The Greasy Spoon | It's not just about Haute Cuisine...

Pork Scratchings Come Out of The Cold

 

 

 

I've got a guilty secret. I like pork scratchings. Until recently, every day on my way home from the Blacking Factory (a quasi-heated, cavernous warehouse found in the scrappy, semi-industrial inner suburbs of North London), I would pull over at a garage on the A40 and buy a packet of Mr Porky's Pork Scratchings. It was sort of addictive. I kept this one quiet from Mrs Aitch, carefully removing the greasy, empty packet from the floor of the car before bounding up the steps to our shiny, Grecian knockered front door.

You see, it's been a sort of secret love affair over the years- I mean with the Pork Scratchings. If you're not British, you probably don't know what I'm talking about. Pork Scratchings are off-cuts of pork rind or skin, deep fried in fat, and then sprinkled with salt, flavourings and undoubtably, our old friend monosodium glutamate. They have a dodgy reputation; they're about as classy as a Knees Up Mother Brown at the local dog track. Those on a diet can look away now.

But now and again, you would run into tantalising, if raffish, home-made versions. The Star Tavern in Belgravia (that excellent traditional London pub; the former haunt of the Clermont gambling set and the Great Train Robbers) sold fresh scratchings, cooked to their own recipe, salted and presented in large glass jars, into which you could plunge your grubby mitts. I liked this.

And now, at last, Pork Scratchings can truly come out of the cold. Tom Parker Bowles, Matthew Fort and pig-farmer, Rupert Ponsonby, are the brainchildren behind a new venture: Mr Trotter's Great British Pork Crackling ('Hand Cooked For a Crisper Crunch'). I'm munching on a packet as I write this, it's a sort of manly, substitute breakfast. According to the packet, "it's seasoned with a special blend of ingredients, without a trace of MSG. Unlike other pork scratchings, Mr Trotter's Great British Pork Crackling is made with 100% prime British pork skin from the finest British Pigs".

They are indeed divine, and far less salty than the more ersatz brands. It's also nice to know that British pigs are being turned into scratchings- sorry boys, crackling, rather than Danish beasts. My only sorrow is that currently, they only seem to be available at the usual up-market parade:  Harvey Nick's food hall, Fortnum's, the Chatsworth Farm Shop. But you can, at least, buy them online, and in bulk (£57 for 30 bags, if you're wondering). I quite like the idea of a pork scratchings hoard; in this case, there's going to be no need to keep it a secret.

 

 

Haddock Monte Carlo

 

 

 

I'm suddenly rather keen on this dish. Mrs Aitch made it for me last night, and it was truly delicous. Who makes Haddock Monte Carlo anymore?  I can't think of anyone I know off-hand. But it's one of those classic English dishes which relies on the quality of the ingredients (in this case non-dyed smoked haddock, with the bones removed) and simple flavour combinations. It is, of course, pretty easy to make as well, which helps.

Place two smoked haddock fillets in a pan of milk and water, with a peppercorn and a bayleaf. I think it's important to buy un-dyed haddock, which has a more sophisticated flavour than that bright radio-active yellow version. Poach gently for about fifteen minutes.

Remove the fish, and scrape off the skin.

Place the cooked fish in a buttered oven-proof oval dish and set aside. Pour off the hot milky fish water into a small pan and start reducing furiously, at a high heat. When it has reduced by about half, remove from the heat and stir in a generous helping of single cream.

Slice up some tomatoes and scatter them over the haddock, and check the seasoning, adding sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, if you think it needs it. Pour the creamy sauce all over the fish and tomatoes, and bake the dish in the oven for a further fifteen minutes or so.

Serve with a poached egg on top, and finely chopped flat-leaf parsley. That's it. I like my poached eggs to be runny (who doesn't?) and there's that delicious moment when the yellow egg yolk dribbles into the creamy, savoury, tomato-infused sauce. This really is English cooking at its very best.

 

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La Trattoria Terrazza

 

 

        Mr Jagger samples the delights of the Positano Room, 1966

 

More about La Trattoria Terrazza, the most fashionable restaurant in Swinging Sixties London. Yesterday I spent a snowy afternoon re-reading The Spaghetti Tree- and what an entertaining story it is! Franco Lagattolla and Mario Cassandro opened La Trattoria Terrazza in 1959. It very quickly became the fashionable haunt of artists, writers, models, film directors, actors, photographers and society hangers-on. In 1962, the London Daily Sketch ran a feature which noted that on one certain night, between 6.30 and midnight, the following people ate at La Terrazza: Ingrid Bergman, Leslie Caron, Danny Kaye, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Laurence Harvey, Sammy Davis Jnr, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton. They forgot to include Ari Onnassis. This is astonishing when you discover just how small La Terrazza actually was at that time. Len Deighton, immortalised the restaurant in his spy novel, The Ipcress File: 'In London with a beautiful girl,' Deighton wrote in 1961, 'you must show her to Mario at La Terrazza.'

 

I'm trying to work out exactly why La Terrazza was so successful, and I think, after much thought, there are at least two reasons. The innovative food, and Mario's considerable charm. The initial interior of La Terrazza, sounds, frankly, pretty naff: a kitsch mural of Vesuvius, framed by bunches of plastic grapes and hanging wicker work chianti bottles- nothing out of the ordinary there; but the food, obviously, by the standards of the day, was.

A quick glance at a 1967 menu shows that Franco and Mario were offering: fritto misto mare (fried octopus), rognoncini con funghi al barolo (sautéed calves kidneys/mushrooms/red wine sauce), salsiccie fresche con spinaci (Italian sausage on spinach, tossed in olive oil and garlic), and cervella di vitello alla monteverde (calves brain sautéed in special batter). Of course, nowadays, any decent Italian restaurant worth its salt might sell such dishes, but back then, after fourteen years of deprivation and rationing, this was exciting, new and different (rationing in Britain, unbelievably, only ended in 1954, a mere five years before La Terrazza opened).

And I forgot to mention that Franco and Mario introduced informality to the restaurant scene. Until then, fashionable restaurants, such as Le Caprice, were grand, carpeted institutions where a coat and tie were de rigeur, where waiters wore starched shirt fronts and funeral black tail-coats, where the dishes of Escoffier were served "silver service"- an elaborate ritual which involved waiters spooning out food from silver tureens at the table.

Instead, the charming waiters at Le Terrazza wore hooped Neapolitan fisherman's jerseys (I bet you anything they flirted away like crazy), the food was brought straight to the table, piping hot; staff and clientele were on first name terms, and any pretence at a dress code was abandoned- Tony Snowdon was admitted wearing his trademark polo-neck; from that day, they never looked back. In many ways this was the birth of the modern restaurant we have today.

And then in 1960, the cartoonist and designer, Enzo Apicella, re-designed the downstairs space to create the Positano Room: a cool, white, spare space; a modernist re-interpretation of the rustic. In came green-tiled floors, roughly plastered white walls, multi-coloured down-light spots over each table, arched ceilings, modernist rush-seated armchairs, and rustic lobster pots. Apicella went on to re-design many famous restaurants, including San Lorenzo and the Pizza Express chain. 

 

               Enzo Apicella in the Positano Room, 1960

Here's the recipe for La Terraza's most popular signature dish Petto di Pollo Sorpresa, taken from Franco Lagattolla's The Recipes That Made a Million. Based on Chicken Kiev, it has the addition of parmesan and parsley, giving it that certain Italian something:

"First, have your butcher cut and skin four tender breasts of young chicken,leaving the wing-tip bone. Carefully, without breaking the flesh, flatten them with a flat-sided mallet-cleaver, very, very thinly. 

Place a 50g conical-shaped piece of well-chilled butter, which has been mixed with finely chopped garlic and parsley, a teaspoon of grated parmesan cheese, salt and milled black pepper, in the centre of each piece of chicken.

Roll them up tightly leaving the bone exposed rather like a handle. Seal in the butter by pressing the edges very firmly. Roll the chicken breasts in flour, dip into seasoned beaten egg and then carefully cover with breadcrumbs.

Deep fry the chicken breasts in hot oil until they are cooked and golden outside with the now melted savoury butter bursting to be released."

 

The Recipes That Made A Million

 

 

 

Not mine, I'm afraid. Franco Lagattolla's. It's the title of a fun book that I bought the other day for the princely sum of £2.50. That's right, £2.50. One of the things I love about second-hand book hunting is the amount of pleasure old books can bring you for say, the price of some awful paper cup of cold take-away coffee, otherwise known as a "Mocha Light Frappucino Blended Beverage- To Go". The coffee's gone in an instant, but the book stays on your shelf, to be poured over again and again; the cover, typography and graphics to be re-admired, the contents to be savoured and used as a spark for new ideas, or more simply, to dispel the gloom of a boring Sunday afternoon. Oh yes, I love old books. They're like trusty friends. And I like, especially, forgotten books from around forty years ago.

I've written about Franco before. As the blurb on the dust jacket of The Recipes That Made A Million says: "What did Michael Caine, Gregory Peck and Frank Sinatra all have in common? Answer: they all dined at Mario & Franco's superb Italian restaurants in London- the eating success story with the 'beautiful' people in the swinging sixties". 

 

Franco Lagattolla and Mario Cassandro; former waiters at The Mirabelle, first opened the starry La Trattoria Terrazza in Romilly Street, Soho, in 1959. It's hard to believe now, but La Terrazza was the first restaurant in Britain to serve genuine regional dishes from all over Italy. Their story is covered admirably by Alasdair Scott Sutherland in The Spaghetti Tree, Mario and Franco and the Trattoria Revolution, which I would recommend without hesitation.

 

 

Here's a recipe I liked the look of from "The Recipes That Made a Million". It's for Pȇches Flambées, otherwise known as Peaches flamed in kirsch. Those of you with pyromaniacal tendencies will appreciate it:

"Peel four firm but ripe peaches. Poach them in plain water and sugar syrup until barely tender. Do not over-cook. Keep them warm.

In a copper pan melt 25g (1oz) of castor sugar and allow it to take on the slightest colour over a low flame. Add the juice of one orange, four tablespoons of the poaching liquor and a string of lemon peel. Dissolve the caramelising sugar, moving it around with the back of a spoon. Now stir in two tablespoons of Melba sauce and add the poached peaches. 

Bring up the heat a little and, turing the peaches gently, glaze them in the syrupy sauce. Pour in a large wine glass of kirsch. Prick the peaches so that they absorb some of the flavours. Pull the pan sharply across the fire, and stand well back while the whole lot bursts into beautiful flames".

Melba Sauce, by the way, is just a pureé of rasberry jam, diluted with a little water and simmered for a few minutes, then strained.

 

 

Devil Sauce

 

 

 

Devil- a culinary term which... first appeared as a noun in the 18th century, and then in the early 19th century as a verb meaning to cook something with fiery hot spices or condiments...The term was presumably adopted because of the connection between the devil and the excessive heat in Hell...Boswell, Dr Johnson's biographer, frequently refers to partaking of a dish of "devilled bones" for supper, which suggests an earlier use...

 Oxford Companion to Food

 

There's something extremely satisfying about "devilled" food. As you know, "to devil" a dish means to add some form of spice, often something like Worcester Sauce or a hot mustard. These days "devilling' is slightly old-fashioned; it has a hint of the 19th century about it, a whiff of a St James's Street club. I happen to love the tangy, slightly sweet, piquant taste of Lea & Perrins (first produced in the English town of Worcester in 1837), and, like the Victorians, will quite happily devil just about anything, including ham, eggs, kidneys and mutton chops.

Here's a recipe for "Gravy à la Diable" from Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book, Lizzie Heritage [Cassell and Company:London] 1894: 

Required: half a pint of clear brown stock...half an ounce of arrowroot, a tablespoonful of claret, a teaspoonful of French mustard, a dessertspoonful of Worcester sauce, and a little soluble cayenne, with salt to taste, and a few drops of soy. Mix the thickening with the claret, and the rest of the ingredients, and boil for a few minutes. Serve with kidneys, steaks, & etc., or with grilled fish. For a hotter sauce, increase the Worcester sauce, or boil a few capsicum seeds in the gravy."

Arabella Boxer also has a recipe for Devil Sauce from her book of English Food (recently re-published by Penguin in a sumptious new edition), which I've adapted for The Greasy Spoon: 

You melt 30g butter, and stir in 1½ tablespoons of flour, ½ teaspoon of English Mustard, and ½ teaspoon of Curry Powder. Cook this, stirring, for one minute. 275ml of milk is added, and 150 ml of double cream (both of which you've previously heated up together), and the sauce is stirred constantly on the heat until it starts to bubble. The sauce is then simmered gently for about eight minutes, until slightly reduced- and the remaining flavourings stirred in: ½ teaspoon of salt, a pinch of cayenne, ½ tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce, ½ tablespoon of Mushroom Ketchup and, last but not least, a dash of our old friend, Tabasco.

