, you need to shred them with a sharp knife. Next stir them in peanut oil at a high heat, with shredded garlic, ginger, and fresh chilli. A wok would be ideal for this. Because you've cooked them quickly over a high heat, the shredded sprouts will remain green, and the combination of the peanut oil, ginger,and chilli will give them an oriental style twist.