The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

Moroccan Lamb Koftas in Tomato Sauce

 

 

One of the most interesting things about Morocco, apart from its fascinating culture and beautiful Islamic architecture, is the food. As Morocco used to be a former French colony, it enjoys a subtle and sophisticated cuisine, which is part North African, part French in influence.

I love Marrakesh, with it's Foreign Legion style ramparts set against the stunning backdrop of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains. I've cooked this dish often, and it goes down especially well at buffets. You should be able to buy a tajine (which is a clay cooking pot) reasonably easy; otherwise it would be a good excuse to get on that Marrakesh Express- and buy one there in the Souk.

First, dry roast some cumin and coriander seeds in a frying pan. This is simplicity itself: just cook the seeds in a hot frying pan (without any oil), until they turn slightly brown, and start to jump around the pan. Next, grind the cooked seeds up in a pestle and mortar, to form a powder.

In the Magimix, whizz up some minced lamb, three small chopped onions, some chopped mint, chopped coriander leaves, salt and pepper, and the ground cumin and coriander. Spoon out the lamb mixture into a bowl, and form small meat balls (or Koftas) with your hands. Next, fry the Koftas in olive oil, until they are brown on all sides.

To make the sauce, fry some chopped onions and garlic in olive oil. When they are soft, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, a stick of cinnamon, and salt and black pepper. Cook the sauce down on a medium heat to thicken it up. All that's left do to now, is to shove the dish into the oven at a medium to high heat.

Ideally, you would use a tajine- as the clay pot creates an even heat, and cooks the Koftas and Tomato Sauce from all sides; though of course you could always use an ordinary casserole dish. Finish the Lamb Koftas off with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Simple Green Salad

 

 

Often, simplicity is the key to the best things in life. This afternoon, I would like to argue the cause for the Green Salad. When was the last time you had one? There's been a recent tendency for salads to be dressed up with quartered tomatoes, raw red peppers, sweetcorn, mushrooms; and other similar ingredients. And there's also the nasty habit of a salad being served as a first course. A complete "no-no" by my book.

So here's how I make The Greasy Spoon's Green Salad, which I serve alongside a main course. I avoid those pre-package salads you can buy in the supermarket. They're always bitter, bland, and of course, fiendishly expensive.

Instead, I'll buy a lovely loose lettuce, and wash it myself. I bought an interesting variety the other day (the name of which typically, I've forgotten), which had a delicious peppery taste. Next, I add fresh watercress (again, for the peppery taste), some chopped spring onions, and some fresh lemon thyme. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

To make a simple vinaigrette, I just mix a tiny bit of a smooth French mustard with some lemon juice, and a bit of salt, and then add a dash of olive oil, and finish it off with a lighter walnut oil. I'm also a huge fan of grape seed oil.

Make sure the salad is well-drained, and then lightly toss the salad in the vinaigrette using your fingers. The secret is to make sure that you don't swamp the salad with the dressing. The leaves should be lightly coated in the oil. Easy isn't it?

Poached Pears with Stilton Walnut Quennelles

 

 

Here's a gem I've taken from The Tate Cookbook. The Tate Gallery Restaurant (now Tate Britain), has always been one of the better London gallery restaurants, and it's also decorated with fascinating murals by the pre-war artist, Rex Whistler.

Despite being English, I have to admit to not being a "pudding" sort of person; but I like this recipe for the balance between the sweetness of the pears, and the savoury Stilton Quennelles. A Quennelle, by the way, is usually just a tablespoon of mousse, which has been poached in stock, or some other similar liquid. You may have been lucky enough to have sampled "Quennelles of Pike" if you have ever been to France- that beacon of hope and civilisation in a world gone mad.

Anyway, let's get started: Peel some pears, but keep the stalks intact, and remove the cores from the bottom end of the pears with a sharp knife, or better still, a corer. Rub the pears with lemon juice.

Chuck them into a saucepan, and add some sugar, mixed spice, about half a cup of red wine, the same again of port, and a cinnamon stick. Top up with water until the pears are covered. Bring to the boil, and then reduce the heat, and simmer until the pears are tender. They will take on an interesting dark red colour. Leave them to cool, and then take them out and set them aside. You will be left with a syrup in the bottom of the pan. Boil that away, until the syrup is reduced by a half. This will also thicken the sauce.