This will make a basic sauce, which can then be poured over an ingredient of your choice: grilled or fried chicken, boiled eggs, and game. I think it would also work well with slices of fresh, juicy ham.

 

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Saturday Lunch Toad in the Hole (with Onion Gravy)

 

 

 

For some weird reason, I always think that the British classic, Toad in the Hole, is perfect for a Saturday Lunch. Not Sunday or Monday, or even Thursday for that matter. Saturday. I can't exactly explain why, there's probably a regressive, childhood thing going on there. Toad in the Hole is easy to make. It's filling. It's cheap. It's also delicious. This is Comfort Food at its best.

If you happen to be American, you are probably now wondering how on earth us Brits can eat one of those slimey, knobbly creatures? Sort of less appealing then a French grenouille, I hear you cry. But as much as I am curious to sample one of those tantalising little critters, the 'toad' is, in all probability, English slang for sausage. It's a bit like Welsh Rabbit (which ain't a rabbit), or Scotch Woodcock (which ain't a woodcock, either).

Back to the Toad: Heat your oven to 220C (425F). Get hold of some decent, fat, organic sausages and chuck them into a roasting tin with a few knobs of lard. You could have fun experimenting with different types of sausage. The better your sausage, the better your Toad in the Hole will taste. Cook the sausages in the oven for about ten minutes. My latest sausage discovery has been Sainsbury's Taste the Difference British Pork & Caramelised Red Onion Sausages. These are utterly delicious! Sweet, juicy, slightly spicy, lots of lovely caramelised flavours going on in there.

Meanwhile, mix up the batter. Sieve 4oz (110g) of self raising flour into a bowl, and add a pinch of salt and some pepper. Make a hole or a "well" in the centre of the flour, and pour in 5 fluid oz (150ml) of semi-skimmed milk into the hole. Crack in an egg, too. Mix the flour, milk, and egg up very gradually with a wooden spoon.  Beat well, and then add the same amount of milk, again. Pour the finished batter over the sausages, and cook them in the oven for a further 45 minutes or so, until the Toad is risen and browned.

The Onion Gravy is a cinch. You slice up some onions, and brown them in a frying pan. If you add a few pinches of sugar and salt, this will help them to caramelise. You want them to get brown and a bit burnt. This is a good thing. Add a tablespoon of flour, and let it cook in the oniony fat. Once the onions and flour are brown enough, you can deglaze the pan with some stock, water, and perhaps, a slug or two of white wine. Instead of gravy browning (what's that?), I use a few drops of Soy Sauce, which will give the gravy an even richer colour and taste. A teaspoon of redcurrent jelly is not a bad plan, either. Onion Gravy should be thin.

 

 

 

 

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Langan's & Odin's: The End of an Era

 

Langan's Brasserie

Back in July, I posted an emotive piece about the glamorous, beautiful and shabby interior of Odin's restaurant in Marylebone, writing "that I will be extremely grumpy if it ever closes down": that sad day has arrived; in as much as the art collections at Langan's and Odin's are being sold off. A fan of The Greasy Spoon has alerted me to a Christie's press release: "the core collection of 230 artworks from the legendary London restaurants Langan's Brasserie & Odin's...(to be sold at auction)...in December 2012."

 

Odin's

I've had a look at the Langans' website and it tells me that the three restaurants (Langan's, Odin's and Shepherd's) will be closed for redecoration, re-opening at later dates. I can tell you right now that without that fabulous interior, I will- with great regret- not be returning to Odin's. The food's not that good, the once impeccable service has declined noticeably in the last few years, and the only raison d'etre for the place was that fabulous art collection (bought with the help and advice of the art critic, Brian Sewell) and the wonderful interior. Without it- I really don't see any point of returning, even (and especially) if, the whole place is redecorated in the Los Angeles airport lounge style. Look what happened to The Savoy or Brown's Hotel. Surely without Peter Langan's art collections, the whole ethos, the intrinsic spirit, the whole flippin' point of these famous old restaurants is gone?

 

Langan's Brasserie

To be fair to the group I don't know what their financial position is- and they may have been forced into a depressing and uncalled for position where there was no other option but to sell up. Asset Stripping? Dunno. But what I do know, is that yet another two legendary London institutions- or at the very least, their art collections- are about to bite the dust. And on this grey, gloomy, and foggy November morning, I am extremely grumpy.

 

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Called to the Bar

 

 

I was thinking about wine bars the other day. Realised that these are a vanishing breed. When was the last time you ate in one? There seem to be two styles. There's the spit- and-sawdust, oak barrel, vaulted cellar, pin-stripey, Dickensian thing. Hogarthian. Very Inns of Court. Where Rumpole of the Bailey might have spilt claret down his starched shirt front back in the late 70's. And then there's the 1960's groovy wine bar- all spluttering candles in wickered wine bottles, Spanish Bullfighting Posters, chalked blackboards, plummy waiters in black and white striped T shirts, and some dude playing skiffle guitar in the corner. Back in the early 60's, this sort of place was dead trendy- but I reckon by the early 90's they had really gone out of fashion. The world's a sophisticated place, and things had moved on.

 

I'm trying to think how many of these are left in London. I mean genuine examples, not those pastiche French cafés. Grumble's (Pimlico) was established in 1964 and is still going strong. The Troubadour (Earl's Court), admittedly more of a coffee bar, was founded in 1954. There's also that bizarre bistro, L'Autre in Shepherds' Market ("Mayfair's Oldest Wine Lodge"). Originally serving Polish food to the sound of Greta Garbo 78's, it expanded its repertoire to include Mexican food- accomodating the Mexican Embassy nearby.

 

The food in these places was invariably Mediterranean. The post war boom meant that European travel became accessible to the middle classes for the first time, and the affluent Conran generation wanted the food they had sampled in Italy, France, Greece and Spain back home: garlic mushrooms, taramaslata, olives, coq au vin, deep fried camembert, goulash, paella, beef stroganoff, piperade, l'escargots, garlic bread- all washed down with a cheeky little Spanish Red.

And then there was Nick's Diner in the Ifield Road, opened in the early 60s' and the haunt of fashionable Swinging London. It features in Joseph Losey's The Servant; one of my all time favourite films- there's that wonderful sequence with James Fox: camel hair coat, upturned collar, cigarette, striding past a grainy Woolworth's, Davey Graham's haunting "Rock Me Mama" filling the cold night air...

 

 

 

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The Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York

 

 

Photograph from The Kitchen Files

Still on the subject of classic American restaurants, here's a photograph of The Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York. Back in the late 90's I used to spend quite a bit of my time in America (various auctions in New York and Philadelphia) and the Grand Central Oyster Bar, alongside P. J. Clarke's on Third Avenue was one of my favourite destinations.

The Grand Central Oyster Bar really is the most extraordinary place. It's massive: a cavernous warren of vaults, decorated with a mosiac of glittering Byzantine tiles in the Beaux-Arts manner. Imagine such a thing underneath Paddington Station! 

It was founded in 1913, and originally served "Continental" (i.e. French) food, although it became famous for its oyster stew. From memory, there are various murky fish tanks dotted around the restaurant. I like the way you can point a long finger at your lobster of choice, and then a few minutes later the critter is paraded though the restaurant, held high by a waiter on a silver plated serving dish.

 

 

 

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The Last Days of The Raj: Food in British India

 

 

The Veerasawmy, from an old postcard

 

The Veeraswamy (99-101 Regent Street, London W1) is said to to be the oldest Indian restaurant in Britain. It was founded in 1926 by Edward Palmer, a retired Indian army officer. Palmer is an interesting character. From an Anglo-Indian family, his grandfather founded a Hyderabad banking house in the 18th century, and his grandmother was Indian. His great grandmother was the Princess Begum Fyze Baksh. Palmer's company E. P. Veerasawmy & Co. (note the slightly different spelling) ran the Indian foods section at the British Empire exhibiton in 1924, selling spices, chutneys and curry pastes to the British public- this must have seemed deeply exotic at the time.

 

 

 

In 1936 he published "Indian Cookery: For Use in All Countries". This is a rare book in first edition, and difficult to find, but I see that a paperback edition, published by Mayflower in 1972, is readily available, and there are various other fun editions you can get your teeth into:

 

 

 

In 1930, The Veerasawmy was taken over by the Conservative MP, Sir William Steward. The restaurant was popular with all the usual Society suspects of the day: Edward, Prince of Wales, Mrs Simpson, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin. And it's still there (although you will find the decor much changed), managed by the owners of Chutney Mary, and the brilliant and highly affordable chain, Masala Zone- which I would recommend without hesitation. 

I'm interested in Anglo-Indian food. Like so many other people in this country, I have (or have had) relations who lived in India. My great uncle, from memory, had been in the Indian Army. One of my all-time favourite dishes is kedgeree- that savoury Anglo-Indian confection of rice, smoked fish, chopped eggs and "curry" flavourings. Piccallili (which I wrote about yesterday) is another example. It's sort of in the blood. There are some who will say that Anglo-Indian food is not authentic; a bastardised version of the real McCoy. This may or may not be the case, but it exists (if slightly out of fashion) and for me, that's as real as it gets.

I've built up a modest collection of books on the topic:

 

David Burton, "The Raj at Table", Faber, 1994

 

Jennifer Brennan, "Curries & Bugles",  Harper Collins, 1990

 

Lizzie Collingham, "Curry, A Tale of Cooks & Conquerors", Random House, 2006

 

Rhona Aitken, The Memsahib's Cookbook, Piatkus Books, 1993

 

Pat Chapman's "The Taste of The Raj", Hodder & Stoughton, 1997

 

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Piccalilli

 

 

 

There's a recipe for Piccalilli in the Waitrose Autumn booklet which caught my eye. They've called it "Piccalilli With A Punch". I like the idea, but they haven't got it quite right. Waitrose suggest you use butternut squash (not that authentic in my opinion), and their photograph shows very large (too large) chunks of vegetables sitting on a watery sauce (which, I think, should be much thicker). Still.

Piccalilli is one of those slightly weird British "delicacies"- if that's the right description; I'm not sure that it is. Bright yellow in colour, and potently acidic; utterly out of fashion too, evoking the world of Austerity Britain: all the glamour of Dad's allotment, prize marrow competitions, Brown Windsor soup, late dusty Summers and musty pigeon lofts.

I spent a few minutes researching its history on the internet. Apparently, the first known Piccalilli recipe was created by a Mrs Raffald in 1772, when it was also known as "English Chow Chow". That sounded about right. It had to be connected in some way with Eighteenth Century India didn't it? I'm assuming that the rather odd sounding name is just a play on the word, pickle.

Anyway, here's The Greasy Spoon's recipe for making your very own piccalilli. You can, of course, use any late summer vegetables you happen to have lying around, but I do think that piccalilli should include cauliflower in some shape or form; butternut squash just strikes me as too American for what is a very British pickle. Carrot and courgettes would be good, too.

First prepare the vegetables: I like them to be chopped up into reasonably small, bite-size chunks. Break up a small cauliflower into small florets, peel a cucumber, de-seed it, and chop it into small cubes. Finely chop up two onions. Chop up a few peeled carrots into small to medium size dice. Dice up a courgette into similar size chunks. 

Place the vegetables in a bowl, sprinkle them with salt, and leave to stand overnight. The salt will draw out lots of water and help to keep the vegetables crisp. Pour off the water, rinse the vegetables with cold water, and pat them dry.

When you're ready to make the piccalilli, get hold of a large preserving pan and pour in about 500ml of cider vinegar. Add 250g of sugar and the following spices: a dollop of Colman's English mustard, turmeric, ground ginger, ground cumin, black mustard seeds, chili flakes, nutmeg, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. 

Warm it through until the sugar dissolves, add the vegetables and then bring the mixture to the boil. Season with chunky black pepper, reduce the heat and simmer away for about ten minutes. It's unlikely that you'll need to add any more salt, as you've already used it at the beginning of the recipe. The turmeric and mustard will turn the mixture a bright yellow colour.

Finally, thicken up the piccalilli with some cornflour: in a separate bowl add some of the cooking liquid to a tablespoon or so of cornflower and whisk it up until it forms a paste. Reduce the heat and slowly mix this paste into the piccalilli. Simmer for a further five minutes (until the cornflour is cooked properly) and then decant into sterilised jars.