The Quennelles are easy. In a Magimix, whizz up some Stilton cheese (which you've previously chopped up into small pieces), with some dill, and chopped walnuts. You will end up with a paste. Season with black pepper (there's no need for salt, as the Stilton is already salty), and add some single cream.

Cut the pears in half lengthways, and then slice the pear halves downwards, so that you get nicely shaped pear slices. Fan out the pear slices on a plate, shape the Stilton mixture with a tablespoon to form a Quennelle, and place this next to the pear. Pour a little of the sauce around the pear on the plate. Voila!

 

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Poached Pears

Poached Eggs with Sauce Soubise

 

 

Coming back to my house hungry and late on a Sunday Night, I soon discovered that my larder shelves were depressingly bare. What to eat? I had a few eggs, an onion, and a stale loaf of Mother's Pride. The answer: Poached Eggs with Sauce Soubise and Crutons.

First make the Sauce Soubise. This is just an Onion Sauce. I chopped up the onion, and cooked it in butter, until soft. Next, I pureed it in the Magimix, and then stirred it into a bechamel sauce. You should remember this from other posts. It's just white flour cooked in butter (which forms a "roux"), to which is added milk, to form a smooth white sauce. I seasoned the sauce with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Then I poached three eggs. The easiest way to do this is to crack the egg into a saucer, and then slide it in to a deep pan of water, which you have brought to just under the boil. Before you slide the egg in, swirl the water around with a spoon. If your eggs are fresh enough, the egg white should then curl up around the yolk. Try to keep the egg yolks soft and runny. Incidentally, I don't add either salt or vinegar to the water.

I arranged the eggs in a chafing dish, and poured the sauce around the eggs. I finished off the dish by frying a slice of white bread in olive oil, and then cut off the crusts, and divided the slice into four triangles- to make crutons, which I arranged around the eggs. If you've got time, it might be a good idea to flash the dish under the grill for a minute or so. It worked beautifully. Perfect Sunday Night food.

The Honourable Haggis

 

 

 

 

"His knife see rustic Labour dicht, An' cut you up wi' ready slicht, Trenching your gushing entrails bricht, Like ony ditch; And then, O what a glorious sicht, Warm-reekin, rich!"

 

As you've probably gathered, tonight is Burns Night. Scots around the world gather to eat Haggis, tatties, and bashed neeps, and address the noble Haggis with ceremony and reverence. Actually, there's a good reason to eat Haggis all the year round, and it's perfect as a late night television snack. For those of you who claim not to like it, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Okay, it might sound- how can I put this- slightly gothic, but in reality it tastes a bit like a spicy meatloaf. Mind you, all that stuff about “trenching your gushing entrails bricht” doesn’t exactly help the cause.

The Macsweens brand is the Haggis of choice, but most brands share the following ingredients in common: the sheep’s “pluck” (heart, liver, and lungs), suet, spices, salt, and some form of oatmeal, all boiled up in a sheep’s stomach; though I reckon that most of the Haggis’s you buy at the supermarket have an artificial casing.

And then there’s the million dollar question of how to cook the thing. I favour wrapping it up in tin foil, and roasting it in the oven, though some aficionados like to simmer theirs in boiling water.

Eating it is simplicity itself: slice open the casing with a knife, and spoon out the moist, peppery meat onto your plate. It works beautifully with a peaty Single Malt such as Laphroaig (which if you've ever been to the Outer Hebrides, should remind you of the brown coloured loch water which comes straight from the tap). I like to pour this over my Haggis once it's cooked.

 

                 

Vodka Sorbet

 

 

I first had Vodka Sorbet at a small local restaurant in Paris, just off the rue Monsieur Le Prince in the 6eme. I'm not exactly sure how they made it, but I've come up with a method that produces very similar results. Try and use a good quality Russian vodka such as Stolichnaya.

In your favourite pan, combine a cup of sugar with two cups of water over a medium heat. When the sugar has completely dissolved, stir like mad, and bring it to the boil. Reduce the heat to low, and let it simmer for about five minutes, then take it off the heat, cover the pan, and let it stand for about ten minutes to cool off.

Next add two and half tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, and a decent slug of vodka. Pour it into a container (tupperware is ideal), and shove it into your deep freeze. When it is half-frozen, take it out and mash it together with a fork. Put it back into the freezer again.