It will need to mature in a dark cupboard for about a month before use. Excellent with cold beef and oily fish such as mackerel and herring, and perfect for Christmas if you start thinking about making it now.

 

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Tomato, Egg and Salad Cream Sandwiches

 

 

 

 

I stopped off yesterday at a garage on the Western Avenue and bought an M & S Tomato, Egg & Salad Cream Sandwich. It was delicious: a guilty, if slightly tacky, pleasure; the substitution of Salad Cream for Mayonnaise a masterstroke. The vinegary taste of the Salad Cream worked beautifully with the egg, salted tomato and brown bread.

Making your own version would be easy enough: I would suggest that you spread the Salad Cream onto slices of brown bread; adding a layer of sliced tomatoes (removing the skin by immersing the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute or so, and discarding the pips), and a further layer of chopped hard-boiled eggs. Season with salt and white pepper, remove the crusts and cut into rectangles or fingers.

Salad Cream was invented in 1925 by our old friend, H. J. Heinz & Co; apparently the first brand developed exclusively for the British market. Oh yes, it's a very British thing, is Salad Cream. There's also a Crosse & Blackwell version. I can't honestly tell you which one is better.

There was also a rather scary radioactive substance called "Sandwich Spread"- which I haven't tasted for about twenty five years. I think I will probably leave it at that. 

Talking of which, The Greasy Spoon Kitchen is still out of action, and as I write, the vibrations of a pneumatic drill are reverberating around the house. It's like hearing Gog or Magog undergoing treatment in the dentist's chair. Today, a load-bearing wall is being demolished. We're sick of micro-waved food. Initially, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. This morning I'm not so sure. It's so bland. I appreciate that it is very affordable, but how on earth can people live on this stuff day in day out?

 

 

Angostura Bitters

 

 

 

 

How often do you use an ingredient without really knowing anything about it?  Step forward Angostura Bitters. I'm guilty of this myself. I specified its use in my recent Pink Gin post; I use it now and again in cooking. I've grown to appreciate its aromatic, almost piquant taste. I'm in favour of its deep reddish brown amber colour. But I'll admit to you that- until now- I couldn't tell you anything whatsoever about Angostura Bitters. I wasn't even sure what the stuff is made from.

 

What is it?

45% Alcohol, Gentian Root, "Vegetable Flavouring Extracts"- whatever that means: the exact recipe is a closely guarded secret, with only five people knowing the precise recipe.

 

What is Gentian Root?

The root of a plant found in Alpine regions. Gentiana verna. It has a blue flower. It also flavours Polish Zoladkowa Gorzka vodka.

 

Who makes it?

The House of Angostura, Tinidad and Tobago. Founded in 1830 by a German doctor, Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, Surgeon-General in Simon Bolivar's army in Venezuela. He experimented with bitters as a way of helping the digestion and well-being of his troops. "In 1830, Siegert exported his unique aromatic bitters to England and Trinidad. By 1850, he had resigned his commission in the Venezuelan army to concentrate on the manufacture of his bitters, which was enjoying a huge demand. In 1862 the product was exhibited in London, to great approval."

 

How alcoholic is it?

Very. 44.7% proof.  

 

I've heard a rumour that it contains Angostura Bark?

Angoustura Bitters does not contain Angostura Bark. Instead, it's named after Angostura in Venezula.

 

Why is the label too big for the bottle?

Nobody really knows. One story points to the laid-back Caribbean attitude. An oversized label was ordered by mistake, and no-one bothered to correct it. The portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria appeared on the label after Angostura won a medal at the 1873 World Fair in Vienna.

 

Who drinks it?

You're in good company: The King of Prussia, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V, King Gustav VI Adolph of Sweden and HM The Queen.

 

Is it good for you?

Perhaps. A remedy for hiccups and an upset stomach, and- just possibly- a cure for hangover.

 

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The Dilemma of Tomato Ketchup

 

 

Henry Heinz, the genius behind the "57 varieties"

 

And now for something completely different. I'm never entirely sure about tomato ketchup. Not the classic stuff in bottles, that sauce made by Heinz- but the various recipes you come across telling you a) how to make it and b) how much better it is than the shop version.

It's the same thing with several famous and established classic brands. Is fresh corn-off-the-cob really that much better than Jolly Green Giant niblet sweetcorn in the tin? I remember the Roux brothers admitting on camera that they most certainly used tinned sweetcorn ("it is a good quality product"). Are home-made baked beans really that much better than the Heinz version?  Isn't it a case of the Emperors' New Clothes?

The more I think about it, there's a group of food brands and products which are, frankly, sacrosanct. Many of them were dreamt up in the Victorian, Edwardian or early 20th century periods. It's partly do to with childhood nostalgia, it's partly to do with the packaging. It may have something to do with the taste. Like old friends, they've just got that je ne sais quoi, they never let you down. The following, in my opinion, are members of this august club: Heinz Baked Beans, Kit-Kat, Mars Bars, Heinz Tomato Soup, Jolly Green Giant Sweetcorn, Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce, Schweppes Tonic Water, Hellman's Mayonnaise, Colman's Mustard, Marmite, Coca-Cola, Jaffa Cakes, H.P. Sauce, Tabasco, Angostura Bitters, Cadbury's plain chocolate digestives, Pimm's, J & B Rare blended whisky, Bournville dark chocolate, Camp coffee. 

Do you notice how most of these brands have more-or-less never changed the general style of the package design, although there may well have been very subtle changes to the overall packaging over the decades? Tamper with the classics at your peril! I'm not at all happy with what Heinz have done to our very own Lea & Perrins. They've simplified the label, and introduced nasty thick funeral black borders. Mr Lea and Mr Perrin, I think, have disappeared too. Having said that, the last time I was at the supermarket, I saw a shelf newly stacked with bottles of the old design, so it looks possible that the re-branding has failed, and Heinz have been forced to revert to the original packaging.

Another disaster (from my point of view, I have no idea if they have increased sales or not) is what the Kraft corporation have done to the classic Terry's All Gold, first produced in 1932. It's now a completely different product, split into two separate boxes, one for plain and one for milk chocolate. The fondants taste different. And where's the barrel of rum?

Anyway. Back to the Tomato Ketchup. If you feel like running against the grain, here's Lindsey Bareham's recipe for fresh tomato sauce, from her excellent Big Red Book of Tomatoes, published by Grub Street: 

Cut 350g tomatoes in half lengthways, then grate the tomatoes with the cut side facing the grater. Discard the skins and season with salt, pepper, a tablespoon of vinegar and a crushed clove of garlic. Beat in four tablespoons of olive oil, and shred basil over the top. 

 

 

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Robert Carrier and Drinking in Vogue

 

 

 

It's hard trying to be a food writer when you haven't got a kitchen. It's the reason why you've had a series of posts from me on cocktails over the last few days. You're also going to get quite a bit about books over the next few weeks or so; that is until the dust settles, the builders are banished and the ribbon, unveiling the new kitchen, is cut. I might even post up a photograph of the whole shooting match when it's finished.

For this one, I'm combining the two by recommending Drinking in Vogue, written by Henry McNulty, first published in 1978. Condé Nast published a series of excellent design and style books in the 60's, 70's and 80's; all of which are now becoming highly collectable. Henry Piper McNulty sounds like one of those splendid old school Henry Jamesy Americans. His Princeton obituary describes him as "a man of the world". I like the dry, spare irony of his biographical entry on the back flap of Drinking in Vogue: "Henry McNulty was born in Soochow, China, the son of missionary parents..."

And what a useful little book is Drinking in Vogue; peppered with amusing stories and witty asides:

"Learning to appreciate wine is a bit like falling in love. It happens to you without you actually encouraging it. But unlike love there is little chance that divorce will set in, unless your doctor intervenes".

He's also disarmingly candid: " I make no claim to wine expertise. I just like wine. My personal preference is for red over white, and French over others, and Bordeaux over Burgundy..." 

 

 

 

Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk

 

I was amused to see Henry McNulty mentioning a recipe for the "Hintlesham White Lady" (gin and lemon juice in equal measures, a dash of cointreau, a touch of sugar to taste, shaken with the white of an egg and ice). Oh, crikey, that's a trip down memory lane. Back in the late 70's, Hintlesham Hall was the fashionable country house restaurant owned by the starry American food writer and television "chef", Robert Carrier. Hintlesham was the sort of place where the waiters would count to three, and lift their silver tureen lids in unison. I buy old Robert Carrier books whenever I see them. They go for a song.

 

 

Mr Carrier in action for the BBC

 

It's funny how nobody seems to remember Robert Carrier anymore. In his day, he was huge: a contributor to Vogue, the proprietor of a trendy cookery school, author of many urbane cookery books, the inventor of the wipeable Robert Carrier Cookery Card System- a novel concept at the time. Food, Wine & Friends (the book of his now long forgotten 1979 television series) remains a particular favourite. If I can find my copy, I'll post up some photographs from the book at a later date. You will find them highly entertaining. His "friends", of course, included glamour girls like Joanna Lumley, Liv Ullmann, Susannah York, and Valentina Cortese. 

 

 

Robert Carrier's dining room at Hintlesham, "Robert Carrier's Entertaining", Sidgwick & Jackson, 1977 

 

 

And he was a terribly nice man to deal with: a very long time ago, as a junior auction specialist at a well know auctioneers in New Bond Street, I was told to telephone Mr Carrier to tell him that his rather camp 17th century wood carvings (gilt-wood angels, heavenly cherubs, South German putti- that sort of thing) had failed to sell. He was utterly charming, shouted "good, good!" down the telephone and told me he was delighted to be "getting his old friends back".

There's hardly anything featuring Robert Carrier on youtube, but I did find him trying to flog Magimixes in an old ad from the 1980's:

 

          

 

 

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Jackie Kennedy's Shepherd's Pie

 

 

That famous photograph, Ron Galella in pursuit

 

I've always admired Jacqueline Kennedy's taste, especially in antiques, pictures and books. The Sotheby's catalogue (The Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, April 23-26, 1996) was a revelation; proving that she had an excellent, understated eye (from memory as the catalogue's currently in storage) for: old master drawings, charming hand-coloured Regency and Biedermeier prints, John Singer Sargent sketches, creamware Corinthian candlesticks, Louis XVI furniture, natural history engravings by Audubon. Everything was slightly tatty, too. I liked that: her books had been well thumbed, and well-read; the antithesis of the immaculate coffee table books you see piled up in interior design magazines.

 

 

 

Then trawling the internet one day, I came across "Cooking for Madam, Recipes & Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis", by Martha Sgubin (with Nancy Nicholas). Martha Sgubin was Mrs Onassis's cook, or private chef. 

To be honest, initially I thought the book was going to be a bit of a joke. Cringy title. A slightly embarrasing buy, not quite at the brown paper bag stage, but you will get the drift. How wrong I was!  It was a terrific buy, and it's now got pride of place on that shelf of cookery books I'd rescue if the house caught fire (which is more than likely with the full-scale renovations currently in progress); alongside The Harry's Bar Cookbook, The Prawn Cocktail Years, Lindsey Bareham's Just One Pot and Arabella Boxer's English Food.

Martha Sgubin cooks the sort of food I know I'd love if- and when- we ever get round to employing a private chef. Simple but relatively sophisticated; unpretentious, Anglo-American with a French and Italian influence. Honest food cooked extremely well- and with style. Flicking through at random, we have: Mussel Salad, Shepherd's Pie, Frozen Lemon Soufflé, Pear Sorbet, Green Risotto, Tarragon Chicken, Warm Lobster Salad with Basil Viniagrette, Truffle Soup and Strawberry Shortcake.

I now have something shocking to admit to you. I have declared this house "A Mashed Potato Free Zone". For some reason, I loathe mashed potato. It's weird, I know. I can quite happily tuck into waxy new potatoes; sautéed potatoes are good, chips are divine. But mashed potato is the Mark of the Beast. It may be something to do with the floury texture. It may be something to do with school (antique Irish cooks at Dotheboy's Hall, fags dangling from their pursed lips, blue nylon housecoats) or those robotic alien creatures which peddled instant mashed potatoes for Cadbury's back in the 70's. Mash Get Smash. But for today only, I'm going to lift my ban, and actually recommend a dish which includes the evil substance. I'm quite happy to serve this up to our guests. Just bear in mind that I won't touch it. But if it's good enough for Mrs Onassis...