When it's re-frozen, take it out, and blend it together in the trusty Magimix. Re-freeze. Serve it with a sprig of fresh mint, and drizzle some more cold vodka over it. You will find that cold vodka goes thick, and stops the sorbet from freezing up completely- and that's how you want it. Like other recipes from The Greasy Spoon, engagingly simple.

The Duke of Windsor's Haddock Soufflé

 

 

 

My old friend, Nick "Moussaka" Good, has come up with an excellent take on a traditional soufflé. For some bizarre reason he has an obsession with the scary Fanny Cradock (to those who don't know, she was one of the first British television cooks; competent no doubt, but caked in make-up, and altogether like some psychedelic creature from Planet Nine). Anyway, I'm a fan of the Duke of Windsor- or at least his rather rakish dress sense.

Nick writes: "Last year I decided to become proficient in making soufflés. It’s all about getting the oven hot enough, the sauce right, whipping egg whites to perfect peaks, and bringing it all together at the right time in the right order. There’s nothing vulgar or "chuck it all together" about a soufflé. It takes patience, practice and the acceptance of initial failure or at least disappointment. Also they really don’t rise up quite like they do in films. If however you follow the rules you will succeed and produce something worthy of enjoyment. Carrier and Kerr recipes are fine (Brisbane Bay prawn soufflé is fantastic but a little OTT for the beginner) but there is only one soufflé teacher for the masses: Fanny Cradock.

Follow Fanny’s instructions and you’ll have perfect soufflé, diverge but a half inch (centimetre for those in the Common Market) and you’ll be doomed to a sloppy mess. Such is the way of the soufflé. Fanny suggests various basic recipes to cut your teeth on, but here is her recipe for Haddock Soufflé which is utterly delicious. Being Fanny this is not just any old Haddock Soufflé, but the recipe given to her and Johnnie by the Duke of Windsor when they dined at the Windsor’s Paris house in 1956.

You will need:

½ pint whole milk

¼ pint single cream

½ lb uncooked smoked haddock

1½ oz flour

1½ oz butter

8 egg whites

3 oz grated parmesan

1 egg

spoonful dry mustard powder

½ egg spoonful nutmeg

Generous grate of black pepper

1 level teaspoonful salt

Teacup of small croutons

 

Cook the haddock gently in a milk and cream mixture for ten minutes. Remove, cool and flake the fish. Reserve the milk mixture for soufflé. Heat your oven to 225 Degree Celsius (very hot!). Butter an eight inch diameter soufflé mould. Reheat the fishy milk mixture in a small pan over a low heat.

Whip the egg whites with a rotary hand whisk (not an electric whisk or you’ll overdo it) to firm peaks in a very clean large bowl. Dissolve the butter in a second, larger pan. Add the flour to the butter, stir to a soft, pale coloured ball in pan and add a quarter of the warm milk mixture. Wait a moment for the milk to boil, then stir thoroughly. Take it from the heat and beat well. Repeat with the second quarter of the milk and add half the cheese.

After the second beating add the remaining milk, the seasoning and rest of the cheese and, when milk boils again, beat very thoroughly. Take this sauce off the heat and beat out some of the steam for approximately one minute. With a large metal spoon (preferably silver but never wooden) loosely stir in the flaked haddock, the croutons, then the egg whites. Level this off into the soufflé mould with the large metal spoon.

Bake the soufflé for twenty minutes. Never open the oven door to have a peek whilst it’s cooking. Enjoy with a white wine dry enough to cope with the eggy saucy goodness! "

 

 

Maryland Crab Cakes

 

 

This is one of the all-time great American recipes, comfort food at it's best; and it's relatively easy to make too. Traditionally, the Blue Crab from the Chesapeake Bay area is the one to go for, but I have to accept, reluctantly, that this side of the pond, other varieties of crab will have to do. Die-hards might also want to add Old Bay Seasoning, which is a spicy American herb and spice mix. As I don't seem to be able to get it here (maybe I should try the excellent Wholefoods in Kensington High Street?), I've substituted a very similar spice mix.

Take some juicy crab meat and put it into a mixing bowl. Add a cup of mayonnaise, a tablespoon of mustard powder (I use Colman's), a beaten egg, a teaspoon of Lea & Perrins, the juice of a lemon, and some chopped parsley. Mix it all together.

Now for The Greasy Spoon's "Old Bay Seasoning" mix. Grind up some celery salt, mustard seed, cinammon, powdered ginger, peppercorns, and a bayleaf until you have a reasonably fine powder. Add a teaspoon or so of this to the crab mixture. Next you need to add some form of breadcrumbs. I find it easiest to use about seven crushed Saltine Crackers, and I suspect this is more authentic. The easiest way to crush them is to put the crackers into a plastic bag, and then bash them with a hammer.

Chill the mixture for about two hours in the 'fridge. To cook them, all you need to do is to drop them into hot oil (say, in a wok), and fry them until they are golden brown. Utterly delicious: the taste of the East Coast.

Savoy Cabbage

 

 

I love cabbage, and especially Savoy Cabbage. If you cook cabbage for too long, it turns a nasty yellow colour, and gives off lots of dodgy sulphuric smells. For the best result you need to cook your cabbage briefly (and on a high heat). This will also help to keep the cabbage a rich, and dark green colour.

A tried and tested way to cook cabbage is as follows: First, take off the outer leaves. Slice the Savoy Cabbage in two, and remove the hard woody core in the centre. Then slice up the cabbage into chunks.

Get hold of a wok, and when the pan is hot enough, pour in some nut oil. Nut oil burns at a higher temperature, and so is perfect for this sort of thing. Fry the cabbage in the hot oil, shaking the wok as you go. Add a crushed garlic clove, some salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. After a few minutes the cabbage should be ready. Simplicity itself.

Mock Pâté de Foie Gras

 

 

Venetia's Sauternes Jelly post made me think about pâtés and terrines. I love Foie Gras (apart from animal rights activists, who doesn't?), but in this country, it's just so darn expensive.

Here's a worthy substitute. Okay, it doesn't taste exactly the same, but I think the finished result is super smooth, and melts on the tongue.

This is how I make it: Get hold of 300g fresh chicken livers, cut them up into pieces and remove all the skin and the fat. Soak them in cognac for an hour or so.

Next, flash fry them in goose fat. This means frying them quickly, so that the outside of the liver goes brown, but the inside remains pink. This will help the pate to remain smooth.

Saute three chopped shallots in goose fat until they are are soft. Whizz up the cooked livers, shallots, a crushed garlic clove, and the juice of half a lemon in your Magimix (or blender), until you have a smooth paste. You will now need to mix in some fat. I use about half a packet of melted unsalted butter, and a tin of goose fat. This sounds like a scary amount, but remember that goose fat is an unsaturated fat, and is, apparently, rather good for you. The technique's a bit like adding oil to make mayonnaise. I recommend that you add the melted butter (which you've left to cool down) and the goose fat very, very slowly- to avoid curdling. Look- it probably will curdle, but strangely enough, even if it does, your pate will still be extremely smooth once set. Trust me on this. Carry on whizzing your machine the whole time as you pour in the butter and fat, and try and get the mixture to become as smooth as you possibly can.

Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Next, push the mixture through a sieve, and gently fold in two tablespoons or so of double cream.

Pour the finished pate into small ramekin dishes and leave to set in the 'fridge. When the pate's firm, sprinkle the top with sugar, and use a kitchen blow-torch to caramelise the sugar. You don't want the sugar to burn, but instead, to bubble up and turn a golden brown colour. Serve with Melba Toast, Chutney, or Sauternes Jelly.

Marmalade

 

 

I've got a sneaky confession to make: I've never made marmalade. So I've asked Venetia Jeffcock (of Sauternes Jelly fame) to explain how to make a classic English breakfast marmalade. 

She writes: "It's that time of year again and Seville oranges are on the shelves in supermarkets. I make marmalade every year - home made marmalade is so much better than anything you can buy in a shop, and makes a great present for your urban friends who eat breakfast. Marmalade is uniquely English; the oranges from Seville are grown almost exclusively for us Brits, and have a history dating all the way back to 1700. Seville oranges are bitter, so don't think that Navel's or Valencia's will work instead.

This recipe will be enough for seven to ten jars.

 

You will need:  

2 lbs. Seville Oranges

1 lemon

4 lbs sugar

4 pints of water  

muslin

A copper based pan (The copper helps to distribute the heat evenly).  

some old jam jars  (sterilised in the oven, or in a hot dishwasher).