Here's the recipe for Jackie Kennedy's Shepherd's Pie, as cooked by Martha Sgubin, and adapted by The Greasy Spoon:

 

 

 

4 cups chopped cooked lamb or roast beef (the meat must be rare)

2 large cloves of garlic

1 large onion, chopped

1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary leaves

8 Tablespoons (1 stick) butter, divided

3 Tablespoons flour

1 cup beef stock

Salt and Pepper

4 cups mashed potatoes

 

Preheat your oven to 350°. Combine the lamb, garlic, onion and rosemary and put them through a meat grinder twice. It does need to be a meat grinder.

Melt six tablespoons of the butter in a large pan, and stir in the flour. Stir constantly on a low heat to form a roux. You'll need to do this for a few minutes so that the flour cooks.

Add the ground lamb mixture and stir it in. Add sea salt flakes and pepper to taste. Pour the combined mixture into an oven-proof oval casserole dish. Spread the mashed potatoes over the top. Make sure the lamb mixture is completey covered and that the potato is spread evenly, touching the rim of the dish. Take a fork and rake a design across the potato. Long grooves across the width could be a good plan. Dot with butter. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until the filling is hot and the potato has browned.

 

 

Cooking For Madam, Recipes and Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Marta Sgubin (and Nancy Nicholas), published by Scribner, New York, 1998.

 

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Orange Blossom Cocktails and the Strange Mystery of William Desmond Taylor

 

 

 

 

 

I first read about the strange- and fascinating- case of William Desmond Taylor a few years ago and it's haunted me ever since. I expect you've never heard of it (most people haven't, there's no particular reason why you should have done either), but back in 1922, the mysterious events leading up to his murder became a sensational cause célèbre of the day.

 

William Desmond Taylor

Desmond Taylor was a famous (and hugely successful) British silent film director: suave, handsome, urbane, cultured, a former British army officer, charming, erudite, built like an athelete with a reputation for integrity; a bibliopile and collector of rare books. I'm sure you get the picture: he enjoyed numerous "friendships" with all sorts of charming young actresses- and quite possibly their mothers too.

Anyway, at 7:30 am on the morning of 2 February 1922, the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments, 404-B South Alvarado Street, Los Angeles. He had been shot in the back. The evening before, his neighbour claimed to have the sound of a gunshot ("like a car back-firing") and seen a "funny looking" stranger leaving Taylor's bungalow wearing a muffler and a plaid cap pulled down over his- or her- eyes.

 

 

The Taylor Residence, Alvardo Court Apartments, Los Angeles

The case remains unsolved to this day. There's a whole cast of sinister suspects: Edward Sands, Taylor's dodgy valet; Henry Peavey, Taylor's camp butler; Mable Normand (the silent era comedienne); Mary Tyler Minter (the Hollywood film star), Charlotte Selby (Minter's mother) and starlet Margaret Gibson, who apparently, confessed to the murder on her deathbed.

 

 

And the case gets stranger. It turned out that Desmond Taylor wasn't really Willliam Desmond Taylor at all. His real name was William Cunningham Deane-Tanner, son of an Anglo-Irish British army major. Deane-Tanner had emigrated to New York where he had set up business as a Society antique dealer. On the 23 October, 1908, he had suddenly vanished, leaving behind a wife and young daughter, only to resurface four years later with a changed name, and a discovered talent for acting. The intervening years remain a bit of a mystery- he may have worked as a rancher; he may have laboured in the gold mines of Yukon. What I find striking is the contrast between Deane-Tanner the unhappy, hard-drinking antique dealer (there are rumours of forgery, his disapperance coincided with a dubious affair with a married women) and Desmond Taylor the distinguished film director- of whom, not one person would say a single bad word about after his murder. If ever there was an example of someone completely re-inventing himself, this is going to be it.

What's all this to do with food?, I hear you say. Not much, I admit, but William Desmond Taylor did enjoy an Orange Blossom cocktail with Mabel Normand a few hours before the shooting. They played the piano, discussed Nietzsche and Freud (as one does) until a quarter to eight; Taylor walked Normand to her car, they blew kisses at each other as her chauffeur drove off. With the exception of the murderer, she was the last person to see Desmond Taylor alive.

Here's a suitably grainy, film noiry photograph of that very cocktail tray; can't you just imagine the bungalow swarming with over-excited photographers, the smell of flash powder, the utter sensation of it all?

 

The Orange Blossom cocktail was an extremely popular cocktail during Prohibition. It's essentially just a mixture of orange juice and gin; although there are many different versions using a wide variety of ingredients. The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book has a recipe for "Orange Blossom No. 1": 

3/4 oz gin, 3/4 oz sweet vermouth (ie Cinzano Bianco), 3/4 oz orange juice. Pour the ingredients into a mixing pitcher or glass filled with ice cubes, stir well and strain. 

This is going to be pretty sweet in taste, maybe too sweet for modern sensibilities? An interesting historical fact is that people seemed to have much sweeter tooths (or is it teeth?) at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The Edwardians loved German wine and Hungarian Tokay for instance. I gather that these wines fetched far higher prices than clarets or Burgundies.

 

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Cocktails at Ciro's

 

 

 

 

I thought this looked quite interesting: it's a reprint of "Cocktails by Jimmy, late of Ciro's London", originally published in 1930. There's someone selling paperback reprints of vintage cocktail books on amazon. They're not very expensive, but I gather from a friend who ordered one recenty that they're really nothing more than scans or photocopies of the original book. Still, if you're interested in the history and origin of cocktails, the information contained within may well be of some use, and I see that there's a dealer on abebooks.co.uk currently offering the 1930 edition for well over a thousand pounds.

Ciro's was a fashionable London nightclub, founded in 1915 (despite the War) and located in Orange Street, just off Haymarket. According to Pathé news: Ciro's was "the famous London rendezvous of Smart Society." It even boasted it's own all-black dance band, possibly the first one in this country. Ciro's bartender, Harry McElhone, left to start up Harry's Bar in Paris ("roo sank der noo"), handing over his cocktail shaker to Jimmy, who I'm sure did an admirable job. Incidentally, there was another Ciro's- in Los Angeles- but the only thing it shared in common was the name.

 

The Pegu Club, 1910

 

According to the reprint's editor, Ross Bolton, this is one of the few cocktail books of the period to share the secret of the Pegu Club Cocktail, the signature drink of the Pegu Club, Rangoon, set up in the 1880's as a watering hole for British army officers.

There are all sorts of different opinions on how to mix a Pegu Club Cocktail, but I found this recipe on The Gin is In blog, and thought it looked good: 3oz gin (our old friend Plymouth would be ideal), 1oz Cointreau, .75oz fresh lime juice, two dashes of aromatic bitters, two dashes of orange bitters. Serve cold.

While you're mixing the drink, and to get you in the mood, here's a recording of the "Ciro's Club Coon Orchestra" in action:

 

 

 

 

If you like all this historic jazz age cocktail stuff, for my next post I might well cover the mysterious slaying of one time antiques dealer and Hollywood silent film director, William Desmond Taylor. He shared an Orange Blossom cocktail with the silent comedienne Mabel Normand a few hours before his death. The case remains unsolved. But that's for my next post. After all, tomorrow is another day.

 

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Plymouth Gin

 

 

 

 

The excellent Peak of Chic blog left an interesting comment on my recent post on Pink Gin. She wondered if she could buy Plymouth Gin in America?  I expect she can, but I have a feeling that it's going to be more readily available from specialist shops.

Plymouth Gin was the traditional gin of choice as used by the Royal Navy, and traditionally, Pink Gin was made with Plymouth, rather than London Dry gin. I read somewhere that originally, back in the 19th century, Plymouth Gin did taste considerably different from today's London Dry (it was sweeter and more aromatic); and it was also the gin of choice for Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book, first published in 1930.

Since starting The Greasy Spoon (was it really over five years ago?), I've developed an interest in package design- especially for spirit brands. I've noticed that Plymouth Gin have updated their bottle and label. I really like their new design. They've used their historical archives as inspiration, gone back to the "curves"  and reinstated the friar on their label- for this I applaud them; ditching their more rectangular, modernist bottle in the process. Many brands seem to have gone for this style in very recent years; no doubt to try and appeal to a younger, cocktail bar clientele. I'm not entirely convinced.

I really dislike the recent re-packaging of Mount Gay "Eclipse" rum. They've got "rid" of their charming old-fashioned bottle (reminiscent of the 50's Captain's Cabin, pirates, treasure maps, Robert Louis Stevenson and the romance of the Caribbean) and replaced it with a bland, perceivedly trendy, cocktail bar thing. Honestly, it could now be a bottle of Amaretto.

 

 

Mount Gay "Eclipse" rum- the old design, on sale until very recently

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The Perfect Prawn Cocktail

 

 

 

 

 

"A gin and tonic says a lot about you as a person. It is more than just a drink, it is an attitude of mind. It goes with a prawn cocktail, a grilled Dover sole, Melba toast and Black Forest gâteau." Nico Ladenis, My Gastronomy, 1987

It's weird not having a kitchen; or at least, one we can use. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're having our kitchen completely re-built. It's now at the "shell" stage; interesting scraps of Victorian wallpaper have emerged. There's builder's dust everywhere, and we're living a hand-to-mouth existence upstairs. 

But this made me think. How difficult is it to come up with original and interesting recipes that don't actually need any cooking? Obviously, you could go down the salad route- which would would be fine, up to a point Lord Copper. But it could get pretty darn boring after a few days. Ceviche could be more interesting. The famous Mexican dish in which raw fish gets "cooked" in citrus juices and chili. No stove involved. This could be an interesting idea for a book? "Gourmet Food without a Cooker". Has anyone written one yet?

Another suggestion on this theme is the ubiquitous Prawn Cocktail. I have no shame in holding up my hand and championing this dish. It's a classic. Everybody secretly loves it. According to Australian Gourmet Traveller: "in 1959, a dish consisting of shrimp with a dollop of cocktail sauce, served in a sundae glass, was popularised by Las Vegas’s Hotel Nevada (now the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino), which coined the term “original shrimp cocktail”. It was served for fifty cents, and this price has increased only twice in the intervening years".

Here's how I  make it: The first step is to create a Marie-Rose Sauce. A spoonful of tomato ketchup, a few drops of Tabasco, a drop or two of Lea & Perrins, and a squeeze of lemon juice are added to a mayonnaise base. You can alter the flavourings to suit your taste. Salt and white pepper might be a good idea too. I like it to have a slight kick. Cooked prawns are then placed in a small glass or tumbler (quite possibily on a bed of designer lettuce) and the Marie Rose sauce poured on top. I'm rather anti garnishes at the moment. Simplicity is a good thing, so I would probably serve it as it is. If the ingredients are good, the dish will shine.

Now for a bizarre twist on the classic Marie Rose Sauce. While trawling the internet, I found a recipe for something called "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.

 

The Windsor villa in the Bois de Bologne: the spiritual home of "Sauce Liberal"

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.

 

The Greasy Spoon Kitchen, as taken this afternoon. The plastic bin horror in the front corner will have to go.

Harry's Bar, Venice

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure how many "Harry's Bars" there are in the world. Quite a few, I expect. There's that famous pub in Paris, there's the late Mark Birley's smart dining club in London; I would imagine there are some pretty divey bars in god-forsaken fleshpots using the name. But for me, the one and only, the place that can truly describe itself as "Harry's Bar" is the famous institution in Venice, opened by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1931.

I've unashamedly described my love for this place over the years- and I make no apologies for it. I like its wooden simplicity (a bit like a saloon in a varnished schooner), I like the fact that the food is prepared by "cooks" rather than "chefs"- suggesting a remarkable honesty, at least when it comes to the food. I like the immaculate service- the way you can return a decade later, and there will be the same barman behind the counter, I like the continuity; the idea that the ghosts of Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, Truman Capote and Peggy Guggenheim might just, if you played your cards right, come over and say hello.

 

Very many years ago, as a callow youth (all of nineteen years old) I developed an interest in the Dry Martini. I was in Venice with my girlfriend of the time. We were shy and naive. We had never been to Harry's before. We plucked up courage and pushed through the hallowed swing doors. It was pouring with rain. We found a seat at the bar and ordered two dry martinis. Harry's serve them in tiny, rather stylish little tumblers with their famous Deco motif, frosted, very cold and straight from the 'fridge. The barman- Mr Claudio Ponzio please step forward- was charming and treated us as if we were royalty, even though starry people like Roger Moore and Michael Caine happened to be sitting over in the corner. The next day we came back, and Claudio had "your usual, sir?" waiting for us before we had even arrived, served up with a wry smile. Now, that's why I like Harrys' Bar.

 

        Mr Claudio Ponzio in action

There will be certain people- visitors to Venice- who will grumble about the place "not being as good as it used to be". They will complain about the quality of the Bellinis; about the number of badly dressed tourists packing out the downstairs bar, they will dismiss the exorbitant prices in the separate restaurant. Despite its fame, Harry's remains remarkably unpretentious- and this, I think, might be the cause of the trouble.

But I do think- and I've been meaning to say this for some time- that's it's often a question of respect, which Venice, as one of the greatest tourist destinations in the world often doesn't get. The last time we were there (a few months ago) we were greeted with a reserved charm, and offered a little dish of canapés. Just for us. We had just been to La Fenice- or possibly High Mass at St Mark's (I forget which, my wife is a Catholic) and were dressed appropriately, a suit for me, my wife as immaculate as ever. You get back what you give.

 

 

 

May I also recommend The Harrys' Bar Cookbook by Arrigo Cipriani? If our house ever caught fire, this would be first cookery book that I would try and save. We use it the whole time. The recipe for Minestrone is certainly the best version I've made- so far. Pollo alla Veneta and Insalata di Cape Sante are particular favourites.

 

 

Before the Theatre

 

 

Before the theatre: Prunier's Snack Bar by "Eric" (Carl Erickson, 1891-1958), Vogue Magazine, late 1930's, (from Food in Vogue, Six Decades of Cooking and Entertaining, edited by Barbara Tims, Harrap London, 1976)

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Rogan Josh

 

 

Oh, how I love youtube. It's that serendipity thing going on. You've got an hour or so to spare, and just through random coincidence and one thing leading to another, you discover infinite numbers of new sub-cultures you didn't even know existed.  And that's how I came across Chef Harpal. I have no idea if he's a huge culinary star in India, Australia, Singapore- or wherever. But what I do know is that his take on Rogan Josh is extremely delicious- and for those of you with that certain chili kick, this is going to be right up your street. Incidentally, there's no tomato or tomato sauce in it whatsoever.  All the red 'fiery' bit comes from the chili. 

If you've got the time and inclination, have a look at his video, as posted below. If you haven't, here's my version of Chef Harpal's Rogan Josh: 

In hot oil, you fry: a cinammon stick, a few cloves, a bayleaf, a few black cardamoms, and a kilogram of thinly sliced onions. Cook until the onions are beginning to turn slightly brown. Add a tablespoon of garlic paste, and then a tablespoon of ginger paste. Take a shoulder of lamb, and cut it up into chunks. Fry until evenly coloured and the lamb is soft. Add water or stock, and a generous dash of sea salt. Cover and cook for about twenty five minutes. 

Mix up a decent tablespoon or so of chili powder with water, to form a loose, liquidy paste. This is one of Chef Harpal's nifty tricks. It helps to release the oils and bind the chili to the sauce. Don't add the chili powder as it is. Throw in a teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds and a teaspoon of crushed, powdered ginger. Let them cook for a few minutes and then turn down the heat and mix in about half a cup of whisked yoghurt. Simmer until the lamb is tender.

 

 

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Americano

 

 

"Tu vuò fa l' americano!

mmericano! mmericano

siente a me, chi t' ho fa fa?

tu vuoi vivere alla modama se bevi whisky and soda

po' te sente 'e disturbà"

 

Ah yes, the Americano. The cocktail was first served at the Caffè Campari in the 1860s. Its original name was the "Milano-Torino". Campari is made in Milan, and Cinzano, the vermouth, is made in Turin. Anyway, the story goes that the drink became popular with rich American tourists who flocked to Italy during the Prohibition Era. Hence the name "Americano".

Making one is easy enough: Into a high glass filled with ice, pour one part Campari to one part red vermouth (Cinzano Rosso), and top off with one part club soda. Garnish with a slice of orange, or a twist of orange peel. 

It turns out that none other than our old friend, Mister Bond, was a reluctant connoisseur of the Americano: "No, in cafés you have to drink the least offensive of the musical comedy drinks that go with them, and Bond always had the same thing, an Americano.”  (From a View to a Kill, 1960). Very Ian Fleming.

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Constance Spry's Original Coronation Chicken

 

 Cecil Beaton, 1952

With Her Majesty The Queen's Diamond Jubilee- and River Pageant- just around the corner, I thought it appropriate to turn our thoughts to Coronation Chicken. I admit that I like it. It's slightly bland, perhaps even a trifle unfashionable, but the original Constance Spry recipe is, undoubtably, a classic; far better than the ubiquitous, bog-standard chicken, mayonnaise and curry powder versions you will have come across. It actually tastes of something, too. It's going to be worth making that special effort:

 

Constance Spry's Original Coronation Chicken

Ingredients (Serves 8):

2.3kg (5lb) chicken

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 small, finely chopped onion

1 tbsp curry paste

1 tbsp tomato purée

100ml red wine

1 bay leaf

1/2 lemon juice

4 finely chopped apricot halves

300ml (1/2 pint) Mayonnaise

100ml (4 fl oz) whipping cream

Salt and pepper

Watercress to garnish

 

Instructions:

1)  Skin the chicken and cut into small pieces and grill it until cooked.

2)  In a small saucepan, heat the oil, add the onion and cook for about three minutes, until softened.

3)  Add the curry paste, tomato purée, wine, bay leaf and lemon juice.

4)  Simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes until well reduced.

5)  Strain and leave to cool.

6)  Purée the chopped apricot halves in a blender or food processor or through a sieve.

7)  Beat the cooled sauce into the mayonnaise with the apricot purée.

8)  Whip the cream to stiff peaks and fold into the mixture.

9)  Season, adding a little extra lemon juice if necessary.

10)  Fold in the chicken pieces, garnish with watercress and serve.

 

 

I've got another bit of good news: I've started another blog. It's called The Education of a Gardener, a title nicked unashamedly from the great landscape architect, Russell Page. It's a sort of diary or scrapbook about my efforts to transform a tiny, dingy London backyard into a garden. It's going to be a very different blog from The Greasy Spoon. Simpler, less cluttered. I'm really not worried about how many people can be bothered to read it; it's going to be more of a personal diary, a chart of my progress; my struggle to turn a depressing, shady backyard into a something that I can call truly, a garden.

 

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Chinese Chicken in a Black Bean Sauce

 

Last night I dreamt again of Chicken in a Black Bean Sauce. Nothing special, just the ordinary, slighty tacky dish you get delivered from a Chinese takeaway, the sort of thing you might eat with chopsticks in front of the television, straight from the tin-foil carton. Strips of chicken, bound in a starchy, slightly piquant, peppery black sauce, stir fried with crunchy green peppers. Always crunchy green peppers.

As with Indian food in this country, I expect that Chicken in a Black Bean Sauce is about as authentic as a pizza cooked with pineapple; not of course that I am recommending you add pineapple to your pizza; that would be a heresy. But just sometimes, there's something comforting about re-creating simple, bastardised dishes: I think they've become modern classics in their own right.

Researching the recipe, I found all sorts of versions on the net. Some were spicier than others; one even used grated orange and ginger. I've come up with a simple, relatively authentic recipe you can easily make at home, although I admit that I have no idea if this is exactly how your local Chinese take-away makes it. Please feel free to add your own twists. You'll see that I have deliberately avoided using that pre-made black bean sauce you can buy in a tin. You can buy packets of fermented black beans (soy beans which have been dried and fermented in salt and spices) and from Chinese grocery shops. We're lucky enough to live relatively close to London's China Town. If you don't, I think you can buy these on the net. Incidentally, they're a different thing from the black beans used in Mexican or Caribbean cooking, which you can buy tinned from supermarkets. Here's how you make Chicken in a Black Bean Sauce:

First, you will need to make up your own black bean sauce mixture. In a bowl, combine the following ingredients: two heaped tablespoons of Chinese fermented black beans (rinsed and mashed), two cloves of minced garlic, one tablespoon of dark soy sauce, one teaspoon of Chinese oyster sauce (from the bottle), one teaspoon of sugar, two teaspoons of cornstarch, 1/2 cup of chicken stock, and a dash of rice wine or sherry. Put to one side.

Heat up your wok over a medium heat, and add a dash of toasted sesame oil. Warm for about thirty seconds. Add a teaspoon or so of minced garlic and your home-made black bean sauce. Cook, stirring for thirty seconds.

Add some chicken (which you've previously cut into thin strips) and cook through. If the sauce gets too thick (or there's not enough of it) add some more chicken stock or water. Cook, stirring occasionally so that the sauce doesn't stick to the wok.

When the chicken's almost cooked, add diced onion, sliced spring onions, green pepper (cut up into chunks), a further generous dash of soy sauce (this will help to turn the sauce a darker colour) and lots of fresh black pepper. Cook quickly (so that the vegetables are still crunchy) and serve. Steamed rice would be just the ticket.

 

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The London Grill

 

The New Piccadilly Cafe, London- alas, very recently closed down 

 

Oh Crikey, who remembers Heinz's London Grill?  Baked Beans, Pork Sausage, Bacon and Nuggets of Kidney all bound up in the famous Tomato Sauce. In a green tin with the legendary Heinz label. And, apparently, there was "West End Grill" too; with mushrooms in it, rather than the kidneys. I'm assuming that Heinz suddenly woke up to the reality that many buyers out there weren't that keen on the noble kidney. Or maybe it was the other way round, and West End Grill came before the London Grill?

It might be a chicken and egg situation here. There's something slightly rakish about the word(s) "The West End", conjuring up images of The Stork Club, Dancing Girls, the neon lights of Piccadilly Circus, languid lunches in Charlotte Street, pea-souper fogs, Stephen Ward's cream Jaguar XK120, green-painted coffee stalls in the early hours of the morning: After The Ball is Over. I suppose Heinz were hoping that some of this sophisticated imagery would rub off on to their creations.

But as Sir John Betjeman once wrote (with apologies to Slough):

"Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens, 
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, 
Tinned minds, tinned breath...

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad, 
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know 
The birdsong from the radio, 
It's not their fault they often go 
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars 
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead..."

 

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Last Dinner on The Titanic

 

 

Like so many others with slightly macabre sensibilities, I have a near obsession with The Titanic. And I've had this for as long as I can remember, long before all the recent media hype and the James Cameron blockbuster of 1997.

I've got a very real problem with the latter: am I alone in thinking that this film is an example of the worst possible taste?  A very tragic real-life disaster, in which over a thousand people died, is reduced to a simplistic, anachronistic teen romance, fermented by a trite, retarded script; the Titanic's passenger list reduced to "them" and "us": "them" being the 'orrible upper classes- all cruel snobs with phoney Oxford accents and twirling waxed moustaches, and "us" being the brave, true, noble, kind, hard-working, down-trodden working class, on their way to create a Brave New America- except that they don't, 'cos they all drown at the expense of the cowardly toffs who dress up in drag to get to the life-boats before the women and children.

An interesting historical fact by the way- before we all get too revolutionary here- is that around double the amount of men in Third Class survived when compared to the poor old burghers in Second Class who suffered, I think, the worst survival rate of all, a terrifying 8.33 per cent.

And then there's all that bizarre cruciform spread-eagled arm waving stuff going on in the film, Leonardo and Kate at the bows of the great ship, offset by corny Irish folksy flutey music (why does modern day Hollywood have a thing about this? Although I'll grudgingly admit that the Titanic was made in Belfast) and the wailings- nay, shrieking- courtesy of the Franco-Canadian diva, Ms. Celine Dion.

 

 

A Night to Remember, 1958

No, I don't like "Titanic". Instead, have a look at William McQuitty's excellent A Night to Remember, directed by the late Roy Ward Baker and starring Kenneth More and a very young Honor Blackman (aka Mrs Gale). Yup, it's in black and white, yup, it was made in 1958. Yup, it requires a bit of effort to watch. Yup, it's got Kenneth More with a plummy accent, and it's all very Stiff Upper Lip. These are good things.

The Times today ran an article entitled "The other last supper". The byline said: "...inspired by the final Titanic meal, chefs around the world are serving variations of its first-class menu". Again, although fascinating, isn't this just a little dubious?  Not the Times article, which was interesting, but the idea that restaurants all around the world are staging "Last Dinner on The Titanic" banquets?

In the spirit of all this fun, one of my more recent second-hand buys has been, yes, you guessed it Last Dinner on The Titanic...Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner, by Rick Archbold and Diana McCauley, with a forward by Walter Lord. Walter Lord, by the way, wrote the book on the Titanic disaster, which I would recommend without hesitation.