 

Cut your muslin cloth into a large square (bigger than man's handkerchief and smaller than a headscarf) and place it in a medium size mixing bowl. Halve and juice the oranges (and the lemon).

Add the juice to the pan with the water and put the pips into the muslin. Scrape out all the pith left behind from the oranges and lemons, and add it to the the pips. This is important. The pips and pith contain the pectin which sets the marmalade.

Pull the top of the muslin together and tie it together with some string. Next, suspend the bag in the liquid from the handle of the pan. You will then need to chop the rind. How you do this is purely down to personal taste. I prefer little bits to big chunky bits- so you will need to cheat a bit and bung the rind into a blender. This way is so much quicker.

Add the rind to the pan and simmer for about two hours. To see if it's cooked enough, press some of the rind between your thumb and forefinger, and it should give right through. If it doesn't, keep simmering until it does. I always keep the lid partly on the pan as this prevents some of the evaporation.

Next, turn off the heat and remove the bag from the pan putting it on one side to cool - it will be seriously hot. Add the sugar to the pan, stir, and allow it to dissolve completely. Put about four saucers or redundant ashtrays into the freezer. When the bag has cooled a little, start squeezing out as much of the pectin as you can into the pan - it should seep out rather like sap. Bring to the boil and boil for twenty minutes.

Put a spoonful of the mixture on to one of the dishes in the freezer, and pop it back into the freezer for about five to ten seconds. Run your finger through the mixture in the dish. If the surface wrinkles, the marmalade is ready and will set; if not, repeat this process every fifteen minutes until you get a wrinkle. I find this a bit of a "moveable feast" - sometimes it can takes two attempts, other times as much as five or six.

Finally, pour the marmalade into the jars and allow it to cool. It should be set by the following morning. Label and store."

Sauternes Jelly

 

 

I'm delighted to welcome Venetia Jeffcock as another guest contributor to The Greasy Spoon. Venetia is both a talented and elegant cook, and her recipe for Sauternes Jelly is unusual, different, and delicious.

I sampled some yesterday, when she dropped some off at my place on her scooter, and it had a subtle, smooth- and even lemony taste, which melted on the tongue. It would work beautifully with Foie Gras, pates, and other rich and gamey terrines. ]

She writes: "A friend of mine loves Foie Gras, and Chateau Y'quem is the ideal accompliment. Sadly, she has Rolls-Royce tastes on a Mini Metro budget, so she buys the Foie Gras on holiday in France, where it is much cheaper (a bloc of 200g will serve six people), and serves it with a Sauternes Jelly- which can be hard to find. It also makes a change from the more traditional confit of onions or figs, and the sweetness cuts perfectly through the fat of the Foie Gras. In Austria, Foie Gras is served with Cranberry Sauce. Pimento Jelly made from peppers works well too.

Here's how she made it: First you need to work out how much liquid you are going to use, and soak some fine gelatine leaves according to the instructions on the packet. Dissolve 180g of sugar in 360ml of warm water, and allow it to cool for a little while.

Next, add the dissolved gelatine and Sauternes, and stir over a low heat until the gelatine has completely dissolved. Use a half bottle of Sauternes (you can buy Chateau Liot (375ml) in Waitrose). I am also a fan of Tokaji from Hungary, with its honeyed overtones. But you can use whatever you like.

Pour the mixture into sterilised glass jars, and re-frigerate. It should have set after four hours. Serve it with toasted brioche and Foie Gras. It will keep for a long time in the 'fridge."

Sardines

 

 

Sardines or "Pilchards" are a small fish related to the Herring. They're oily, extremely good for you, and apparently stimulate the brain- and my god, do I need that this morning. In this country, we used to have masses of the critters down in Cornwall, but the stocks petered out in the late nineteenth century.

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

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

Chop up an onion and sweat it in olive oil for a few minutes. Take the cooked onion off the heat and mix it with some chopped parsley, three tablespoons of chopped capers, a strip of finely chopped lemon peel, salt and pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. Get hold (or catch) some fresh sardines, and make sure they are scaled and gutted (but keep the head and tails on). Stuff the sardines with the onion and capers mixture, and sprinkle some of the mixture on top of the sardines. Season the fish with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Shove them under a hot grill for about five minutes.

 

Mushroom Soup

 

 

London, at this time of year, gets pretty cold and wet, with a general dampness that chills you to the bone. To counter this, I've come up with a recipe for a thick mushroom soup laced with garlic and parsley. One of the things that I like about this version is that the soup is thickened with bread- and the result is spectacular.