 

So why not amuse and entertain your boss and his lady wife by inviting them to a Titanic dinner party?  If they're first class guests you could serve them eleven courses, consisting at a glance of: Oysters à la Russe, Poached Salmon with Mousseline sauce, Vegetable Marrow Farci, Chậteau potatoes, Asparagus Salad with Champagne-Saffron vinagrette (I like the sound of this one), and Waldorf pudding. If your guests warrant the second class menu, there's a choice of Baked Haddock with Sharp Sauce, Curried Chicken and Rice, Turnip Purée, Wine Jelly and American Ice Cream. Steerage gets, amongst other things, Roasted Pork with Sage, Vegetable Soup, Green Peas and Plum Pudding with Sweet Sauce.

Here's the recipe for the Asparagus Salad with Champagne-Saffron vinagrette (courtesy of "Last Dinner on The Titanic"):

Snap off the woody ends of the fresh asparagus stalks, and chuck them away. Plunge the asparagus into salted boiling water and cook them for 3 to 5 minutes until tender. Drain them under cold water- which will help to set the colour and will stop them cooking.

Meanwhile, soak some saffron strands in a few teaspoons of boiling water, and let it stand for a few minutes, until the saffron softens (you'll find that the water turns yellow). Stir in about a tablespoon or so of champagne vinegar, half a teaspoon of smooth Dijon mustard and a good pinch of white sugar. Whisk until smooth, and drizzle in three tablespoons of olive oil, until it forms an emulsion. Season with salt and white pepper. Toss with the asparagus and red and/or yellow peppers, finely diced. Arrange on a plate with a selection of designer lettuce leaves- those things in plastic bags you can buy from the supermarkets.

 

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The Savoy's Cream Cheese and Marmite Sandwiches

 

 

 

 

I'm currently reading Matthew Sweet's The West End Front, The Wartime Secrets of London's Grand Hotels. It's a terrific book: the blurb on the back reads: "A Lost World of Scandal, Intrigue and Fortitude...The Ritz, The Savoy, Dorchester and Claridge's- during the Second World War, each was a kind of Casablanca. Their bedrooms, hallways and grillrooms teemed with Spies, Con-Artists, Deposed Royals and the exiled governments of Europe..."

This is all very Patrick Hamilton:

 

 

 Patrick Hamilton

 

In 1941, the Food (Restrictions on Meals in Establishments) order came into force. All restaurants were required to offer a three course dinner or lunch for no more than five shillings a head, although luxury foods (such as lobster, caviar and oysters) could still be supplied with a surcharge. Young officers, home on leave, could take their girls to The Ritz, Dorchester or Savoy for a very reasonable sum; and as a result, these hotel restaurants became extremely buzzy places indeed.

I've always been fond of The Savoy, ever since my father took me there at the age of eighteen (or was it twenty one?) to savour my first Dry Martini at the American Bar, as mixed by the legendary Peter Dorelli. Remember that back in the 60's and early 70's my father used to handle the advertising for the Booth's Gin account, so he was rather up on this sort of thing.

The Savoy Hotel, incidentally, has very recently been completely re-vamped in a multi-million pound make-over by the Canadian group, Fairmont. I've no time for this: the reproduction paintings are truly dreadful- an insult to your intelligence; it probably never occured to the re-vampers that actually, this or that painting is really rather famous, and as it's currently in the so-and-so museum or gallery, the Savoy Hotel version is obviously not going to be the real-thing. And anyone with an eye is going to realise immediately that the textures and colours are all wrong, wrong, wrong.

Let's move on, before I start shouting at my computer screen (this seems to be happening more and more as I get older, it's a horribly unattractive trait, I do realise). So I've pulled out of my bookcase Anton Edelmann's The Savoy Cookbook, a worthy thing published by Pavilion. I like the sound of their "Marmite and Cream Cheese Sandwiches":

You take four slices of thin white bread (Waitrose stock this), and then spread two slices with Marmite very sparsley. You spread the cream cheese (ie Philadelphia) on the other two slices of bread, and then combine the two pieces of bread. The crusts are cut off, and each sandwich cut into three equal fingers.

Note the curious fact that The Savoy cut their sandwiches into fingers, not triangles. I've rabbited on about this before- it's one of the Great Truths of Life.

 

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An Apple a Day...

 

Lovely graphics from the William Tell Apple Co. of North Carolina. 1940's. As it's Burns Night this evening, I'm am also featuring one of my early posts on Haggis at the top of the page.

Salad Olivier

 

 

Remember this old favourite?  Otherwise known as the Russian Salad, it was invented by Lucian Olivier, a Belgian chef who ran the fashionable Hermitage restaurant in Moscow during the late nineteenth century. Olivier's salad, apparently, became quite a cause célèbre with le gratin; and enjoyed the patronage of the grand matrons of Muscovite Society. The Hermitage restaurant closed down in 1905, and Lucian Olivier died at the relatively young age of 45. If you're so inclined to pay your respects, he's buried in the Vvedenskoye Cemetry. And the closely guarded secret recipe for his famous salad went with him to the grave. Or did it?

What's in it, I hear you ask?  That's a very interesting question and much open to debate. There's quite a bit of stuff about it on the net; the subject's almost becoming a sub-culture in its own right. The original recipe included all sorts of exotic lovelies: grouse, veal tongue, caviar, crayfish tails, capers and even smoked duck- this was a fabled dish from Pre-Revolutionary Russia after all; nothing like that awful Heinz Russian Salad thing that came in a tin, and looked suspiciously like Oskie the Cat's sick.

 

Nicholas II and Alexandra, in 17th century fancy dress for the Winter Palace Ball, St Petersburg, 1903.

 

Anyway, a certain- and enterprising- Ivan Ivanov, a sous-chef at the Hermitage restaurant, plucked up enough courage to steal the recipe. Look upon his dastardly plan as a late nineteenth century pension pot. Now Olivier prepared the wretched salad himself- and only by himself. No other chef was allowed anywhere near him while he made it. Fortunately he was suddenly called away to deal with some emergency. While Oliver was gone, Ivan sneaked into the kitchen and managed to work out, at the very least, how the secret dressing was made.

Ivan left the Hermitage and went to work for Moskva, a local restaurant with an inferior clientele. A few weeks later, low-and-behold, a new salad appeared on the Moskva menu- the "Capital Salad" which, most suspiciously, looked and tasted very much like the original Olivier salad from the Hermitage restaurant. Naughty old Ivan.

The story goes that Ivan then sold the recipe to various publishing houses. One of the first printed recipes for Olivier salad, by Aleksandrova, appeared in 1894. It included grouse, potatoes, gherkins, lettuce leaves, crayfish tails, capers and aspic. All bound in a Provençal dressing.

Here's my take on Salad Olivier, based on a recipe from the fanastic Taste of Russia by Darra Goldstein. It will serve about eight people. "A Taste of Russia" is one of my favourite cookery books. It rediscovers the cuisine of Pre-Revolutionary Russia; the food from the days of the Romanov Tsars. It's a terrific book.

 

In a large bowl, mix: 225g cooked potatoes (cut into dice), a large cooked carrot (cut into dice), two apples (chopped into dice), one peeled orange (membranes removed, and cut into chunks), two spring onions (chopped), and 120g peas.

Mix in 225g of cooked chicken (which you have previously chopped up into bite-sized pieces.

Make a dressing: Press three hard-boiled egg yolks through a sieve into a small bowl. Mix in two dollops of olive oil and stir, to form a smooth emulsion. Add two tablespoons of cider or wine vinegar and eight tablespoons each of mayonnaise and soured cream. Season, and pour over the vegetables and the chicken, keeping some of the dressing back.

Let it chill in the 'fridge overnight. To serve, form the salad into a neat mold or mound, and pour over the remaining dressing. Garnish with fresh dill. You could of course, for a more piquant taste, ditch the orange and include diced gherkin. An authentic addition. I think it would work. 

The Ivy's Hamburger

 

 

Rummaging through some old newspaper cuttings from the '90's, I found this old photograph of the famous Ivy restaurant (founded 1917), with a super-imposed photograph of Charles Laughton in the 1933 picture, "The Private Life of Henry VIII".

This is how The Ivy used to be- the favourite playground of the luvvies of the silver screen: Larry, Vivien, Noel, Ivor and Sexy Rexy. I love the wood panelling, the Tudorbeathen leaden lattice windows and the naff neo-classical statues. How I would give my teeth (what's left of 'em) to go back in time and enter those hallowed portals!

 

In 1990, Caprice Holdings "restored" and relaunched the restaurant; supposedly to its "former glory". I've got mixed feelings about the new Ivy. By then the restaurant, it is true, had become a shadow of its former self, semi-derelict, and in desperate need of a makeover; but the 1990's re-incarnation was, with hindsight, a bit Footballer's Wives, (to be fair, a reflection of the then fashionable age of one Mr Anthony Blair and the cringe-inducing Cool Britannia); service was impeccable, but the whole place lacked the elan and dash of its previous incarnation. 

 

Back in the 90's (as with Terence Conran's "Quaglino's"), it was extremely difficult to get a table; these days, I gather, it's an easier ticket, and reservations can be booked on a few weeks notice. 

If you're still interested, A.A. Gill's The Ivy, The Restaurant and its Recipes is the definitive guide. I've already covered The Ivy's Chicken Masala (which is included in A.A. Gill's book)- an excellent and delicious dish, which has the slightly unusual trait of being thickened with chopped aubergine.

Here's A.A. Gill's take on the Ivy's Hamburger. I've always had a slight problem with my own home-made hamburgers: I make a delicious mix, but then add too much liquid (or too much beaten egg), so that when it comes to the "pan-frying" bit, the meat crumbles, and doesn't hold together. This is the official Ivy version. Admittedly, it's pretty basic, but I think it's worth publishing online:

Mix up a good quality minced beef, and mould into balls or patties. Put the burgers into the 'fridge to set. Whisk together tomato ketchup with American mustard (French's mustard would be ideal) to make the sauce.

Lightly toast some baps, and keep them warm. Cook the burgers on a griddle or a smoking hot pan (not under a grlll, as this could boil the meat). 

Serve the burgers in the warm baps with slices of red onion, gherkin, beef tomato and the Ivy hambuger sauce.

 

 

Take Me To Sank Roo Doe Noo!

 

 

 

Harry's Bar, Paris, the legendary haunt of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, Marlene Dietrich, Jean-Paul Sartre, Coco Chanel and Noel Coward is one hundred years old today. Many Happy Returns! Harry's New York Bar opened on November 24th 1911 at no. 5, Rue Daunou; and the decor has changed little since that day: it's currently lined with manly dark wooden panelling, painted shields displaying the coats of arms of famous English public schools, and American Ivy League pennants; all under a nicotine-stained embossed ceiling. It's still worth a visit if you happen to be in Paris, even if the style-gurus of the previous century have been replaced with American tourists.

 

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Smoking, alas, is no longer allowed in Paris, and that particular 20th century ambiance has vanished presumably forever; however Harry's still serves its famous Bloody Marys- which is especially apt, as the cocktail was invented there in 1920 by Ferdinand Petiot, a barman from Ohio.

The "Bloody" apparently, comes from The Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and "Mary" after Petiot's daughter. The original drink was a simple mix of tomato juice and vodka, but Petiot expanded the recipe when he moved to the St Regis Hotel, New York. Here's the famous Greasy Spoon version:

 

 

Put some ice into a cocktail shaker. Pour in a decent slug of Stolichnaya vodka, and top the shaker up with a good quality tomato juice. Add a dash of Tio Pepe or otherwise dry sherry, a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, a pinch of cayenne pepper, celery salt, a few shakes of my favourite Tabasco and Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce. 

Do the Hokey Cokey and shake it all about. Strain it off into a glass and add, if you must, a stick of celery. You'll find that the lemon juice smooths it out, and the sherry gives it an added kick.

Remember, as with so many other things in life, keep it simple, don't try and doll it up with extra ingredients (I'm not convinced by the addition of creamed horseradish, or chunky black pepper, although steeping a peeled horseradish root in your bottle of vodka, or subsituting Tabasco with a Horseradish flavoured Hot Pepper Sauce sounds like a good idea) and stay away from the gimmicks. 

I don't like lumps of ice floating around in my Bloody Mary, and think it's much better if strained off. The cocktail's at its best if served very cold, so keep the vodka buried away in the 'fridge, as the Russians do. You'll find the vodka goes thick-  and that, if I may make so bold Master Copperfield, is the way to keep vodka if you're going to drink it neat as an accompaniment to blinis and caviar.

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It's Christmas Pudding Time...