Melt some unsalted butter in a pan, and add some chopped up mushrooms. I like to use brown field mushrooms, which I've chopped up roughly, stalks and all. Stew them gently for about five minutes. Next, add some chopped garlic. Cook it for a bit.

Get hold of some bread, which you've previously soaked in milk. Squeeze out the surplus milk, and add the bread, in small pieces, to the mushrooms and the garlic. Now you can add some chicken stock, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Bring to the boil, and then simmer for about fifteen minutes. When it has cooked through, put the soup into a Magimix or blender, and give it a whizz. Put the soup back into the pan, add some double cream, and masses of chopped parsley. All you have to do now, is heat it up again and eat it.

Cod, Bacon, and Avocado Salad with Rice

 

 

This is an interesting green and white coloured rice salad that I invented a week or so ago, and it worked out surprisingly well.

I steamed some cod fillets. Once they were cooked, I removed the skins, and seasoned them with my latest foodie discovery, Smoked Maldon Salt. Next, I cooked some Uncle Ben's Long Grain Rice with some star anise and two cloves. I once had an argument with the owner of the Kennington Tandoori, who claimed that Uncle Ben's was a poor quality rice. Well! I like it for this sort of recipe, because it has less starch, and each grain remains clean and intact. I bet my bottom dollar that in a blind tasting, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I flaked up the salty cod, and mixed it in with the cooked rice. Then, I added some crispy streaky bacon, fried until crisp, some chopped avocado (sprinkle some lime or lemon juice on it immediately to stop it going black), and a green chili sliced into small strips. Then it's an easy matter to add chopped spring onions, and some chopped parsley or coriander.

Mix it all together gently. Finally, add a dressing: I used a light oil, mixed with a white wine vinegar, and lime juice. Season with sea salt and pepper. You could also add some prawns, but, as always, the best thing, in my opinion, is simplicity...

Basque Chicken

 

 

Here's a perennial favourite of mine, which I've based on a recipe from Patricia Wells' excellent book "Bistro Cooking". As she points out, "Poulet Basquaise", is one of those standard French bisto dishes, which if not cooked properly, can be pretty grim. However, I make it often: it's easy, quick, and if cooked with care, delicious.

Take some chicken thighs (removing the skins first), and then season them with lots of salt and pepper. Fry the chicken pieces in a pan with some olive oil, until the outside goes golden brown. I find that the salt helps to keep the outside crispy, and the inner meat juicy.

Next, add twelve fat garlic cloves (yes, I mean twelve!), thickly sliced red bell peppers (again, it might be a good idea to remove the skins first), four green chilis cut into strips, and some thick slices of unsmoked ham. Cover the pan, and cook slowly for about an hour, shaking the pan as it cooks, to stop the ingredients burning. The peppers will make lots of cracking noises, and will give off a nicely flavoured liquid.

Finally, it's a simple matter of making a tomato sauce. Cook some chopped onions in some olive oil. Once they're soft, add some chopped tomatoes (or a can of tomatoes in their juice), and cook for about half an hour, until you have a slightly reduced sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the Basque Chicken with rice, and pour the tomato sauce over the cooked chicken, peppers, garlic and chili.

Russian Blinis

 

 

 

Did you know that today, Epiphany Eve, is Twelfth Night? It's all very complicated and historical- and in part, I think, to do with the Old and New Calenders (the Russian Orthodox Chrismas is on January 7th); although I reckon it was also the day when the Magi (ie the Three Wise Men) finally arrived at the manger.

So what better, than to have a look at Russian food? I love blinis. They're small pancakes, and you top them up with goodies like caviar, and smoked salmon. Fresh caviar has recently been banned, because of the decline in sturgeon stocks- so make do with smoked herring roe, or that delicious Japanese stuff- which looks like caviar, but is bright orange in colour.

Blinis are reasonably easy to make. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to find a small blini pan at that Parisian temple to Mammon, Fauchon. They also used to sell ready made Blini mixture in jars. Maybe they still sell them? Next time I'm in Paris I'll stock up.

Otherwise, this is how it goes: Dissolve a tablespoon of active dry yeast in four tablespoons of lukewarm milk. Next, stir in one teaspoon of sugar, and a half a pint of the milk. Add 4oz (120g) of buckwheat flour, and stir like mad, until you get rid of the lumps. You've done all this in a bowl. Cover it with a cloth, and leave it to rise (you hope!) for about an hour.

Melt some butter, and mix it with three egg yolks, and four tablespoons of sour cream. Add this to the risen flour mixture, along with a quarter of a pint of milk, a teaspoon of salt, and 6oz (170g) plain flour. Beat it again, to get rid of the lumps, and leave covered for two hours. It should rise even more.

 

 

 

Finally, beat up a quarter of a pint of double cream until stiff. Beat three egg whites (hopefully, you've got them left over from the yolks), and fold them into the double cream. Fold this mixture into the batter, and let it rest for thirty minutes. If it's too thick, add some warmed milk. See why it's easier to buy the Fauchon ready-mixed blini powder?

But let's carry on. Heat up a cast iron pan, and spread it with oil and butter. Take a dollop of the blini mix, and spread it around the pan. Cook it for a few minutes, and then flip it over. And remember the old Russian saying: "Pervyni blin komom": the first blini's a lump! Blini nos. 2, 3, & 4 should be much better. Stack them up on a plate, and serve with caviar, mock caviar, or smoked salmon with sour cream. Neat vodka (kept in the 'fridge until it goes thick), would be a good plan, too.

Cucumber and Mint Raita

 

 

 

Last night I went to an almost perfect Indian restaurant. It's called "Hot Stuff" and can be found in the Vauxhall area of South London. Why was it so good? It reminded me a bit of the local restaurants you find in France. Utterly unpretentious, a simple menu; an affable, slighty quirky owner, and most importantly, excellent properly cooked food. It's a tiny place, with only a few tables, and as it seemed to be packed out, you will need to book to get in.

Here's my version of the Cucumber and Mint Raita Sauce we had last night. It would be perfect with poppadoms. Get hold of some yoghurt and beat it with a fork until it's smooth and creamy. Next, add Maldon Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and ground cumin. I suggest that you grind the cumin yourself. In a frying pan, dry-roast some cumin seeds until they start to pop about. Make sure you don't burn them. It will only take a minute or so. Then it's an easy matter to grind them up into a powder in a pestle and mortar.

Add some chopped chili, ginger, some diced cucumber (remove the skin though, otherwise you will get nasty miniscule bits floating around in the finished effort), and finely chopped fresh mint. It would probably be a good idea to whizz the whole thing up in a Magimix, or a similar mixer if you've got one. That's it.

Madeleines

 

 

If you've ever read (or attempted to read) Marcel Proust's "The Remembrance of Thing Past", you will know what a Madeleine is. In the novel, the narrator dips his Madeleine into his Limeflower scented tea; and the crumbly textures, taste and smell trigger off memories of his past life; and once those memories start coming, Mon Dieu, do they never stop coming...

Madeleines are a small biscuit or pastry- often with a buttery, lemony, orange or vanilla taste; and traditionally made in the Commercy area in North West France. They're always a rather pretty shell or scallop shape, and are supposed to have been named after Madame Madeleine Paulmier, who was a cook in the nineteenth century.

First, you need to pre-heat your oven to 400 F (200 C). That's moderately hot. Next, grease some madeleine moulds with butter. The easiest way of doing this is with the back of the butter wrapper. Madeleine moulds are easier to find than you may think. I was down at my local kitchen shop in Battersea recently, and they had some for sale. They come in the form of metal baking sheets with the scallop shapes stamped into them in rows.

Next, mash up 125g butter in a mixing bowl (probably best to use an electric beater here if you've got one), add 110g castor sugar, and then beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy. Beat two eggs lightly with a fork, and then slowly add them to the butter mixture, stirring away like crazy to make sure it mixes properly. Sift 110g of plain flour with a teaspoon of baking powder, and then fold lightly into the butter mixture.

When the batter is smooth, add a teaspoon of finely grated orange rind, and a tablespoon of fresh orange juice. Instead of orange, you could always use lemon instead. Or, if like me, you love vanilla, a few drops of vanilla extract (or "imitation" vanilla essence as a make-do). But a word of warning, you only need very few drops, otherwise the flavour will be over-powering and sickly.

Fill the moulds with the batter- up to about three quarters full is best. Bake them in the oven for about eight to ten minutes. They should be springy to the touch. Dust them with icing sugar before serving.