 

 

Believe it or not, it's time to make your Christmas Pudding. Here in London, Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier. The television advertising spree has begun, and suddenly our screens are full of earnest, eager types wrapped up in noddy hats and woolly scarves, grinning kiddywinks, and beaming Old Dears. Teflon snowflakes are having a field day. The lights have gone up in Sloane Square too, yet the leaves are still on the trees. Look, I love Christmas, please don't get me wrong: I'm no Scrooge; but often the expectation is, truthfully, more enjoyable than the actual event itself. But London is particularly pretty in those two weeks leading up to Christmas, and I can't think of a better place in the world to be at this time.

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.

Here is my tried and tested recipe for Christmas Pudding. It's based on our age-old family recipe (which I suspect was nicked from Cordon Bleu), but I've "improved" it with the addition of Guinness and Black Treacle. It went down extremely well with my brother-in-law, who gobbled down the lot, and apparently, declared it "one of the best Christmas Puddings he had ever tasted"; in fact- "never was there such a pudding". Incidentally, as an experiment last year, I added Scotch Whisky instead of the traditional brandy- and it sort of worked, although the resulting smoky taste was not really that appropriate. So back to good old Cognac it is.

 

 

Here's the recipe:

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 glacé 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 

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, mix in the following ingredients:

Two beaten eggs

The juice of half a lemon and half an orange

Two tablespoons of a dark stout (ie Guinness)

A tablespoon of black treacle 

A dash of decent Cognac (ie Brandy or Armagnac)

Stir it up 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 Victorian 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 is 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.

Beef Stroganoff

 

 

 

Remember Beef Stroganoff?  Many moons ago, my mother had a fledgling enterprise selling pre-cooked dinner party food to local housewives who couldn't be bothered to cook. Dishes were rustled up ahead of time, frozen, and then delivered to her clients in our rusting Lancia. I suspect there was quite a bit of fibbing going on, and the naughty dinner party hostesses would pretend that they had cooked it themselves. It was all very Stepford. From memory, Beef Stroganoff was one of the best-sellers on her menu. Strips of filet beef, cooked briefly, and bound in a mustardy sauce.

What exactly is Beef Stroganoff?  That's a very good question. In the authoritative The Prawn Cocktail Years, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham reckon that the origins of the dish are suspect, and about as Russian as I am Chinese. My own guess was that it might have had something to do with that fascinating post-Revolutionary period in America, when Hollywood was awash with dubious Russian counts and every exile worth their salt was cousin to the Tsar. Wikipedia, however, is a mine of information on the subject, pin-pointing the birth of the dish to Elena Molokhovet's classic Russian cookbook of 1861: "Beef à la Stroganov with mustard, a simple concoction of fried beef cubes in a mustard and sour cream sauce". Stroganoff also appears in the 1938 edition of Larousse Gastronomique, but with the addition of onions and the option of tomato paste.

Here's my recipe for a classic Beef Stroganoff. I'm of the opinion that you need to cook the beef very quickly; the steak needs to be tender, rather than chewey. It's not really a stew. This should make enough for about four people.

You take 600g or so of filet steak, and cut it into slivers. The meat is seasoned and fried very quickly in a hot frying pan, until it's browned, but still relatively rare. Don't crowd the pan, otherwise the beef will stew, rather than fry; for the best results it could be a good idea to fry the meat a few pieces at a time. Take out the browned meat, and set aside on a plate.

Add a knob of butter to the pan, and cook some finely sliced onions until golden. Take them out of the pan and set them aside. Add a further knob of butter to the pan and add 350g of sliced button or baby mushrooms. Once cooked through, remove and add to the onions.

Turn down the heat, and carefully spoon 400ml of soured cream into the pan. Mix in a generous dollop of French mustard, and a small spoonful of tomato paste for colouring. Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham add paprika at the mushroom stage (cooking the spice in the hot butter for a minute or so), and there's nothing wrong with that. But The Greasy Spoon version is, perhaps, the more authentic and I don't think the dish should be too spicy. Is it possible to make a virtue of the bland?

Warm the sauce through, and combine the cooked mushrooms and onions back into the pan. Simmer the Stroganoff very gently for around ten minutes. I really do prefer the beef to be rare- but I understand that this is very much a matter of personal taste.

To finish off the dish, check the seasoning, and stir in generous amounts of freshly chopped dill and a squeeze of lemon juice. You serve it with plain rice.

 

From left to right: Maria, Alexandra, Alexei, Tatiana, Nicholas II, Olga, Anastasia, 1911

Waldorf Salad

 

 

 

"You're the Top! You're a Waldorf Salad!"

Hands up who doesn't love a Waldorf Salad? Named after the Waldorf Hotel in New York, it's supposed to have been invented in the 1890's. By the maitre d'hotel, Oscar Tschirky- who also laid claim to that tantalising breakfast dish, Eggs Benedict. The original Waldorf Hotel was on the site of what is now the Empire State Building, and demolished in 1929.

 

Anyway, it's a simple old thing, and easily made from a combination of sliced celery, diced apples (I leave the skin on), walnuts, and raisins.

You bind the salad with mayonnaise (or just possibly a simple dressing) and serve it on a bed of peppery lettuce leaves, as the whim takes you. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

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 Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant Cookbook

 

 

I've just bought this book for the princely sum of £4.50. From a little bookshop in the quaint Cotswold town of Chipping Camden, of all places. It's the 1961 edition of the official "Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant Cookbook", by Charlotte Adams.

Bookbinder's was a distinguished American restaurant, first founded as a Philadelphia oyster saloon back in 1893. It's wikipedia entry describes its 1950s' heydey as ''a hot spot where red-jacketed waiters scurried through dark-panelled rooms festooned with photographs of VIPS; redolent of cigar smoke tinged with shellfish." This sounds very much my sort of place. I gather that the restaurant fell on hard times, lost its exclusive allure, became a tourist trap, and is now quite probably defunct. A pity, because I miss this sort of joint: the type of restaurant where a fawning mess-jacketed waiter might flamb-ay something jaw-droppingly expensive at M'sieur's very own table.

 

I've picked out two recipes at random, which I haven't tried yet, but, I think, with a bit of tweaking, could be good. The first one's for the obscene sounding "Crab Balls". I would suggest that you make these very small in size, and serve them as canapés- perhaps with some sort of a dipping sauce to go with them:

In a bowl mix together: one tablespoon of chopped green pepper, one tablespoon of finely chopped onion, one tablespoon of finely chopped celery, one tablespoon of minced pimento (ie sweet red pepper), and a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves. Season with salt, black pepper and a dash of Worcestershire Sauce. Sweat in butter over a lowish heat for about ten minutes.

Sprinkle in four tablespoons of flour (this sounds like quite a bit, even too much; so I would suggest that you go easy on this) and stir in to the vegetable mix. Cook for a further five minutes. Next pour in a cup of milk, and stir until thickened (in effect you've made an old-fashioned white sauce). Then add a pound of crabmeat. Take off the heat, mix in well and chill the mixture in the 'fridge.

When it's cold enough, you take out the crab mixture and roll it into small balls. The balls are then dipped into beaten egg, coated with breadcrumbs- or even more authentically Yankee- crushed up cream crackers, and fried in deep fat until golden brown.

The second recipe is for "Bookbinder's Shrimp Chowder":

Sweat chopped onions in butter until golden, and put to one side. Make a smooth white sauce in the usual way from butter, two tablespoons of flour and four cups of hot milk. The sauce is then placed over a bain-marie, seasoned with salt, pepper and a blade of mace. Pre-Cooked shrimps (large prawns in England) are added and the whole thing cooked gently for twenty minutes. The mace is removed, and the chowder finished off with an extra cup of hot cream and the onion flavoured butter which you've previously strained off. On second thoughts, I'm not exactly sure about this recipe. It could be a bit bland: it's certainly a heart attack in a bowl- not that I'm one of those Cromwellian types pulsating with disapproval at any symptom of a sybaritic lifestyle. I'm not even sure if it's a genuine chowder; I suspect that it isn't.

In complete contrast, I had the most divine thing at the Canton yesterday evening. It was a vegetarian marrow gratin, served piping hot in one of those dinky orange Le Creuset dishes. Half a marrow- cut in half, and scooped out. Covered in Italian Borlotti white beans, and flavoured with a stock, perhaps, and most certainly salt and black pepper. Persillade (ie garlic and parsley finely chopped and crushed together) dotted the top, and the dish was finished off with grated parmesan and butter, before being flashed under a hot grill. At least, I think that how it was made. There may have been tomatoes in there as well. C'etait formidable.

 

Campari and Soda

 

 

 

May I sing the praises of the Campari and Soda?  Now it's summer (sort of), we're knocking this back on a regular basis in the Greasy Spoon Household. It's a vastly under-rated drink (once popular amongst the fast Scimitar-driving Gin and Jag set); today, I really don't know anyone else who drinks it.

Campari was invented in 1860 by Gaspare Campari in Novara, Italy. The original recipe is still in use today, and it's kept a close secret; apparently there's only one person in the world knows the complete formula.

I like to serve it with fresh, fizzy soda, on the rocks and with a slice of orange. The soda tends to play down the bitterness of the Campari, and then, of course, there's that extraordinarily vivid pinky-orange colour going on in the glass.

Refreshing...relaxing...utterly civilised... I like the idea of lounging around in an easy chair, listening to a Bach prelude & fugue on the piano, and sipping a C & S after a difficult day at work. It's time for a Campari Revival!

 

 

Whiskey Sour

 

 

There's something very grown up about a Whiskey Sour. It reminds me of that amusing moment in Whit Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco" when Chloë Sevigny, trying to be sophisticated and avoiding the "preppy girl's cliché of the Vodka Tonic" orders a "Whiskey Sour" at a thinly disguised Studio 54.

Incidentally, for all you Scots out there, it is a Whiskey Sour with the e. The drink's based on Bourbon, rather than Scotch Whisky, so I'm going to keep to the authentic American spelling for now. But according to wipkipedia, the Whiskey Sour was invented by an Englishman, one Eliot Stubb, who opened a bar in the port of Iquique, Peru. He added lime juice and sugar to a glass of whisky and was pleasantly surprised by its refreshing taste.

There's another theory that the earliest mention of the Whiskey Sour can be traced to a newspaper recipe in Wisconsin in 1870. I've got a sneaky feeling that the authentic recipe is more likely to be American; it might even have the whiff of Prohibition about it. The slightly sweet taste of Bourbon balances out well with the acidity of lemon.

Like all the great and classic cocktails, a genuine Whiskey Sour is simplicity itself. No chunks of pineapple, no silly umbrellas or fussy ingredients. You fill up your cocktail shaker with ice, pour in 2 oz of Bourbon Whiskey, the strained juice of half a lemon and two and a half teaspoons or so of powdered sugar. The cocktail is shaken and then strained into a cold glass, and garnished with a slice of orange peel and a cherry. If you follow these proportions you will make just enough to fill up a Martini glass- and I think that would work well.

You could also serve it on the rocks, and some people also add a splash of soda. Personally, I prefer it straight up, but as ever, it's a matter of personal choice, isn't it?

 

The Last Days of Disco (1998), directed by Whit Stillman

Eggs Drumkilbo

 

 

Last week's Royal Wedding was terrific fun, and here in London we've all had a ball. Hats off to the Middleton family who handled the whole thing brilliantly. Can you imagine walking down that aisle in front of an estimated two billion people? Our Kate looked fantastic, and I have to admit to shedding a manly tear to Parry's beautiful anthem "I Was Glad"- it always gets to me for some reason. A good day for the country, I think.

I was interested in Anton Mosimann's unpretentious menu for the reception at Buck House afterwards. It struck just the right note- as with the wedding, showing just the right amount of understatement (not including, of course, poor Princess Beatrice's bizarre alien fascinator) and included: Cornish Crab Salad on Lemon Blini, pressed Duck Terrine with Fruit chutney, miniature watercress and asparagus tart, quails eggs with celery salt, Scottish langoustines with Lemon Mayonnaise, Bubble & Squeak with Confit Shoulder of Lamb, Smoked Haddock fishcake with Pea Guacmole, Rubarb Financier and Blood Orange Pâté de Fruit. The champagne was Pol Roger NV Brut Reserve. This is Modern British food at its best.

 

The Middletons stayed at the excellent and discreet Goring Hotel (not far from our hovel, I have to admit) and I was amused to see that they have the nerve to serve Eggs Drumkilbo on their menu. Eggs Drumkilbo was a favourite of the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (Gawd bless 'er), and has recently been described by the food critic, Giles Coren, as "so awful it's almost good". It's a splendid old thing, with Lord knows how many flavours going on in there; completely over-the-top and utterly unfashionable. It was served at previous royal weddings. Here's how you make it: 

Eggs Drumkilbo

1 lobster
225 gm (8 oz raw prawns)
8 good tomatoes
8 hardboiled eggs
fresh mayonnaise
a little tomato purée
anchovy essence
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons aspic powder
white wine or water

Cook the lobster and prawns. When cooled and shelled, dice the flesh of both. Dip the tomatoes into boiling water for half a minute, then skin and de-seed them. Dice the flesh and add to the lobster and prawns. Remove the whites from two of the eggs and discard and discard. Dice all the yolks and the rest of the whites, and add to the mixture. Mix all the ingredients with sufficient mayonnaise, flavoured with tomato purée, anchovy essence, Worcestershire and Tabasco to taste, to produce a good, fairly stiffish consistency. Check the seasoning.

Dissolve the aspic in a little boiling white wine or water, but do not let it actually boil. Stir into the mayonnaise mixture, making sure it is evenly distributed. Pour into a rinsed mould, or a pretty glass dish if you don’t want to unmould. Chill until well set.

Unmould or not, and serve as a first course with brown bread and butter or fingers of mustard and cress sandwiches.

 

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.

Avocado Bering

 

I've had great fun re-discovering the Roux Brothers' old 1980's television series on youtube: Roux Brothers. For anyone wanting to learn the techniques of classic French cookery, this is the series for you: no background music, no trendy hand-held camera shots, or an emphasis on style over content; this is television aimed at viewers who have an attention span longer than three minutes, and just want to learn how to cook properly.

That's exactly right- it's just two middle aged chefs, both at the top of their game, Albert (he's the fat one from Le Gavroche) and Michel (he's the thin one from the Waterside Inn at Bray) standing in a badly lit (by today's standards) studio and talking directly to camera. And Mein Gott, in just a few minutes you can learn infinitely more from those two, than from any of the over-produced cheffy programmes I've seen on television recently.

 

 

 

I liked Albert's "Avocado Bering". You take an avocado pear (I think the hass variety with the knobbly skin tastes the best) and slice it in half. You brush the exposed flesh with lemon juice to stop it going black. You slice a small wedge off the bottom of the avocado, so that it stands up straight on the plate.

Next you mix up some fresh crab meat with a rose-marie sauce made from mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, Lea & Perrins, Tabasco, salt and pepper and a spoonful of cognac. You spoon the crabmeat and sauce into the cavity of the avocado, and then spoon further unadulterated rose-marie sauce over the crabmeat and sauce. More sauce on top of the crabmeat and sauce combination, if that makes sense.

Albert garnished it with half a black olive so that it ended up looking a bit like a nipple- but if you've read my previous post, you'll know all about my current feelings on garnishes, and I would recommend that you avoid this. Avocado Bering! Incredibly old-fashioned (even then; back in the 1980's), very simple, relatively unsophisticated- and strangely satisfying.

 

 

Chicken Véronique

 

 

 

Last week I managed to save a complete set of the 1968 Cordon Bleu Cookery Course, all 72 of 'em in a near mint condition.  A friend at work was about to chuck them away into the skip.  They make fascinating reading: a time-warp into a familiar, but very different age.

I'm amused by the photograph from the very first issue, which I've posted above.  A youngish couple are having the in-laws to dinner.  For the first time at the new flat?  There's bound to be a bay tree and carriage lamp outside the glossy front door.  Daddy's very much the silver-haired roué, the clubbable chairman (something in plastics?)  Bet you anything he drives a Jag, and keeps a mistress holed up in a tiny flat in Dolphin Square.  He's holding forth while his long-suffering wife (Jackie Kennedy shift-dress and pearls), sits patiently "Yes, Dear, No, Dear, Three Bags Full, Dear". 

Youngish Hubbie looks like an International Man of Mystery; probably a thrusting young exec.  If he plays his cards right, Daddy might get him a directorship at the family firm.  Our heroine's a secretary at some fashionable advertising agency somewhere.  J Walter Thompson?  Though God Knows how she finds the time to cook: the Cordon Bleu Cookery Course is quite clearly aimed at women who don't go out to work; the draconian instructions include a precise timetable for operations: 8.43am  Light the Oven,  9.59am  Truss the Chicken.  That sort of thing.  The couple's London pad is slightly trendy- the Victorianesque French Horn print is very Conran.  And what is she gazing at so proudly?   It's none other than our old friend, Chicken Véronique!

 

 

Here's how to make the dish, with precise instructions from the Cordon Bleu Cookery School, 1968.

First, you need to season the inside of a trussed chicken, but are not allowed to season the outside, as the salt will "draw out the juices, and prevent browning".  (Hang on!  Is this really true?  Simon Hopkinson does. Not sure about that one).  The trussed bird will keep its shape, and be easier to carve. (Yup, that sounds right).

Next, you rub the chicken with butter, and put 3-4 sprigs of tarragon inside, along with a further nut of butter.  The chicken is placed in a roasting tin, with ¼ pint of chicken stock, covered with buttered paper, and roasted for an hour at 400 F.  After the first 15 to 20 minutes, the chicken should be removed from the oven and basted; and then basted again after another 15-20 minutes, turning the chicken around, each time.  The buttered paper should be removed a few minutes before the end of the cooking, to brown the bird. 

The hot chicken is then removed to a wooden board, jointed and carved.  The remaining juices in the roasting tin are reduced over a steady heat until "brown and sticky".  Another ¼ of a pint of chicken stock is added to the pan to make a gravy, which is then strained into a small saucepan and thickened with ½ teaspoon of arrowroot mixed with a tiny bit of water.  (Add the arrowroot mixture away from the heat, and then stir until boiling).  Two tablespoons of double cream are stirred into the gravy.

Peel and pip some white or muscat grapes (you can blanche them in boiling water to help the process), and drop them into the gravy.  The chicken pieces are arranged on a silver-plated oval-shaped serving dish, the gravy is spooned all over it, and the grapes arranged all over the chicken.  The remaining gravy and grapes (not sure about keeping the grapes in the gravy, very odd) are served separately in a sauceboat.  

Hmmm.  Chicken with Gravy.  Served with Grapes.

What do you think?  The way forward, or a definite step backwards?

 

Potatoes Dauphinoise

 

 

 

There's a knack to getting this old classic right, as the acid in the potatoes tends to make the cream curdle. To avoid this, you need to blanche the potatoes in milk, and make sure that the oven doesn't get too hot. You can also add a tiny bit of flour to the mix, and if you use waxy potatoes, the starch content will help to stop further curdling.

Incidentally, the Dauphiné area in the French Alps is known for its rich dairy pastures- and that's why the dish is called Dauphinoise. Nothing to do with the French Monarchy or the Revolution.

Pre-heat the oven to 160C. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper, and butter the paper.  Slice a raw garlic clove in two, and rub it over the paper.

Peel and slice your potatoes. For this dish, I infinitely prefer the waxy varieties, and if possible, I would avoid floury varieties at all cost. Slice them very thinly. I use a Magimix for this.

Boil some milk in a saucepan, whisking to stop it burning. "Blanche" the sliced potatoes in the milk for five minutes; this will help to remove the acid from the potatoes. In another pan, pour 150ml of full-fat milk and a 142ml carton of double cream and add a sprig of thyme. Blend two teaspoons of flour with a splash of  milk, and mix thoroughly, so that there are no lumps. Mix this into the creamy milk. Bring to a near boil, and put to one side.

Layer the baking tin with the potato slices- so that they look a bit like fish scales. Season with sea-salt, black pepper and nutmeg. Arrange another layer on top, but with the shapes facing in the other direction. Season. Five or six layers should be about right. Pour over the milky cream mixture (first removing the thyme sprig) and then grate fresh parmesan all over the top.

Bake for about an hour, or until the potatoes are properly cooked, and the top is golden. Take out of the oven, leave to stand for a few minutes, and then cut into squares.

Chicken Maryland

 

 

 

Mrs Aitch is going to hate this one.  She's not normally fussy; not fussy at all, but she really hates bananas. In the same way that I loathe mashed potato.  If you are ever lucky enough to invite us to dinner, the worst scenario would be shepherd's pie as a main course, and banoffee pie as a pudding.  

To us Brits, American food can sometimes seem a bit Gothic.  I would include Chicken Maryland in this category.  Or, if not Gothic, certainly slightly weird.  A bit white trashy, perhaps?  Duelling banjos, denim dungarees and mobile homes raised on bricks.  Scrap metal yards and ravenous doebermanns. Maybe I'm being horribly unfair? Any observations are certainly not meant to be critical. After all, we're the nation which tucks into haggis, jellied eel and stargazey pie.

 

 

In America, Chicken Maryland is served with "gravy"- what we call in Blighty a "white sauce", or in The Great Republic, "Béchamel Sauce".  I suspect that the addition of banana fritters may be a British interpretation, and if so, I apologise.  If any Southerners out there in cyberspace think that the following receipe is inaccurate, please email me, and I will gladly post up a correction.

Okay.  That's that one out of the way.  Here's The Greasy Spoon's take on Chicken Maryland.  I've based this version on the recipe in Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham's excellent book, "The Prawn Cocktail Years".  I can't recommend it enough:

Take some chicken thighs (an excellent and affordable cut, by the way), rip off the skin and dip them into seasoned flour, and then again into a bowl of beaten egg.  Shake off the egg, and dip them into the seasoned flour for a second time.  In a deep frying pan heat up 100g of unsalted butter and 75ml  of sunflower oil, until frothy.  Put in the floured chicken piece, and fry gently.  The secret here is not to crowd the pan.  If you do so, your chicken will start to stew, rather than fry, because of the fall in temperature.  So, fry the chicken a few pieces at a time.  On a lowish heat.  It should take about half and hour.  Make sure you turn the chicken pieces about half way through the cooking time.

In the meantime, mix together 100g sweetcorn (tinned is absolutely fine, to be frank, I can't detect any difference), two small egg yolks, and salt and pepper.  Beat two egg whites until frothy, and gently fold them into the mixture.  Add a tablespoon of baking powder, and about 50-75g of breadcrumbs, until it forms a thickish batter.  Place to one side.

Take out the chicken pieces and keep them warm in a rack in a hot oven.  Strain off the hot chicken oil, leaving just enough in the pan to fry the sweetcorn fritters.  Drop tablespoons of the sweetcorn batter into the reserved hot oil, and fry for a couple of minutes on each side, until puffed and golden.  Drain on kitchen paper, and keep warm in the oven with the chicken.

Take 100ml of chicken stock, and reduce it by three-quarters.  Fry four small sliced bananas in unsalted butter, until golden, sprinkling them with some brown sugar as you do,  so that they begin to caramelise.  Grill some rashers of streaky bacon, until crisp.  Pour 100ml of double cream into the reduced chicken stock, and bring it back to the boil.  Reduce until slightly thickened, and squeeze in some lemon juice.  Check the seasoning and stir in some freshly chopped flat parsley. 

Arrange the fried chicken on a large plate with the sweetcorn and banana fritters, and crispy bacon pieces.  Spoon the "gravy" over the fried chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce boat.  Garnish with chopped flat parsley.  That's it.  Quite a lot of bother, in some ways; but strangely satisfying.  A perenniel favourite.

Coca-Cola Glazed Ham

 

 

 

Last Christmas or so, I wrote a post about a slightly weird recipe: "Ham Glazed in Coca-Cola".  It's still one of my most popular posts, and as I'm currently getting increased hits (no doubt because of Thanksgiving), I'm going to give you the recipe again.

It doesn't sound that great, does it?  However, as Coke is really just a very sugary, brown and fizzy syrup, there's no reason why it shouldn't work nicely with a lovely, juicy ham.  And the recipe's an old favourite from the American Deep South, too- which is no bad thing.  So, here's how you make it:

Put in a medium sized unsmoked gammon into a large pan.  Add a peeled onion (for flavour), and then pour in a litre of coca-cola.  Bring to the boil, put the lid back on, and turn down the heat.  Let the ham braise in the liquid for 2 ½ hours.

Take the gammon out of the pan, and let it rest.  Remove the skin and preheat your oven to 210˚C.  In the meantime, mix up a glaze from 100g breadcrumbs, 100g brown muscovado sugar, two tablespoons of French Dijon Mustard, and a tablespoon of Colman's Mustard Powder.  With a sharp knife, scour the gammon to make a criss-cross pattern. Stir in a spoonful or so of coca-cola into the sugar and mustard mixture, and then slap it onto the gammon. 

Roast the gammon in the hot oven for about ten minutes, or until the glaze has cooked.