Savouries

 

 

 

I'd like to shout the cause for Savouries from the rooftops of Olde London! Not really being a pudding sort of person, I'm a huge fan. Savouries are a peculiarly English sort of thing, rarely served here anymore (apart from at crusty old-fashioned London clubs), and, I doubt very much, anywhere else in the world.

What are they? They were (or are) a popular- and rather masculine- substitute for the pudding course, and usually involved some form of toast, mushroom, egg or smoked fish, and then flavoured with spicy stuff like Lea & Perrins, and Cayenne Pepper.

I've taken two recipes from Arabella Boxer's "Book of English Food". This gem of a book is all about English food from the 1920's and 1930's. For some reason, it's almost impossible to find (was the print run miniscule?), and I had to pay a crazy amount on the internet for a copy- and it took me about six months to track one down.

Anyway, if you're tempted to make a savoury; here's how you do it: First Mushrooms on Toast (or "Champignons en Croute", as they rather cheekily used to call it at The Gasworks Restaurant, Chelsea, circa 1985):

Take some slices of white bread, remove the crusts, and then cut them into small to medium sized squares. Spread both sides very thinly with butter, and then bake them for 10-15 minutes on your oven rack at 400 F (200 C), until they are golden and crisp. Frankly, it might be easier to just fry them in olive oil in a pan. Chop up some decent brown mushrooms and fry them in butter for several minutes until they are soft. Lots of water should come out- you want to drain that off.

Next, make a classic white sauce. You should remember this from other posts: a knob of butter in the pan, flour- to make a roux, then milk and a bit of stock, salt and pepper. You want the white sauce to have a creamy consistency. Mix it in with the mushrooms, and add chopped parsley, and a splash of Lea & Perrins. Pour the mushroom mixture onto the fried bread squares, and then top off the dish with a grilled mushroom. You can serve them on a plate with a watercress garnish.

The other recipe is for Scotch Woodcock. This has nothing to do with Woodcock, game, or birds of the feathered variety. You take some anchovy fillets, and soak them in milk for about ten minutes. Make some fried bread squares (as before). Next, mix up some scrambled eggs the classic way- remember, just butter and eggs on a very low heat, and definitely no milk. But stir in some cream, salt and pepper when they are almost done. Pile the creamy scrambled eggs onto the fried bread, top them with two anchovy fillets in a cross pattern, and garnish with capers and a bit of watercress.

 

 

Tartiflette

 

 

 

Happy New Year! I love New Year's Day; a time to clear your debts, make impossible resolutions, and generally take stock; and it's especially reassuring if you've got the strains of the Vienna New Year's Day concert on in the background.

For New Year's Day you want something hearty, and full of carbohydrates- particularly after all that partying and excess the night before. I read somewhere that Kate Spade, the New York based fashion designer, always has a bowl of chili on New Year's Day, and I'm with her on that one. But for this afternoon's post, I'm going to take a look at a classic chalet dish, The Tartiflette.

 

  

 

If you've ever been lucky enough to have gone ski-ing, you may already know it. Tartiflette's a French dish from the Savoie region, which originated in the valley of Aravis, home of Reblochon cheese. Curiously, it was invented as late as the 1980's in an attempt to push the sales of the local Reblochon cheese- and then heavily promoted by the relevant trade unions to boost employment in the area.

And how to make it?  Fry some chopped smoked bacon, and sliced onions for about five minutes in your favourite pan. If you've got some goose fat, use that.

Next, slice up some waxy potatoes, and arrange them in a bottom of a dish, which you've previously greased with the goose fat. It might also be a good plan to rub half a garlic clove over the dish as well- this will give the Tartiflette a subtle garlicky flavour, without killing off all the other flavours in the dish.

Season the potatoes with salt and pepper, and then cover them with the cooked bacon and onions. Next, add a layer of Reblochon cheese which you have cut into small cubes. It would be worth you while to track down some authentic Reblochon- as this gives the dish its authentic edge. Try you local deli, and see if they stock it. If they don't it's always worth making a fuss- in the nicest possible way of course, and they may be able to get some in for you.

Finally, it's a simple matter of adding another layer of sliced potatoes, some more cheese, and finishing off the thing with a carton of double cream, unsalted butter and more salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for over an hour, until the cheesy cream topping goes brown and crusty.